Back in the early Eighties, the Walt Disney Company was in decline. They’d had some magical years when I was growing up, but there’s no question that by 1983, they were stalled.
The next year, their board of directors made a wise decision and hired Michael Eisner as the new CEO. One reason this worked out well was Eisner understood an important growth principle, which business coach Alan Miltz calls “The Power of One.” I’m going to show you how it helps you build and grow your online mastermind group.
When Eisner took the reins of Disney, the first thing he did was raise admission prices at their theme parks in California and Florida. It turns out, Disney had not raised their prices for many years, and they weren’t growing fast enough to outpace expenses.
LEVERAGING THE LAWS
Now if you read last week’s blog, you might recall another law of economics they don’t teach you: Parkinson’s Law. It states that as the supply of something increases, demand rises to meet it. Eisner understood Disney was in trouble because they were charging 1964 prices to cover 1984 expenses. Any way you look at it, that ignores a key property of money - how it is affected by time.
When I heard this story through one of the men in our mastermind groups, I was shocked. But sure enough, Disney has not repeated that mistake since Eisner became their chief executive. In the late 1980s, for example, it cost just under $30 for regular adult admission. Nowadays, you can pay as much as $124 for the day during peak season.
But it didn’t make that big a jump overnight; the price has risen steadily, gradually … and people continue to pay. In fact, according to people who lived near Disneyland or Disney World at the time, they were the busiest they’d ever been - right up until COVID-19 hit, of course.
You don’t have to follow Disney’s bad example before you can follow their good one. This “Power of One” principle gives you a lot of leverage, not only in terms of what you charge for your masterminds online, but also what you deliver. You can increase the volume of your sales by incorporating a product or service suite.
PRICE AND VOLUME
You can also follow the example set by Eisner’s next move at Disney - he monetized their huge vault of intellectual property. Disney had tons of movies already produced, released and beloved by the world when VHS came out. And do you remember those soft white cases their tapes used to come in?
Now if you look at what we offer at View From the Top, we’ve done the same in the last year or two. With our mastermind business scaled to 15 men’s groups, all fully-loaded, it created a wealth of knowledge that became transferable through The Mastermind Playbook. That’s our product that helps facilitators start their own groups.
We also added volume, not only with the Playbook, but by starting new mastermind categories: ISI Women and ISI Emerging Men. I also provide very limited business coaching services, one-on-one, to select clients. You add this to a solid commitment to financial discipline, improving systems and processes, eliminating waste and being debt-free - you’ve got a winning combination.
I think so much of the layoffs and casualties of the marketplace occur because business leaders go to the wrong sources for leverage. You can’t grow without cash, but a lot of entrepreneurs would rather cut costs and borrow at interest, than add volume and gradually raise prices.
GROWING YOUR MASTERMIND GROUPS ONLINE
Do these stories make you uncomfortable, discussing profit and money when you’re talking about a mastermind? I can understand, business masterminds often start with people who don’t like asking for money. I have to admit, I personally don’t like forming groups where I’m constantly asking people to spend more.
On the other hand, we have to face the fact that if the mission captures the hearts of people like you hope it does, word will spread. It is very easy to reach capacity when you consistently deliver a high degree of value. So what’s the right way to think about money when you’re a facilitator?
One way I can think of immediately is by teaching this very subject to your members. Educate them on the importance of gradually raising prices, introducing new volume, and offering - not selling - your product suite to them. Because Profit First is our go-to book on how to manage money in business, we have a much more open internal culture for discussing it than other online mastermind groups.
Another thing to remember is you don’t have to ratchet prices up at top speed. You could even have a transparent conversation with members to show them how you’ll multiply value to them. This will come along with a gradual 20% price increase, staggered over 12 months. If you start the year with ten members paying $500 each, by the end of the year you’ll gross $72,000 instead of $60,000 per year.
Whatever you do, always consider fair and creative ways to increase price and volume that add value, while not diminishing the value of your time. The truth is, the main reason to use the Power of One is for the benefit of many - your business’ needs and expenses will not get smaller while you’re growing. Nor will the lineup of people who want what you offer - and you’ll need marketing dollars and a budget cushion when you have gaps between losing old members and bringing new ones aboard.
To keep your systems and processes efficient and inexpensive, I also want to invite you to consider investing in The Mastermind Playbook. We teach you everything you need to know, start-to-finish, to run a successful, profitable mastermind group.
