Masterminding for Internet Marketers

Internet marketing is the primary theme of my former mastermind group, the Wimberley Group.

A mastermind can be beneficial for anyone, but there are additional benefits for those who make their living online. Internet marketers usually work out of a home office, which means we tend to be isolated. Our customers and peers are all over the world, but we rarely meet them in person. Usually, the only time we have any face-to-face contact is at live seminars.

So, in addition to all the other benefits, the group meetings are also a social setting for us. But there are lots of other benefits to an Internet marketing mastermind.

In our group, members have created products together,  (including my book, Meet & Grow Rich, with Joe Vitale), spoken at each other’s live seminars and teleseminars, and promoted each other’s products to our mailing lists.

Besides doing joint ventures, there are a number of resources that can be shared:

• Web site designers
• Graphic designers
• Web site automation services
• Virtual assistants
• Product fulfillment companies
• Print-on-demand publishers
• Teleseminar and web conferencing services
• Online audio and video software and services
• Programmers
• Autoresponder services

And the list goes on and on. Rather than using cheap shared hosting, members can go in on a dedicated server for your web sites. Instead of paying $20 a month to a company where your web site shares a server with hundreds or even thousands of other sites, for about the same money, five or six of you can share a fast, state-of-the-art web server, which means your web sites will load faster for visitors and are far less likely to have down time.

You can also compare notes on joint venture partners, affiliate software, ebook software, Internet marketing courses, and other software. You can do guest posts, comments and links to each others web sites. You can promote each other via Facebook, Twitter, Linked-In and other social media.

In our group, we give feedback on product and service ideas, brainstorm book titles, and review each others sales letters and even e-mails.

When we wrote “Meet & Grow Rich”, the Wimberley Group had been going for nearly two years. In that time, I saw an annual sales increase by over 270 percent! Although that wasn’t entirely due to forming this mastermind group, I’d say it was the single most significant factor due to joint ventures, coauthored products, and the power of the mastermind.

I suggest that you initially list your collective skills and resources. Is one of you a techie? Does one member have excellent graphic skills? Is one a great writer? Make a list. And make sure to include not only members’ skills. If someone in the group has found a reliable service provider, that’s great—put him or her on the list.

For example, a graphic artist, web site designer, hosting service, SEO expert and copywriter could make a formidable mastermind group that could form a new company or collaborate on individual projects.

When it comes to resources, you want to compare notes about what credit card merchant companies you’re using, what shopping cart system, hosting companies, and so on. The idea is to expand your individual resource list to a group resource list with everything you could possibly need in your online business.

The next thing you should do is have each member write a brief bio and description of his or her online business, including a list of current web sites and current products and services. Also, include current contact info. If your group meets in person, make enough copies for everyone in the group. If you meet online or by phone, get this information to the group via e-mail or via an online meeting site like Go To Meeting or Dim-Dim (affiliate link).

Once you get started, the sky’s the limit. You can promote each others products to your mailing lists. You can coauthor ebooks, create software products, interview each other for audio products and teleseminars, and put on live seminars together. The possibilities are unlimited.

Let’s say you’ve struggled to find joint venture partners and have only one or two. A mastermind group can bring you five or six new partners just from among the group members. And if each member comes into the group with two or three good JV partners, then you could potentially have a pool of 20 or more JV partners if your group members are willing to make an introduction.

If you’re in Internet marketing, I highly recommend forming a mastermind group right away, whether it be an online, telephone, or in-person group.

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