Smart entrepreneurs know knowledge is power and speed is critical in order to run a highly-profitable business.  Equally important is associating yourself with other high-level performers, which is the essence of the mastermind experience.

Study any notable entrepreneur in the past or present and you’ll soon discover that many, if not all, have been a part of a mastermind group and owe a large part of their success to the principle of the mastermind.

Whether it’s my Elite Experience Mastermind Group (http://www.elitemmg.com)
or another top-level group, here are my top five reasons you must be a part of a mastermind group in 2011 if you’re hungry for new growth and income.

1. Brains Are Like Batteries…

… the more you have around you, the greater the power.

A mastermind group lets you add one plus one and get a sum greater than two because it’s a forum for synergy and multiplied brain power.

Very simply, “two heads are better than one” and a room full of “smart heads” is priceless!  The combination of brain power in a mastermind is a powerful force, and you can harness that force to grow rich. In order to succeed, you need to hang out with smart people. A well-run mastermind group, like the one’s I have run for years, is your opportunity to do that.

2. Shared Resources, Strategies & Shortcuts

Mastermind groups provide you the opportunity to ‘borrow’ winning practices that you can adapt to use in your own business. By discovering best practices in your mastermind group, you can apply them to solve similar problems rather than searching for solutions from scratch over and over.

Members of my mastermind groups have never left a meeting without a number of resources and profitable shortcuts for their business.  You should be spending your precious time growing your business rather than solving problems that have already been solved.

3. Form Profitable Strategic Relationships

A mastermind group is ripe for discovering joint venture partners and strategic business relationships.  I cannot count the number of times I have seen my mastermind members create new products together, use each other’s services and products and create lasting friendships.

It’s imperative to align yourself with smart entrepreneurs who are also striving for success. You’ll easily find the right partners in a mastermind group that has been put together correctly.

4. Friendly Competition & Tough Love

I’m certain you hold your team members and employees accountable. But who holds you accountable? No matter how self-disciplined you may be, there’s always room for improvement. The cooperative nature of a mastermind group generates a greater sense of accountability to the group which, in turn, gets things done.

Your mastermind peers are the least likely ones to “let you off the hook” and you need to be open to suggestions and input that may be a bit uncomfortable, but if acted upon, will help you grow in new and profitable ways.

By their very nature, masterminds create a friendly competitiveness among members. No one wants to show up to the group without having done the homework and without some success to show.

Athletes tend to play to the level of their competition. If you’ve ever played golf or tennis against someone who’s more skilled than you, win or lose, you probably played a better game yourself. The same is true in business. Mastermind groups accelerate success because of steep, but very beneficial, competition. In the mastermind experience, no one loses.

5. Create Memorable Experiences

While being part of a mastermind is one of the most sure-fire ways to grow your business and your wealth, there are plenty of intangible benefits as well. To start, it’s just plain fun to be around people who can expand your thinking and your horizons. It’s exciting and invigorating to enjoy a nice dinner after spending the day brainstorming each others’ businesses. Show me an entrepreneur who doesn’t need some outside inspiration on a regular business, and I’ll show you one who’s headed for failure.

Specific to my Elite Experience Mastermind Group, this group combines the power of the mastermind with unique business experiences.  In 2010, my members had behind-the-scene tours at Disney World, direct-response TV giant, QVC and the super-successful Zappos.com.  The lessons learned were priceless!

My Invitation to You

While mastermind groups clearly benefit each member individually, they also provide the unique opportunity to be a part of something much larger than simply advancing your own efforts and enterprise. Truly effective masterminds work to pay it forward and make farther-reaching improvements in their industries and communities. No matter what the topic of discussion or problem to be solved, there’s an ongoing spirit of adventure and discovery in a mastermind group.

In 2010, many of my members have experienced a tremendous year of growth and prosperity and I intend on keeping the track record going in 2011.  I invite you to learn more about my Elite Experience Mastermind Group on November 4, 2010 by registering for my live webinar at: http://www.elitemmg.com

Remember, even the most profound business genius cannot succeed alone. When you surround yourself with others who are striving for success, you put yourself on the right path to be successful and grow rich.

Yanik Silver And Mike Capuzzi

Good Saturday morning!

My wife is gonna kill me because I am "working" on a Saturday morning, but I just had to send this mail to you.

For the past 8 months, Yanik Silver and I have been working on a special type of mastermind group.  While its taken a bit longer than we expected, the results were worth the wait.

It's called Maverick MasterMind™ and it's really something special.

As a matter of fact, we are doing a LIVE webinar this Wednesday, March 31, 2010 at 9:00 PM EDT to describe this unique opportunity.

Join us by saving your seat at:

http://www.MaverickBusinessAdventures.com/mastermind

All the best,

Mike Capuzzi

To recap:

1) Ask for feedback (and capture contact info)
2) Create and share your story
3) Foster an environment of idea sharing
4) Create a “behind-the-scenes” experience for your customers

5) Disney speaks “Disney-ese”
Leave it to Disney to make the guest experience even more magical by coming up with its own language.   For example:

•    “Guest” instead of customer
•    “Cast member” instead of employee
•    “On-stage” and “backstage” to describe the “front office” and “back office”
•    And words like imagineering, edutainment, and merchantising are all further proof of Disney’s uniqueness and the effort they go to stand out.

Developing your own language and unique names for processes and services in your business is smart and helps prevent competitors from making an “apples to apples” comparison to you.

When I consult with business owners, we often spend time on this process trying to create a unique positioning (complete with a name) in the mind of their prospect and customers.

CopyDoodles® is an example where I created a word that has now taken on its own life.  When marketers mark-up their copy they refer to it as “copydoodling” or their letter was “copydoodled.”

Spend some time and think about how you can come up with your own language for your business!

Which brings me to our final lesson learned at Disney…

6) Disney has a profound belief and presence of its corporate culture
As we were touring the behind-the-scenes corridors and spaces of Disney, signs and posters for the cast members constantly reminded them of why their jobs were so important.

Even our hostess had a small business card that had certain values printed on them that she carried with her.

What does your business stand for?

If you have employees – do they understand why your business exists to serve its customers and clients?

Disney is a stellar example of a company that understands why it exists and it does everything in its power to make sure all the guest members do the same.

So that’s the six big lessons we learned this week at Disney.  I hope you can benefit from them.  For more information about my Elite Experience Mastermind Group, please email me at info@mikecapuzzi.com.

The tips I am sharing with you in these posts are the ones our group felt were the most relevant to their business (and your business!).  With that in mind, here are the next two strategies learned:

3) Foster an environment of idea sharing
Disney is very big on promoting the idea of sharing ideas from within its “cast member ranks.” (By the way, there are no Disney employees – they are all cast members, which fosters a stronger feeling of ownership.)

No matter what job function a cast member is performing if they have an idea that could improve the Disney Experience, they want to hear it.  They make this simple and accessible to all cast members and our hostess shared several examples of how the sharing of ideas has benefited the guest experience at Disney.

This concept of idea sharing is critical for entrepreneurial success, which is the reason why mastermind groups exist.  To give forward-thinking entrepreneurs a chance to share their ideas and get feedback from the group.

So here’s two ideas for you to consider:

-    How can you foster idea sharing within your business and amongst your employees.  How can you tap into their experience and wisdom to improve the overall experience?

-    Get plugged into a formal mastermind group or form your own!  The amazing success I’ve experienced over the past several years is directly attributed to my participation in several mastermind groups. If you are not familiar with the mastermind concept, read Napoleon Hill’s classic, Think and Grow Rich.

4) Create a “behind-the-scenes” experience for your customers
Another big ah-ha we went home with is to determine if you have an opportunity to share your own “behind-the-scenes” experience with a segment of your customer base.

Disney is able to create new revenue streams without having to change anything they are already doing.  By simply giving interested individuals a chance to see how they do things, Disney has created a business within itself.

One of our mastermind members already does this in her business.  She runs an extremely successful elder law practice and for a high-priced fee, she invites other elder law attorneys to visit her office and spend a few days learning how she runs her business.

Do you have such an opportunity in your business?  Can you share some of your own business magic, help others and get paid handsomely to do so?

It’s definitely a mental exercise you should consider.

For more information about my Elite Experience Mastermind Group, please email me at info@mikecapuzzi.com.

We held this meeting at Disney for this specific reason – to learn how one of the world’s greatest companies creates exceptional experiences for its guests.  While we learned (and relearned) many of the things that makes Disney great, I thought I would share the six that clearly stood out.

1) Ask for feedback (and capture contact info)
Within minutes of boarding the Disney Institute bus, all of us were asked if we would agree to fill out a short survey regarding our tour.  They did not give us the survey, but instead asked for our contact information to email it to us after our return home.

Two important notes – the interest and mechanism to get our feedback (and contact information) and second the baby-step to get our agreement to do it.  Rather than overwhelm us during the tour, Disney smartly got us to agree first and captured our email info for follow-up.

Surveys are a very smart way to collect information and marketing insights from your customers.  I love using surveys to capture open-ended comments about how my products and services help them.  I then use the exact words they share when writing copy for my business.

2) Create and share your story
Within minutes of meeting our mastermind group, our hostess Maggie told us her story and how she came to work at Disney.  This is a very smart strategy top marketers and speakers use every time they speak, present or engage with a customer.

People like to do business with people they know, like and trust.  Part of this relationship-building process is to let people know how you arrived to where you are today and why you are in a position to help them.

Story-telling is one of the most effective ways to connect with other people and carefully considering and crafting your story is a critical exercise for all entrepreneurs and business owners.

This topic of “your story” came up during several mastermind members presentations.  As a matter of fact, the group helped one of our members create the beginnings of an amazing story that he never even considered using in his marketing (which is typical since we all tend to be to close to see our own stories). In a previous life, Dave was a former Alaskan bush pilot where he flew in some of the most dangerous terrains on earth.  One of the nuggets the mastermind group gave him was how he could use this unique back story in his real estate business.

Over the next two days, I will share the other four strategies that you can take from Disney and apply to your business to make it exceptional.  For more information about my Elite Experience Mastermind Group, please email me at info@mikecapuzzi.com