AP 0590: Can I Invite a Competitor to Join My Mastermind Group?

AskPat 590 Episode Transcript

Pat Flynn: Hey, what's up everybody? Pat Flynn here and welcome to Episode 590 of Ask Pat. Thank you so much for joining me today. As always, I'm here to help you by answering your all night business questions five days a week.

Here's today's question from Scott.

Scott: Good Morning, Pat. My name is Scott. I have FreeTeacherTech.com. First of all, I wanted to let you know that Episode 190 of the Smart Passive Income Podcast was the one where I went, “Oh, I think I can do this.” And I stopped trying to learn so much, like over the past year. And started actually doing. So I'm creating my lead magnet right now and that's going to be live by the end of the week, I think.

Anyway, I had a question for you. I'm starting a mastermind group as well. Or at least I'm trying to get into a mastermind group. One of the people I would love to talk to … I think that we would have obviously a lot in common, and be able to help each other a lot could be considered competition in my niche. So I guess that's the question. Would you reach out to your “competition”—and for what it's worth I don't consider him a competition, not because he's not great at what he does, but because I think that we're very different. But technically we're in the same niche.

Would you invite somebody in the same niche into your mastermind, is my question. And thank you again for everything you're doing. I hope to make you proud. Thank you.

Pat Flynn: Hey Scott, thank you so much for the question. First of all, I am proud of you. Because you're doing stuff and you're taking action. I think you don't have to worry about that. I'm always proud of people who take action. That's my #1 thing I look for, especially when I coach people, I'm like, “Are you an action taker?” If so, great. Even if you aren't taking the right action, first of all, at least you're taking action, and let's get you on the right path. So let's do that here right now, Scott.

So you want to start a mastermind. Here's the first thing I want to share with you specifically because you're considering getting into a mastermind with somebody in your own niche. Is that okay? Yes, absolutely. In my mastermind group, am I myself in mastermind groups with people in my own niche? Absolutely. Now I also recommend getting in…finding groups with people from outside your niche too because you get some amazing perspective. But there's a lot of benefits that can come with working with somebody in a mastermind format with somebody in the same niche as you.

The thing I want to point you to is Episode 180 of the Smart Passive Income Podcast. You had mentioned 190, and thank you for mentioning that. But 180 is titled, “How Two Woodworkers Make a Full-Time Income From Their Craft.” This is with David Pechuto and Bob Clagett, who were two woodworkers who would potentially be considered competition with each other, but they work together because they are different.

Like you said, your “competition” that you feel like this person that you might potentially be in a mastermind group with, who could be considered competition, you can work together. If you guys are different you can work together and actually both exponentially grow together, because you're both sharing things that are working, things that are not working, you're able to apply those things and both grow, share each others' audiences, and grow from there.

There's a lot of different case studies and examples from the past in different niches I know specifically the online business niche because that's the one I'm in, but there's been a lot of cases where these sort of “dynamic duos” have come about and have both grown together. Back in the day when I was reading blogs about personal finance it was J.D. Roth and Trent who…J.D. Roth blogged at GetRichSlowly.org and then also Trent blogged at SimpleDollar.com.

They both kind of started out at the same time. They collaborated and they were doing the exact same thing. They weren't very different, yet they both worked together and were both able to grow two massive blogs, and that was because they were collaborating and helping each other out. They were linking to each other quite a bit and also just sharing some sort of insider information every once in a while with each other.

Myself and a lot of people when I first started got together and talked and collaborated and helped each other out, even though they could have been considered competition. Glen Allsopp from ViperChill.com, he and I had became good friends, or become good friends. Chris Ducker and I, from ChrisDucker.com. I mean we sort of just have grown together, and it's just become this amazing relationship. Now we have a lot of trust with each other and we can help each other out and see what each other's doing, and I think that's something that you should definitely have.

It's actually pretty…I don't want to say it's required, but I think it's kind of cool if you have sort of a buddy in the same niche as you that you can run things off and it can definitely benefit both of you. There's no taking away here. Let's have this mindset of abundance, right? And I think that's really what it's all about.

But of course you want to make sure that you vibe with this person and you have conversations with this person first before you sort of pitch them this idea. I think it's really important to do that whenever you're going to get into any mastermind group, is really get to know who these group members are first. If possible meet them in person, shake their hand, have a drink or coffee with them, or a meal. And see if there's a vibe there. I mean really what makes a mastermind group successful is the vibe, and it's hard to tell what that is if you just kind of reach out cold and ask somebody to just join a group because mastermind groups you're revealing stuff, you're sharing information.

Now when it comes to competition, again I think it's really important to consider that yes, they're in the same niche, and you are sharing on audiences so you don't want to step on each others' toes obviously, or copy, or do anything like that. But there's common sense involved, obviously, and there's ways to dance that dance and navigate through that. But I think common sense does have a lot to do with it, and again like I said, if you vibe with that person and you guys are helping each other out and providing value to each other, I think there's nothing wrong with that. Not anything wrong with that, and I highly recommend it to you.

So if you get that opportunity to do that, great, and I wish you all the best. I want to thank you again for your question, Scott, I really appreciate it. And best of luck to you. We're going to send you an AskPat t-shirt for having your question featured here on the show. You're going to hear from my assistant Jessica in the next few weeks so we can collect that information and send it over to you. Again, best of luck, Scott.

To everybody else out there who has a question: If you have a question that you'd like potentially featured here on the show just head on over to AskPat.com. You can ask right there on that page. And as always I'd like to end with a quote, and today's quote comes from Michael Hyatt from MichaelHyatt.com, “leader of leaders” I like to call him. He said “Most of us have experienced ‘wow' moments. We just haven't taken the time to think deeply about them.” Nice. Do that.

Cheers, take care, and I'll see you in the next episode of AskPat. Thanks!