Andrew: Hey, before you we get started, I want to show you how if you’re making sales, my sponsor, Pipedrive, can help grow those sales. Here’s what Pipedrive’s website looks like once you’re logged into your account. Every step of your sales process has its own column.
Now, I just made up the steps. You can make them up yourself, you can keep adjusting them as you learn how to improve your steps to closing sales. But you create a column for each step of your process. Then what I want you to do is add a certain number of, let’s say ten at least, potentially customers to the left-most column. I’m going to do it right now.
So, for example, let’s say you were going to sell me. You would type in Andrew Warner right here. I am the founder of Mixergy. You fill in how much you think you can make by selling to me, etc. You hit save. Now, my card is right here at the left-most column.
Then what I want you to do is do the next step in your process. Maybe it’s find my email address and Twitter account. Maybe after that, you send me a nice tweet, “Hey, Andrew, I like your beard,” or, “Hey, Andrew, I like the shirt you’re wearing.” Whatever it is, something that warms me up–maybe you send me a thoughtful email, “Andrew, I like the way you did your ad and I think you could…” whatever. You get what I’m saying.
Then you send me a sales email. If I don’t follow up, you send me a follow up email. Then you phone close, right? Whatever your process is, I want you to use Pipedrive because it will organize it and it will make sure that you keep up the work that it takes to really close your sale and learn from your process. If, for example, tweeting is not effective, you can just change this column to something that is more effective.
All right. This is what Pipedrive can do for you. I want you to actually try it, play with it, see how it can grow your sales. So, Pipedrive is going to give you because you’re a Mixergy fan, three free months to try it out to see if it will really grow your business and I believe it will. All you have to do is go to Pipedrive.com/Mixergy. Pipedrive.com/Mixergy. And I’m grateful to them for sponsoring. Here’s the interview.
Hey there, freedom fighters. My name is Andrew Warner. I’m the founder of Mixergy.com, home of the ambitious upstart. I’ve got with me a guest who’s heard me say this for years. That’s why I’m smiling as I say it.
A couple of years ago, a Mixergy Premium member emailed me and said, “It’s great to be a part of Mixergy Premium, but really what I want is I want to get to know other entrepreneurs.” So, I emailed him back and I said, “What do you mean?” He said, “I want to know other entrepreneurs, and not just any other entrepreneurs. I want to know other entrepreneurs who are building software as a service-based businesses and I want them to be high quality people and I want to get together with them on a regular basis so we can help each other out.”
I said, “That’s interesting. Let’s try it. Let’s see what happens. I don’t really have a system for doing it. But how about if I do a blog post and we see if anyone on Mixergy is interested?” And a bunch of people were interested. In fact, he asked for applications.
So, he looked over the applications, all Mixergy Premium members. It was important to him that they were people who were paying members of the community because by having them be paying members, he felt that they would be higher quality. He went through them and he found the people who were running software as a service companies and they’ve been meeting on a regular basis since then.
Today I’ve got the person who ended up leading that group. He’s joining me to talk about how far that group has come, what’s happened there and frankly, more important for the two of us, since I care about the guy you’re about to meet, I’ve known him for a long time, but you care more about yourself than you care about him and you care more about yourself than you care about me, which I fully understand.
So, our goal for this conversation is to not just talk about his mastermind and what he did, but how you can take the best ideas from his mastermind and apply them to any mastermind group that you decide to organize for yourself.
So, without further ado, joining me today is Matt Ackerson. He is the founder of Petovera. Petovera helps businesses grow by improving their websites and creating effective online sales funnels for them. It’s like a turnkey service. He and his company will create those sites and create those sales funnels for you.
Matt, it’s good to have you on here.
Matt: It’s a pleasure and an honor to be here, Andrew. I’ve been a long-time listener since 2009. I’m happy to be on here.
Andrew: And we’ve talked a bunch of times in private since then. We’ve gotten to know each other. I’m glad to have you here for an interview. Let’s talk about where you guys were collectively as a group before this. Revenue-wise, where were you as a group?
Matt: We started out collectively about half a million dollars in cumulative sales as a group.
Andrew: How many people were you in the group?
Matt: There were six members.
Andrew: Six members. Two years later, where’s the revenue as a group?
Matt: We’re projecting at the end of this year cumulatively about $3 million for the entire group together. So, about six times growth.
Andrew: Do you have a sense of where you are in the first six months of the year? Is it about half that, a third?
Matt: Yeah. I would say that everyone is on track and some members are actually ahead of that.
Andrew: Okay.
Matt: Everybody is doing quite well.
Andrew: And how much of it is because of the group and how much of it is because you happen to meet some really good people and they were going to do well anyway?
Matt: That’s a good question. How much can you attribute the success of the individual members to the actual group? I think that I would say for me personally, a significant portion of the growth that I’ve seen in my own business I can definitely attribute to this group. The whole concept of a mastermind is that you get together and you form kind of a collective mind, if you will, where you’re constantly challenging each other and learning from each other and simulating each other’s ideas.
So, I would say it’s hard to really quantify it, but for my own personal case, I can tell you that I made some really important business decisions and I made them faster because I was actually in the group.
Andrew: I have actually watched you guys grow tremendously as a group. Brian Casel, who I’ve also known, has ended up doing a couple of Mixergy interviews since he started the group because he’s done so well I wanted to learn from him. He even taught a course. I think one of the best freaking courses–it’s not because of me, in this case.
In this case, it’s because his ideas are so solid. He says he discovered that if you create productized services, it’s a lot easier for you to grow your service business and it’s easier to do that than to even create a software company. So, you do service business, but you turn the services you sell into products.
Anyway, he’s done tremendously well with it. I’ve had him come on here and teach it. That’s happened since the group started. Brennan Dunn did an interview since the group started. I’ve heard so many people follow his success and try to learn from him. You’ve had other people who we’ll talk about here in the session.
So, you guys have done incredibly well. I want to find out how anyone who’s listening to us who says, “I’m tired of doing this alone. I want to figure out how I can get a group of people who are actually helping each other, not just hanging out together.” I want to help them with this interview do well.
One of the first things you say is that it starts before the actual group meets and it’s about the people who join and you want them all to have a common purpose. Actually, let’s talk about you guys. The common purpose was…?
Matt: When we started off, our common purpose was just to start a successful SaaS business. The whole concept of a SaaS business is still a very sexy idea in entrepreneurial business circles. You’ve got your automated sale on there. It’s kind of like a vending machine, the business model is. You’ve got recurring revenue. So, of course, this attracted each member of the group to this type of business model.
That’s kind of the umbrella concept that we came together under. But as time went on, I don’t think there actually wasn’t a member of the group who didn’t change or pivot–I hate that word–pivot in some way to either change their concept or even away from a SaaS business as their focus, even if it was successful.
So, for example, with my company, I was working under a different brand name called SaberBlast.com, which allowed people to kind of team up on social media and share each other’s stuff more efficiently to drive more traffic. I had coded this thing by myself and I was marketing myself. We got some good PR. We were on TechCrunch and all that stuff.
However, when I joined the group, I was in the middle of having just launched this, but I quickly realized that in order to actually scale this business, I would actually have to move to a freemium model. I realized that because different members of the group kept asking certain questions about where I was at and what I was going to do next and how I was going to solve this important problem.
I would have to come to the group every week and it was a mechanism for holding myself accountable and presenting what was new. What was the new progress? What growth had we actually achieved in the past week?
After a while I realized that this really wasn’t a model that I wanted to pursue because if I did pursue it, I’d have to raise money and as an avid bootstrapper, I just didn’t want to do that.
Andrew: So, wait, the reason you had to go freemium was, the problem you had was you couldn’t get enough new users. So, the group kept coming back to you and saying week after week, “Do you have new users? How are you doing with growth?” And when you couldn’t deliver that growth on a regular basis, that’s when they said, “Well, you have to create a free product,” and that’s when you realize, “If I create a free product it’s going to be more expensive than I can manage on my own as a bootstrapper. Let’s try adjusting.”
Matt: Exactly. What I realized with the help of the group is that the value of the service was relative to how many people were actually on this kind of marketing social network, if you will. And if were charging up front for that, $19 a month, $50 a month, whatever it was, then that was kind of a big barrier to people actually getting on the network. We actually made some progress. You were actually a customer early on. Thank you for that.
But the model was just not going to work out long-term. I was already working 12-16 hour days programming it and also promoting it as a solo entrepreneur. I knew that it really wasn’t my passion either, ultimately. I was kind of chasing this SaaS business model. I know that I wanted something that was both profitable and more in line with [inaudible 00:10:23].
Andrew: Well, let me ask you this–why, then, have a common purpose if everyone is going to adjust anyway?
Matt: I think it’s the glue that keeps you together. Why show up every week? If you don’t have some sort of umbrella concept that you’re going after, it’s just kind of like you’re just hanging out a bar with some guys and you’re shooting the shit and who cares?
Andrew: Okay.
Matt: So, I think about a year into it, we had a discussion because I kind of asked the question to the group. I said, “We’ve all changed in the past year alone a lot. Some of us have completely shifted business models. What exactly do we actually care about as a group? What do we want to focus on?” So, we had a lengthy discussion on what should it be. It’s obviously not SaaS by itself.
We kind of came to the conclusion that what we cared about was having fun, getting rich with friends and kind of sharing the journey towards wealth and freedom. Our group, as a result, took kind of a casual approach, but at the same time, we had a lot of ritual instruction too, so it wasn’t just a group of guys coming together just to talk.
Andrew: Shoot the shit, you said. All right. So, at the beginning, you recommend having a common purpose. You found that it worked for you. I agree, actually. If everyone’s doing different things, you can’t really share ideas and it’s hard to understand what you’re all going through. All right. The other thing you suggest is that businesses need to have a similar size, right?
Matt: Yes. I think that there’s a great story about Sam Walton and I think that he was in this café and the waiter came over to him and asked him a question and he asked him a question about how the owner actually ran the café. After they walked away, the person he was sitting with at the café said, “Sam, you run this really successful business, Walmart, why are you interested in how a café is running?” He said, “I feel like I can learn from almost anybody at any point.” There are stories of him getting down on the floor to measure retail space in other competitor’s stores and what not because he felt like he could always learn.
But I think that as primarily young entrepreneurs, there’s a little bit of a stereotype and a stigma with the idea that if members of a group come together in the beginning or towards the beginning of their careers and they’re both doing widely different figures in terms of revenue, the less successful members or the earlier on members in terms of revenue they’re generating, they can’t learn as much from those members who are performing at a much higher level. So, they’ll get a lot of value.
But from the higher level members, they might feel that they might not get as much value, even though that might not be true as per the example of Sam Walton.
Andrew: Wait, are you contradicting the point, though? Your point is that the businesses should be similar sized and now you’re giving an example of how even a Sam Walton can learn from a guy in a coffee shop.
Matt: Yeah, I think that’s true. But I think people have a stereotype that they can’t.
Andrew: I see. So, you’ve got to just deal with people with their expectations as they are.
Matt: Yes.
Andrew: I actually think that it does help to have people start off at the same place. In fact, I’ve found that in a group, when one person just far outdoes the others, it feels like that person is out of place and everyone else feels insecure about bringing their tiny little problems to a guy who’s so far beyond them.
Matt: Yeah. It’s interesting in terms of our group has actually evolved. We have kind of started off at a similar place, but certain members have become more outliers compared to the average, if you will. That’s actually a good thing, though, because it creates a sense of journey. We see a sense of growth among all members, some performing at a higher level or growing faster than others, but it creates a sense of I wouldn’t say insecurity, but discomfort. I think that’s good. Then that kind of pushes everyone else.
Andrew: I guess maybe a little ahead of ourselves. But let’s talk about it. What’s in it for the person who’s further ahead. I understand people who are a little behind, they get to see what life was like and they get to see what’s coming up and they get the help of someone who’s so much further ahead and probably knows more. What’s in it for the guy who’s further ahead?
Matt: I think the benefits still hold for them just as much. I think that what they get from it is just the same that the other members get, which is assimilation of new ideas and different ideas and kind of tying down ideas that they might have thought didn’t work or would work and kind of seeing them living through the other members of the group vicariously in terms of helping to mentor and guide those other members.
Andrew: Okay. All right. But at the beginning, common purpose, similar business size, right?
Matt: Yes.
Andrew: The other thing you need to agree on is when and how you’re going to meet and how often you’re going to meet. You guys went weekly?
Matt: Yeah. So, we started off going weekly for one hour each. It was a focused one-hour conversation. We also built in some structure and rituals to it. So, for example, for the first year and a half, we actually started off the meeting with a quote just to kind of set the tone, “Come to order, we’re going to change our mindset.” We may just start off talking casually and then it’s, “Okay, let’s get focused.” Then we would have two to three members–
Andrew: Before we get into the details of the meeting, you’re doing it once a week via Google Hangouts, so you can all see each other’s faces. So, if you need to share your screens and get some feedback on it, you can do that too. Is it important to do weekly? That seems like a big commitment or is it better to go monthly?
Matt: That’s a good question. After about eight months ago, we moved to a once every two weeks model and we met for longer. So, we met for 90 minutes instead of an hour every two weeks because with startup, young businesses, each member of the group had a lot on their plate. Sometimes not everyone could actually make it. So, once every two weeks was easier for everyone to plan around.
Andrew: If someone’s listening to this, what do you think about the idea of going weekly at first so that you can build momentum, get to know each other without forgetting what you’re all working on from month to month and then going for maybe every other week or every month?
Matt: I think there’s something to be said for going weekly to start because when you first start off, you’re in a group with people who you might not know so well. They might be strangers to you, which was the case with the Mixergy mastermind group. We didn’t really know each other.
By meeting weekly, we got to know each other faster so that we got more comfortable, to the point where we would drop our guards more. We would allow ourselves to be vulnerable, to talk about not just what’s going well for us, but what we’re actually struggling with and what we need that group’s help in actually solving.
Andrew: Okay. So, start off weekly, then pick a time where you’re going to go into less frequent sessions. Is 90 minutes enough?
Matt: Yeah, 90 minutes is enough. I actually found myself getting tired towards the end of it.
Andrew: I get that. So, what’s the structure of a 90-minute meeting?
Matt: The structure–we’ve actually moved towards a more casual model. I think we might move back towards a more structured model in the near future. But everyone just goes around and we each share an update. If we have a question for the group, we’ll kind of put that question out there.
So, for example, you mentioned screen sharing and that’s something that we do use with Google Hangouts. If someone wants feedback on a landing page, for example, “What do you think of this copywriting? What do you think about this model?” Maybe show flow chart, sketching out an idea of how it’s going to work.
Andrew: There’s where the part about having a similar business is more helpful. If you have someone working in an offline business and you say, “What do you think of this landing page?” Their concept of what a landing page is, is just not right.
Matt: Yeah. That’s why I don’t think it would work very well, perhaps not at all, if members of the group were running offline businesses. I think that’s part of why it works so well is everyone is running an internet business in the group.
Andrew: I even had a group where one person had a company that was so far ahead that if you showed a landing page at the group, he would say, “I have no idea. There’s someone else on my team who does it. Should I bring them over?” “I think we should just keep it within us.”
Actually, before you even get into the updates, you start off with–you really are a big believer in rituals. One of the first things you do is an inspiring quote each session to start things off. So you start off with the inspiring quote, then everyone gives an update of where they were over the past week. And then within the update, they give a question. They say, “Here’s where I was when we last talked, and the challenge of that is…” and they explain what that is. Is that right?
Matt: Yeah. I think part of the reason we’ve actually gone more casual is because if it feels robotic, you’re less likely to meander down the path and kind of try and dig in deeper to what a core problem is that might be holding someone back. I think that just if it feels robotic, it’s just not going to flow very well.
I think that a lot of the problem that each member of the group comes to the group with to try to get the rest of the group to help them tackle it, I think it requires a lot of time and in depth discussion as to, “Well, why this? Why? Why? Why?” And you go down a few layers until you actually find–
Andrew: Perhaps a little harder to do when you have a timer and you’re supposed to move on to the next step. Okay. I do think having some structure helps a lot, even with a timer helps a lot because otherwise you end up chatting a lot. Do you ever find that?
Matt: Yeah. And that’s part of the enjoyment of it too. You’re able to just chat and connect with a fellow group of entrepreneurs who are in the same exact boat as you, who are concerned about the same exact things. You can go off on tangents sometimes. It just creates a more positive atmosphere. But I agree. We definitely accomplish more–you will definitely accomplish more the more structured the mastermind actually is. It also conveys the idea that, “Okay, we’re here to get something done.”
Andrew: Okay. All right. So, let’s start with the structure and then allow anyone who takes off on this to adjust it later on. But at first, a structure that you’ve used was a quote, inspirational quote that gets things started by setting the tone. Talk about where you were since last time, talk about a challenge that you’re facing. What’s the next step?
Matt: Well, we do the deep dives with each member who’s kind of volunteered to go into depth on a certain topic.
Andrew: So, one person gets to go a deep dive.
Matt: Usually two to three depending on how much time we have.
Andrew: Okay.
Matt: And then everyone else who doesn’t volunteer will give like a five to ten minute update, something a little bit quicker.
Andrew: Okay. And when do you decide who does the deep dive, in the session itself?
Matt: Normally we’ll post on the Google Hangout group that we created before the meeting saying, “Who wants to volunteer?” or at the very beginning say, “Who wants to volunteer today to do a deep dive update?”
Andrew: Okay. Then you do the deep dive–what’s a deep dive?
Matt: A deep dive is where we’re going to spend anywhere from 20 to 30 minutes discussing a single member of the group’s business and exactly where you’re at and what, if anything, have you done well from the last time that you gave an update and what’s holding you back. What does the group see that we should be challenging on or that we have questions on? So, you’re almost able to act in that way. If you’re a person who’s volunteered to do a deep dive, you’re kind of looking to the rest of the group to guide you, to challenge you, to question you.
For example, Javier, who was the catalyst for the group forming two years ago, he recently shared his landing page in a deep dive update with the group. Everyone kind of attacked it in a constructive way. I remember part of my feedback was, “Well, Javier, I think that the copy, it’s really not highlighting the problem, you’re just kind of talking about the features and this is basic copywriting 101. I think you need to orient it this way if you’re going after businesses, people who are going to pay you.”
So, it’s about just giving you actual feedback and really having some constructive opinion that they can actually take action on and they can take back into their business and assimilate or not as they see fit.
Andrew: You know what? Now that I went to his website–I have to say, his website did not look good when I first met him. It was functional, but it was not like this.
Matt: NewsletterBreeze.com?
Andrew: NewsletterBreeze.com, it looks good.
Matt: It’s getting better and better.
Andrew: Look at that headline. “Create Amazing Newsletters in Five Minutes or Less, Position Yourself as a Thought Leader in Your Niche,” then there’s a really nice website that explains how it works. But I don’t even think my description right there even does it justice. It’s really well done.
Matt: I think every person is kind of their own case study unto themselves in terms of how the mastermind has helped them to grow. I think Javier, similar to me, he switched business models in the past two years during a time we were a member of a group. He’s just a big inspiration to me personally, how he’s grown and continued to iterate on his concepts.
He started off with ContentBreeze.com and that business model, I think, a lot of members of the group, we were all kind of skeptical of that. Then he moved on to services for a short time. Then he moved back to the SaaS model with NewsletterBreeze.com, which I think is showing progressively–
Andrew: How do you help somebody who’s bouncing around so much and keep from saying, “Hey, you shouldn’t be bouncing.” It seems like these bounces help them. But for some people, it’s a show of lack of attention.
Matt: Yeah. I think that I’m a big fan of focus, personally. I think sometimes you have to bounce in order to kind of–sometimes you can be too close to your product or too close to your business to really understand what the problem is. You can be too emotionally invested and you can be too judgmental of yourself and, “What am I doing wrong? What’s wrong with me?” That whole counter-mind concept in a way.
So, I think that the group, we definitely played a role in prodding Javier to say, “We think this isn’t working over here, but here’s a nugget of it that might work.” We tried to be as constructive as possible as with anyone who does a deep dive as far as what next steps we think they should take in order to improve the business model, improve the marketing.
Andrew: I told you before we started–I’m in pain. I don’t know what is going on with my body today. I have stuff on my calendar and someone emailed me the other day to say, “Andrew, how do you stay so freaking productive?” One of the things that I do is I just schedule myself out and I can’t not do something if it’s scheduled. If I postpone it, then I have to postpone everything else. That’s the reason why I can get so much done.
But it’s also a challenge because if for some reason I’m not doing well, I have to just keep going through it. But now that I say it is the way I want to live my life. I don’t ever want to back off just because I’m not doing especially well. But I don’t know what’s going on with my stomach. I feel like someone kicked me in the stomach.
Matt: Oh my god. I hope you feel better. I think that’s a really admirable quality. JP Morgan said his secret to success was he’d write down what he wanted to do in a given day and he wouldn’t stop until it was done. That was his secret to success.
Andrew: I do that except if I do it on my own and something happens, I might get distracted from it. But if I schedule it with someone else, I’m so much more likely to get it done. Strange.
Matt: It’s kind of like you have to show up, right?
Andrew: Yeah. There’s a project that I want to work on and I realized if I was just going to sit here in my office, I could probably get it done. But if I were to sit somewhere else with a friend of mine, with Sachit, who sells ads here at Mixergy, then we would really get it done because we’re both sitting there and we’re both working on it together. So, I invited him to go to Napa for the day and I would drive up and we’ll sit there with our computers and we’ll just work and it sometimes helps.
I even hired–and I think I’ve talked about this in past interviews–someone to sit right here while I answer emails so that I’m scheduled to do my email and that person is watching and taking notes and that helps me be productive. Is that part of the reason that group helps you, that you guys know that you’re all watching each other throughout the week, but at least once a week you’re catching up?
Matt: Yes. I think that’s definitely part of it. I think it’s the idea that you don’t want to show up every week and just say that you haven’t done anything. You haven’t made progress. You haven’t grown. You haven’t made a sale. You want to earn those bragging rights. You want to say things are going well. At the same time, it’s useful to be open about whatever problems you’re working with. In that way too it can be cathartic just to kind of get it out there.
Andrew: What’s the big thing you got out there that you were almost too embarrassed to admit to the group but now you’re glad? Don’t hold back.
Matt: I went deep into debt when I was working on Saber Blast. I was also sued and then threatened with a lawsuit by someone else, all at the same time. So, that was, I think, perhaps one of the darkest moments.
Andrew: Why was admitting debt and lawsuits so hard?
Matt: Because you worry about what people might think. Even though now I know it’s actually unfortunately a common thing that happens with business. When you’re in business for long enough, you get sued by someone. You worry that people will see it as some sort of personal weakness, perhaps, on your part or something that you just didn’t account for or something that you did wrong, perhaps you were evil or unethical in your actions.
I think that’s why it’s–plus, when other members of the group are doing so well, you almost feel like you don’t want to complain and kind of be negative and kind of put yourself in that position as, “Okay, I am the unsuccessful one and I’m just kind of stuck in a rut.”
Andrew: You don’t want to be the runt of the group.
Matt: You don’t want to be putting yourself in that position where you feel like you’re stuck in a rut. You want to grow. You want to talk about how you’re moving forward. You don’t to kind of bring the group down, perhaps, with your own problems.
Andrew: Is it helpful to get this open in a group?
Matt: I think it is. Another member of the group–I won’t say who–was recently sued as well by one of their clients. They’re actually working through it right now. I’ve talked one on one with this person. They also come to the group with this issue. But I think it’s really helpful because when I asked this person, “Does this keep you up at night?” And he’s like, “Yeah, absolutely.” He’s asking for five figures and that’s a nice chunk of change.
So, I think that getting it out there and just kind of spit-balling it back and forth is really helpful because you can kind of turn it over verbally with the group. It can feel like, “Why did it happen? What are you going to do next? What’s the best way to get it off your plate and done with as fast as possible? And oh yeah, I’ve been through a similar experience and here’s how I dealt with it and I can definitely relate as well.”
Andrew: After the deep dive–actually, yeah, what happens after the deep dive? There are so many questions I want to ask you. What I was trying to do there was ask two questions at once. What happens after the deep dive? I also want to know how much interaction and what kind of interaction goes on when someone says, “Here’s my landing page. Tell me if it stinks?”
So, why don’t we start with that one? When someone’s showing their website, how do you get constructive feedback in the moment? When someone’s looking for help, how do you keep someone else who’s listening from being a know-it-all, just jumps in there and acts like he’s never had a problem?
Matt: Yeah. We have this mechanism in the group called gloves off. We kind of developed it because I saw that at the beginning of the group, people had some criticisms of other members behind the scenes. I felt like if we could get these ideas out there in a constructive way but without having people censor themselves because they were afraid of offending someone, I thought that would be a positive thing.
I was at this networking event. I went to Russell, Russell Kommer, the founder of ExcelHelp.com. He’s a member of our group. I said, “Russell, what do you think of this gloves off idea? Someone will actually volunteer to put themselves in this position or say, “Okay, I have this problem,” or, “Here’s where I’m at with my business. Have at it.”
The group will attack it and work to bluntly and authentically without censoring themselves say, “Well, what about this? What are you doing over here?” And just actually get those ideas that people are thinking about but not necessarily saying out there.
Andrew: So, in the moment, I’m showing you something that I’m working on, and if you think it’s stupid, you want to come out and say, “Look, Andrew, I think this is a stupid design. You can do so much better.” That’s what gloves off means.
Matt: Yeah, but it has to be voluntary on behalf of the person volunteering.
Andrew: The person receiving it or the person saying it?
Matt: The person who steps forward to say, “I’m willing to–let’s do gloves off for me, for my business. I’m willing to listen and be receptive to this criticism.”
Andrew: So, I can’t attack you until you say, “Andrew, I want to be gloves off here.”
Matt: Yes. You have to actually step into the limelight and you have to be open to the criticism. We all can be very personally invested in our businesses.
Andrew: Sometimes they don’t want gloves off. Sometimes the world has been beating me up without the gloves and I need somebody to just pick me back up. I see then how it works. So, you’re saying if you need a little bit softer touch, then you just ask for feedback and you get some feedback and it’s like human beings would talk to each other. But if you really needed to be beaten up, then you say, “Listen, I want to be gloves off here. Just tell me what’s going on.” And the group lets it out.
Matt: Yeah. And we don’t try to be jerks about it. That’s not the intention. But we do try to be very direct, more direct than perhaps we otherwise would be.
Andrew: All right. So, then you do that. And then is there any way that you close it off? Do you close it off by asking people what they need to do?
Matt: Yes. I think that closing off the meeting by asking people, “What is your goal for next week? Just name one action item that you’re going to get done.” I think that’s a good way to finish it and then you can launch into any casual conversation after that. Some people sometimes, Jordan Gal from CartHook.com–
Andrew: He was also on here. Yes.
Matt: He and I will just hang out after a call and just kind of shoot the shit.
Andrew: Just talk about anything.
Matt: Friends, family, whatever else is going on with the business, what else keeps us up at night if we didn’t get a chance to talk about it on the call. But I think goal setting is very important because it establishes a sense of direction for the following week or two weeks in between the meetings. And it also sets up an accountability process because the next time, when it’s your turn to give an update, did you do what you said you were going to do or not? Did you move forward?
Andrew: You know, we’re all very proud people, though. One of the things I’ve found is that people will really work hard the first meeting to get their goals done. Work hard the next meeting but kind of resent it because something else came up and, “Why do I have to do this? Because the group is asking for it.”
Eventually, maybe third or fifth meeting, they stop living up to their commitments and they feel so guilty that they don’t show up or they try really hard and they can’t hit their goals and they feel so guilty that they don’t show up and that seems like a big challenge. You guys ever have that?
Matt: Where people just aren’t hitting their goals?
Andrew: And they’re too embarrassed to show up.
Matt: No. I never felt too embarrassed to not show up just because you just kind of feel connected to the group. You feel a sense that, these people, even if something is going wrong in my business, we can relate to each other. There’s a sense of companionship, camaraderie.
Andrew: Okay. I wonder if it’s because you guys aren’t so aggressive with your goal-setting. It feels like when goals are so tight that people feel guilty about not hitting them to the point where they can’t show up, then it’s a problem. We feel like we’re motivating each other a lot. I know at times I’ve never not shown up for one of my mastermind meetings and I’ve been involved in several over the years.
I don’t think I’ve ever not shown up–no, I know I never didn’t show up because I didn’t hit my goals. But I also know there are times that maybe I shouldn’t, maybe I should fake an illness because I can’t face the group. Maybe I should just accept that there is a lot going on at work and I should be doing that instead or working on my goals instead of chatting with a bunch of guys.
Matt: I think there were times when some members whose businesses weren’t going as well, when it was time to give their update, they always showed up, but they would just kind of–you could tell by their body language that they were very hesitant. They didn’t really want to be talking. They just wanted to say what was up briefly, that nothing good was happening and then okay, move on.
I think that in those cases, if I can just add on to that, I think in those cases, it’s important that the group leader and/or the group members kind of address that and say, “Is there something under the surface here. You’re saying one thing but your body language is saying something else. So, why don’t we kind of address what it is that you feel is holding you back and why you’re having these emotions because they’re a direct result of something else?”
Andrew: The emotional part is so helpful, but nobody wants to talk about it. It feels like we’re punking out. Actually, I was going to say it feels like we’re being pussies. I’m not going to censor myself as I say it. But that’s the way it feels to a lot of people.
I know for myself and I know for other people who I’ve worked with one on one, that’s the big issue. We know what we need to get done. There’s something holding us back, something keeping us from getting it done. It’s not pussy to talk about it. It’s really practical to bring it up and have a conversation. How do you get people to talk about it?
Matt: I think that using kind of a relentless Socratic method, if you will, is a good tactic.
Andrew: Just keep asking questions over and over.
Matt: Yeah, and really point out why you think something is a certain way that you’re observing. For example, why is your–you don’t want to tiptoe around people’s emotions. You want to get to the root of the issue because otherwise if people don’t get out there what it is that’s really bothering them, then they’re not going to get enough value from the group and then they’re not going to grow and then the group isn’t going to grow and it’s going to discriminate.
So, it’s really important to put people–I don’t want to say up against the wall, but definitely make them a little uncomfortable by asking these perhaps more direct questions.
Andrew: What’s an uncomfortable question that you’ve asked or have been asked?
Matt: Some group members, I think when I was describing the business model I was going for with Petovera originally was, “I don’t get it,” or even no question at all, just kind of like silence, like, “Oh, okay.” “Did what I say just make sense at all? Is it connecting? Am I really solving a problem for customers here? What do you guys think because I’m hearing crickets right now?” I think that was a tough non-question.
Andrew: So, did you actually take action after that? You changed your messaging?
Matt: Yeah. So, I think that’s, perhaps, one of the biggest helps that the group is able to kind of give to each member. It’s able to–you almost kind of put your ideas in the hands of people who aren’t you, who aren’t as close to your business as you and they can give you the outsider’s perspective.
So, for example, with copywriting, you can get the messaging much, much tighter than you otherwise would have. I think, for example, we started off, Petovera’s messaging was, “Make ideas real,” and then it was, “Your web marketing partner on-demand.” Okay. That’s a little more clear. How can we make it better? So, now it’s, “Helping websites help grow businesses.”
Still, I’m still iterating on it. I’m going back and forth through email with Russell right now. He’s giving me feedback. “I think you should focus it on landing pages and then you can upsell on the other services because a landing page, people get that. But they don’t really get this helping websites help grow businesses. I don’t know if that makes sense to me.”
Andrew: What you have right now on the site is helping websites grow businesses.
Matt: Yeah. We’re still going back and forth on it. So, I haven’t made any decisions there yet.
Andrew: So, maybe landing page is better. And then underneath it you say sales funnel design, landing page design, email responders, etc.
Matt: Uh-huh.
Andrew: All right. I can see how that back and forth helps. I also see your site develop and the design just keep improving.
Matt: That’s one thing I learned from the group.
Andrew: Even from the last time we talked a few weeks ago it looks better.
Matt: That’s one thing I learned from the groups. Because I was constantly showing up and I was kind of talking to them about what we were doing, I realized that our website sucked. We’re a web marketing company and our website sales funnel ourselves is something we’ve been really neglecting. It’s really important we practice what we preach as a business if we’re going to tell clients, “This is how you grow.”
Andrew: Yeah. ExcelHelp has a very corporate-y feel and just so nails that corporate-y feel, right? All right. I hear he’s doing really fantastically well. Have I had him on Mixergy? I don’t think I have. I don’t know if I talked to him in private or on Mixergy.
Matt: Perhaps in private. He would be great to interview.
Andrew: I think so too. But I wonder how much he can say.
Matt: He’s a little private about business because his industry is very competitive. But his company is doing well.
Andrew: I also think that because he’s dealing with companies like Exxon and Adobe, he’s going after a whole other kind of customer. He doesn’t need to or want to really be public about how his business is doing.
Matt: Yeah.
Andrew: Yeah. I don’t see him on Mixergy. What does he do? He teaches companies Excel, but not just how to use Excel to add.
Matt: Yeah. So, they do training and they also will create apps for Fortune 500 companies who need to streamline a sales process for putting numbers into a spreadsheet and also needs a populate over here and Microsoft Access and they’ll kind of help to automate those processes and make people’s businesses run more efficiently.
Andrew: By training, what I always assumed it was like the–you know how you can really turn Excel into basically like a software development platform where it can do all kinds of stuff. It feels like that’s the kind of stuff he’s teaching, how to use macros, for example, and not how to have two cells add each other up.
Matt: Yeah. It’s more advanced.
Andrew: You go through. You really break people down. You use the word leader a few times. How important is the leader and what does the leader do?
Matt: I think that I’m always–first of all, I’m always trying to improve myself as the group leader. I hope I’m doing an okay job. The fact that we’re still together after two years or so I think is evidence to that. I’m going to keep going, keep improving. But I think that the group leader is really critical because you need someone to hold the group itself accountable on a holistic scale.
Are people showing up? If they’re not, you need to call them out. You need to go and email them and give them a call on the phone and say, “Hey, I haven’t seen you in two weeks. What’s going on?” The more people show up, the more perspectives you can get and the more breadth and depth of experience that you actually have to kind of attach each individual’s problem in the group. So, I think that that’s really important.
I think that also just kind of helping to maintain the environment or the culture of the meetings, time keeping is another one, making sure to keep the structure in place, if you will and also just when people are kind of all thinking the same thing but not willing to say it, where we’re kind of tiptoeing around emotions, the group leader has to take that role of saying, “Hey,” just call everyone out and be like, “I’m thinking this. Is this what’s under the surface?” And just being willing to attack those sorts of situations where it might be uncomfortable.
Andrew: You know what? I’ve been a part of several old-fashioned groups like Toastmasters. That’s the one I was a part of the longest. One of the things I notice is that in those groups, they give people different titles. Even for a session, to make sure you’re not just sitting down, but you’re doing something and having some leadership role, you could have the role of being a timekeeper. And somebody else’s role is to read an inspirational quote at the beginning and somebody else’s role is to be the MC or the toastmaster for the night.
So, everyone has a role that’s a leadership role and it keeps the group moving and it keeps everyone vested in the success of the group. What do you think of that for a session? You’re saying one person this week, like, “You, Jordan, you’re going to be timekeeper. Brennan, you’re going to be reading a quote.”
Matt: I think that can really work well. It’s distributing some responsibility to help keep all the other members engaged each meeting. And I think that might be something that might be worth trying within our own group.
Andrew: All right. So, you get a group leader. You mention several times people have to show up. Do you ever have to kick anyone out for not showing up?
Matt: Actually, we talked about this at one point because we were doing the weekly meetings and one time we sat down on a follow-up call when everyone was present. We said, “All right, everyone is present today and that’s awesome. Now we can all do an update. The whole group is together. The band is back together.” I don’t know. So, we each kind of went down the line and gave our perspective on why aren’t we all showing up every single week. The group is obviously giving us all value. It’s been over a year. What’s the issue?
So, we talked about it and we kind of came to the conclusion that everyone is just really busy. Meeting every single week is a big commitment. So, we scaled it back. We said alright, we’ll meet an hour and a half every two weeks. If we end early then we’ll end early every two weeks. But we’ll have more to share every time we come back to each other. I think the discussion has turned out to be much more rich doing it every two weeks as well.
Andrew: I see. So, maybe before kicking somebody out, it’s time to have a conversation about why people aren’t showing up and then sometimes you can accommodate them. If you can’t, they’re out. Fair to say? You can’t be a dabbler in this group.
Matt: Yeah. We wanted to really set that tone. We kind of had this discussion a few times. But I honestly never had the heart to kick anyone out.
Andrew: Do you want me to kick anyone out for you? I’m a bit of a prick. People will tell you. Olivia, my wife, will tell you. Let’s continue here. Let’s see what else I’ve got here in my notes. Goals–when you say goals, that a group needs to have goals, do you mean that walking into the group, that every member needs to have a goal for what they want out of the group or are you saying every year people need a goal or is this smaller, from week to week you need to set a goal for yourself?
Matt: So, for 2015 it’s been both. We’ve set goals every other week when we’ve met. But we also at the beginning, we spent a couple of meetings just setting goals for the year of 2015. We’ve focused primarily on revenue and on, perhaps, one or two cases–like Javier’s case was he wanted to launch his new product NewsletterBreeze. And he’s achieved that.
So, we’ve set both yearly goals as well as the week to week goals. I think the yearly goals are constructive too, but it’s important to bring them up from time to time and say, “This is what we said in January. Where are you at with this? Is this still your goal? Are you still focused on this?”
Andrew: How anal are you about being organized about that stuff? Do you write down everyone’s goals every session?
Matt: Not every session. Not every session. I’m more laid back about it nowadays. We just know each other so well. It’s kind of like we’re just able to get into a flow with each meeting and just kind of share ideas back and forth. So, it’s become a little more casual.
Andrew: Let’s see what else is in here?
Matt: I do have a list of everyone’s goal for a year.
Andrew: You do?
Matt: I keep it on my desktop. I look at it from time to time, especially my goal.
Andrew: And you check in with them week to week or, I mean, session to session?
Matt: Not every session but every so often.
Andrew: What about in between sessions? What do you guys use to talk?
Matt: You mean just one on one?
Andrew: Do you talk at all? Do you have something like a Slack channel going every day? Do you do group text messaging?
Matt: So, we have a group on Google+, where we’ll post notices about, “Oh, I published this article. It’s getting voted up right now on GrowthHacker,” or, “Oh, I’m not going to make it this week but here’s my update. This is what I’m doing. Boom, boom, boom. What do you guys think about this?”
Brennan, for example, I think at one point he was posting that he was starting this new conference. Other than that, we just talk through email. We talk on the phone. We talk through Skype with video. There’s a lot of cross-pollination that goes on too which I think is really cool within the group.
Andrew: How do you mean?
Matt: So, for example, cross-pollination of ideas, but also synergies in terms of partnerships, like joint ventures.
Andrew: What’s an example?
Matt: An example would be when Brian was developing his info product, he actually tried a couple of ideas before he found his productized course, which has been a really great success.
Andrew: The one where he teaches freelancers how to double their freelancing revenue.
Matt: No, that’s actually Brennan. So, productize–
Andrew: Oh, Brian, Brian Casel, right.
Matt: But Brian learned a lot from Brennan. I think that was an inspiration, as it has been to all of us, seeing how Brennan’s info products have performed well and done well with his list and how he was able to address a problem for his target market, which is freelancers. So, I think that they were able to form some sort of synergy there so that when Bryan found this idea of the productize course and he launched it, he was actually able to work with Brennan to then launch it again to Brennan’s list.
Andrew: I see.
Matt: That actually grew his sales substantially.
Andrew: Brennan really has got to have a huge list. I hear how well he’s doing.
Matt: Yeah. He’s awesome. Brennan is doing awesome. Big inspiration. I’ve learned a lot from him. He’s doing great.
Andrew: I guess at this point anyone who’s listened is not feeling any sense of wooieness, but people do feel that getting together in groups feels a little too happy-go-lucky, “Let’s do entrepreneurship together,” when really entrepreneurship is a battle. You’ve got to go in there and fight every day and not look for buddies to hang out with on chat every day.
Matt: I think that yeah, I think that’s a real concern that a lot of people have about the concept of a mastermind because it’s like, oh, mastermind, like the name means you come together. You’re forming this collective mind and you’re all going to get wealthier together. And hey, look, Rockefeller did it according to Napoleon Hill, right?
Andrew: Right.
Matt: According to Napoleon Hill too, if you just think about something long enough, it will materialize in your life. So, I think people kind of connected to those ideas and for that reason there’s kind of cynicism around this concept of a mastermind. But I think it’s really important for entrepreneurs, especially internet entrepreneurs–we can tend to be more isolated in the way that we’re working on ideas.
We also need to be able to connect with other entrepreneurs who are kind of in the trenches with us and just to kind of get our ideas out there to collectively challenge each other and level each other up. And I think by putting each other in that environment–there’s a real practical element to actually doing that. It creates a sense of discomfort. It creates a sense of you want to run faster.
So, right now, for example, I’m training for my first half-marathon with a friend. What I’ve noticed is that when we run together, we’re talking. So, the time passes faster and it’s more enjoyable. Second, we run faster because neither one of us wants to fall behind the other person. And the mastermind works the same exact way.
Andrew: I’ve noticed that too. When I run with my wife, who’s way faster than me, I always see that at the end of it, I’m running faster than I’ve ever run before.
Matt: Yeah, it pushes you.
Andrew: She once did–I once just decided I was going to do a marathon in DC. I built up my running to get to that level–this is a real tangent, but who cares. So, I posted on Facebook and Twitter, “Does anyone in the Mixergy community have a ticket to the Marine Corps Marathon in Washington DC that’s happening in a few days?”
And sure enough, somebody had it. Somebody’s girlfriend couldn’t run it and he gave it to me and we met up and I ran with it. Olivia went with me to the starting line and said, “I’ll just run with you at least until we get home.” She ran with me until we got close to home and then she said, “You know, I’m going to run a little further.”
Wouldn’t you know it? She ran the whole freaking marathon. I was in pain by mile 20 and she just kept me going. I was like, “Olivia, I just need a moment to just stand here and rest.” She would not let me take that rest. She said, “All right, take a deep breath and let’s keep running.” And she ran with me and pushed me on.
I guess that’s what we’re talking about here. When you get together with other people, they push you. They encourage you. Sometimes they just keep you occupied when your mind wants to wander. Sorry. When you want to give up, they keep you going by keeping you busy with them.
Matt: Do you feel like running has impacted or influenced how you think about business?
Andrew: You know what it’s done for me? It’s given me another place to feel super strong mentally. If I could keep running into work, even on days when it’s raining or when it’s too cold or when there are so many excuses, then I feel like a Superman. If I run into work and I get here feeling like a Superman, then I’m so much more productive.
I remember when we lived in DC, it would basically just flood. In San Francisco, it hasn’t rained in almost six months, I think. But in DC, it would pour. I would look at people who were just in shock on their way to work trying to figure out, “How do I get out of this building and not get wet by the time I get to work?”
I look at them and I was in a cutoff t-short. I don’t’ care. I just ran right out in the rain and I loved how they would look at me like, “This guy is so crazy that he would do this. How can he do it?” I felt, “Yes, I am a Superman. That’s how I can do it. Now let’s get to work and use that power.”
Matt: Awesome.
Andrew: Basically, I’ve got psychological issues, apparently. You know, I actually talked like this once in the early days of Mixergy with a psychologist who I interviewed on Mixergy. He went so open about himself and I went open about myself. He said, “No, you’ve got some issues here, Andrew, that you need to succeed to this degree. I think you’ve got an issue.”
I forgot what his diagnosis was. I was so ready to publish it, especially let the diagnosis come out to the audience. But because he got a little bit open, he did not want me to publish. Back then, I was a punk and I would not publish when people said, “No publishing.” Today, if someone says, “Don’t publish,” I say, “It’s already on the site.”
Matt: Yeah.
Andrew: Actually, I’m much more nuanced than that. I’ve got much more of a persuasion approach to getting them to be okay with it. But I still publish today.
Matt: I always remember what this partner at this venture capital firm once sent to me when I was an intern there. He said “Matt, entrepreneurs are weird people.” I said, “Yeah, I think that there’s something to be said for someone who’s going to start something from nothing.” I never really thought of business as being that big of risks, but taking risks and being willing to buck whatever trend is out there, what society says you should do and what expectations of friends and family are in terms of how you should spend your time and live your life, kind of living outside of all that.
Andrew: Completely.
Matt: I think you have to be a little weird.
Andrew: And to so many different ways. When a friend talks to me about how something is out of his budget, I have no idea if something is out of my budget. You can take whatever money is out of the company or not. It’s a decision about where is the company going in the future and what you stand for every time you decide that you’re going to go into the bank and get a little bit more money than you usually do.
There is no sense of budget. There is no sense of planning to save for something. You just work a little bit harder and you get or you don’t get it and you feel like, “What the hell happened to me that I didn’t work hard and I didn’t get it.” I didn’t generate the revenue I wanted. That’s a really hard thing to explain to people.
But here’s another part that’s even harder and we don’t even admit to ourselves. A lot of times we’re doing worse than other people. We’re doing worse than our friends that have jobs. So, we’re out here on the edges kind of living our lives, opening up all kinds of new vistas for ourselves, but in reality, we’re not doing so freaking well. We can’t say anything about it because if we do, they say, that’s why I told you should have gotten a job. They don’t understand that if I’m not doing well, it means I need to figure out a solution, not that my whole life choice is wrong.
Matt: Yeah. I think it takes a while to learn, especially with your first business, how to actually be successful, how to fix perhaps a broken business model if it’s broken. It’s not something that happens typically overnight. I think that first time successes are the exception rather than the rule.
I remember coming out of college. I came out of a good school and my parents were like, “Why don’t you get a job? You’re friends are over here. They’re going to work at Morgan Stanley on Wall Street.” I said, “Yeah, that’s true. I’m earning a fraction of what they’re making right now.” But I guess it never really mattered to me. I tried to never really care or focus on it. What I was doing with my time I felt was more meaningful and more fulfilling.
Andrew: That’s the way I feel too. It’s something I have to just keep remembering, keep bringing it back to the meaning, keep taking some time and say to myself, “What is it that I really care about? What do I want to do? What is the meaning here? I don’t want to just keep showing up.” Because frankly I could just keep showing up and doing Mixergy and collecting the same revenue, the same praise, the same attention, the same everything for the next few years. But then without noticing it, I’ll have created a job for myself, right? It’s easy to get sucked into that.
Here’s something I’ll say about–oh, sorry, go ahead.
Matt: No, I was going to say I think that’s why Mixergy is what it is and it has a really positive growing brand. I think you used to have on the site, maybe you still do, “Mixergy is a mission.” I really feel like that’s always come through in how you’ve actually built up the Mixergy brand. It’s the primary reason why I watch and listen to Mixergy versus now the ten, twenty, hundred other competitors who have sprung up who came after Mixergy.
Mixergy is a mission. There’s a deeper meaning there. Andrew is always improving his process. He’s always sharing what he’s doing and kind of–you just always have improved, I’ve seen. I’ve always gotten so much from the interviews you’ve given on a deeper level than some of the other people doing something similar.
Andrew: Thanks. I do try to keep it mission-oriented and I do try to keep going more personal and deeper and more and more–like the kind of conversations that you guys will have at a mastermind, the kind of conversations that people will have all the time offline but won’t do online until they get here and then I push.
Matt: Yeah.
Andrew: But I still need to push more. I think more entrepreneurs need to get more open here on Mixergy. All right. So, I will go and deal with this. Here’s the thing that I was going to say earlier. Here’s what kills me. So, Olivia has got a job. She works at Yahoo. She actually loves it. She doesn’t want to be an entrepreneur. She loves going to work every day at Yahoo.
She hates the commute. Everyone gets so excited about how these guys in Silicon Valley have the shuttles with the Wi-Fi and everything else and she has all that. But really, you’re still stuck in a tube for an hour, sometimes an hour and a half going down to Silicon Valley. She hates that. She loves everything else.
One thing that kills me is if she has a little bit of pain, they have a freaking doctor on site. One time, she had pain. She went to the doctor. The doctor said, “I’m so glad you’re here because if you would have waited three more days, it would have been a problem. Here’s all you have to do and you solve this pain in like a minute.”
I don’t have that. I just have to freaking suck it up and keep on plowing ahead and that’s what entrepreneurship is about. That’s why I think we need friends who understand it, who are plowing and pushing forward no matter what with us. I’m so proud to have you on here to talk about how you built this community.
I want people who want to connect with you to have a way to do that. I’ve stopped doing it for a while. I don’t’ know why. Actually, I do know why, because I’ve been promoting the podcast, which has been helping. But with you, I think it’s important that anyone who connected with this at all find a way to talk to you, to say thank you to you. One way to do that is to go Petovera.com–how did you come up with the name Petovera?
Matt: It’s a combination of two Latin words, so, petso meaning to seek or strive for and vera from veritas, so, seek truth.
Andrew: Seek truth. All right. So, if they go to Petovera.com/Contact there’s a Wufoo form where I’m assuming all the information goes directly to you. What’s a more direct way for someone to say, “Hey, you know what, Matt? I got a lot out of this interview. I want to say thank you.”
Matt: Sure. I’m on Twitter via Petovera or Twitter.com/PetoveraDesign or you can email me.
Andrew: Wait, you couldn’t get Twitter.com/Petovera? Someone got it.
Matt: Some random dude came up with it and got it like years ago.
Andrew: Is he doing something with it? Let’s see.
Matt: No.
Andrew: No. It’s one of those eggs. And you can’t get rid of these eggs, even though he hasn’t touched it in more than six years.
Matt: I have to reach out to Twitter or something. I don’t know.
Andrew: You know what? A past guest here, what’s his name? Jason Freed is dying to get BaseCamp. Somebody is just sitting on Twitter.com/BaseCamp and he can’t get it. He has incredible friends–oh, he finally got it. I checked it out like two months ago and he didn’t have it. He finally has @BaseCamp. So, maybe there’s some hope for you. But he really struggled to do it.
Matt: Yeah. I’m sure there’s a way to do it if the name is trademarked. But people can also reach me directly via email, just Matt@Petovera.com.
Andrew: All right, Matt, thank you so much for doing this. Thank you all for being a part of it. If you got anything of value out of this and you used this and you need help forming your group, let me know. I’m Andrew@Mixergy.com. All right. Thanks, Matt.
Hey, you know what? We just said goodbye, but after I stop recording, Matt told me something that we should include in the interview. Matt, what’s up?
Matt: Yeah. So, we actually have an opening in the group right now for the Mixergy mastermind group and we’re looking for one new member to add to the group. There’s going to be a link to a form on Wufoo.com which you can fill out to apply for that.
Andrew: All right. So, if you want to be a part of this group that we’ve been talking about and frankly if you’ve listened this far into the interview, then you’re a good candidate, fill out the form. All right. This time bye for real. Bye everyone.
