How Dan Henry Turned a $2M Luxury Yacht Purchase into a Lucrative Investment

Anyone who’s been following FunnelDash and AdCard knows I like to think creatively about money.

Making money.  Leveraging debt to fund growth. 

And not spending profits on stupid stuff.

Which is why when we recently had Dan Henry on a recent Rich Ad, Poor Ad podcast I got a HUGE kick out of what I would otherwise consider an incredibly irresponsible waste of money but was actually the  GENIUS financial move... of buying a yacht.

Yes, a yacht.  

This guy spent $2M of hard earned profit on what is typically a vanity purchase that more often than not often turns into a money pit.

But before I tell you why buying this yacht was a brilliant business decision  -- or rather let him tell you about it -- let me give you the lowdown on the guy who had the vision to see an unusual opportunity and grab it with both hands.

Dan Henry is the founder of the 8-figure enterprise, GetClients.com and author of The Wall Street Journal and  USA Today’s  bests-elling book “Digital Millionaire Secrets”.  He’s helped thousands of entrepreneurs sell their advice or services online, for top dollar. He has been featured in Forbes, Entrepreneur Magazine, Business Insider, and more.

He’s no dummy, and in a minute you’ll see an eye opening example of why.

So I asked him about the financial principles on how he thought about running and operating his business.  I was curious about his journey as kind of an anti-big business guy and wanted to know how he’d gotten to where he’s at and what he’s optimizing for right now on finance.

And that’s when he told me the story about the yacht…..

Making the money requires focus and discipline.

“So this is a funny thing, right? I'll break down the finance side of it. Let me get to the yacht in a sec. So, first of all, I always say, if you got two businesses, right, and you haven't made a million with the first one, you have no business doing anything with the second one.  You want to start a side project or even two fine. But if you've not, at least made a million, by the way, that is, that is the entry fee to the beginner circle. You have no business making a second business. Okay. Cause you can't make the first one successful. What makes you think you can make the second one successful?

Getting what you want takes ingenuity - and a good CPA.

“ Let's, let's bring that back around to the yacht. Right. So my, my CPA calls me, she says, listen, Dan, here's the deal. You got an opportunity here. I know you've always wanted a yacht.

I said, yeah, I've always wanted a yacht. I grew up on sailboats. My dad used to race sailboats. Like he also used to deliver them as a captain.

So she says, well, listen, I don't know who's going to get elected this year or not. But the current administration has a really awesome tax credit.   And  you know, it might go away eventually if somebody else gets into office.

And I said, well, what is it? 

She said,  normally there's a $250,000 deduction on yachts. Well, right now it's 2 million. And so I bought the yacht. And let me just run the numbers for you. Right. Cause I don't like to waste money. I don't.

Buying the yacht starts looking like a bargain.

“So I find out by purchasing the yacht, I save over $700,000 in taxes like that. So right off the bat, we just took that $2 million yacht down to $1.3 million just off that.

 And that's for the first year.  So then I find out that if the yacht is only chartered out for a very short amount of the year it comes with $300,000 a year in income from existing charters already booked. 

Okay. So within a year the boat's only a million.  Okay. Plus I have a special relationship with GoDaddy. That's how I know I go and I type in millionaire, cruise.com and sure enough, it's available. So I buy it.  I start a company and here’s what I do.

Turning a tax break into a profit center.

My idea was I would sell a one day mastermind where it'd be like a maximum of 10 people. So you'd think there'd probably be normally five to 10 people. You could fly out here, you get on the yacht. We go out for the day, we talk business, I'll look into your, your sales, your company structure.  Whatever it is, you need to grow your business. 

Right. And that one conversation that can happen on that boat or the network. I mean, if you're a serious entrepreneur, you know, that, that that's worth it, right? Like that, that one conversation or one new perspective can change everything, give you a paradigm shift. So I go out and I say, Hey guys, here's the deal. Here's and it's not cheap. I said, here's, you know, it's a five figure investment. They here's what it is, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah.”

Then he put out this little funnel.

“And I say, only sign up for this. If you want me to call you, when it's time to buy a ticket. And we had over 75 people sign up in the first week. So I'm like, all right. So there's like a million dollars a year in revenue, right? 

So then I call up my buddy Myron Golden, and I call up another, a couple other big influencers. I talked to Sam Ovens, some other guys. And I say, Hey guys, I have an idea. How about you sell a one day mastermind to your audience to have a mastermind with you all attend if you want. 

Or if you say no, Dan, I don't want you there. Well, good. I'll go to the gym or something to have fun. What you sell them on that mastermind day with you, I'll give you the boat.”

“It's going to cost me more money to not have this yacht than to have this yacht.”

“My crew is a full-time crew that lives on the boat, a captain and a stewardess private chef. They'll take the boat out. They'll cook for you. They'll do your mixer. They'll, they'll give you the full luxury experience. You give me half and I've already got three influencers that are like, I'm ready. 

So I'm sitting here saying to myself, it's going to cost me more money to not have this yacht than to have this yacht. And I get a yacht. So that's how I like to invest. I like to really run numbers. I like to make sure things are going to happen. And that's where I put my money in, especially in things that I enjoy like yachts and cannabis. Oh man. My mind's exploded.”

His Millionaire Cruise is on course to make millions.

 “So I just asked my current clients, who wants to come?  And they're all super down. So, I've got thousands of customers who would love to spend a day to learn from me and from each other.  And, as soon as I said it, everybody was in.  Like everybody wanted to do it.  So we already had branding and a logo made.  We're actually replacing all of the fabrics on the cushions, on the boat with new fabrics, which have the Millionaire Cruise logo embroidered onto them. We have drink napkins because the way we do it is we have sessions throughout the day. We have a lunch. We have a, a nice, more formal dinner. And then we have drinks at mixer, right?  So you know, it's going to be great. It's gonna be awesome.”

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