The Value I Found in my Mastermind Group (9/16/14)

I told you to find a mastermind group, and if need be create you own. Usually if someone tells me to do something I want to see proof of why I should, and that’s what I’m giving you today.

I’m not opposed to buying my friends if need be. In College that was a running joke for the non Greek community. “I’m not going Greek. I don’t need to buy my friends.” When I started working with Starley and Roberto I picked them up as coaches when I was at at conference called Author101, and I maxed out a credit card to do it. Since then they are closer to family than contractors, and money is just a formality. So I want to give you some recent success stories that came as a result of working with them and the value of the mastermind as a whole.

Starley (Celebrity Image and Branding Expert)

Among other things I’m working with Starley to get on TV. Even though I hate seeing myself on video, and I would rather get into the ring with Mike Tyson with both hands tied behind my back, TV’s a must do! Unfortunately there is no better way to build a platform than on prime-time. So I committed to doing TV.

There is so much to learn about TV, but one of the areas I excel at is writing my scripts. Mind you I wrote a couple of scripts that I probably should have taken a little more seriously but my first TV script was pretty darn good if you ask me. On total we changed four words, made one minor cosmetic shift, and deleted two words. Otherwise it was good for delivery to a TV producer. It was submitted to a friendly producer at a smaller local market to gauge interest. I then needed to create a demo video for them, and they would finally be ready to sign off on my segment.

One script, one TV segment!

Roberto (Sponsorship)

I’m working with Roberto on all things sponsorship, and what that really comes down to is funding your dreams and aspirations with other people’s money. I’m learning about crowdfunding for my book tour, corporate sponsorship, and partnering with non-profits.

My first crowdfunding campaign didn’t go as well as I would have liked, but that’s okay because I know the mistakes I made and they are easy fixes. However, my first big success with Roberto was landing my first corporate sponsorship with iStabilizer. iStabilizer is an iPhone/iPad accessories company that helps consumers in the creation of picture and video content. They are sponsoring the video blog that follows the book tour.

You may not have heard about iStabilizer until now, but that’s how all companies start out; after all Microsoft started in a garage out on the West Coast too. Even though this was a small sponsor they were my first, and you need the first of anything to lay the foundation to build upon.

Mastermind

While I was talking to Starley about my TV script she told me I needed to have a few props for it. In fact I needed one prop per question for a grand total of four props. In our brain storming session Starley came up with the brilliant idea of creating an animated video clip overlay for one of the questions showing my book tour, and getting the video clip sponsored.

I then took the idea to Roberto to find out if corporate sponsors would be interested, what the clip was worth, who I should approach, etc. What I learned from him was it is worth a lot more than I was going to get because I didn’t have the time to work my way up the corporate totem pole. Next time around I’ll start my negotiations much sooner.

What I got out of the mastermind group was a project that could be worth in excess of 50 grand, and a lot more credibility when I walk in to talk with my next corporate sponsor. That’s the value of a mastermind group, and if I have to buy my friends to get that kind of success then so be it. Is the possibility of creating money out of thin air based on an idea you come up with appealing to you? If it is then you may want to put your mastermind group together too.