If you want to join a mastermind group, the first thing you want to

think about is getting involved in coaching programs where

they can actually put you into a group by joining you with someone who they think

is going to be at a similar level to you. The downside with just joining

with people who are at a similar level to yourself I

do love Zoom. Can bring people together from right across the

globe into one meeting. If you're thinking about a mastermind, you

don't have to now commit to just people who are in your immediate vicinity.

But here's something to think about too. There's nothing wrong with... I'm

Matthew Fraser. and this is Amazon Ecom

Secrets. I'll be sharing with you the secrets that helped me go from

millions in debt to an eight-figure entrepreneur. If

you're ready to escape the nine-to-five and live life on your terms,

let me show you the way. In today's episode, I'm going to reveal and

pull back the curtains on masterminds. And I

guess the first question is, what is a mastermind? A

mastermind is essentially a group of people getting together,

talking about, showing support for, debating, helping,

everything to do with a particular topic. And of course, in the Amazon e-com

space, it's to do with Amazon and e-commerce, and

can also, of course, cross into business. I've

had lots of experience with masterminds and

I'm going to tell you some of the things that I guess

groups who are selling, promoting masterminds don't

want to share with you and some of the insights that I've got which will

help you not make mistakes when going

into masterminds. These days, masterminds can

be put together in a number of ways. Traditionally, and

I remember back when I first started my Amazon training, I was put into a

mastermind, which was of people in

real life, as they call it. So not on Zoom. We actually met face

to face, which is amazing these days, right? So it was a group put together that

were local people that obviously could get to the meeting, and

we'd have a meeting once a week and sit down and nut out and discuss

all the things we were doing with our Amazon journey. Most

of us, though, weren't actually even on the Amazon platform. Only

some people were actually even selling on Amazon. But I

remember when I first joined the Reliable Education Program, which was

the first Amazon training I did. The

well-renowned Adam Hudson, I was talking to him and his brother, who's

Ben Hudson, was put together in my group with

some other people. And I was absolutely thrilled. I

thought, wow, this is amazing because Ben, not only is he an amazing

guy, but he was also selling on Amazon already.

So we had someone who was experienced and there was another guy called Graham Clement

who was He was really good too. He was already selling and

he'd already done over $100,000 a month. So that became a

real sort of inspirational type of environment, because

these were the guys who were already making money on Amazon.

And he was me, the complete newbie, knew nothing. I did feel

somewhat, I guess, I

was just not thinking that I was worthy enough

to be in that group. Yeah. Cause he was, these were, they're sort of like the,

some iconic people within the group. So we would meet up once

a month. Ultimately they ended up being, I think about six

or seven people. So the numbers can vary. I think

you wouldn't have any more than, I think five is probably a good number

or all up because you want to be able to get through everybody's concerns,

issues, challenges. in that one meeting and

you don't want the meeting to go for like five hours. So we'd meet up once a month. We

actually used to meet initially at a shopping center actually and

we just sit in like a cafe in the shopping center and it was

actually really great. I loved it because I obviously wanted

to be there and bounce my ideas and hear from them about my

journey and if I was taking the right steps. Of course,

they could offer some guidance into that. And I think

more so though, it was about the mental support. Because

in this journey of business, Amazon

or e-com, there's just so many challenges. And

there's so many points that I always talk about where you just

feel like you wanna quit. And by being in that environment, you

could argue that there is a bit of accountability. When

you show up at that next once a month meeting, you don't want to

be the guy that's just showed up there. And they say, oh, what have

you been up to? And you say, of nothing. I've

done absolutely nothing. Because then you're going to look like an idiot. Because

if you're going to be in those mastermind groups, then you're

going to want to have to contribute to the group. You

don't want to show up and just waste everyone's time. The other

people only want to be surrounded by other people who

are in it for the long haul, who are taking this journey seriously.

So that's why it's great because it does hold you accountable. So

that was my first insight into masterminds.

Now this mastermind was not a paid mastermind. It

was just us showing up, there was no money involved, and we were all

there to support each other. And what's so great

too is we could be open about the products that we were researching

or selling without really the fear of them

stealing your idea or running away with your

money and ideas and what have you. And so that's what I

loved. And I was in that mastermind for about, Oh,

I would say two, three years around

that sort of time and consistently like month

in, month out showing up and adding value to the group as

much as I possibly could. There was one time, and

I remember this always, when I spoke to one of

the guys in the Mastermind group. And I must have

been going through some self-doubt or struggling with

my journey. And I looked over to him. I said, listen, can

you just tell me how much money are you actually

making? I wanted him to tell me, because he was already in Amazon. He

was already selling. And I kind of just wanted that reassurance that,

You know, he was going to tell me that, hey, look, this is going to be OK. But I wanted to know, hey,

how much money are you actually making? Don't give me some bullshit. And

he said, oh, so he looked in and he was like, well, sales of

this. He goes, oh, about $7,000 a week profit. My

jaw dropped to the floor. I was like, fuck,

$7,000. Now keep in mind, this is around the period where I was struggling

financially. I was driving Uber on

the weekends and just trying to make ends meet. So here's a

guy who was in my mastermind group, who was

already selling on Amazon, and he's just told me that he's

making $7,000. $1,000 a

week profit. I was absolutely blown away. And

it's, I wondered just in hindsight, if

that was actually a time where I just realized, yeah,

this is real. I can do this. That's where

I want to be. I want to be making $7,000 plus a

week because that would have completely changed my life. And

so it's just little moments like that that you

remember. There's another moment that I also want to share too

in the mastermind. And that is that there

was another person in there who decided to sell these

recyclable bags. No, reusable bags,

not recycled. Reusable bags. And the brother

was bought in as an investor. And it took

ages and ages. You could sort of start to see who

was sort of falling behind as far as the workload and who was stepping

up to the plate and getting things done. And admittedly,

this person, they had a day job, they had a family, so I

don't want to put any bad vibes on her. And

the point is that she had this reusable bag. Really, really nice

person. And I just remember thinking, oh,

there was just something about the bag. And of course, you're there to

offer your advice on these

types of issues. So she's basically coming to the group, hey, this is my designs

of this reusable bag. What do you guys think? And

the problem I think can be in these masterminds that

you don't want to tell the truth because you don't want

to hurt someone's feelings. But I think more than that, you

know, in my situation, I didn't really have the experience

to tell this person whether that product was going to

be a good idea or a bad idea because I was basically

around the same journeys, as

her, right? I wasn't making millions of dollars on

Amazon that I could then look back and say, Oh no, I wouldn't do that. Or yes,

I would definitely do that. And so that was, I just,

I just remember it, you know, it's, it's, it's impregnated into

my mind of something that maybe at the time, cause ultimately what ended

up happening is, is it didn't work out. And I

just think I could have played that hand better with giving

her my genuine advice of what I would have

thought and said, look, I don't think it's going to work. But who am I

to say, right? I didn't really know anything. I'm just a new guy too in

the group. And I hoped that other people

perhaps who had more experience in the group could have said

more and said, look, you know, maybe this isn't going to

be such a good idea. I

take all this experience though now because I can now, with

my existing clients, I can give, and I do give

very, very real, true, no holes barred

advice. And if she was in my group

now getting mentored by me, I would be able to tell her,

hey, look, maybe you want to try this as a trial

product. But I think at the time she was investing like a ton

of money. I think it was like $20,000 or $30,000 from memory.

It was a lot. And I just don't think when

you're doing these types of products, particularly on ones where it's a

bit dicey, you need to invest that much money. I

would have said maybe go for $5,000 type of investment. try

the market, see how you go, because $20,000 or $30,000 could

easily be lost. And then you're going to really be up shit creek. Because

as you can appreciate, getting a $20,000 or $30,000 is difficult

to save up. And particularly when, in this case, the brother was involved and

he was investing, it could get very, very messy. So

that was my recollections of

the mastermind group that I was in. So

all in all, I really loved it. And of course, you're forming relationships

with people. So over the years, these people became good

friends. And some of them now, and in fact, Ben, I'm

actually going to catch up with again in the next couple of weeks, because he's

moved on now. He's not sitting on Amazon. He sold that business. He's gone into actually

manufacturing It's like relocatable or sort

of homes, which is quite interesting. So he's moved on to

bigger and better things for himself. But it's about keeping

those friendships and relationships there because, you

know, when you're in the thick of things and you're all sort of going through

this journey of Amazon or e-com, it does bring you together because

you're obviously going through the same types of issues. So

the face-to-face meeting is one that I certainly love.

But of course, then we had this big thing, the big C, and

the C, COVID, made us all go

to Zoom, right? So now Zoom is now the go-to. Now,

I do love Zoom, to be honest, because it

can bring people together from right across the globe into

one meeting. So now you're not, if you're thinking about a mastermind, you

don't have to now commit to just people who are in your immediate vicinity,

that way you can drive half an hour to get to. Now you can actually bring people,

UK, USA, just find the right time zone. and

boom, you're together, which I think is absolutely incredible. So

that's why I absolutely love the Zoom. But

here's something to think about too, which I think most people don't

think about, is there's nothing wrong with being

in two masterminds. So you might have a mastermind group

that you wanna put together locally, as well as

having a mastermind group, perhaps on Zoom, where you're using people

from UK, USA, or perhaps even Portugal, to

be in that meeting. So that's

certainly two ways. I've been in other meetings or

other masterminds as well, some of them in different types of ventures.

So not just in Amazon and Ecom, but it

was an affiliate marketing group actually. And

the way this mastermind worked was I had

the main guy who was the coach who

was telling us all about how to do and showing us

how to do affiliate marketing and then everyone would come

on to this group. Now the difference was there was no

real interaction because there was so many people. So I

guess you could really call like a group mentoring in a way or group coaching

but they called it a mastermind. And the downside with

this was though that you couldn't interact one-on-one or

in like in a conversational type piece what they would normally do is he'd

be teaching some particular topic and then he would

ask one person to open up the microphone and then

talk this is on zoom and so it was interesting in

the sense that you got so many people on the group from a coaching level but

you didn't get the exact, perhaps

the exact questions that you needed or the accountability even,

or you weren't building a relationship with

the coach or the other people because you were kind of distant. So

my experience overall has been fantastic. And so if someone had

said to me, hey, you should be in a mastermind

group, or what did I think about being in a mastermind group? Ultimately, it

was awesome. But what about if you want

to join a mastermind group? Should you do

it? And how do you even do that? Well, the first thing you want

to think about is getting involved in maybe coaching programs

or training programs, because generally they

might have a mastermind facility where

they can actually put you into a group by joining you with someone who they think

is going to be at a similar level to you. The downside with

just joining with people who are at a similar level

to yourself is that you don't have the experience there. So

if you were doing an Amazon mastermind group, you

would definitely want to have someone in that group or at

least two people who are well down the path who

can give you the advice. Now, the

problem with that is that the people who are well down the track, they

probably don't want to be in a group where they're just with beginners because

they don't want to have to go through all the initial nitty gritty and

start up questions because they've already passed that. They

probably, which is what I would want to be, in a

group where the other people are ahead of you. So

you can get the advice from them to

smooth out the pathway moving forward. So those are some of the things I

guess you would consider. But look, ultimately, if you could just get in

a group of like-minded people who are on the same

journey, that would be definitely a start. So certainly

have a look at the existing training programs that are out there. Go and

join one. The other way too is actually just to think

about putting something up on social media. Now this

is something that I think most people don't even think

about. So what you could do right now is

everyone's got some sort of social media with a network of people. So

literally just put up a post, do a video, or if you're not confident doing

a video, just do a text post, and just say, hey, my

name's Matthew. I've just started an Amazon training program. I'm

really excited about this journey to financial

freedom and learning the process. If there's anyone out

there who would like to join with me and meet up on a

weekly, fortnightly or monthly basis for accountability and

sharing stories and helping each other, then please reach out to me.

I live in Tweed Heads or wherever it is. And

that would be it. And you might be surprised at how many

out there actually contact you, because they're probably thinking

the same thing. They're probably thinking, I want to be in a group too,

just like what you're thinking. And that could be a really easy

way to start. Now, of course, if you find that there's people

who are outside of your immediate vicinity, locale wise,

then great, you could easily start up a Zoom meeting once

a month or whatever. Whatever suits you. So that

would be a really, really perfect way. There is another way to

also do this and that is going through a paid mastermind

service. There is one that exists in Australia. And

what you do is you pay them, I think it's about $500 setup

fee, and they take all the legwork out

of it. So there's, they're specifically designed, I know the one in Australia is

specifically designed for Amazon e-com. And

so you would contact them, put your name and details down, where you're

up to in your journey, age, all that sort of stuff. And then they literally

have a whole list of people that

are also looking to join groups. Now, going

to one that's already established, they already have existing groups. So

they might be able to put you into an existing group, or they might be in the position

to form a new group, and then boom, you're off to

the races. It's definitely something worthwhile, and

I think The stats are that those who

are not in masterminds drop off, fail,

quit sooner than people who are in masterminds because

it's surprising how much the power of

the community can drive you forward. There

are different types of levels of mastermind. I've talked about

already, you know, you can have a group mastermind face-to-face, you

can have a group mastermind on Zoom, but there's also different

levels. So as you can appreciate, if you're just starting out on

Amazon, for example, there's going to be that level of mastermind for

you where guys who are doing multi millions and

I want to say billions, but they're doing lots and

lots of money. They're not going to want to be in the group talking about how

to set up your bank account. Okay. They're going to want to talk about

how do I get my products from USA and now expand into Europe

and UK. That's their, that's their issue, right? And how do I maximize my

ROAS? But of course, as

you go down your pathway, you're going to migrate probably

out of the lower tier masterminds, talking about the setup

of bank accounts, to The next level, which

might be how to optimize listings or

get better products. So that might, you would say, might be the mid-tier masterminds.

And the people who are in that mastermind might be on a similar pathway

and a similar level to you. So you're going to resonate with them and

talk about the same types of issues that you're all going to come across. And

then of course, at the highest level, now as

you go up these levels, you might find that you go from free mastermind,

where everyone's sort of just hanging out, to a paid mastermind.

And a paid mastermind might mean something like $10,000 a

year to be in a particular group. All the way

through to, I know there's high level masterminds, which

can be anywhere from $50,000 to $100,000 a year. Because

as you can appreciate, getting into the room with people who are prepared to

pay that sort of money, they're probably doing pretty good already.

Probably already multi-millionaires who

are probably trying to get to you know, rather than doing seven figures

a year, they're now going to try and do eight

figures a year. So they're getting into the room of like, hey, what are the secrets?

What are the pathways? What are the tips and tricks and strategies to

help me get to that next level and working it out amongst themselves?

So that is something to think about and look forward to, I think. I

think one of the things you should really put down in your diary or your goal setting

is one day I want to be paying $100,000 a year

to be in a mastermind because you know that if you get to that level, you

must be doing something right. You're probably already a multi-millionaire. Now,

I want to share with you as I start to wrap up

this podcast about masterminds is about

some of the things they don't talk about in masterminds and

that I think you should know about. And the one thing is, getting

into the right mastermind is so important because if you get

into a mastermind that is toxic, that

you don't, or you don't trust the people, there's some bad eggs

in there. And I have heard of stories where, of

course, you know, there's the jealousy can sit in. So if you're, if

you step out ahead, you know, you start to make money and

other people aren't, jealousy can form resentment because

it should be them. And why, why are you getting ahead? And, you know, and they're

not. So, so that can be a problem because people,

unfortunately, they're human. They have human emotions and jealousy and resentment is

one of them. So you definitely want to be, as

much as you possibly can be, a group that is supporting you,

especially when you become a multi-millionaire.

Because as Alex Hormozy said recently, when

you're just starting out and you're learning the process, your

friends and family are supporting you. They love it. Go for it.

You'll get there one day, mate. And then when you actually

get to become a multi-millionaire and you might put

up a post and talk about your journey, all of a sudden, they

don't like you so much anymore because you've now gotten ahead of them. And quite

often, it's not you, it's their problem because

they actually would like to be in your position and you've

taken the risk. You've dedicated

a period of your life to learn a process of making money

online and you've done it and you're successful and

people just hate that. They'd rather you just sort of, oh, it didn't really

work out and I've gone back to my nine to five job. So

having that right support network within your mastermind

is so, so important. The other thing to be careful

about is having blinkers

on, that other people can have blinkers on. I'll just give you a quick story. A

friend of mine was in a mastermind, and she was talking to the people

within this mastermind, telling them how she was now selling on

Amazon USA. And they were gobsmacked. They

said, what are you talking about? You're selling on Amazon USA? Oh,

I wouldn't do that. And the reason why they

said that is because they were going to

the path of least resistance, which was selling on

Amazon Australia. But of course, the

behemoth in the room, the one that's conquering in the

world, the almighty one, is Amazon USA. That's where the

big dollars are there. But because it

was too scary for them, They weren't supporting her

going to Amazon USA. They were like, no, no, no, we

just want to sell on Amazon Australia. We don't want to know about that. But

instead of saying to her, oh, wow, that's fantastic. I can't believe

you're selling on Amazon USA. That's something that we would also

love to do as well. Maybe you could help share your experience and

help us get there. They didn't say that. They tore it down and

made her feel a bit silly by going to that platform first

rather than doing Amazon Australia. So those

are some of the nuances within these masterminds. But if

I can just say, overall, if you can get into a

mastermind of any description, But

with all the support and value that you possibly can, then

you should definitely do it. Because I think, particularly in my case, it

certainly helped me get from being negative a

million dollars in debt driving Uber on the weekends to

now having done over $45 million in

sales across the world on Amazon and e-com. And

I'm sure if you get into a mastermind, it's going to help you

get there as well. So speaking of masterminds, I

also have a little mastermind group. It's very, very boutique though.

It's only limited amount of people can get into this group. It's

for people who are on an Amazon or e-com journey

who perhaps have started from nothing and are trying to get to just

the first level. But it's also got some people in there who are already

selling on Amazon who are now trying to get a

better scalability to

different countries or even just improve their existing products

on the Amazon platform. Now, if that's of interest to you, by all means,

click on the link somewhere in this description or the bio, you know where they

usually are, and we can maybe check it out and you can join the group. But keep

in mind, very, very limited, so please get in quick. Thanks

for tuning into Amazon Ecom Secrets. If you

enjoyed this episode, the best way to show your support is

to give a five-star review on Apple Podcasts and Spotify, and

make sure to subscribe on YouTube so you don't miss an episode.

You can also find more at I'm Matthew Fraser