Retro SEOINTH - The Power of Shared Learning: Mastermind Groups

If you're a newer listener , then these are the ones I'd not want you to have missed . Today's episode it's all about how masterminds can level up your SEO skills . I hope you enjoy . Hello and welcome to . Seo is not that hard . I'm your host , ed Dorsett . The family of key words , people , usecom . These solutions are the questions people ask online .

In today's episode , I'm going to talk about masterminds , what they are and how they could help SEO and your business . Working for yourself in business can be very lonely .

Even if you've got a business partner , you're still really working in isolation all the time , and especially when you first start off , when you know maybe you've got no other employees or anyone else working with you . Yeah , it's . It's an unusual situation , especially if you've come from a corporate environment or you're working in a job for somebody else .

Even if you've built a successful business , you might have loads of people working for you lots of success . At the end of the day , you're at the top of the organization and there's not always someone there who you can discuss problems , issues and questions with . This is where a mastermind group can come in . So what is a mastermind group ?

It's a group of peers who meet to give each other advice and support . It's as simple as that . Generally , a mastermind group will be small . There will be five or six members , and they will meet either online or in person , or a mixture of both . In a mastermind group , you'll both give and receive advice . So it's it's a two way process .

You'll really there is a meeting of minds who have similar problems , other issues , similar experiences which you can share with each other , where you can give feedback on things where you might have more experience than a group member , and , likewise , you can get feedback and experience from those who have maybe been through things that you haven't yet .

Now , what's inspired me to produce this particular episode is that I'm actually in a mastermind myself , and I have been since about , I think , about 2015 .

Now , this mastermind came about because I was listening to a podcast one day and one of the guests being interviewed was basically mentioned that they were looking to form a mastermind themselves and they were looking for people who might be interested in it and to get in touch with them if they were interested .

So I thought , you know , I'll try this out and I approached the guy his name's Rich , and I think he got approached by a lot of people , but he picked out the few people that he thought might bring something different to the table , so he weren't all exactly the same .

And , yes , so when we started just as an online mastermind we're all actually from the UK and at the time we were all doing slightly similar things there was quite a few of us with an internet marketing background and at the time we had a joint interest of selling on Amazon which is something I've done , separate from the businesses I've got , but that was the

core focus at the time . We all met up and it was all online to start with , and I don't think we actually met up physically for the first year or so .

Now , for me , the most powerful thing that I've found from this mastermind group is we've all sort of grown and developed and had challenges over the past eight or so years is that we are actually all incredibly straight and honest with each other that when it comes to business , I can speak to these other four people . There's five of us in the group .

I can speak to the other four Completely honestly and openly about the situation within our business , when it's going great , when it's going bad , and also on the personal side , with how we look at finances , investments and plans and those kind of things in a way that I can't talk to pretty much anyone else about , because you know it's a unique situation when

you're in business because you're on a journey and all the people around you your friends , family etc . Are not on that journey and for anyone who's not involved in business it can be very hard for them to understand the highs and the lows and where those situations put you in life , because it's a different from the sort of the normal 95 path .

So , being in a group where we can be completely honest with each other and you have that trust and you know that that information that you share isn't going to be leaked outside of the group , it's not going to get back to your friendship group , your family , it's all stops .

The book stops there , it stops within the group , and knowing you have that outlet can be really cathartic . The group's been incredibly helpful .

For example , at the time we were going through a process of selling broadband at Kodi UK , it was great to have a group of people who I could discuss the numbers with , I could discuss the process with and also , at the same time , quite coincidentally , two others in the group sorry , three others in the group were also going through sales processes for selling

some significant assets . So they were selling other businesses and assets at the same time . So , with the whole group was going through the same thing at the same time , it was really good to be able to have people to talk it through and just to check hang on , my buyer is asking for this information , is this too much ? Or just checking that ?

We weren't being taken for a ride at times . So it was really powerful and reassuring to have these people to talk to at a time when really it's just . Otherwise it would just be you and lawyers . So , yeah , incredibly powerful . So , with our mastermind , we make regularly meet online . We also have a WhatsApp group .

So if we've just got quick , quick things we need to get feedback on , we can always go to each other by WhatsApp and we also at least one of the people who we have met at least once a year , trying to meet up in person , and we literally just last week had a meet up . We rented a fantastic lake house down in Gloucestershire in the UK .

That was in this fantastic complex . We actually looked up how much this this was Airbnb that we rented it on but we actually looked to see how much this , this house , was worth and it was over three million pounds . So yeah , nearly four million dollars and it had a beautiful view . There was a spa facility . It was really really good .

We hired a private chef , you know . So we did these things to get together for a couple of days so we can a blast some steam and be .

We can just sit and talk in depth on things and I went through keywords , people use some of the plans we've got coming up , how things are going , and also discuss this podcast and it was really , really good to get you know everyone's feedback and they sort of challenged me in a few areas and questions and others , and that was really good .

And likewise , chatting through everybody else's projects , what they're up to . One of the guys who was thinking of doing something , but he was unsure as to whether he was qualified to do it and I just said to him you know , you've , you've , you've just sold a business for a seven figure exit recently , you've .

He's also crypto and he's made another seven figures on crypto and I'm saying , so many people would want to hear from you . You know what you've done , you've been there and you've done it and but he was suffering from a little bit of something in post-sindrome Maybe . I said , no , you've got to do this .

So hopefully there was some great things coming from him in the future . If you want to see a picture of the place we're staying , I did actually put a couple on Twitter . So if you look at find me at Twitter , at channel five at Twitter , then , yeah , you'll see it was . It was a great experience A great couple of days away .

So that's the story of one mastermind group I'm in and that one . Yeah , we've got very much general business focus now . But how can we relate this back to SEO ? Well , you can actually have masterminds on any subject . So if you're just getting started in SEO or you feel like you've reached plateau , then maybe your mastermind is the right thing for you .

One of the great things about masterminds is that people share tips , experiences , tools , all those kind of things that , especially in SEO , where there is no manual um , that it's really important to keep up to date and keep learning new things . So a mastermind group would be perfect for SEO .

When it comes to mastermind groups and finding a mastermind group , you've kind of got two options . You can do the informal route , which is the one that me and my friends went down I've just been talking about . You know we met informally . Just you know , rich put out a shout out on a podcast , say anyone interested in the mastermind , let me know .

Or you can go the sort of formal paid route . The formal paid routes are not one I've ever done personally , but I think they can work particularly well If you've got a very specific focus . You're looking at someone who lives locally to me .

They have an engineering firm and just in conversation in the pub one day they were telling me about their mastermind they were in , which is a more formal paid one . It's kind of more locally focused to the area of the country we live in and they meet up in person every month .

Yeah , and there's a fee for doing that , there's an organization fee and I know it works really really well for him . So , yeah , there's not anything really wrong with either approach .

It's just if the formal routes are very good if you've got a very particular speciality , whereas an informal one can probably work better if you're very in a niche , like SEO , where you're looking to meet people online with similar experiences who are looking to grow in the same way as you are . So that's masterminds in a nutshell .

A mastermind should really help you with four key things , and that's one building your network . So a good mastermind will help you meet new people who are working in your area , who can share contacts , provide recommendations and all that kind of thing . It's a really good help . They should be able to help you share ideas .

So , whether it's with something you're thinking of starting or how you're trying to explain an existing business or even an exit strategy , then a mastermind will help you share and get feedback on those ideas and it will help you brainstorm , give you different perspectives , poke holes , all those kind of things .

Thirdly , a mastermind should help you improve your skills . The ideal mastermind will bring together people of different skill levels and success levels and with different strengths and weaknesses , so you can actually help each other .

So you might be strong in one area and weaken another , and vice versa with somebody else , and you can help grow each other and build those skills up . And finally , you should get support from a mastermind group . When you have failures , when you have problems , a mastermind will help you get over them .

Difference , people's advice will help you and it's also somewhere to celebrate when you've had some success and you can jointly celebrate each of the successes and it spurs you on to achieve greater things . So , all in all , I strongly suggest and recommend that you get into a mastermind if you haven't done already .

I'm actually thinking of starting a mastermind focused on SEO . If you're interested in that , then do drop me an email at podcast at keywordspeopleusecom . As I say , it's just something to think about at the moment .

If I get more people , then we can fit in one group , and then you know I'm more than willing to put people in touch with others who are interested in a mastermind . But yeah , if you're interested , do just drop me an email at podcastatkeywordspeopleusecom . Thanks for listening . I really appreciate it . Please subscribe and share . It really helps .

Seo is not that hard . It's brought to you by keywordspeopleusecom the solution to finding the questions people ask online . See why thousands of people use this every day . Try it today for free at keywordspeopleusecom . If you want to get in touch or have any questions , I'd love to hear from you .

I'm at Channel 5 on Twitter or you can email me at podcastatkeywordspeopleusecom . Bye for now and see you in the next episode of SEO . It's not that hard .