Hey everyone! Today, I share the mic with Mikael Thuneberg, CEO of Supermetrics, the number one reporting automation tool for PPC, SEO, social, and web analytics.
Tune in to hear about the rapid growth of the company, how the business has stayed relevant and innovative in such a competitive market plus how Mikael found the right product market fit.
TIME-STAMPED SHOW NOTES:
[00:41] Before we jump into today’s interview, please rate, review, and subscribe to the Leveling Up Podcast!
[01:01] The basic concept behind Supermetrics and how it gathers marketing data.
[02:20] How integration differentiates Supermetrics from other marketing data tools and Supermetrics competitors.
[03:11] The price points of the Google Sheet version versus the data sheet version.
[04:05] Rapid growth and a few updated numbers since the start of the business in 2010.
[04:49] How having a strong focus on making a great product has led to growth of the company.
[06:06] Mikael talks about product market fit, how long it took and what it took to get there.
[07:02] How the business got started once Mikael found the right product market fit.
[08:48] Staying ahead of the curve and innovative in a competitive market.
[10:27] Having a hardcore product and engineering focus as a company.
[11:32] Mikael shares two of his favorite products on the market in addition to Supermetrics.
[12:38] The top tool and business book according to Mikael.
Hey everyone! Today, I share the mic with Michael Litt, Co-Founder and CEO of Vidyard. This is his second time being a guest on Leveling Up podcast! Check out the first episode with him here.
Tune in to hear how Vidyard found their market-fit, find out their current conversion rates and how the Vidyard is growing with collaborations and integrations with other companies.
TIME-STAMPED SHOW NOTES:
[00:21] Before we jump into today’s interview, please rate, review, and subscribe to the Leveling Up Podcast!
[00:30] A summary of Vidyard’s broad mission and how to use their platform and tools.
[01:45] Finding a place in the video market online.
[02:42] Integration with other platforms and Vidyard’s work with other organizations.
[03:48] Aligning to the customer funnel and the different teams in the company.
[04:34] New signups and the growth-spike Vidyard has experienced.
[05:14] Conversion rates and active monthly user numbers.
[06:36] The rise in free tools and the transition towards value-based payment.
[08:02] Monthly recurring value and measuring this accurately.
[08:58] Vidyard’s focus on the customer first, above all stakeholders.
[09:40] Michael’s work and connection with Y Combinator.
[10:05] Some stand-out statistics from Vidyard and why shorter content is better!
[13:27] A few exciting and informative numbers from Vidyard..
[14:27] The fasting tool that has made the biggest difference in Michael’s life recently.
[16:06] A book selection from Michael from the last year!
Hey everyone! In today’s episode, I share the mic with Dennis Mortensen, founder of x.ai, a revolutionary AI personal assistant.
Tune in to hear Dennis talk about how having 1,019 meetings in one year led to creating Amy the personal assistant, why they had to raise $44M in funding, the two major challenges of creating a simple concept, and how he effectively (and anally) manages his time.
[00:41]Before we begin, please leave a review and rating and subscribe to the Growth Everywhere Podcast!
[01:35] Dennis has been an entrepreneur for 23 years and is on his fifth venture. He’s had three “good exits”.
[02:00] Dennis explains the purpose and function of x.ai.
[02:40] The chore of scheduling meetings is something you can hand off to Amy the AI Assistant. She will negotiate in natural language with participants and schedule your meetings for you.
[03:24] They are trying to replicate the experience of having a real assistant.
[03:44] They had to raise $44,000,000 because humans are dynamic and language is difficult to parse.
[05:00] Understanding sentence structure is key to Amy understanding when and why each participant can be at a meeting.
[05:31] For an agent to be fully autonomous, it has to understand the quirks of language.
[06:22] x.ai employs 101 data labelers and 53 engineers.
[08:30] Defining the universe and defining the data set they need to label against it were the two major challenges of creating Amy.
[08:49] Dennis never had it in him to hire an assistant because he is too frugal; he would rather have the money to hire an engineer.
[09:44] In one year, Dennis had 1,019 meetings in one year, which he set up himself. 672 of those meetings got rescheduled.
[10:13] These meetings were the catalyst for x.ai.
[11:02] They have a marketing strategy similar to Slack or Dropbox.
[12:05] The single-user professional version of Amy costs $17/month. The Team Edition will be $39/month.
[12:28] You probably don’t evaluate how much you spend on Spotify, so Amy’s pricing seems more than fair.
[13:15] The best salespeople they have, by far, are Amy or Andrew, the two AI personalities they use. Simply using them advertises their value.
[15:40] Dennis likes the idea of “focus”. You should know exactly what you want to achieve.
[17:10] They’ve taken their proof and turned it into a product.
[17:24] They have A, B and C milestones.
[19:15] Dennis has scars from his very first business venture.
[19:39] One major struggle that Dennis had with X.AI was that they knew they would have to do more core R&D, which is hard to explain to investors.
[20:40] This caused friction with investors, because the product couldn’t be monetized quickly.
[21:01] The investors were then separated into two groups: those who were uncomfortable with a long R&D period and those who expected a long-term investment.
[21:44] You have to invest a lot of energy in getting capital from the right types of investors.
[22:55] The clearer you are about your milestones, the easier it is to get investors on your wavelength.
[24:36] Dennis considers himself a “Timelord”; he has a bunch of tactics to make sure he doesn’t waste time.
[25:14] Dennis likes the idea of clearing out his email inbox, even though a lot of people think that is a waste of time.
[25:45] He feels an empty inbox provides emotional freedom.
[26:09] He is beyond anal with his calendar. He puts everything on his calendar. He doesn’t want to memorize anything.
[26:34] For his one-day trip to Atlanta, he will have seven events on his calendar because he even puts his Uber to the airport and flight check-in as events.
[27:34] Dennis changed his autocomplete tool and reinvested his time in making new templates. He has a bunch of email shortcuts that make his life easier.
[28:44] Dennis likes Text Expander, as it helps him get work done in less time.
[30:03] Dennis’ book recommendations are The Narrow Road by Felix Dennis and Mike Tyson’s autobiography, Undisputed Truth.
Hey everyone, today I share the mic with Dan Reich, Co-founder and CEO of Troops, an artificial intelligence assistance for work.
Tune in to hear Dan discuss his vision behind Troops and how the improving AI capabilities will completely change the way we use CRM software, his struggle with getting Troops on the growth curve and the eventual funding and tie-up they landed with Slack, and his management philosophies and hacks that help him be more productive on a day-to-day basis.
01:26 – Troops is a sales Slackbot with high AI capabilities, and is Dan’s tenth startup
02:16 – Dan’s last startup was sold to Buddymedia and then subsequently to Salesforce
02:26 – Though Salesforce is the most popular CRM, it is not very user-friendly
03:00 – Troops integrates with Salesforce to create an enhanced customer experience
03:09 – Troops helps pull workflow and reports from Salesforce to the popular messaging platform, Slack
03:41 – What is the main benefit of using Troops? – Users can pull information from Salesforce via Slack, hence negating the need to log on to Salesforce every time
04:23 – Dan shares the important numbers around Troops
04:23 – Troops has 15 employees
04:36 – Troops works with over 800 companies
04:42 – Raised over $10 million in venture financing
05:05 – What do you see in the future? – In the future, instead of interacting with fields, forms, buttons and boxes, we are going to be interacting with something much more conversational
06:33 – They plan on working with other platforms apart from Salesforce and Slack in the future
07:22 – Depending on the complexity and size, the product costs between $10 and $50 per month
08:20 – How did you acquire the first 100 customers? – “Hustle”
09:00 – Word-of-mouth publicity has worked wonders for Troops
10:19 – Troops is one of the bigger investments that Slack has made
11:11 – 77% of the companies surveyed felt that they could be doing more with Salesforce
11:47 – What is the one unique thing that you are doing in terms of customer acquisition? – Educating potential customers about the capabilities of Troops via blogging
13:21 – What’s one big struggle you faced while growing any of these startups? – “How do we execute our vision against limited technology?”
14:45 – Being involved in a startup is like digging for gold—you need to be at it
15:25 – If people want to learn about AI, what would you recommend? – Stanford lectures, university material, blogs
16:00 – What’s one big change you’ve made in the last year that has impacted you or your business in a big way? – “Write down a few things that I am grateful for. It is therapeutic and sets the tone for the day”.
18:10 – What’s one new tool that you’ve added in the last year that’s added a lot of value, besides Troops? – Wunderlist: it’s a digital version of writing things on paper and checking things off
18:50 – What’s one blog or podcast that you tune in everyday? – “There is not particular blog or podcast that I listen to every day”
19:16 – What’s one must-read book do you recommend? –High Output Management – “Great for managers as well as people who report to managers”
26:47 – Connect with Dan on his blog, website or Twitter
3 Key Points:
As a company, it is important to have the technology in place to help you execute your vision.
With the future being in AI, we are going to be interacting with something much more conversational—not just fields and buttons.
Being involved in a startup is like digging for gold—you never know when you strike gold, so you need to just keep on digging.
We have two new team members joining us at Single Grain this week, so we’re going to talk about how to properly onboard new team members.
How Do You Onboard a New Hire?
Before new team members even start, we make an onboarding checklist that basically outlines what kind of tools we use, how we communicate and some of the processes we all use internally. For example, we use a tool called 15Five. People fill out how their week went, what they were able to accomplish and give some feedback for the company. We also use Slack to communicate.
We’ll create a new Single Grain email for our new hires and then we’ll subscribe them to an email list that’s specifically geared towards onboarding. If you’re one of our new hires, you’ll get three emails and each email has a couple of notes. It could be how we do goals and OKRs, or it could be another video on how to communicate or how to use a few tools or how to be more efficient.
This way, every one of our new hires can hit the ground running. If it’s somebody who’s a little more junior that’s starting, I’ll make them a week-by-week plan about what they’re going to do.
Now, if I’m hiring somebody who’s more senior, someone who already has significant marketing experience, I’m going to ask them to craft a 30-, 60- and 90-day plan. Then in response to their plan I’ll craft an agenda for them to get started as fast as possible.
No matter who you’re hiring, you have to realize that onboarding, when done right, takes time. Even for sales people, we’re talking six months sometimes to get them fully prepared, although other people might only need a month or two to get really comfortable.
Whatever the case, it’s on you as the leader of the company to expedite things to reduce the time for onboarding as much as possible without sacrificing quality. Your job is to increase efficiency. We love Google Docs, by the way!
Aside from Google Drive folders, we also have DropBox Paper and a bunch of checklists in there. For example, if you’re joining a PPC team, there’s a checklist on how we interact with PPC clients. If you’re joining as an operations person, there are some processes around that, too. There’s also a career ladder so you know where you’re going.
Using tools like Zenefits and Gusto for payroll and HR management make my life a lot easier. I might think about switching to a PEO later, which I can talk about in another post. The way things are set up now, Zenefits does the job.
You Don’t Get a Second Chance to Onboard Someone
When it comes down to it, onboarding is all about preparing people for your processes. And the only way to effectively do that is to have a process for onboarding, too. If you start new hires off and there’s no process and you’re kind of all over the place, that’s not a good first impression for them. And first impressions are everything. You don’t get multiple chances to make another first impression.
This is especially important to consider with virtual onboarding, where you don’t get an in-person connection (or lunch, or happy hours, etc.) with your new hire.
Ultimately, it’s your company. You want it to grow quicker, so it’s in your best interest that you’re investing in great people and onboarding them faster and more efficiently. There are a couple other things that we do, but that’s the gist of it.
Just make sure that people follow processes. Make sure that people follow their goals. Check in with them. See how they’re doing over time.
Sometimes people might view you as the leader and hold back information. Well, in that case, maybe you can have your number two, like an operations person, check in with them to see how they’re really doing, because you want to have a pulse on your company in general.
You want to make your company a great place to work so that you can take care of your customers.
You’ve probably heard of me talk about groups like Young Entrepreneurs Council or Entrepreneurs’ Organization. Yesterday, I had a really great EO meeting. It was probably one of our most productive meetings in a very long time, and everyone present gave a lot, took a lot, and learned a lot.
It’s the kind of mastermind session that makes me realize I shouldn’t try to figure everything out on my own.
While you may not qualify for EO or YEC yet, you can start your own mastermind groups. If you just Google “mastermind dinners,” you can get a lot of good insights. There are PDFs and checklists that you can steal and you can put like-minded people together. You can throw dinners, for example. Or you don’t even have to host dinners, maybe you guys could get together for drinks and just talk it through.
The Importance of Having a Meeting Agenda
All you need to do is make sure that you set some kind of agenda when you’re doing these meetings. For example, if you’re doing a marketing mastermind, you might start with a three-minute check-in using something like an iPad timer or a phone timer. That way nobody goes overboard talking about themselves.
Maybe the next item on the agenda is to put someone in a hot seat for 20 minutes or so. They talk about one thing that they’re struggling with and everybody can jump in and share their experiences in a tactful manner. EO actually has this protocol called the gestalt protocol. None of us are allowed to share direct advice. Instead, we just share our experiences and the listeners can draw whatever is helpful for them from those experiences.
Finally, it’s a good idea to follow up after the meeting by sending the group everyone’s contact info in a group email, or maybe just invite everyone who attended to a Facebook group or chat.
Joining groups like EO or groups of like-minded entrepreneurs is helpful because they know what challenges you’re going through, they’ve been where you’ve been, they know exactly what’s going on, and they can speak the same language. You might have some competitors there as well, but you’re still sharing knowledge, you’re being open, you understand that there’s a lot of business out there for everyone.
Entrepreneurship, to be quite frank, is a lonely game. When you’re able to get together in a room with 10-20 other entrepreneurs, those are your brothers and sisters.
One guy in my EO forum has a business that does over $200 million per year. So there’s people of all different sizes, and it’s good to hear their perspectives. I learned all sorts of stuff that I didn’t know (like what a cash flow forecast is, for example).
Of course, not anyone can join. There are requirements for mastermind groups like these. For EO and YEC, you have to have a business that does over $1 million per year, and I think for YEC you have to be invited and for EO you go through a interview process. Overall, I’d say YEC’s online forum is probably the strongest one for entrepreneurs and EO is great for in-person stuff.
There are a lot of great events, too, where you can meet people who will change your life.
Often, the people that you surround yourself with are the ones who are going to take you to the next level.
Don’t get me wrong, I’m not saying to isolate yourself from your friends or anything like that, but you are the average of the five people you hang out with most, right? So it’s good to be with these people. I see them only once a month, but we also meet up separately and on Slack as well (I definitely recommend putting together a Slack group).
Honestly, without EO, Single Grain probably would have tanked when I took it over because when I started, this business was in the negative and EO helped me get through a lot.
Ultimately, you don’t know what you don’t know, which is why many heads are always better than one.
Keep in mind that I’ve been with EO for three and a half years, and over time your relationship with the group will change. When I started out, I was a new member learning everything I could from the vets. Today, I’m moderating a group, and I’m focused on keeping everyone in my group accountable for their own growth.
If you want to learn more about masterminds, check out Gazelles, which is run by the founder of EO, Verne Harnish. There are a lot of templates and resources that you can use, not just for masterminds, but also for setting goals for your business.
Hey everyone, in today’s episode, I share the mic with Michael Sacca. Michael is the president of Crew, a website that connects people with writers or designers for hire.
Listen as Michael delves into the reasons why relationships are key to building your startup, how starting a podcast (Rocketship.fm) helped him successfully grow his new business, how he grew Unsplash by 30% MoM, and the challenges of building a marketplace.
00:42 – If you enjoy the content, leave a rating, review and subscribe to the Growth Everywhere Podcast
01:02 – Eric introduces Michael Sacca
01:30 – Crew connects freelancers with vetted projects and builds trust between project donors and freelancers
01:45 – Michael used to work in San Diego and Crew was a natural fit for him
02:11 – Michael became the president when Crew and Unsplash split up
02:12 – Unsplash is a free, stock photography website
02:37 – The idea for Unsplash came from a photo shoot that they were doing to boost Crew
03:03 – They had over 10,000 downloads of the images and people wanted to get featured
03:28 – Unsplash grew by 30%, month over month, and that’s when they decided to have different CEOs for the two companies
04:00 – Crew had 4.3 gross merchandise volume
04:23 – Crew and Unsplash had two different business models and funding sources
08:23 – The agency used to make half a million a year and invested a 150,000 in their flagship project
08:40 – The project did not work out the way they wanted it to
09:08 – Michael decided to have a podcast because he wanted to ask for advice for their startup, Brandisty
10:02 – Michael had 167 customer interviews to learn from and inform their product when they launched Brandisty
10:31 – They got their first thousand customers through cold reach outs
11:23 – Michael learned what needs to be done through the podcasts
12:07 – They learned that people struggled with brand distribution and addressed that need
12:16 – The price was too low and this might have contributed to the first thousand customers
12:38 – They always had beer for the people who came to their office
13:17 – People do want to help others especially when they feel they are valuable
13:55 – Businesses always hit plateaus
14:16 – Crew is now piggybacking on the content they have in SEO and search engine marketing
15:19 – Paid ads can be used to learn the strategies for SEO
16:10 – What’s one big struggle you faced while growing Crew? – The hardest thing with Crew is hiring the right people and they struggled with remote teams
17:30 – Remote working is for people who are proactive
18:10 – Michael does a one-month trial before having someone join the team
19:21 – What’s one piece of advice you’d give to your 24-year old self? – “To worry a lot less”
20:08 – Amazing things do happen when you take steps
20:26 –What’s one new tool you’ve added in the last year that has added a lot of value – Klipfolio
21:31 – What’s one tool you can’t live without everyday? – Slack and Excel Spreadsheets
22:32 – What’s one must-read book you recommend? – The History of the Machine Gun
23:50 – The problem is not automation, but how do get people to eat
24:07 – Find Michael on Twitter or shoot him an e-mail or go to his podcast
3 Key Points:
Look for mentors and find a way to make it a win-win situation for the both of you.
Make people feel valuable and they will gladly help you out.
It is the responsibility of tech people to address the problems of other people.
Hey everyone, on today’s show we have Travis Truett, CEO of Ambition, an enterprise-grade sales productivity platform inspired by Fantasy Football.
We talk about how Ambition was able to triple revenue in just six months, how they use gamification to show the amount of revenue employees are making and increase ROI, how they grew the to a 7-figure company via word of mouth and customer referrals, and what they do to have a negative churn rate.
[1:59] – Ambition has nine people and started 2-3 years ago. They focused on larger companies, and the growth started slow, but they have tripled revenue in the past six months and scaled past the million dollar run rate, and now they have their sights set on the 10 million run rate.
[2:53] – Revenues are in the lower seven figures. They are focusing on product instead of rushing sales. Now they are looking at 7 figures and looking to 8.
[3:50] – They raised several seed rounds, and have taken some smaller funding checks.
[5:40]- As a startup they are trying to grow in a methodical and safe manner.
[6:16] – A case study for Ambition would be a larger organization with 100s of sales people that may want to drive sales and transparency. They create a scorecard for each role. There is accountability across all data systems. Then they deploy gamification and to set some goals. It’s also a fun way to drive sales towards goals and manage productivity.
[8:28] – They track when employees set records or hit a benchmark. They are experimenting with tools like Slack and tools that connect companies.
[9:16] – Employees log in. They see their score card and their daily, weekly, monthly goals. Then there is a competition widget with a score chart and projections. It shows overall ranking and productivity scores.
[10:19] – They charge $60 per person per month, with large company discounts.
[10:49] – They showed a logistic company that each employee was making about $425 of revenue a month, so they were seeing an ROI of 6x on Ambition.
[12:25] – The big goal for the rest of the year is to productize and upsell Ambition.
[13:00] – They have a negative churn rate. The product is focused on making an employee’s lives more fun. They focused on a harder sale of increasing the employee experience. When it increases employee satisfaction and success it spreads to departments and companies.
[15:18] – They can serve any metric based employee. Sales are the easiest segment to improve ROI, but they have already expanded into customer support and other areas.
[17:16] – Mid-market companies they focus on are in the 75 to 100 seat mark. This size gets a lot of benefit from scaling. A company with product market fit is a good fit.
[19:12] – Outsourcing customer success and support too early was one of the biggest struggles for Ambition. Which forced Travis to take ownership of customer support and success. Now he directly interfaces with customers and gets answers to really targeted questions and fix problems. He can systematically reduce support needs.
[20:58] – Chasing early partnerships too early was also a pain point. It was just way too early and they were over their heads.
[21:53] – Not taking vacations in the first two years is also a regret. Travis leaves the country every quarter now. He comes back refreshed and ready to roll.
[23:43] – If Travis could go back in time, he would learn to program earlier.
Hey everybody, today on the show we have Greg Mercer, CEO of Jungle Scout, which helps Amazon FBA sellers find profitable product ideas, get sales data, estimates, and more.
In today’s interview we’ll be talking about how Greg acquired their first 100 customers by leading webinars with other people’s audiences, how they get conversion rates of 20% to 25% for their webinars when most people only get 10%, and how giving away value-packed information and content allowed them to hit $2 million a year in revenue.
[3:11] – Jungle Scout is a product research tool that looks for key metrics and identifies opportunities
[3:37] – To get going on FBA it requires a couple of thousands to order inventory
[4:02] – Jungle Scout has a monthly fee and the chrome extension has a one time flat fee
[4:22] – The extension works when browsing the Amazon stores and it will show sales and key metrics and data that sellers will be looking for
[5:09] – They have over 30,000 customers with both products combined, there are 17 people on the team, and they are plus 2 million a year
[5:47] – Acquiring first customers: Greg posted in groups of sellers that he was active in, that is how he got his first customers – going from 100-1,000 they used webinars and content marketing before moving on to paid traffic and other channels
[6:53] – Greg used influencer outreach to promote his webinars – 50 minutes of knowledge bombs and then a “oh, by the way I have this tool”
[7:39] – They give 100% of first month on SaaS and a flat $20 on the extension
[9:31] – Conversion rates of 20% to 25% for webinars plus additional sales watching the replay
[10:36] – They are dialing in retargeting for Facebook and influencer outreach, they also put out high-quality content[11:23] – They did a case study on marshmallow sticks – on Amazon there’s a bamboo marshmallow stick product called Jungle Sticks.
[12:28] – Greatest technical pains were dealing with developers. He lucked out and his second developer has really been a good fit, but they still hit a lot of snags along the way.
[13:26] – First developer came from upwork or elance.
[14:42] – When working with developers, have really detailed instructions and specific wireframes
[15:21] – Planning into the future 3 years ahead is what Greg would do over again. Middle management confusion in the structure of the team. As the team grows it needs to be structured better.
[17:19] – All developers have been hired from referrals from the second developer. They have found other hires through flexjobs and his email list.
[18:59] – Greg is a digital nomad, he and his wife bounce around from airbnb to airbnb
[20:13] – In Cambodia, you can help the government dispose of unused ammo, hand grenades and rocket launchers
[22:06] – To keep the report accountable they have all their tools integrated into Slack and they have end of day reports
[23:15] – Remote workers need to be self driven and get stuff done
What’s one of the most effective ways to stay on target for your goals and learn from like-minded people?
Mastermind groups.
But wait… what the heck is a mastermind group? A mastermind is a group of people who have similar interests and aspirations. Napoleon Hill from Think and Grow Rich describes it as ‘the coordination of knowledge and effort of two or more people, who work toward a definite purpose, in the spirit of harmony.’
Having been part of a few masterminds in the last couple of years, I can tell you that they’re incredibly powerful and will bring you business AND personal benefits.
Let’s talk about what some of these benefits are:
Camaraderie – you’ll naturally start to develop friendships with the people that you meet with on a regular basis.
Accountability – your group will hold you accountable to the goals that you’re trying to achieve. After all, you’re all motivated individuals who would love nothing more than to see your friends hit their dreams.
Different perspectives – everyone in your group has had different life experiences, which means they have a different world view. Listening to varying perspectives can open up your mind to new things that you would’ve never thought about on your own. For example, in one of my groups, I learned about factoring invoices from an individual with a strong financial background.
Access – everyone in your group has access to resources and relationships that can benefit one another. People like to do business with people that they like and if they’re in the same group as you, they’ll be happy to open the door for you more often than not.
In this post, we’ll talk about how to get started with an EFFECTIVE mastermind group.
1. The Different Types of Mastermind Groups
First, there are a few different types of mastermind groups and they each have their own advantages and disadvantages:
Established Organizations
Organizations such as Entrepreneur’s Organization (EO), Young President’s Organization (YPO), World President’s Organization (WPO), and Vistage are all popular entrepreneurial groups that have been around for awhile. To qualify for these groups, your business needs to meet each one’s criteria. For example, EO requires businesses to do above $1.5M in annual revenues (or manage a certain amount of assets or have a certain amount of funding if you’re a startup).
Having been a part of Entrepreneur’s Organization for the last few years, I can tell you that the experience has been valuable because of the history of the organization. That history lends itself to well-structured processes and templates, incredible events, a network of over 10,000 entrepreneurs world-wide, and additional benefits.
The biggest benefit is having access to a group of people that you call your ‘forum’. This is essentially your mastermind. A forum can cap out at 11 people but includes individuals from different businesses and doesn’t allow for competitors. If you need more members for your forum, EO will send more people your way to interview them.
I’m a big proponent of structure because without it, most mastermind groups can fall apart. If you happen to meet the qualifications for these groups, I strongly recommend taking a look.
What I love about established organizations:
In-person meetups
Set criteria to join
Not just business topics; personal topics are brought up frequently
Price barrier weeds out tirekickers
Everything spoken in the forum is confidential so you can speak freely
Diverse people with different business backgrounds
What I don’t like about established organizations (this is only speaking from EO experience):
Lack of new blood coming into these groups; average age is 42
Diverse businesses in forums means that you won’t be able to get laser-focused advice tailored to your specific industry
Free Bonus Download: Get this handy checklist for building your own sales team – more actionable advice for a successful business! Click here to download it free.
Facebook Groups or Private Forums
Private forums or Facebook groups are another great way to add and extract great value from your peers. For example, The Young Entrepreneur’s Council has a very engaging Facebook group where people willingly share their expertise with other members of the group.
Hear about new events, press opportunities, business opportunities and more from a talented group with over 1,200 members. Here’s what the YEC membership criteria looks like:
Be 40 or younger
Be the founder, co-founder, owner or co-owner of his or her business
Generate at least $1 million in annual revenue, or…
Have at least $1 million in financing, or…
Have successfully sold a business for at least $2 million in the last 3 years
Have a business with headquarters or an office located in North America
Here are a few of my favorite Facebook groups:
Cult of Copy – Where copywriters hang out to talk about writing copy that sells.
Digital Agency Owner Insiders – Where agency owners talk about the trials and tribulations of running an agency.
Internet Marketing Superfriends – Where you’ll hear about the latest ramblings in digital marketing. Especially helpful because it’s such a fast-paced industry that changes frequently.
Podcaster’s Paradise – John Lee Dumas’ Facebook group of podcast owners.
As you can see from the above, my favorite groups are tailored to what I’m interested in (digital marketing). Although your taste will vary, just keep one thing in mind: if you aren’t getting value from one group, leave it as soon as you can. It’s VERY easy to get bogged down by the minutiae of noisy groups.
What I like about online groups:
Can access from anywhere at anytime
Easy to ask one-off questions
Can find groups that are very laser-focused
What I dislike about online groups:
Free groups sometimes means a lot of unhelpful noise
Non-committal attitude that stems from the casual nature of the group (but that comes with the territory of having big groups)
Takes a while to find the groups most suitable for you
Slack Groups
Chat apps such as Slack are growing rapidly and that trend isn’t likely to go away anytime soon. It’s a simple communication tool where individuals can join chatrooms for their workplace or even join groups for subjects that they’re interested in.
Slack Chats are a great way to discover and join private Slack groups. Then there’s Slack List, which is a handpicked selection of the top Slack groups.
In case you’re wondering, it’s free to sign up for Slack (although there are pay-to-join groups too).
What I like about Slack groups:
Can access from anywhere at anytime
Easy to ask one-off questions
Can find groups that are very-laser focused
What I dislike about Slack groups:
Chats scroll by really quickly and it’s unlikely that you’ll read the history
Free groups sometimes means a lot of unhelpful noise
Non-committal attitude that stems from the casual nature of the group (but that comes with the territory of having big groups)
Self-organized Mastermind Groups
For me, I found that EO was like my own personal board of directors which was great for pushing my overall life forward but not so great for diving deep into a subject that I know well: growing businesses online. So I set out to create a mastermind group of like-minded individuals who had a solid understanding of digital marketing.
The people need to be of the same skill level – If there are 5 A-players in the group and 1 C-player, the C-player will be singled out almost instantly and it’ll build resentment. It’s on you to set the right criteria so that you don’t make the mistake of bringing the wrong person into the group.
Everyone’s business needs to be at around the same level – If you have some people who run businesses that do >$10m vs. someone who works for a public company vs. someone who is a contractor, you’re going to have some level of disconnect in the group. Ideally, your group is made up of individuals who have experienced similar struggles and are on a similar trajectory as you.
It’s tougher to get people to commit because there’s no price barrier to join – Unlike EO where I’m forking over at least $6k+ a year, there’s less of a commitment for these groups because it’s something I put together myself. A possible solution to this in the future is to get people to pay a set amount to be a part of the group.
It’s important to take meeting notes – I was the scribe of the group and dropped everything into Trello after each meeting. It’s helpful to look back on how things have progressed from the previous meetings.
The accountability commitments are the biggest benefit – The one differentiator in this group was the accountability commitments that we ended up setting at the end of each month. Each individual would note one specific and measurable goal wanted to accomplish by next meeting AND the consequence if they failed to meet that goal. This was incredibly refreshing and almost everyone hit their goals each month. There was only one scenario where someone paid out $1,000 to the group for missing their commitment (ouch!). Here’s an example:
Accountability goal: I’d like to launch 1 e-book with over 200 pages by our next meeting.
Consequence: If I miss, I’ll pay each group member $250.
What I like about self-organized mastermind groups:
Can be free or paid
Handpick your own people
Set your own rules
What I dislike about self-organized mastermind groups:
A more relaxed environment means it’s easier for people to flake
Tough to find new members (versus EO/YPO feeding members into your forum if you run low)
Bonus: Group Dinners
Back in 2014 at the Traffic & Conversion conference, I hosted a dinner with people from my mastermind plus others such as Pat Flynn, John Lee Dumas, and Rick Mulready. It was a tremendous experience to gather people together for dinner just to build real-life relationships.
Think about it for a second: who wouldn’t want to be able to engage with others who are doing interesting work in the same space AND get a free dinner?
Here are some things to note if you want to host your own dinner:
Try to stagger the seating with people who don’t know each other – Let new relationships blossom!
Cap the table to 7-8 people to keep it intimate – Our group was a little too big with about 12 people. With 7-8 people, everyone gets a greater chance to engage with each other.
Take some time to get everyone to introduce themselves – Start with yourself first to give everyone a structure to follow. Here’s an example:
Who you are
What you do
What your biggest struggle is
Make sure you emphasize when the dinner is ending (but people are free to stay longer and hang out) – Everyone has different obligations. Telling people when they are free to leave gives them a sense of relief because they won’t feel like they’re offending anyone.
Limit alcoholic drinks to single glasses/cups – People are free to order whatever they want, but throwing bottles into the mix is usually not a good recipe for an ‘easygoing’ night.
You’re paying for the bill – You organized the entire meeting so it makes sense for you to fork over the dough for the bill. The price you’re paying pales in comparison to the relationships you’re developing with the ENTIRE group.
The fortune is in the follow up – It’s easy for people to just go their own separate ways after a nice dinner, but that’d be a big lost opportunity. Make it your job to connect everyone via an e-mail thread afterwards so everyone has each others’ contact information.
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2. Examples of Rules to Follow
Each mastermind group is different and has its own set of rules. I’m going to be specifically talking about rules for in-person meetings because forums and chat groups are typically more laid back. Here are a few guidelines to steal:
All technology is off for the duration of the meeting – Unless you’re the scribe, keep the technology off because it can become distracting. Just think of all the times that you’ve had a 1-on-1 meal with somebody and they take out their phone mid-conversation. It’s annoying! Mandate a rule that all technology is OFF so everyone can be fully present.
Full Confidentiality – In our EO forum group, everything that we talk about stays within the group. You’re not even allowed to tell your spouse about what’s going on because deeply personal issues are discussed.
Penalties for being late – Everyone is taking time out of their busy lives for this meeting and shouldn’t have to wait for one person. Here’s a template:
1st offense – pay for everyone’s drinks
2nd offense – goes to a vote
3rd offense – you’re out of the group
Strict attendance policy – Everyone should commit to a strict attendance policy or else the group can fall apart easily. My personal mastermind fell apart because I was too lax with the rules. On the other side of the coin, my EO forum has been together for 3 years. Rules make a difference. Here’s a template:
1st offense – nothing; everyone is allowed one miss per 12 months
2nd offense – goes to a vote
3rd offense – you’re out of the group
Annual or bi-annual planning – As the group gains experience, it’s important to bring up important topics that are bugging the group. For example, someone might not be getting along with another person or some people might not be getting value out of the group. These issues should all be aired out so the group can figure out appropriate next steps. Doing this will only make the group stronger but letting issues linger will cause the group the disintegrate.
Change it up by bringing in outside coaches – Spice up your meetings by bringing in outside coaches or mentors from time to time. For example, our EO group brought in a forum coach to teach us how to optimize our group and correct things that we’ve been doing incorrectly for years. I was initially skeptical but it turned out to be very enlightening.
Be proactive about fixing inefficiencies – It’s easy to sit back and let the group ‘go with the flow,’ but if you want to get the most out of it, be proactive about fixing things that you find ‘wrong’. For example, we use technology to support communication and file storage. More on that later.
Do stuff outside of the group – In-person meetings don’t have to be tied down to conference rooms. Doing fun stuff with a group of like-minded individuals is a great way to blow off steam and strengthen relationships with everyone. For one of our EO forum meetings, we decided last minute to fly up to Napa Valley. Be spontaneous!
Here’s a pic of my group:
3. Templates
If you’re like me, you like to just take templates and roll with it. Fear not, here’s a sample agenda template that you can deploy immediately to add structure to your mastermind:
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This schedule is based on a 1-hour mastermind that can be done in-person or on the phone. Let’s go over each activity:
Roll call – Roll call is for the scribe to take notes on who is actually in attendance and who isn’t. This also serves as a good time to remind people about the rules of each meeting (confidentiality reminder, technology off, etc.)
Ice-breaker – Use one word to describe how you’re feeling at the moment. For example, if everything is going crazy in your world, you might used the word ‘overwhelmed’. As you go around the room listening to everyone’s ice-breaker, you’ll get a sense of where everyone is at.
Status updates – Each individual gets a set timeframe to go over the significant things they’ve accomplished, an update on their accountability tasks, updates on key metrics, etc. The time per update can be adjusted based on the size of the group. Although it says 3 minutes here, it can go up to 6-7 minutes.
Note: it’s strongly recommended to have a timekeeper because some people tend to talk more than others.
Challenges/Wins (Option 1) – Although this is listed as an option, you can add both ‘Option 1’ and ‘Option 2’ as part of your mastermind. Each member gets a set timeframe to cover their biggest challenge at the moment and their most significant win. This is a nice extension of the ice-breaker because it dives deeper into the sentiment of each individual. If Bob has a challenge and you know the perfect individual to help him out, you’ll make a mental note of that. On the other side, Bob might’ve just discovered a game-changing marketing tactic that will provide immense value to the group. Although it says 3 minutes here, it can go up to 6-7 minutes.
Note: it’s strongly recommended to have a timekeeper because some people tend to talk more than others.
Mastermind (Option 2) – One individual presents a big challenge that they’re facing and presents for 5 minutes (can be longer). For example, Bill could be facing inventory issues for his e-commerce site and talks about how he might go under if things don’t shape up in the next 2 months. After Bill presents, the entire group will go around the table asking clarifying questions and then each individual will have a chance to provide feedback or speak from experience. In EO, most forums operate on the gestalt protocol, which means that everyone shares from experience and does not provide direct advice. I’ve found gestalt to be liberating at times when I’m just listening for key elements from each person’s story so I can devise my own action plan. Sometimes, it’s better to craft your own idea versus copying someone’s template from their own situation because every single situation is different and has its own variables.
Accountability Commitments – Each individual shares one specific task that they want the group to hold them accountable to. Ideally, the goal is a SMART goal so there can be no question about whether they finished their task or not. After each goal is set, a consequence needs to be put in place if the goal is missed. For example, Bill’s accountability commitment will be to launch a new course with 15 videos next month and if he misses he’ll owe each group member $250.
Note: almost nobody misses these because it sends a message to the group that, well… you aren’t that committed.
Housekeeping – This is the time to plan for the next meeting: scheduling, discussion items, next presenter, retreat, etc. The scribe will then close out the meeting notes and the meeting will be adjourned. This is also a great time to talk about any potentially lingering issues in the group and what should be fixed.
Bonus: Go Hang Out!
After a long meeting, it’s good to decompress with the group. It’s not all business 100% of the time; you’re hanging out with real people. I find talking to my forum mates and learning more about their lives is an incredibly rewarding experience because everyone is so different (the type of business they’re in, the stage of life that they’re at in, etc.).
Setting up a dinner after the meeting has always been effective. What better way to cool down than to break bread and have a few drinks with guys that you open up your heart to? Don’t miss out on this opportunity.
4. Tools To Use
If used efficiently, tools make masterminding A LOT easier. Here are a few from my toolbox in the last few years:
Box/Dropbox – Having a central storage folder that everyone can access has made our life WAY easier. Whenever we need to access update sheets or presentation sheets, we just pull them from here. Each forum member has their own folder and stores their updates in there. It’s very interesting to pull up your past updates just to see how much you’ve progressed in the last few months/years. You can also use Google Drive for this.
Slack – Slack is the fastest growing B2B SaaS business…ever. But all you really need to know is that it’s a fantastic chat application. It’s a great way to keep the forum updated on new happenings outside of meetings. Big life updates such as a new baby, closing a big deal, traveling to a nice vacation spot, etc. are great and keep the group connected. I previously felt like we were missing something because we only met once a month. Slack fills that void. Alternatives: HipChat/WhatsApp/WeChat
Trello – For my Internet marketing mastermind group, we used Trello to store all our meeting notes and our accountability commitments. You can also use a tool like Zapier to hook in Trello with Box/Dropbox so the cards will automatically populate as notes.
Facebook groups – Facebook groups are like an online forum where you can post threaded discussions that are easy to scroll through. Chat apps like Slack are more ‘in the moment’ and you won’t usually find people scrolling through the feed to find old news. Facebook groups serve as a nice complement to any type of chat app you’re using.
Conclusion
“You are the average of the five people you spend the most time with.” – Jim Rohn
Hanging out with like-minded individuals is one of the most effective ways to grow both professionally and on a personal level. The different perspectives and ideas you get just from participating in masterminds is unlike any other. If you’re going to do something great, find a group of people and go do it together. You might just find some lifelong friends and opportunities you would’ve never dreamed of!
