Mastermind Groups Exposed – Success in Affiliate Marketing

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• Eric Nagel, President, Eric Nagel & Associates, Inc. – @ericnagel (Moderator)
• Todd Farmer, CEO, PerformStreet Media – @toddfarmer
• Tricia Meyer, Owner, Sunshine Rewards – @sunshinetricia

Eric has been an affiliate for a number of years now, in a number of verticals and niches. He wants everyone to come to his whiteboarding session tomorrow morning.

Todd Farmer is now an affiliate. He is currently helping his kid with videogamekid.com

Tricia Meyer has been an affiliate for 7 years and does everything from pop culture, coupons, to cash back.

Eric says he owes his success this past year to his mastermind group.

Mastermind Defined.
-Think and Grow rich
-”for the creation and carrying out of your plan”

mastermind myths
-not a huge email list, their group is just 3 people. Doesn’t recommend more than 4
-not a mlm pitch, you shouldn’t have to pay to join
-not a stuffy group of intellectuals discussing problems of the world
-no cost just time

What it really is
-tight group of like minded professional who trust and respect one another, and who genuinely aspire to help, motivate and benefit each other.
-uses an example of having people you can trust in the industry that you can share with
-he says it is useless if you are with a group of people who do not take your advice
-Todd says it is very helpful that Eric is brutally honest.

Who Can Mastermind?
-Groups of Merchants, Affiliates, and Affiliate Managers.
-Hybrids – representing each perspective
-Specialty Groups: sports affiliates, coupon affiliates, niche retailers
-for the most part they do not compete with each other, but they are very open with each other

Why Mastermind: Reasons (Todd)
-Socialize – water cooler – it is hard to work from home by yourself at times
-Accountability – who is making sure that you get stuff done, who makes sure that you have deadlines? It is good to have other people help keep you accountable. It is very easy to push back a deadline but a mastermind group helps to keep you productive.
-Focus – many of affiliate marketers suffer a bit from ADD, he has over 350 domains. A bit of “oh shiny” syndrome.
-Opportunity identification and vetting – There are more opportunities than there is time in the day. He doesn’t need help finding ideas. It is the little stuff right in front of his face that he doesn’t see. They help him to see those things. Just verbalizing the opportunity to the group helps you realize if it is a good idea or not a good idea.
-feedback – it is nice to have someone that you trust that does the same thing that you can bounce ideas off of.
-advice – same thing
-bounce ideas – no fear of theft, thoughtful insight and perspective – business people’s biggest concern is having their ideas stolen.
-review current projects – feedback, suggestions, ideas, edit
-stay focused – holding yourself accountable among peers
-consistently make progress
-help each other – technology (easily finding a wordpress plugin for example), business scalability, justification – share knowledge and expertise

Needs:
-people you can trust – FrieNDA – you can have a
-respect opinion
-stay focused
-consistency – if you set a date and time then you have to be on time. Do it for an hour if that is the commitment, chit chat afterward
-make progress
-be responsive – when your fellow members put out a question, respect that they want your advice and answer them as quickly as you can
-focus on your members’ needs – if you come into it selfish, it is not going to work. It has to be selfless. When you help them out, you will find success.

Benefits:
-different perspective
-creativity
-constructive criticism
-”look inward”, self reflection
-kick in the pants!
-show off – you can let them know about things first and they will share it out
-grow together – many proud “parent” moments in the group

Added Benefits:
-review of new projects
-copy editing
-first people to share, blog, announce, promote comment
-join ventures

How to Mastermind -Tricia
-establish goals, mission – think about who fits into it with you
-set goals, priorities – think about short term goals and long term goals. Both for yourself and the group. It could be things that are small like color scheme and it could be big like a complete site overhaul.
-size of group – 3 or 4 is good. It is going to dictate how successful the group will be. There are less distractions than with a bigger group. Everybody needs to be there every time. It is not productive if people miss it.
-identity process – think about how you are going to structure your meetings
-schedule – find the best time for all of you. They work around their children’s school schedule and meet on Fridays from 2 to 3

Needs:
-trust – you want to be excited for each other and proud of each other
-like minded people – you don’t want to be exactly the same but you want to to have the same work ethic. They all want to find a balance between their family and their business.
-diversity – it is good to have different skill sets – it is how you grow
-technology

Tech:
-voice only – at the minimum you have to have conference calls, once a week with a reliable connection
-video conferencing – some pros and cons – people have to pay attention and you know this on video – so much communication is through the visual, you can get a little bit more out of it if you can’t meet in person. Cons can be distracting, can be more bandwidth if you don’t have a good connection. Some people are not comfortable on video.
-screen sharing – good way to exchange information quickly

Skype – they use Skype and it is free to use the voice. They already have headphones and computers. It is also available on your phone, but not as reliable. You can drop links to be able to look at things. There are recording tools that you can use with Skype.
Google Hangouts – they tried it out to tell us about it. They spent the first 20 minutes playing around with the fun visual effects. Then it froze Tricia’s computer. They found it difficult and distracting. They also could not figure out to make it private. It did not work for them. A mastermind group does not have to be public knowledge. It is free and does include video though. You can also drop links, do screen sharing, and document sharing as well as YouTube video sharing.
FreeConferenceCall.com – it records your calls for you and they do that for free. That can be helpful when doing a site review so that you have it recorded.

Tips:
-Leader – you don’t have to decide at the beginning, but there has to be someone that takes the lead. It can be something that you take turns on.
-Consistency – meeting time – technology – the biggest reason they have heard that it doesn’t work is lack of consistency. Everyone has to know what is expected of them.
-Limit Commitment – 1 year group, renew as desired. You need some time to see the benefits of your group. You have to give people an out if it doesn’t work out. Don’t have to make a big production of deciding if you are going to renew.
-Threats – anything non-productive – must identify those problems early – it could be a bad headset that doesn’t allow you to hear someone. Fix them early.
-identify problems early
-if you spend more time planning, you’re not on the same page

How we do it:
-tight, small group (just 3)
-end of week (friday 2pm) – it is a positive way to end the week for them.
-round table – normally – review goal accomplishments – discuss current issues – they make sure there is some balance so that everyone can talk
-one person focus – monthly – they spend a good 20 to 30 minutes on one person to really focus on what that one person is doing – it is very important to come back to it and find out if it worked, how they are doing.
-always end calls with Goals for the next week – Eric they already have the goals for the next week done and don’t have to sit down on Monday not knowing what to work on.

Following Up:
-reminders of previous week’s goals – she takes notes on the call to follow up on
-unscheduled check in – twitter, facebook, skype
-mid-week email check-in – Eric likes to write down everything he has done for the day for productivity

How to Guide:
-identify prospects
-define vision, goals, schedule, technology
-Month 1-3: – understanding, uncover needs, establish cadence, low hanging fruits
-Months 4-9: make major progress (seo audits)
-Months 10-12: wind up the year – what worked

What about if you are new?
-you have so much to bring to the table, you know more than what you think.

How can you find people?
-exchange emails with people here, exchange messages and get to know people first

Please share