609: The Stadium Model of Entrepreneurship: How to think like a sports franchise to unlock more profit from your business

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1:13How to think like a sports franchise to unlock more profit from your business. What's up? What's up? Nick Loper here. Welcome to the Side Hustle Show, part of the Entrepreneur Podcast Network. It's the business podcast you can actually apply. And I'm excited to welcome back Vincent Paglisi to the show, a fan favorite who famously went from earning around$30 ,000 a year to earning as much as$30 ,000 in a day in an episode we called Freelance to Freedom. But today, Vincent is an expert at helping other people build communities and businesses around topics they care about. You can learn more about that at mymembershipfreedom.com.

1:49And we're playing three rounds with Vincent today. So on the agenda is round one, the stadium model of entrepreneurship, why sports has the greatest business model that nobody ever talks about. After that, We've got a business idea to donate to you, something you could start today. And to wrap up, we've got the triple threat, a marketing tactic that's working now, Vincent's favorite new tool and his favorite book from the last 12 months. But let's lead off with this round one, the stadium model of entrepreneurship. How'd you come up with this? What's it all about? We all know you got a niche down.

2:17You've got a niche down to really hone in on a market. Well, sports does this brilliantly. If you think about out by you, the Seattle Seahawks, they are very niched in what they do. They play in one stadium. They're not all over Washington. Let's just build a little stadium over here in Tacoma and play cricket. Or let's go down here to Oregon and let's try to get a fan base around bowling. Like, no, we play football. We play it in this stadium. Every position is niched and nuanced. And we're going to give you tons of content for free. And this is where the entrepreneur space comes in. They come in, they play this game, and you can drive all over, listen on the radio for free.

2:54You don't have to spend any money to become a fan of the team. What they do is they put on such a good product in such a niche space that you listen to a game with your dad and then eventually it's like, I'd love to go to a game. Okay, so I'm going to go in and I'm going to go buy a ticket so I can take my son to a game. But I'm not going to spend big money because I don't know if it's going to be any good. You're going to buy the nosebleed tickets, right? And you go in and then you sit down and you go, this is awesome. What a great experience. And then, but down below, like, they're getting better access.

3:22They get better food. They get away from kind of the drunk people up in the upper levels, right? It's better access. They look down even further. Those people, they're next to the field. They're getting autographs from players. Wait a second. Okay, how much is that ticket? But then you have luxury box. You could be in there with business owners and entrepreneurs, all these different high level people spending more money, better access, better food. And what people don't realize is they play one game. They're not building multiple businesses and stretching themselves out. one game, one message, but they have multiple tiers to offer to people, multiple levels at all different price points around one idea.

4:01So that's when it kind of, instead of me having to have all these different business ideas, I'm going to have a landscaping business. I'm going to do a membership. I'm going to do a YouTube channel on gardening. I'm going to write a book about devotionals. We stretch ourselves in all these different ways. Nothing gets our full attention. The best we could do is 15, 20 % on each of them. And we stagnate and we burn out. And I hear this from people all the time, as opposed to taking one idea and creating multiple levels around it, including free content like we're doing right now. If you think about sports, they give interviews for free.

4:33After the game, they're being interviewed for television stations, radio stations. We do the same thing here. So that's where the model came from. So we just basically construct the thing. We take one idea, create multiple levels of potential income streams around it and build from there. Right. And that's maybe an important distinction to draw. We're talking about this as a metaphor for a content business or as a metaphor for a personal brand or something that you're doing where you're playing the part of the team or like the game is the product, right? And all these different content channels and different levels of access ranging from it's free, free content that we're putting out there for everybody's enjoyment, education, entertainment, all the way up to the many tens of thousands of dollars to be on the 50 yard line luxury box type of thing.

5:16Exactly. And when you see this, and then when you start shifting your mind just like 10%, like 10 degrees to the side and seeing a different model, something that maybe used to be a service-based business can turn into a multiple income stream business. Meaning if you're a coach, for instance, your coaching is at a certain rate, but when you realize, hey, that's the closest access that somebody is going to get to you. So that should be a higher price because that's your time. Well, you're coaching. Yeah. That's like one-on-one. Yeah. So, but we all, sometimes we think that's just the business.

5:46I'm a coach. Well, does it just have to be that? And you wind up undercharging a lot of times for it. And then you wind up getting 20 clients and you're burned out as opposed to, Hey, the coaching is my box seats. And there's only a couple of spots and that's a higher ticket item. But from there, it doesn't have to be one-on-one for me to help you. I can create a membership, right? Where you have some access to me, but it's not one-to-one it's one-to-many. But then from there, there could be another level where, hey, the content we're creating in here is another level that's a little bit lower price if that's where you're at.

6:21And you're not getting as much access all the way on down to content where you get no access, but we're helping you. That's where the price points shift. And then you go even beyond the coaching to masterminding or live events. You can go from free to luxury in any of these spaces, including a service-based business. Yeah, we've seen that breakdown. Maybe the one-on-one is like the almost the done for you. And then there's like the group or membership. It's like the done with you. And then like the pre-recorded stuff is the DIY. It's like you're going to do it yourself where like you can consume our stuff and go do it yourself.

6:56So that's interesting. So you see this as a path for service providers to leverage their time and income a little bit better to stop trading hours for dollars as much to say, okay, I'm going to kind of break out, use some different pricing tiers basically to segment out the audience and deliver the most value I can for where people are at in their journey. Oh, without a doubt, because I think so often we get stuck in this is the way it is. And it's not just service-based product, it's content creators. Some of the people and just hobbyists. Nick, some of the people that we've talked to in this space that have built this have been phenomenal.

7:28I might even mention it to you. There's a woman, Deborah, we had in our community. She has a murder mystery quilting membership. Love it. Love it. Keep going. How does it work? 3 ,100 paying members at$100 a year. Here's how it works. She creates a template for a murder mystery story that goes on throughout a year. So every month, there's a different clue to it. And these quilters quilt that month. and then they start figuring out, is it this? Is it that? And together as a community, they go through this and eventually they figure out who it is. They do it together. And then they sign up again next year.

8:02She saw a hole in the market. She saw, because she was in this space, quilters that are interested in murder mystery stories. That's why we talk about niching down. We talked about this recently, combining these two concentric circles of like, well, I'm into this thing and I'm into this other thing that doesn't necessarily seem related, but maybe there's an overlap there. If you can do that, you own it. You own the space. So she saw in her world, she owned, I think, a yarn shop or a quilting shop. And she said, they're all into this. She said, nobody's going to like this. Now, who's her competition?

8:27Nobody. And if you're at all into murder mysteries and quilting, you're signed up for her thing. Yeah, it becomes a no-brainer. Like, well, it's the only game in town. The only game in town. There's a guy that we've talked to. He had a yoga membership, and he realized people were very much into gymnastics from there and handstands from competitions. So he kept diving deep into it and he figured out, oh, a handstand membership. This blows people's mind. He's got a seven-figure handstanding membership. No way. Seven figures. And the one that you're teaching people how to do handstands? Well, because you think about when you niche down, now we need all different types of techniques.

9:05The more niche you go, everybody thinks you get bored when you niche down. When you niche down, you get into the nuance of everything and then it goes deeper and deeper and deeper. It's one of the biggest misconceptions in this space. Oh, if I niche down, I'm going to be bored. Like know it. All your options of ideas and content open up. All right. Let's break down the handstand membership in terms of this stadium model. Like what's his content stack or what's his pricing stack look like? I think it's a$10 or$20 membership. And I haven't detailed in terms of the stadium model. I was giving you examples of the memberships, but what they all have, it's the same thing.

9:37Hey, do you want this community access with what they have? Do you want more attention with me? Do you want more attention with my coach? Do you need almost like private training on this? There's all different, and you can create it. You can create two levels. You can create six or more because you can also have content that you sell. At a stadium, they've got a concourse and we take advantage of this. There's a concourse where you buy products. So think about this. If you have these different levels, you have the one-to-one, you have the one-to-many community, you have the content, you could then create courses and products for your niche and then sell them in your concourse.

10:15So he can sell a course on a certain type of handstand technique that could be a standalone product. You don't have to be a part of a membership for it. What you want to do is you build that stadium so you're not going in all different directions. Everything's relating to that one niche. Yeah, one example that comes to mind, this is from years ago on the podcast. I don't know if the business is still structured this way, but this is Colin Jones from Blackjack Apprenticeship, teaching people how to count cards. professional blackjack player, like fascinating niche, free content, YouTube blog does really well with that stuff at the very low tier.

10:47I don't know if he still has this, but he had like a$3 app. I want to say like help practice the repetition for it. Then he had a$300 video membership, like pre-recorded lessons, that kind of thing and access to, you know, members only podcast, that type of deal. And then, you know, at the top, top tier was like, come hang out with me in Vegas, tens, maybe$10 ,000. I don't know what it was, but like, and every year, you know, you'd have a, maybe a couple times a year, have a bunch of people come down to Vegas and go like, do the thing in person. That was always stood out as an example of this different levels of pricing tiers, really similar to like Perry Marshall's 80, 20 sales and marketing.

11:20We talked, I think he uses the stadium as an example in there at every level, 20 % of the people would pay more at every level, 20 % of the people would pay more. And you kind of start leveling up what you're able to build on top of that. I think it's just not talked about enough and people could really enhance their business with it. The amount of people I talk to that have a high-end product, right? A high-end coaching thing, but they're at the whim of somebody canceling and their income comes from only a couple of sources, right? So what they're basically doing is building a stadium and saying, we're only going to open up the really expensive seats for you.

11:55The rest of the stadium is going to be empty. We're not going to even offer it. Like you can then take that same content and you can build that up in different ways. Because if you have 30 people willing to pay you big money, you've got 300 people willing to pay you medium money, and you have 3 ,000 people willing to pay you the smaller money. It's all around the same idea. Nick Pavlita says it's great. He goes, I'll give you all the information. What you pay me for is access and implementation. And with a stadium, what you pay for is access. And it's not an upsell, because I'm kind of so tired of that word of upsell your people.

12:27My people don't want to be upsold, but they want options. Sure, that's a better way to phrase it. They want options. My pushback would be like, if I'm only opening up the luxury boxes, And all of a sudden I uncover the cheap seats. Like I'm going to cannibalize what maybe was my core business here, especially if I'm doing high-end coaching and like maybe I'm not maximizing that anymore. Like a certain percentage of those people will drop off and say, I'll just take the cheaper option. It comes down to the access that you're giving. We've all been in it. Like I always pay for the VIP because I want to be in the room with the people.

12:58But there's also people that are going to buy general admission. When you think about even a live event, it's the same exact model. Will you lose people? Possibly. but you're always going to lose people. There's always going to be people that drop, but you're always going to have people that want the best. You always have people that want the access. So when you have it, Hey, Nick Loper's on the panel and you get VIP and you get to talk and have lunch with Nick. There's always going to be people that are going to pay for that, but there's also going to be people that will pay for the lower price thing.

13:24I'm not, it could be scarcity. Mine are like, Oh, I'm going to lose them. I think you have options to fill all those spots. As long as you do the content and the connection and making the offers you need to do. Yeah. Any other crazy examples? I need to throw to the handstand guy for sure. There's a doodling community that I was just like, is this even real? Like drawing, doodling? Drawing, doodling. I'm not talking like professional doodling. I'm talking, take the back of your notebook and doodle something. So what they realized was there's a lot of doodlers in the world. And what were they missing?

13:57They were missing community. They're sitting on the bus or wherever they're at school and they're making these cool little drawings and they i want to be an artist or whatever it is so they decide to do let's do a five dollar i'm not sure what it is now i think it was five dollars a month doodling membership and we're gonna have doodling challenges ever think there would be something a doodling challenge they make amazing yeah here's this idea let's go doodle and we'll do it in small groups hey doodle with your buddies bring community thousands of people thousands paying five a month for an amateur doodling community.

14:32So whenever somebody says my niche, it's too narrow. I'm afraid the narrower you get, build that audience, you own it. And then from there, same thing, they pay for access. So you can have that, but I can guarantee you, there are people that want a higher level of access as you go down the line. It comes often from a foundation of something you're already doing, something you already doing or something you already have trust in. It could be a job that you're doing, but you're really well-respected and well-known in terms of leadership. Let's say you've given speeches for your company, blah, blah, blah.

15:01Wait a second. This always resonates. This thing that I talk about, let me start talking to people about this. Is this something I could build off on my own? So there is back-end work, and there's a lot of foundational work that happens before the major success comes from it, but there's just amazing examples within the space. Yeah, I'm trying to think of maybe one pushback would be with the example of the murder mystery. You're like, okay, that's a lot of work to build and it lasts the whole year, but it makes sense if I got 3 ,100 people paying for it. Like, I'm okay putting that in. But like other times it's like, well, maybe I dumped everything I know into this online course that it's like a one-off sale.

15:37And like, how do I, have you seen people transition something like that into something that's more recurring or how they structure it? So she has it where they get the offer. The next year is the next, it's a whole different school. Sure. And what she learned, and we've all heard this, is they come for the content, but they stay for the community. We see that with our memberships. So what she learned, so she had a great story. And I'll introduce you. I think she'd be a great guest for you. But she had a story where after one or two years, she thought it was all about the content. She thought it was all about the content she's creating.

16:06Well, one of her members had their house burned down six, seven years ago. And she lost all of her quilts. So the community, the people in her community teamed up to buy all the materials from all the quilts that she had lost and go redo her quilts for her and send it to her. And that was the moment she was like, this isn't about quilting. This is about the community we've brought together. So those people don't want to leave each other. I'm in this space too. Once I get involved in community, if I know, like, and trust the people, that's kind of a family to me. So the key is building community around it.

16:40It's not about having a one-off sale. And when you have a community and membership, you continually bring them more value than what they're paying. And then the retention goes from there. Right. The old saying, if you want recurring revenue, you've got to solve a recurring problem. And if there's something that's going to keep these people coming back, and that's, I guess, on you as the business owner, where it's maybe less obvious than the Seahawks. Well, every Sunday we play another game. And it's kind of this natural built-in excuse to keep coming back. but you got to build that in to have an excuse for people to keep engaging with you and being part of that community.

17:13That's exactly spot on. When you think about it in terms of having a forever challenge for your people, it's a really interesting way to think about it. You think about Taekwondo, karate. Here's a funny story for me. My son's in Taekwondo or martial arts, and he just became a recommended brown belt. So he's getting there a couple of years into it. I looked at his sensei and I was like, you got me. He goes, what do you mean? I go, I'm never quitting. We're never canceling this payment. You got me. And he said, so your structure is so perfect. And I never saw it before. You think about their forever challenge that they have.

17:46Their motto is once you become a black belt, now you're a beginner. What a brilliant business model. If you think about it, you're coming back to become a second degree black belt. There's a forever challenge there. It's almost the way to start when you're building these things. What's the forever challenge? So for us with memberships, it's not just creating a membership. It's not just creating a membership that gives you time, freedom, and location freedom. It's creating a membership that gives you a stadium that you have multiple streams of income that you're not reliant on any of them for your income.

18:15There's a forever challenge of building out a stadium, and people love that challenge. When you can start thinking in terms of a forever challenge, it really opens up their mind in terms of, I want to stick around. I want to be a part of this community, and I want to be inspired by the others doing it. Taekwondo, martial arts does it brilliantly and nobody talks about it. That's interesting. I like the concept of your forever challenge and what's the problem that's never going away, right? What journey are you on that we can be along the ride with you for? So, all right. Any final thoughts or examples on the stadium model here?

18:44What I love so much about this is it brings predictability in terms of income. I think for so many entrepreneurs, so many solopreneurs, the up and down of what their income is, is really frightening. It's scary sometimes and it runs people out. They burn out because you see people that have really great months and then nothing months. And you see that in the real estate world. I see people that have$40 ,000,$50 ,000 a month and then they have nothing. And that irregularity just kind of stresses them out. I love predictable income as an entrepreneur because that time freedom and that financial freedom allows me to now build the next stadium to what we're doing.

19:20It allows me to say, okay, I got time and I got money. What's the next thing I want to do? Okay, I want to do events now. Now I have the time and money without the fear of creating the next thing because as an ADHD entrepreneur, which I am, I get kind of bored pretty quickly with things. I don't want to just keep doing the same thing. So I need those challenges, but I don't want those challenges at the risk of any type of financial struggle. So what this does is it gives you the multiple income streams in predictability that allows you to keep growing, staying challenged, but also keep growing your business.

19:51Right. It's stressful to be starting completely from scratch every month. And even though, and I've talked about this too, like it's kind of the situation that I'm in, even though the track record of revenue now going back 10 years, pretty predictable, pretty reliable, but it's still starting every month, every time. So I think if we can look at the stadium model and see what are the incremental, you know, maybe not starting completely from scratch, because it's a lot to build, a lot of different tiers to think about building like from the ground up. But if you have something that's already operating, what inspiration can you take from this?

20:21I mean, they've got season ticket holders, they've got the luxury boxes, they've got the nosebleeds, they've got sponsorships, they've got products, they've got merch, they got free content. Okay, what are the different little incremental streams you can layer on, hopefully smooth out that revenue curve, especially if you're in like a freelancer service provider space and draw some inspiration from that to tack on your next income stream. We've got more with Vincent in just a moment, including his business idea donation for you right after this. as a business owner you worked hard to make that phone ring but missing a business call it's like watching money fly right out the window that's why today's episode is brought to you by quo spelled q u o it's the smarter way to run your business communications quo is the number one business phone system built for 2025 not 1995 in fact it's rated the top choice for customer satisfaction with over 3 ,000 reviews on G2.

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