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Mr Green's Mastermind Mastery Manual (39)

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Welcome to Mr Green's Mastermind Mastery Manual!



The brain power and learning speed of a mastermind group will dwarf any progress you can get done on your own.

I will guide you step by step on how to go about forming a successful mastermind group.

Before I get started, I want to give you a little run down about my experience with masterminds.

My very first interaction with affiliate marketing was through a mastermind group.
The mastermind group was made out of 8 motivated newbies. I'm talking total newb! As in how do I create an ad on FB kind of newb.
We stuck to a structure, and shared ideas everyday. I believe the group environment was a huge reason why I was able to generate $xxx,xxx profit within 3 months.
Even though the mastermind hasn't been active for 7 years, we still exchange notes.

A few years down the line...

STM hosted the "Hunger Games".



A worldwide affiliate mastermind competition consisting of 3-6 teams (5 members per team).
The level of the teams ranged for newbie to medium skill range.

I lead the Asia/Oceania teams two years in a row. Two years in a row they can out victorious...yes even against the almighty USA!
The two teams ended up generating ridiculous amounts of revenue in only a few weeks.
I put that down to the importance they saw in working as a team, working as a mastermind, instead of individuals.
They had a clear goal, and were all in the same boat.
They freely exchanged tips, landing pages, creatives, the works.

This year I have been actively joining mastermind groups, trying to help where I can. I have spotted some great, super productive groups.
But sadly, I've mostly seen unproductive, unstructured, time sucking Skype groups.

Game time!

THIS is out you make a mastermind!

Step 1: The Goal.

Why do you want to mastermind?

Don't say to make money. BE SPECIFIC. Is it mobile? What about mobile?
Do you want to learn how to use a specific traffic source, niche, or angle. PICK ONE.

The goal will be the name of your Skype group. This will remind everyone what they should be focused on.

Step 2: The Team.

• Stick to 5-8 members.
• All on the similar level as you.
• All with similar work hours (both amount and timezone).
• Try to have a range of skills, e.g design, programming etc.

Step 3: The Structure.

• Assign a new chairman every week. They will be in charge of organising the weekly call.
  The point of the calls are not to catch up on how your weekend dates went.
• You will organise a checklist of topics to cover, and stick to them.
• Assign a new timekeeper every week.
• They will be documenting every important point discussed in the call so everyone can refer to them later.
• Everyone should will have a equal time to speak and share.
• Hold all comments until everyone is finished speaking.
• Set a SCHEDULED time for a Skype call every week if possible.
• Use Dropbox and assign a folder to each member.
• Use Google docs for weekly topics and other important announcements.
• Set an amount of money you must spend every week on testing.

Step 4: The Deal.

If you don't learn to cut the fat, the mastermind will fail.

In all masterminds I've been involved in there has always been a straggler not contributing.
This brings down everyone else.

The easiest way to deal with an uneven share of work is by setting clear rules.

• Write a google doc "contract", clearly stating the expectations and terms and conditions. Get everyone to sign it.
• If you miss a call you get a yellow card. If you miss two calls you get a red card.
  Red cards means you get kicked out the truck out of the mastermind.
  There should never been an excuse to miss a call since times are scheduled every week to cater for everyone.

Be RUTHLESS. You aren't masterminding to make friends, you are masterminding to reach the goal you set.
Just remember one slacker brings down the whole team.

DON'T FORGET TO HAVE FUN! Even though you are working hard, a mastermind should be fun.
Everyone is going to be feeling down at some stage, they depend on you to pick them up. That's part of being in the team.

Mastermind groups are like anything in affiliate marketing, some will work, some won't.
If you spend time recruiting the right members your odd will be forever in your favor!

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XXXL

Not to mention where some are today, good handful have done highs of $xx,xxx/day from the Oceania team that I'm still in close touch with

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I never understood (and I still don't understand) why so many people in this industry choose to just work by themselves instead of as a team.

Perhaps it is due to personality, perhaps it is due to lack of skills, or perhaps it is due to lack of experience.

Perhaps it is a combination of all three.

However, there is no question that 3-4 very bright, talented, motivated and entrepreneurial individuals who work very well together and who share a common goal will achieve an exponentially higher level of success than these 3-4 individuals working just by themselves.

This is not even a fair contest.

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I'd say it's hard to find someone to trust in this industry. Perhaps because most of us never got to meet people behind these avatars... I made a promise to myself to start attending industry events/meetups this year for that reason.

And most of us started alone, so there is that lone wolf/ronin/Clint Eastwood thing as well... silly as it sounds I'm sure that it makes many proud to say they hustle on their own terms. It's hard to change that and start following your mastermind rules - even when you know it would be really beneficial for you...

I find it easier to learn new skills myself than work with others. That may be the personality preference, the rest is the lack of trust and inexperience. Anyway, point taken, will try to change that asap.

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^^ It definitely takes time to learn the skill of knowing who to trust and who not to. I was a slow learner. I learned the hard way a few times. Meeting people in person definitely helps, but is not necessary. I met bbrock for the first time after 2 years of working together. Stackman 1 year. My campaign partner...took 4 years!

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Same here, got burned a couple of times, that's the reason why I find it difficult to take the leap. But will definitely give it a go. Decided to do it the same way as I was doing pretty much everything recently - test and log my findings, give it some time to gather data and then judge whether it works for me or not.

Thanks for taking time to write this guide, it definitely makes it easier to put the team together.

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It really helps to work in a team, however in your case you mentioned you started as a newbie with a team so you've already built up trust with them up to this point.

But at this point where you are making X figures daily. Would you still start a new mastermind with a new team without worrying they would suck all your knowledge and not share anything?

I've never been in masterminds but that's something i'm really looking forward to, but I would say i'm not a newbie and i'd be starting with a team at the same level, i'm not sure how I could possibly trust that they're sharing all the information for the mastermind success.

Any hints?

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Good question!

I've had success finding a starting point within a strength of mine. For example let's say your strength is mobile. You already know what offers, landers, and creatives generally work, but you want to scale out further.

So the mastermind goal could be to mastering a new mobile source. You guys can share bidding strategies, targeting strategies, the particular ad network's ins and outs, without harming your existing campaigns.

Once you are comfortable with the group, and you have kicked out anyone that is not contributing equally, you can start sharing deeper knowledge that you keep dare.

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I have tried with few mastermind groups for campaign and it didn't work out. Hopefully I would be able to get some group going in coming days.

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Great I'll start a mastermind thread in a few days then.

Thanks man

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If anyone is planning to start an adult mastermind group, Id be all for it ��

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This is interesting. We are in some masterminds our self but nothing like this. With recent thoughts of going in to mobile it will be good to eventually join a small dedicated group. Will have to scout around.

-Kyle

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I have just posted thread about adult mobile skype master mind group here

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You are certainly correct that lack of trust is perhaps the key barrier dissuading more people from working together as a team in IM. And unfortunately, this is an industry which does not have a great reputation when it comes to trust.

However, this means that if you can find the right people to work with, the relative advantage you will have will be even greater than in almost every other industry in the world where general trust levels tend to be much higher.

- Will you get burned for time to time working with the wrong people?

Of course.

- Should you be careful in the way you approach this?

Absolutely.

But look at the Forbes 400. How many of the wealthiest people in the world achieved their success working by themselves as a lone wolf / ronin?

A Big Fat Zero.

5 basketball players who are just thinking about themselves (e.g. shooting for a basket whenever they get the ball) will ALWAYS lose against 5 basketball players of the same skill level but who work together as a team (e.g. passing the ball to the teammate best positioned to score, looking out for one another, compensating for each player's weaknesses, and playing off each player's strengths).

It really is no contest.

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What do you think is the easiest way to share tracking data within your group?

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Maybe use google docs for tracking and Dropbox for files.

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With a mastermind group, should we all test on the same traffic source, same geo? how do you attack testing on the same traffic and geo, while getting enough exposure.

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Depends what the goal is. If the goal is learning a traffic source then it doesn't really matter what geo you guys run.

If the goal is learning how to run an offer, then you can use different sources but stick to one geo. The emphasis here should be finding the most effective angle, targeting.

You can right a list of split tests everyone can run.

Site vs app
Wifi vs carrier
Lander vs direct link
Create more split tests based in the offer targeting criteria.

Everyone notes down the winner for each split. You will soon find yourselves with a super accurate "how to run x offer cheat sheet".

It's also important if everyone gives there feedback as to why they think each split won.

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I find anything more than 5 members because FULL chaos, too much gossip, not enough work and ends up being a distraction. 4-5 really activate members i perfect for me

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I'm having trouble finding a general summary of what exactly a mastermind group does. I get the overall concept but I don't know the specifics. I.E. are we all pooling our resources/cash to do large campaigns, or do we each do our own campaigns separately and it's more of a meeting of the minds type scenario?

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^^ Yeah it's more like your run your own campaigns, then come back to the group and share your findings.

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There is a wonderful quote by George Bernard Shaw:

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hey guys, i started mastermind group. check it out!
http://stmforum.com/forum/showthread...188#post163188

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Hey I'm new to STM and really like this mastermind group concept. Mr Green talked about it on Viperchills podcast. My question is how do you go about finding the right people, I. E I am a newbie and want to find other newbies, I read this guide and understand the rules, just not sure on the best approach to find a vet potential members,
Thanks,
DC

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^^ Here's how:

Make a thread in the newbie section and mastermind with other newbies. 5 New guys working together is still really powerful.

Make sure you explain YOUR strength, and what you're looking to acheive. Have others share their strengths and put together a team on skype

You're not the only new 1!

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I totally agree. I think it will be good to establish the expertise level first . May be within the newbie group we can put people under certain bracket of expertise/experience. Then assign those 2-3 people within their skill set to share their ideas and performance. This way the group can benefit from people with those super targeted skills.

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I was thinking about this today after reading Kokofai's post about when he got into mobile after vegas. It makes complete sense to work as a team.

I've tried to set up a couple mastermind groups and for various reasons such as time difference or range in experience it's not worked.

What about doing something like finding the right members then all combining funds so everyone has a financial reason to make it work or they lose their money. Then after a period 4-6 weeks the money is split out - hopefully with some profit.

I'm not talking crazy money but like $100-200. I don't know who would be the keeper of it etc but I think people need a reason not to slack!

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very interesting!I will setup a mastermind group

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Even if the Mastermind doesn't have a micro common goal, it can be extremely effective. About 7 years ago some like minded friends put together a mastermind with about 7 entrepreneurs. Only 1 other person was in IM, all others had businesses of their own in vastly different industries. Thanks to the mastermind I went from $x,xxx to mid $xx,xxx because we brainstormed, set monthly plans and goals and held each other responsible to achieving those goals.

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A lot of good advice here. There are a quite a few new interesting masterminds popping up on STM ... please be sure to follow the advice in this thread to make sure you get the full benefit from the mastermind format!

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Thanks for the tips Greeny! We all have high hopes for our mastermind at the minute. With a little structure, I'm sure we will be a force to be reckoned with

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Thanks for the post Mr. Green, Mastermind group it's definitely the best choice but to find one it's the hardest part of the game . What suggestions do you recommend to create my own group? Do you have more posts about this topic that we should read?

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Nothing wrong with starting your own group! It's actually better for you as you can dictate the terms. All the info needed to set one up is in the first post of this thread.

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Hi Guys,

we have an very exciting offer for Nutra Products ( Garcinia & Hair). The payout is $9 & the payout is not constraint for good affiliate . The beauty about this product we need India traffic and Indian traffic is cheap then any other Geo and payout is good. We can suggest you which platform to run, We can provide you the whitelist Ids also.

Kindly help us in running this offer.

Please connect with me on skype : ID is
farheen.bano.18@gmail.com

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@symba3, share some more info. I can help you with Indian traffic. Cheers!

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Thanks so much for this post. Really puts all the masterminds I have ever been in into perspective! Now I know what to look out for when joining or creating one.

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Hi Mr Green,

Can i get a buddy session to start my first campaign.

I wish i will definitely get some help.

My skype id is sandeep.tirkovela

Please add me.

Thanks.

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Seem to be stricky rule, but smoothly work with high achivement. Looking for a group in Southest Asia now. I am Vietnamese

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Interested in participating with This Mastermind Group ...

Check My Signature =>

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