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the business of adventure

Mark Beaumont's business is adventure. With the saddle sores from a record breaking round the world cycle hardly healed the 25-year-old Scot is now in training to attempt another world record, this time for rowing across the North Atlantic.

To cycle more than 90 miles a day for 194 days through some of the world's most hostile environments requires not just superb physical fitness but awesome mental strength.

However it also requires meticulous planning and later this month Chamber members have the opportunity to hear details from Mark about his business model.

While Mark's outstanding physical condition was clearly critical the economics and politics graduate believes many of the skills required for success in expeditions like his round the world trip are directly transferable to almost any business.

"The planning is what separates expeditions from traditional sports and what makes it more transferable into the business world," he said, having just returned to his Edinburgh flat after an evening run as part of his preparation for his next challenge.

"If you are successful in the expedition world you are your own coach, you do all your own logistics, risk analysis and media relations.

"Unlike more traditional sportsmen, say a footballer or a rugby player, I dream up my own ambitions, make my own goals and then have to sell it to the world in every sense before going out and doing it.

"It involves project management and enterprise which are always of interest to business people just as the adventures of the open road are always of interest to anyone who has a bit of an adventure in them."

He chronicled his cycling exploits for a mesmerising fourpart BBC documentary "The man who cycled the world" and although he shies away from the job title "full time adventurer", his ambition is to continue to bring ultra endurance expeditions to the screen.

"There are lots of people out there doing these incredible feats and there are lots of people on TV doing survival type programmes but there are not many people successfully bringing these big expeditions to screen in a very pure way - raw pieces to camera showing the emotions and physical side of doing these endeavours.

"I want to try to share the places I go with an audience and I believe that in this era of reality TV there is a real hunger for these very real emotions and physical feats."

Mark says that in spite of being forced to cycle through monsoons, requiring a police escort in Pakistan and a horrific 1000k through the wilderness of the Australian outback where he faced fatal snake and spider bites during the solitude of night he never doubted he would succeed.

"While there were huge challenges on the road I never gave up on the big picture. The only time the whole project was under risk was in the year of planning beforehand. A lot of these ambitions just simply don't get to the starting line. While you are on the road you have momentum and you know exactly what you have to do.

"While you are spending months and months trying to get the sponsorship and interest to actually get these expeditions off the ground you don't have momentum, you don't have any support and I for one was hugely in debt. That is the demoralising. Once I had the support in place and wheels rolling as it were I knew exactly what I had to do and I had the support to make it happen."

He stresses that money is no motivator.

"If I had been in it for the money I would have gone into a more traditional career. I had every opportunity to go into traditional business and make far more money than this is going to.

"Of course it is hugely important to be a sustainable business model and between expeditions I am absolutely loving sharing my adventures through public speaking and I now have plenty of support through corporate sponsors to make these dreams happen."

He says the support he is receiving for future projects and for presenting other documentaries allows him more time to devote to his other objectives.

"Last time I was working for five charities and working with a lot of schools throughout Scotland which I now have the option to go back and visit. The more that I am able to set my own agenda and make a living out of doing this the more I have time to invest in these other things which are important to what I am doing."

At the business breakfast on January 22 Mark will give an insight into his attempt this summer, as one of a 12 man team, to try to row 3300 miles from New York to Cornwall in less than the 55 days and 7 hour record which has stood since 1896.