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Why Amazon Masterminds?
Want to double your revenue? Find the latest tactics and stay ahead of the curve?
These sound like a pitch for the latest high-tech software, right?
Well you’d be wrong. I’m talking about good old-fashioned face-to-face, interactive Amazon masterminds here.
Through Amazon masterminds, I’ve personally found an amazing Amazon business partner, learnt many tactics that have made me $1000s extra, and been offered deals worth $100K+ a month of revenue.
But let me you how I got here…
My background with Amazon masterminds
First, I should give some background and confess. I’ve been a member of a private Amazon mastermind of my peers (Amazon sellers) for about 18 months now.
I also set up and ran (free) peer-group Amazon mastermind meetings myself about 2 ½ years ago, which ran for a while. That sputtered out because the people weren’t really committed. And I was wanting to focus on selling on Amazon, not running a mastermind for uncommitted people.
I took the learnings from both Amazon masterminds and created something better.
So I’ve been running a successful (modestly) paid Amazon mastermind meetings for about a year via Amazing FBA (I recently set up a new Amazon mastermind for new sellers, i.e., those who haven’t launched yet)
The reality of Amazon masterminds
First thing: yes, of course I’m going to mention my own masterminds, at least in passing . I run two Amazon masterminds each month. I’m writing an article about how important masterminds/masterminds are. It’s bound to come up! But I’m here to share my experiences of masterminds, not to pitch my own (if you do want to read the pitch for my masterminds/masterminds, of course, click here!)
Second thing: there’s a reason why I run an Amazon mastermind each month. Because I believe it’s one of the most powerful ways I can truly help Amazon entrepreneurs.
Third thing: from everything I can observe of truly successful Amazon entrepreneurs – it’s (still) true that every one of them is a member of some kind of Amazon mastermind or mastermind!
I guess as a person who needs interaction and inspiration, I’m biased. But…
Coincidence? I don’t think so.
My own wins from Amazon masterminds
I personally have got so many results directly from being in masterminds. I’ve found an amazing Amazon business partner; sold thousands from secret techniques shared within the closed walls of a mastermind; and been invited into strategic partnerships to do deals involving $100s of thousands in revenue.
These results are not chance. But they equally would never have come about simply from networking on the superficial level(valuable as that is) at Amazon conferences.
“What do you mean by ‘Amazon masterminds’?”
First, let’s start of by defining our terms.
‘Amazon’ as a business opportunity can be exploited by a huge variety of business models. There could be around 14 business models, according to some authorities. That sounds about right. Certainly common ones include Retail Arbitrage; Online Arbitrage; Drop-Shipping; Wholesaling.
When I say “Amazon”, my particular focus here (and that of the podcast/blog and coaching programmes) is selling Private Label products via Amazon FBA.
Secondly, what are we talking about with a ‘mastermind’?
When so-called “Amazon masterminds” are not really a masterminds
I think it’s almost easier to say what masterminds are not. They are NOT, as far as I’m concerned, a mass meeting of 100 people where someone from the front discusses or teaches a lesson.
Don’t get me wrong. Big meetings can be very valuable -and by the way, Andy Geldman of Webretailer runs an excellent London Amazon meet up most months, where they have really helpful speakers. I’ve spoken there recently and was very impressed with the setup. It’s a great place to learn new strategies and tactics, and to network. But to my mind, it’s not a mastermind (and nor does Andy claim it is, just to be clear!)
Andy charges about a fiver to enter his meetings and, while I think that is super-cheap (and he could arguably charge up to £50 or so), he’s not charging hundreds, which I think is appropriate.
I think there are various aspects of Amazon masterminds that make them unique.
Firstly, to be really powerful, they need to be very interactive. So all participants have to think hard and engage their brains in a very active way. It develops their business thinking on a deeper level.
Secondly, they need to be focussed. Generalised excitement has its place, but I would argue that place is at a larger conference-type meeting.
Thirdly, they need to move the participants on in their business. How many times have you been to a large group meeting which inspired you to feel excited about business… and when you got home you did…er…absolutely nothing except talk about how exciting it was (it’s embarrassing but we may as well be honest with each other – I did that for decades).
I don’t believe that really serves anyone long-term. I think the success of a Amazon masterminds is measured in how much action their participants produce and therefore how much progress they make towards their goals.
Which brings me to another question I’ve been asked a few times recently:
“What extra value does this offer compared to online research? Why bother being in Amazon masterminds?”
I love this question because it so clearly illustrates a number of things. This is a really important question.
My simple answers: Time; Certainty; Motivation; Action; Progress
Amazon masterminds value your TIME
Of course, since the invention of Google (and in more recent years, Facebook groups), in theory you can piece together all the knowledge you need to do anything.
The problem is- reinventing the wheel takes a lot of time.
Let’s say you are researching Product Research methods. Let’s say you manage to gather all the information you would get in a 30-minute hot seat at one Amazon mastermind meeting by taking a week of Google research.
Great. So you saved yourself £49 (or £97 or whatever the mastermind costs). Let’s say you multiply that over 4 different areas of business.
You just spent 4 weeks doing something that could have taken you 4 days (in fact, more like 20 hours – including travel time!).
If your future Amazon business is going to generate say $10,000 a month in profit in a few months, you’ve just incurred an opportunity cost of $10,000.
For the sake of saving £49 (or £97 etc.)
“Penny wise, pound foolish” is I believe what they used to call that!
If you don’t value your time, you won’t make serious money. Period.
Amazon masterminds give CERTAINTY
Here’s a simple one: how do you know, out of thousands of Facebook posts, which ones are from a solid source, and which aren’t? The answer is that it’s hard to know! And doing much research on that would take even more hours.
In an Amazon mastermind, you know who you are dealing with; because of non-disclosure and non-compete clauses, you can find out super quickly who to really follow.
Assuming you’re smart enough to make sure there are NDAs and NCA’s of course (I really, really would check this. There’s obviously a lot to be gained for an unscrupulous member to exploit others’ product ideas. Make sure there’s quality control about who the members are, and make sure that someone is responsible for policing this stuff).
More importantly, you can judge over time who is being successful and actually implementing stuff, and who is just spouting theory they “read somewhere” or from some guru. There is some value in the latter; but the former is WAY more valuable. The ability to really be able to differentiate between the two is really one of the high values you get from small groups where you can really get to know each other properly.
Masterminds give MOTIVATION
Be honest – how long have you been “researching” the Amazon private label opportunity? After a couple of months without even buying a small amount of inventory, I’m afraid that “research” is cover for “fear/being lost”. That’s okay, honesty is useful – but why stay lost?
If you’ve been selling but way below what you know you’ve targetted, again, that’s just called being human. But if you do nothing new about it, nothing changes.
Being with human beings is hardwired into us. We’re group animals. It should therefore be no surprise that your peer group (who you hang out with most of the time and compare yourself to) has a massive impact on everything about you. Your attitude. Your health. And, of course, your wealth.
Getting yourself a peer group and stay actually excited instead of being isolated behind your laptop is simply following fundamental principles of human (indeed, primate) social psychology. We violate those principles at our risk. Why fight nature? It’s so much more powerful to go with our instincts than to delude ourselves that we can ignore them…and frankly, to stagnate.
Masterminds create ACTION
This is the kicker. If you’ve been “researching” for over 3 months without buying something, that isn’t going to change unless you change something.
I’ve lost count of the conversations I’ve had with people who are painfully obviously using the word “research” as a fig-leaf for “Fear”. There. I’ve said the four-letter word.
Fear is FINE. It’s nature’s way of flagging up risk. Awareness of risk – contrary to the happy-clappy, “everything is gold” school of Amazon thinking (which is just BS, apologies for being blunt) is actually GOOD for business. What’s not good is going in circles, or not assessing the risk objectively.
If you don’t have proven strategies (and the latest Amazon hack is NOT a strategy, it’s a tactic. And that’s fine. But knowing the difference is everything).
You need people to inspire you by showing you what’s possible, and hold you accountable. If you’ve not done it till now, why will that change?
Some people seem able to work in isolation and still succeed with Amazon. I can think of about two people who were really doing that on a big scale. Guess what? They are now collaborating with other Amazon sellers to get to the next level.
The “Amazing FBA” Amazon Masterminds
So, I guess that brings me fairly unavoidably to mention the Amazon masterminds that I run for Amazing FBA. Again, I don’t want to be self-serving, but it would be a bit strange for me not to mention them in the context of Amazon masterminds and masterminds as a whole.
I try to practise what I preach, basically. I said at the start of this article that I believe that a mastermind needs to be interactive; needs to focus members; and needs to lead its members to action, which leads to their progress.
It’s fairly obvious where I’m going with this, so I’ll just come out and say it:
-if you know the value of being in one of the Amazon masterminds
-if you’re not wanting to go through the pain, time & effort of creating your own Amazon mastermind,
-AND if you live near London (or can get there)
then obviously I think you should consider the Amazing FBA Amazon masterminds!
I’m not going to make a huge pitch for them here; if you want to check them out, there are now two levels:
The Zero to Hero Mastermind, which is geared to those who have not yet launched, and to those doing just a few thousand $ a month (or equivalent) on Amazon (we may form a separate mastermind for the latter as it grows)
The $10K Collective, which is for those doing at least $10K a month on Amazon.
With all the paid surveys below you’ll generate income.