Mastermind Groups are Amazing

Mastermind Groups are amazing. If you participate in one, you already know this. I participate in one that meets every month, on a Saturday, for about 6 hours. Here’s how it goes: We each take a turn sharing our most pressing problem, or new idea, or thing that isn’t working well, etc. Then, for the next 45 minutes, everyone in the group goes to work on that issue. The ideas that come out of that exchange are amazing. We all have the opportunity to look at someone else’s business objectively, which spurs the kind of creative thinking that is hard to obtain any other way. Ideas build on one another, information is shared, problems worked out. For 6 hours every month, the little room we meet in buzzes with innovation.

How could it be otherwise? If you were to place yourself in a room full of business owners, entrepreneurs, and marketers and get the inside scoop on what they are doing and how they are doing it, and the new things they are learning – can you imagine the ideas you would receive?

My Mastermind group met last Saturday. Here are just a smattering of ideas that came out of last week’s meeting:

* Get on J Peterman’s mailing list and pay attention to how they are marketing. J Peterman is a clothing company that does extraordinary marketing. Their blog is amazing, and their sales copy worth studying. Watch how they interact with their customers and create community. Because of their marketing, they are virtually recession proof.

* You must develop ways for customers to stick with you over time. One way to do this is to create ways of rewarding them for participation. Every business can create ways for their customers to “participate” in something, rather than just being a bystander who makes an occasional purchase. Create an association or provide certification levels, for example.

* One member passed around several great examples of great “Lumpy mail” marketing campaigns. (Lumpy mail is when you send a direct mail piece in an envelope that is stuffed with something that makes the envelope lumpy. The recipient recognizes there is something of substance in there and opens the envelope.) They all boil down to these basic guidelines: a lumpy mail campaign should be inexpensive to do, flat enough to not cost extra to send, but still have enough substance for people to know there’s something in it. It’s also good to choose things to put in the envelopes that make noise (crinkly plastic, etc.)

* To build loyalty: give people more when they don’t have as much. Example: Tony Robins launched www.TonyRobbinsEconomy.com to build loyalty right now, when his target market isn’t spending as much money. Pay attention to whatever he’s doing right now and see how the same ideas can apply to your own business.

* Marketing with a content-rich series: Launch a 6 part series of some sort (calls, videos, articles, whatever) and then give them a surprise 7th part bonus that is stuffed with really great content and also promotes something you are selling. This should be something you know they really want. The series has primed them for what you are promoting and positioned you as the expert that you are.

* For whatever reason, $17 and $47 are hot price points right now, especially for continuity programs. They are consistently getting the best response rates.

* Segment your newsletter for different audiences. This might mean sending out newsletters that are different altogether, but could also mean simply changing the newsletter name or the order of the content to better resonate with different audiences. You could also let your subscribers choose what they want in their email newsletter: for example – give them a list of 3 choices and then create separate newsletters based on the combinations of choices your subscribers select. Same content, just more strategically designed to deliver what your customers want.

I also jotted down time management tips, (like only check your email twice a day and schedule out your goals for the week rather than just listing them out) and information for the best way to set up JV partnerships.

We also dissected the best way to do a mailing campaign sequence, the most effective way to run Teleseminars, how to turn much of what you are already doing into a product that can be sold later, how to set up a great squeeze page, how to switch from one email campaign company to another without loosing much of your list, how to write an irresistible guarantee, the best process for enrolling customers into a continuity program, and on and on….

And this isn’t even getting into the specifics of the issue they helped me with. All of this information was gleamed from the conversations surrounding the other members’ businesses.

I cam home with 4 pages of notes, all of which contain ideas that are infinitely more valuable than the amount I pay every month to participate in this group. (Which is not cheap.)

Mastermind groups are amazing. They are so very valuable. I’ll even be so bold as to say that Mastermind Groups are vital to the success of any business. If you look at anyone in history that has done well, they have Masterminded in one way or another. I challenge you to find the exception.

www.YMLMastermind.com