30 Days of Focus Can Change Your Life

Each week I'm sending you a side hustle idea, stories of entrepreneurs who’ve executed successfully, and resources to learn how to do the same

THIS WEEK'S THOUGHTS:

One of our neighbors (and good friends) are prepping to send their son to college next year.

He’s applied to 13 schools. 13!!

When I was going to university, I applied to two. I knew I was going to go to the same state school my parents went to, but applied to one additional school in case they could offer me some money… they didn’t.

But, today, it’s so much more competitive.

First year applicants were up 30% in 2023 compared to 2019, reaching more than 7 Million applicants.

And, each applicant is applying to multiple universities.

Those application fees?

Anywhere from $50 - $150.

In fact, USA Today reported that universities make more than $200 million, annually, from rejected college applications -- “many from students who are unqualified or under-prepared”.

So back to our friends’ son. That means he had to shell out somewhere between $650 - $1950… just to apply.

But, with each additional application, the percentage likelihood of acceptance gets a shade slimmer.

I know what you’re thinking, “Thanks for the lesson on higher education, Mark, but what does this have to do with business opportunities?”

I’m glad you asked, Cletus.

If you can even marginally improve the likelihood that an applicant can get into the college of their dreams, then they are willing to pay for it… and big.

And, here are three people tackling higher education and making serious cash with it

• ​The Scholarship Guru, Carlynn Greene, has mastered the scholarship game and used to win more than 30 scholarships for undergraduate and graduate school. That success has allowed her to launch her online course, write books, sell digital downloads, and offer coaching to help her students win millions of dollars in scholarship money. She’s nearing 6-figures with this success.
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• ​Brad Schiller earns $4M/year with Prompt, the world’s largest college admissions essay coaching company. His job at McKinsey showed him how important the ability to communicate an idea was and how few people did it well. He took that idea and applied it to the college admissions space where they tell prospective students, “There’s no one like you. We’ll help you prove it.” Such a great tagline. Pair that thought with the fact that they have a 98% acceptance rate to their students’ top-choice schools and it’s no wonder they’ve continued to grow between 20-60% YoY for the last 7 years.
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• Do you know how hard it is to get a perfect score on your SAT? Only 0.02% of all high school students achieve this. 1 out of every 5,000. But, getting high test scores opens doors to the best universities. And the right universities open doors to the best futures. And, Shaan Patel recognized that in high school. Which is how he studied and iterated to improve his test scores by 620 points and an eventual perfect score. He’s now taken that approach to build a $6M/yr. test prep academy, Prep Expert, which guarantees at least a 200 point boost and has helped more than 50,000 students to get into the colleges of their dreams and win more than $100M in scholarships.

If you have any experience (or know of anyone who does) that helped you in getting from high school into college or from college into your dream company, then you may be sitting on a gold mine.

And the truth is, even if you aren’t the best at taking tests or know how to write a killer admission essay, there's still a lesson to be learned here. By looking for areas that are ripe with consumers, then you’re likely to be able to find an area that’s ripe with problems. The more people want a specific outcome (a good college at an affordable price), the more likely they are to pay for solutions that help them achieve that outcome.

What’s your college admission opportunity?

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Side hustles can eventually become your main hustle.

With a serious desire and a focused effort, you can eventually build something of value for yourself.

It may not be this week's example, but there are as many interests as there are people on the planet. And, there are as many ways to make money as there are interests.

Let's uncover yours together.

You got this!
Mark

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