S. 2 Ep. 36 – How To Market, Monetize & Lead Your Own High-Ticket Mastermind

Taylorr: Welcome to another episode of Technically Speaking, we’re your hosts, Taylorr and Austin, and in today’s episode, we are talking about masterminds. Now, have you ever considered launching your own mastermind? Chances are you’ve participated in one, or have you tried in the past, and maybe it did not really work out. This is definitely an episode for you. Now, we’ve brought in the founder of Group Coach Nation, Chris Williams, to unpack what it means to run a successful mastermind. 

Now, we’re not talking about $500 per seat level masterminds, we’re talking about $10,000 plus per seat level masterminds. How do you develop a market and monetize a high-ticket mastermind group so that you can elevate your impact, generate more leads for your one-on-one offers or just grow a business that transforms the lives of many? Now, Chris himself owns his own digital marketing agency, runs two masterminds of his own, including Group Coach Nation, and so he has been through the gauntlet and he’s here to share all of the lessons he had to learn the hard way along his journey. As always stick around until the end for some amazing resources and we hope you like this one. See you in there. Guys, we made it. We are live.

Austin: Yay.

Taylorr: Chris, welcome to Technically Speaking. It is amazing to have you here.

Chris: Guys, I’m so thrilled to be here. This is super-duper fun, by the way, if you’re just listening to this and not watching, you should go watch wherever they drop it, because their backgrounds are really kind of interesting. I have lots of questions but go right ahead.

Taylorr: Oh, questions. What questions do you have, Chris?

Austin: Ask me some questions, man.

Taylorr: Yeah. Let’s flip the script dude.

Chris: No. Don’t you want to know when you’re looking at the background with the wood on it, I want to know, do you ever plug anything into the two light plugs that are behind you?

Taylorr: Oh, for sure, always. Yeah.

Chris: I want there to be some little cool.

Austin: I actually got shocked by that outlet when I put the wood wall up.

Chris: You need one of those plugin lights, a nightlight that’s like Ariel from Little Mermaid.

Taylorr: Yes.

Chris: You need that kind of vibe right there.

Taylorr: There you go. For sure, yeah, it’ll soften the bearded, scruffy kind of look.

Chris: And then the question about the other one here, the circle in the background, I don’t know if it’s on the wall, but it looks like it’s connected to that tripod, which I think is a video tripod, but it looks like you could spin it like one of those things you put on your desk and keep yourself entertained when you’re bored and need [Inaudible – 02:42].

Taylorr: A Wheel of Fortune or something.

Chris: And you could spin it, and everything would fall out, but if you spin it fast enough, it would gyroscope and keep it, that’s what I thought when I jumped on the call.

Taylorr: Wow.

Austin: I should test that. I’m game for that.

Chris: If it’s okay with everybody, let’s just take a moment right now and run back there and just give that thing a really hard spin.

Taylorr: Just a real good spin.

Austin: Rips the drywall off the wall. Oh. Yeah.

Taylorr: Oh, goodness.

Austin: I don’t think that would work. It’s a good idea though, I’ll put it on ball bearings one of these days. Give it a nice, good twist.

Taylorr: Well, Chris, we have to return the favor, are you in a cube over there? What’s happening on your end?

Chris: So, a few years back, pre-pandemic, I had a recording studio built into our house because we all do this for a living, I’m a camera hog. So, this has been really, really great, I’ve lived in a padded cell for four or five years now and it’s kept the world safe and me happy.

Taylorr: Wow. No straight jacket too. Wow. Really moving up.

Chris: They let me out of that during zoom calls.

Austin: They must trust you.

Taylorr: Oh, okay. So, they let you out of that, so you just hang it up on the wall over there.

Austin: There’s just an armed guard standing behind the doors ready to bounce you out of the way if you don’t put it back on.

Chris: I’ll be done in a minute, alright. I know, I know, I’ll put it back on, I promise.

Taylorr: Oh, this is going to be that type of show, you guys, so I hope you’re prepared. Oh, man. So, Chris, this is a topic that I think so many, and not that I think, I know that so many of our listeners and our clients have just a million questions on. I think there have even been attempts at having group coaching programs and masterminds a part of their businesses and cracking the code on this subject has been difficult for a lot of folks and I think the aspiration, of course, is to be able to run a group coaching program or a mastermind very much like the things you paint, the picture you paint. And so, we’re excited to unpack all of that, but I have to ask, how’d you stumble into this world? What happened to get you to where you’re at now?

Chris: I wish I could say that it was intentional, because I would love to look smart.

Taylorr: Right, it never is.

Chris: But, oh my gosh, I completely stumbled into this. So, I was working, I had a digital agency, still own that one, and we work with surgeons in subspecialties, full-service marketing, pretty straightforward stuff. And I was working 14-hour days, I was building half the websites, even doing some social media posts, I was doing stuff I shouldn’t have been doing, I wasn’t using my skills and talents the best way. 14-hour days, I have five kids; I was missing out on life. So, somebody recommended this book called ‘The 4-Hour Workweek’ by Tim Ferriss, and we all know that’s a big bunch of marketing BS, who can do that, whatever. 

So, I read the book and I was like, no freaking way, and then I was missing some event for my kids, and I was like, I’m going to try this. So, I outlined the book and I mind-mapped everything he said to do, and I started doing it. Four freaking months later, I’m down to four hours a day and my income had quadrupled, and I wasn’t trying to make more money. I was just doing exactly what the dude said to do, it’s for real. Tim Ferriss, I know you listening to this, shout out to you, buddy. Thank you so much. And MeUndies, love those too.

Taylorr: Link in the description.

Chris: So, it worked. So, what I started doing is I was all of a sudden working a lot less, I got it down to maybe an hour and a half a week in that business, because we built a really good team and systems, just like what you guys do. You’re, literally, saving people like me, the heartache of going through the pain of trying to sort it out, you guys have taken speakers, processes, and everything around people who want to pitch online or on stage or whatever, and turned that into a flawless system where they can get their life back. Thank you. That right there changed my life. So, people started saying, Chris, how’d you, do it? 

So, I started going to lunch, having a few calls with people explaining how I did it, and all of a sudden, I realized, oh my gosh, I should be selling my time for these calls. And before long I was working 14-hour days again, because I was selling consulting on how not to work.

Taylorr: Oh, the turn tables.

Chris: Yeah, I know, right. So, then, of course, okay, I should turn into an eCourse, I tried that, complete failures five times in a row, couple of hundred thousand dollars in on spend, I have a great team and we got stuff done, but I just could not make that work. So, I went to a mastermind one day, I was in a high-ticket mastermind in Boise, Idaho, and was in their office with about 40 people and I explained what I just told you guys, and they’re like, well, how’s the mastermind. I was like, loving it, thanks for having me here. And they’re like, no, no, how’s your mastermind. I was like, I don’t have a mastermind, I’m copying what y’all are doing, I’m just trying to sell my information online. 

They’re like, no, guy, we started with a mastermind, you have to start at the top rung of the value ladder, build that and then let everything else flow from that thing, you have cash, you have a team, and you have everything you need to market and sell at scale at that point.

Taylorr: Wow. [Cross-Talking – 07:34]

Chris: Seven weeks later I had a mastermind. I just took their advice into it.

Taylorr: Wow.

Austin: So, it was like Inception almost, you went there for one thing, and they were like, no, you need to be doing this thing that you’re doing right now.

Chris: I know. Yeah.

Taylorr: Wow. That’s incredible.

Chris: So, I built a mastermind in the four-hour work week, basically, showing here’s how to do it. And about two years into that, three years into that, something like that, it was obvious, 56% of the people in our masterminds were saying, will you also teach us how to build our own mastermind? So, we started doing that and within about six or eight months of doing that, we were like, okay, we’re onto it. And all we do now is have a mastermind that teaches people how to build masterminds.

Taylorr: Boom.

Austin: Wow.

Taylorr: So cool. Well, one of the things that stood out to us, Chris is, this is in your bio, this is on your website, this is the first thing Austin and I made note of is you say most of your time is spent doing the things you love and you list raising five kids and going on awesome adventures, which we should totally chat about at some point, and then you say in your spare time, you do all the business stuff. So, this philosophy must have come from that whole experience of that shift in that four-hour work week kind of philosophy, huh?

Chris: It definitely did. So, I’d always had, I think as a lot of us do, this dream of traveling a bunch and we have five kids, letting them see the world and just doing stuff, we didn’t become entrepreneurs, so we’d chained to our laptops. So, I had that vision early on, and yet it wasn’t happening, you know how it is, you make more money, you spend more money, so I was just hustling constantly, life was getting more expensive, and we were never getting the freedom. And then, truly, once I was so sick of that, that’s what made me actually do something, I could have read Tim Ferriss’ book six months before or two years before and done nothing and I would’ve never come back to it, but you’re at the right moment, right place. 

You hear it, we all know this, we go to the right thing at the right moment, you might be hearing this message right now and be like, oh my gosh, this is it, I have to freaking make a change; I’m sick of what I’m doing and doing the same thing over and over again is never going to get me there, if it was going to, it would’ve by now. And I made that change, I made the choice, and it was with a very specific goal; I wanted to take a one-month vacation with our kids, I wanted to know if I could take off work for a full month. 

So, five months from when I started working on the processes, we penciled in the month of July, it was something like that in the summer. And we penciled five weeks in to work our way from Northern California down to Southern California, learning how to surf and teaching our kids to surf. And it worked, it freaking worked, I had to work one of those five weeks and the other weeks I checked in for two hours a week, each week, and that was it. And that was not a perfect start, but when was the last time you went on a five-week vacation? Holy cow.

Austin: Wow.

Taylorr: Man.

Austin: Man, it sounds to me like this is one of those scenarios almost, where it’s not about whether it’s possible or not really, or even the logistics of making it happen, but it was just about making the choice and then fitting in the things that you know you needed to do into this new model of how you were looking at the world and it sounds organically almost, organically sounds like it didn’t happen without effort. I’m sure it was a ridiculous amount of effort and time and energy to make it happen, but it sorts of became what you wanted it to by way of having just made up your mind and taking action on it. Was that your main takeaway there?

Chris: Yeah, totally, that’s really true. If I wanted to be an NFL football player, that’s not me, I’m not a team sports guy, I’m not that competitive, I don’t have the drive for it, let alone the body type to, I would die in five minutes in the first practice. So, that’s not something that’s like something I could do even with the right coaching or tools or equipment, but when it comes to running an information-based business, it’s not hard and all the tools are out there, and you just need two things. 

An absolute, determined spirit to do the work to get the results and somebody to walk you through the process, the systems, the teamwork, the things you have to execute on, the things you guys teach every day in your world, that’s the stuff that has to be done and anybody can do it. And that sounds like a sales pitch, but I’m not selling you anything, guys, it’s just the way it is. And a lot of us don’t realize how close we are to the information that we have that somebody else wishes they had, and we don’t realize, oh my gosh, this would actually be valuable. Oh, I don’t have anything about. No, I promise you, you do, it’s shocking how easy it is to find the thing, and then it’s just a matter of, okay, follow the yellow brick road. The path is laid out, just go

Taylorr: For sure. So, one of the things that are rattling in my mind as we’re having this conversation is I know many listeners, they, I think, especially with the pandemic, many of them have attempted group coaching programs, they’ve attempted building their own masterminds. I’m curious from your perspective and the clients that you’ve worked with, what do you find to be the thing that goes wrong most often for people who try and get their own group coaching or mastermind off of the ground? Is there any one thing you can identify?

Chris: Yeah. Can I give you two?

Taylorr: Oh, please, yeah.

Austin: I’ll allow it.

Taylorr: Only this once though.

Chris: Okay, cool.

Taylorr: Not again.

Chris: I’ll talk fast.

Taylorr: Okay.

Chris: Yeah, two things. One is they overcomplicate the entire process. They’re overcomplicating prospecting, building funnels, having a perfect offer setup, having a landing page, writing curriculum, all of the stuff that’s super fun to do, because it’s fun and doesn’t require to put yourself out there and be scared and actually prospect and try to sell something. Prospecting and selling isn’t hard…it’s awkward. And there’s a difference. Hard is I have to show up at the gym and I have to do 200 pushups this morning, run five miles and I have to eat shit that I hate eating all day long to get in shape, that’s hard. 

But awkward is, oh, I have to go to Venice Beach at Muscle Beach and do one pushup in front of those guys and girls, that’s awkward. But if I’m willing to show up and do 200 pushups and change my life, if I wanted to show up and do 20 pushups on Venice Beach, I’ll start making friends with the super workout people and it’s awkward, but I’m going to get in the group, they’ll see that I’m there and we’ll start hanging out and we’ll be able to trade tips and probably do some business together on all kinds of cool things. You have to do the awkward work and people overcomplicate that and skip it because, quite frankly, it’s easier to do workouts alone than it is in public, you have to do the work. 

Second thing is people really mess up this group coaching mastermind theme in their own life. They think, oh, I’m going from a done-for-you agency or a one-on-one coaching scenario to a group so that I can charge less and talk more people into the deal, because now I can work with 10 people, and I can only charge them a 10th of what I was or whatever. The truth is, and I learned this in therapy programs for myself, one-on-one therapy is awesome. Getting in a group therapy, a 12-step program, a residential facility, whatever it is, those things change your life super-fast, more than five times faster, the research shows. 

Not because the therapist in a residential setting or in a 12-step program at night on a Tuesday is better, but because we’re community animals, we do things in herds. And when we’re out there alone, even with one expert leader, we don’t change and have the ‘aha’ moments and the accountability and the need to run as fast as we do when we’re in a herd and we have to do the things together. So, when you put together your first group coaching program or mastermind, whatever you want to call it, and it’s a legit one, 10, 20 people, people you can actually work with together, they’re going to change so much faster and adopt your information so much faster. 

You shouldn’t be charging less; you should be charging the same or more than you’re charging for one-on-one. We actually don’t do it at Group Coach Nation, we don’t do any one-on-one consulting, because we know that it’s 20% as effective as bringing somebody into a mastermind. We want you to win, and anybody in this space, if you want your clients to win, just don’t follow the emotion of, oh, it sounds easier to sell people and it’s a down-sell, you can just be in my group. No. Step up to the bar and say, I’m putting you in this group because it’s the best thing for you, and, yeah, it’s expensive. But wait, you just told me you wanted to change, so do you, or don’t you?

Taylorr: Right.

Austin: Wow.

Taylorr: Man, that mindset shift.

Austin: Yeah. You just reframe that, for me, in a really awesome way, so thank you for that. Can we pause for a second here and just define these things before we keep tossing around mastermind and group coaching and these different components? And I, especially just to go a little deeper with that question, although, that’s a little annoying sometimes. I’m especially curious about the mastermind language, because I think, at least with a lot of the people we interact with every day, everybody’s a part of a mastermind, and usually, that means there are five people that get together and talk about what worked or what didn’t work or whatever. 

I’m not discounting the effectiveness of that, there’s community in solidarity, in exchanging of great ideas, so all that’s well and good, but I don’t think that matches either in terms of deliverables or in terms of expectations of what the deliverables would look like of this high-ticket paid sort of mastermind world. So, anyway, that being said, can you just sort of frame this up for us?

Chris: Absolutely. So, let’s give a little history here. I first heard about the mastermind topic in marketing and business spaces, we’ve all heard, all these experts have these masterminds. We’re talking Tony level, Tony Robbins, and let’s go Russell Brunson and Amy Porterfield. Awesome high-level masterminds, they’re cream of the crop masterminds, where you’re paying a hundred thousand plus, whatever, to be in a group with them and 20, 30, 50 people, that’s a legit mastermind. Then I started realizing, oh, okay, so legit masterminds are where a collection of people are going the same direction and they’re hiring an expert guide to walk that path with them. 

But they’re the entire little Boy Scout or Girl Scout troop together, they’re all doing this together, and their collective learning experience is actually more powerful than the coach itself. And when I’ve been in masterminds as a member, which I’m in one every year, I rotate around a few different ones. I always learn more from the other members than I do from the senior person, even though senior people are just amazing. That’s a true mastermind; this has been going on for a long time, the Carnegies and the super-wealthy, rich people on both sides of the ocean here in Europe and the US, have been doing that for a long time, hundreds of years. 

And then I realized, oh my gosh, in lots of religious settings, there are these collections of core people that start their religion based on one follower they’re following, it’s a mastermind, they’re all going one direction, and they’re rapidly changing themselves and the world faster because they’re together. And then I was reading this book on Chinese history recently, 5,000 Years of China, it’s on audible, it’s one of the greatest courses things, it was really fascinating. Really cool people in a cool place. They’ve been doing masterminds over there for 4,000 years. I think my people were banging rocks on sticks 4,000 years ago, they were rocking. That’s really cool. 

So, this is not a new thing, the power of it is, it has to be a dedicated group that can actually have enough intimacy to be safe and connect and work together and have a guide to keep them on the path. Dedicated, intimacy, and a guide. Now, let’s do extremes here. The one you mentioned is I have three or four buddies and we have this little mastermind, we just hang out on a zoom call once a week, once a month, whatever. Awesome. 

Dedication is the issue there, typically, and having a guide; there’s not one senior person that’s pushing everybody to continue forward, we’re just sharing ideas, cracking some codes together. Cool. And half the time, half the people are like, hey, can’t make it today, I have a kid to drop off at school, whatever. Dedication and the guide are the issues, the intimacies probably there. If you don’t have dedication, you pay 25, 50K to be in a mastermind; you’re dedicated, you’re going to freaking show up. And you have to guide. That’s the one issue there. 

If you go the other extreme, these people who have a thousand people and they call it a mastermind and it’s a lot of eCourse-driven stuff and there are once-a-week coaching calls and there’s a Facebook group. That’s an eCourse with a once-a-week coaching call and a Facebook group, let’s just call it what it is, that’s not a mastermind; nothing wrong with it, but if you’re saying, Hey, I want to sell you into my mastermind for $9,000 and there are a thousand people in there and we have a weekly coaching call and it’s an awesome Facebook community, and you call it a mastermind so you can feel as cool as Russell Brunson or Tony Robbins, that’s just false advertising. 

Their masterminds are legit, yours is an eCourse with a Facebook group and a coaching call. Not knocking the model, get your terms right. And the results that come out of the eCourse versus a true mastermind are vastly different.

Taylorr: Right.

Austin: I’m sort of a systems engineering brain, so my head always goes immediately to logistics, and so I’m putting myself in the shoes of somebody that may be wanting to start a mastermind and be that expert leader that you’re referencing here. And it seems like it’s much less about having content and expertise and much more about facilitation of conversation. Is that an accurate assumption I’m making?

Chris: Extremely accurate. My primary role in leading two masterminds myself, I lead our, we have a beginner, advanced, and a pro-level group and then a private group. The private group is a small collection and I’m just one of the members, we just happen to instigate the group. In the advanced and pro-level groups, I teach myself. My role is group selection. It’s showing up and making sure that everyone in that group is someone that I have put in that group, and I’ve made sure it’s a good fit. And, yeah, I have a sales team and a prospecting team, we get a lot of people through the door, but when it comes to them being in the advanced or pro group, I okay them based on recommendations from my team and a call with that person. 

I know that sounds like, oh my gosh, what a bottleneck. No, it’s really not, it’s not hard to do that. But that’s so important because the facilitation of a group is everything and it’s really easy to facilitate a good group of awesome people; it’s really hard when three of them are like stray dogs who are just yapping at the fence constantly and digging holes and chasing random ideas, you know?

Austin: Yeah.

Taylorr: Yeah, that makes sense. So, another kind of process-oriented question, I suppose, about running a mastermind. Is there a, pardon my ignorance here, so curriculum, a process, a thing you’re working through over a period of time with them, how does somebody not just show up and then not have anything to say for a mastermind and actually facilitate that group? Because you said that you’re kind of as a collective working together to achieve some outcome, some collective learning. So, does that mean there’s a backbone to that, a process in which you’re kind of guiding people through the check-in on, how do you end up truly facilitating that mastermind and making the outcomes universal for everyone in that group? Because I think what some people have experienced, us included here, is you’ll have people that kind of take all of the ideas, like you, and they’ll just go do it, they’ll execute like champions, and now they’re further ahead than, let’s say maybe other people in the group. But now you have this kind of disconnect between those that are further along and then those that are not and then those that are in the middle, I have just so many questions. Can you unpack some of that, for me?

Chris: Yeah. Those are all really good questions. So, let’s talk curriculum for a minute and then the transformation. Curriculum is easier than most people think, and you shouldn’t build it before your mastermind starts. So, if you guys want, let’s say you’re going to lead a mastermind on helping speakers actually have a legit business model that’s just turn-key, that’s built around them, all the systems, the processes, the people, all of that; that’s what you guys do. Let’s say you’re going to have a mastermind about how to do that if somebody doesn’t want you to just do it for them. Maybe you already have that; I’m just throwing it out there.

Taylorr: Oh, yeah. Yeah, we adopted.

Chris: I have three people I should refer to you, is there an affiliate fee here? So, that’s really cool. So, as a speaker, I want to join your mastermind. I don’t need to know what you’re going to talk about on week seven, if it’s a CRM or an automation or what mic to pick or how to follow up with all my stage-speaking gigs, I don’t need to know that yet. I just need you to say, oh my gosh, I hear you, life as a speaker is insane, and we have this group that over the next 12 weeks is going to get that under control and get the kinks ironed out, where you can be a boss at speaking and we’re just going to, basically put you in a formula one car that works. 

We’re going to send you around the track a few times, be right there with you and we’re going to make this happen, that’s all I need to know. I need to know that you get me, and you know where I want to go and I can trust you. What happens on week seven isn’t important to me right now, that just brings up objections. But what is important is that you know what happens on week seven, because you’re the leader. So, week seven comes from weeks five and six, as you’re inviting people into your mastermind, they’re going to tell you what their dreams and drains and doubts are, their goals and their fears, their problems. 

And you’re going to be writing all those down, you’re going to be making notes and you realize, okay, I see some major themes going on here; I realize definitely what week number one needs to be about and it’s probably way more basic than you ever thought it would be. And I have an idea of two and three. Let’s teach week one, let’s ask questions and see where people are getting stuck, and then let’s make sure weeks two and three bring them out of that, and then let’s invite them into four and five and six and seven. And the first time through it develops itself, but that development is very intentionally heard and very intentionally acted on. Does that make sense?

Taylorr: Yeah. Perfect.

Chris: The one trick there is the ultimate transformation. So, if your job is to get them to like having some sanity in their life and getting their business in order as a speaker and having all the automations and stuff and a team member to run it and blah, blah, all that stuff. You know where you’re done-for-you serviced, you’re done-for-you service is wildly successful it already takes people there. 

So, you know what start and finish look like for somebody who does this right. All your shifting is instead of doing everything for them, you’re shifting to helping them and their team do it, you’re really just inviting them into your owner’s mindset about it and your staff and team members action sets and showing them what to do. You had 10 new staff members that day and you’re taking them all through the process of learning how to do this.

Austin: Well, that’s attainable for anybody with this, really. Because it sounds like what you’re saying is it’s already the thing that you’re doing as the expert, you know what the transformation should look like if it’s going to be successful, and then it’s just reverse engineering how they’re able to do that themselves with you as the guide, as opposed to you putting your hands on. I’m sure a lot of the people listening to this, especially those of you that don’t just quote-unquote, just get up on stage and speak; if you have a high-ticket consulting offer where you go in and work with a company over 12 months or whatever. 

I imagine that the principles that are applied in the done-for-you version of that, as the consultant sort of figure, could very easily translate to this, so long as you have the methodology to help them do it on their own and support them along the way.

Chris: That’s really true. And a lot of us think if we’re consulting or doing done-for-you services one-on-one with people, a lot of us think, oh, but I can’t put them in a group because of the nuances, everybody’s different. But really, if you write down and just go and record every conversation you ever had and go read the Otter. Ai’s, you’re going to see that 95% of it is the same freaking thing over and over again. 

And the person you talked to on a Thursday has the same question that you answered on a Monday, and they would’ve gotten their answer three days faster, if they could have heard the Monday client ask the question and they’d been like, of course, that’s the question I forgot to ask and that’s exactly what I need to hear; the group does that.

Taylorr: Right.

Austin: Wow, man, that’s so helpful. Hopefully, everybody that has had this is anchoring this in their brains, because I feel what you’re doing here is you’re contextualizing what the experience should look like for somebody that’s going through this and how that. It sounds like almost the transformation happens on their own, they do it themselves, you’re the guide, the story brand idea, you’re the Yoda, and they’re Luke Skywalker and you’re just helping them to go defeat the Empire. It doesn’t mean you sat there, you’re welcome.

Chris: I see where you can step in a swamp and hope it sticks, right?

Taylorr: So, I know we’re getting close to the top here, but I’m constantly in the mindset of what other people might be thinking and I’m definitely curious about this. It sounds like, based on some of the language you’re using in the show so far, that you want people as a group to be experiencing things collectively, does that mean in a mastermind type of business model that you should aim for cohorts of people rather than constantly adding people into one group that is ever-expanding? 

And is there an endpoint for those people, an alumni group, if you will? I think a lot of people have concerns potentially about the cohort model, because how do you get 20 people in every 12 weeks, because you have to sell one thing over and over again versus something that’s evergreen that is really always building that recurring base? Do you have any thoughts on that?

Chris: Absolutely. There are so many models and ways to do this, and we uncover all those in the mastermind, we teach on how to build it, which is a great place to really pick that apart, but here’s the basic principle. There are two big distinctions in different kinds of masterminds. One is very technically driven, and one is relationally driven. Both sets of masterminds are extremely strong relationally; it’s group selection, that’s so important. The relationships matter more than anything else, but the highly technical masterminds, for instance, our advanced group is a highly technical mastermind, not in the sense that it’s software-oriented, but we’re teaching experts who already have the expertise, how to build a mastermind. 

There are steps we’re following, 1 through 10, where to go through the sequence. I can’t drop somebody in week seven and help, they have to start together. A relational mastermind though, our pro group, for instance, is a relational mastermind. We don’t go through tech processes in there. We’re always here to help and answer questions and help anybody who needs help, because all the people in there have super high-ticket offers and big audiences and all that kind of stuff, so we’re cracking codes for each other. 

But it’s more about relationships, we meet together in person twice a year, we have zoom calls three times a month on different topics. You could jump at any time you wanted to and fit in, but even that we only allow, twice a year, new people to come into the group if there’s a space open, because the relationships can get all weird and disrupted if you’re just constantly throwing new people in there, it doesn’t feel like a family. And so, a true mastermind is going to have firm starts and stops; the more relational, the looser you can be about that; the more technical, the more you have to start at the beginning.

Taylorr: Right. Wow. What a great breakdown. That was super concise, obviously, you’ve done this lots of times.

Chris: This is my first time. Oh my gosh. I’m seriously gathering.

Taylorr: I know. Yeah, I got it. Okay.

Chris: Whew.

Taylorr: We got it. Got through it. Austin, man. How are you feeling over there?

Austin: I think it’s awesome. There are so many, I don’t know, misconceptions, I think about this type of business model and the way that you talk about it makes it feel very approachable. So, for the listeners that are considering this, now, you know who to talk to. We have your Yoda.

Taylorr: That’s right. His name is Chris. So, Chris, on that note, if people want to learn more, what’s the best way for them to do that?

Chris: Group Coach Nation, just go to groupcoachnation.com.

Taylorr: Heck yeah, nice.

Chris: That’s where we hang out and you can find out, we have tons of stuff there for you. It’s so easy.

Taylorr: Yeah, for sure. It’s a beautiful site too. So, well done. Well job. Okay. There we go.

Chris: Well job, good done.

Taylorr: Well job. Good times. We do podcasting here at SpeakerFlow. So, go check out the link, it’s in the show notes, everybody. And hey, if you like this episode, don’t forget to rate it, like it, subscribe to it. And if you want more awesome resources like this, go to speakerflow.com/resources.

Austin: Bye, everybody.