Yaro’s Blog Mastermind Review

Caroline, I want to skip ahead too, I have made these early mistakes already. I am at least ahead of the 4 lessons thus far. I too plan to stay with it for the reasons you mentioned. I am not sure I have run across someone in this business so willing to help and respond to questions and comments as Yaro. I find that searching the Members Only forums I can sometimes glean some information about future lessons. Give that a try

When many people obtain multi part courses many (me included) skip over the parts that they “think” they already know, which of course is a mistake. Maybe Yaro is trying to force everyone to take every chapter as an “important” chapter.
Just a thought.
Anyway keep up the good work

I wouldn’t expect to see access to the entire course immediately – you could go through the lot inside the first month and immediately unsubscribe, having used all the material for $77. It must say somewhere that you don’t get the course all in one hit, because I realised this when I read the ad. I don’t think you were misled on this point (and I don’t think that’s what you meant to say :) ), I think you just misunderstood.

I’ve heard it said that there is nothing in the course you can’t find on the internet, but that the course just puts it all in one place. This particular selling point doesn’t make much sense to me if you have to wait six months before you can see that one place in it’s entirety, particularly given how fast the face of the web can change. It’s not something I can see myself signing up for, even though I’m as far from being an expert as King Herod was from being a childminder, but I like Yaro’s site and wish him luck with it.

I really liked this review – you’re obviously a Yaro fan, but the review was very balanced and unbiased in spite of it. Definitely not what I see on the net every day, and if that’s the result of Yaro influence then I think we need to clone him :)

hey caroline,

i think you should rename your ‘review’ to your ‘opinion’ – you haven’t seen or participated in the course so you can’t possibly claim to review it. you haven’t reviewed the chapter that you did receive too…so you might mislead people with the title :)

I saw this as I thought it was intended – as an overview of the course from your perspective. Like Lucy I feel you have given a balanced and unbiased account of what you experienced and how valuable you feel this course may be for interested people.

It interested me but, like you, my blog is set up and filled with what I think is pretty good content for my target market. I need to know how to get the traffic and how to encourage commenting. It looks like the traffic part doesn’t start till several weeks in.

I know it is difficult to please all the people all the time, but I wonder if Yaro could chunk this slightly differently for those of us who have put in the initial effort but need help to get beyond the basics.

I’m sure you didn’t even need to try this out, Caroline. But then again, you’re helping a fellow blogger out.

-Mike

Thanks Caroline.

I too have just signed up and have been blogging for a little while. So like you I feel the initial stages at least I could skip.

Another option for Yaro would be to make the set-up stage into a stand-alone unit that beginners could purchase and the more experienced skip.

And another thing, which I just thought of.

I’m in two on line courses at the moment. Both use discussion fora (or forums). There seems to be a problem – the most popular fora get filled with responses (hundreds) but then who wants to read through hundreds of posts? Their success leads to their failure.

In both courses I have posted about this and got no satisfactory response. The only response I received was to make the best posts sticky.

Anyone with wisdom to offer I’d love to hear from (I want to set up my own on line course and see this as a major issue to its functioning well).

Nice initial review Caroline, you definitely have a similar style to my own, listing your opinion based on what you have experienced thus far, both the good and the “room for improvement” from your point of view. I could offer you tips for improving reviews…but perhaps you can wait for lesson 22 ;-)

I also understand the need for urgency, obviously you want to get this out before the doors close to new members later today in case they want to join (hopefully via your affiliate link too!), so there is no way you could go through even what you get in the first week in time to write this (I think there’s something like 30 hours of audio, text and video there alone that you get right away – not including the lessons that come after that).

I appreciate that some experienced bloggers find the first month’s worth of lessons contain things they already know, a few others said the same when Blog Mastermind first launched.

I expect if any person goes through all the lessons even in the first month there are a few things they didn’t know or practice, so as jimdmcd said – you want to be careful to absorb everything.

I find a quick scan of things I already know is a good idea just in case there is a gold nugget hidden in what I thought was old news to me.

That being said, I structured Blog Mastermind so first and foremost a brand new blogger could take the program and not need to go anywhere else for info, which is why the first few lessons are simple to some.

My intention for experienced bloggers is that they go through and study the Mastermind the Mindset audios, the problogger interviews, the video case studies and all the other additional resources AND scan the first lessons during the initial month, which is more than enough to do.

I know there are plenty of new ideas in Blog Mastermind that even the most experienced bloggers won’t have implemented or completely grasped yet – heck, I even don’t do everything I tell people to do!

A good point to make is that Caroline is way ahead of the curve. She is in the 1% of bloggers who actually do things and get results – which is great for her – but unfortunately for others for any number of reasons they just don’t put all the pieces together on their own, which is why they steps and in particular – actions – to follow.

Caroline, I expect most of what you study in Blog Mastermind, at least in the first month, you will know and more importantly, you do, but beyond that, in particular the monetization and marketing lessons may contain a few things you don’t do. Whether that is worth the price of admission for you is another question.

Of course you are not the first person to want to zoom ahead and I’ve already had a number of people pay in advance to get all the content at once because they have time to go through it. Most people don’t however, and having a list of tasks each week to do and taking the course over six months seems to fit nicely, there are way more who like the current set-up than those who want everything at once based on feedback I get from students.

When I launched Blog Mastermind the program wasn’t even created yet, just the initial materials because I wanted to get feedback from the first members (who also got in at discount price in exchange for supporting and helping me out during the early days).

Now that nearly all the materials are complete I can produce that course outline and not surprisingly, as soon as I did some people want to rush ahead or just purchase certain chunks of the program.

From my point of view I would never give access to all the materials at once for the price of one month. Getting $77 a member one time would not have worked on so many levels. I personally would not have devoted six months of my life to create the materials nor do I think many of my partner affiliates would promote at a one time payment as well – they like get recurring affiliate income, which is exactly what I preach in the Blog Profits Blueprint.

Alternatively I could have produced all the materials and then sold the course for a hefty price, like $400 for the course, but that would not likely have sold very well at all. Too expensive for the average blogger to pay at once.

There are a ton of variables to consider when launching a membership site and it’s not as black and white as some might think. There is so much strategy behind it. Obviously you have to consider your most important variable – what your customers want, but that’s not the only variable. There is you – what you want to do – and your affiliates, since they drive sales. Pricing is a big thing as well, remember to some people $77 a month is cheap, others would never pay even $9 for a course like mine – what type of person do you think I should aim for?

Obviously I’d love to help as many as a I can, but as people who run businesses will know, the people who get the most out of what you teach or those who “suffer” a high cost to get in. These people are more likely to take action and get a result since they paid for it. Do you think people would bother to complete university degrees if they were free?

I’ve long planned for an option to buy all the Blog Mastermind materials at once assuming people responded well to what I teach, which I think they have. You can expect a home study version of Blog Mastermind in some shape or form next year, but rest assured, the price you pay now is cheaper than what it will be in the future.

Anyway – that’s enough from me, I have to go finish up a lesson for the students. We’ve had nearly 100 new members join in the last week, so the place is getting very busy!

I hope in six month’s time Caroline that we get another review once you have been through all the Blog Mastermind materials.

Cheers,

Yaro

Oh one thing – can you install the edit comments plug-in to this blog, I missed a couple of words in that reply…

Here’s the plug-in –

http://sw-guide.de/wordpress/plugins/edit-comments-xt/

I’ve got this plug-in coming into my new blog design and man it’s a handy one!

Mental note – read over long comments carefully before hitting reply!

@jimdmcd, yep that’s probably true. Perhaps ’skip ahead’ is the wrong phrase. I’d want to move more quickly through the earlier lessons, I wouldn’t actually skip them.

@Lucy, yeah again wrong choice of words. I didn’t mean that Yaro misled me, as you say, I just got the wrong end of the stick :)

@Evan, yes I saw your posts on that subject in the Teaching Sells forum – personally I can’t think of a solution to it.

@Yaro, thanks for all the great feedback. I don’t envy you – it must be difficult putting together that kind of course that will appeal to lots of people of different skill levels, learning styles, pace of learning and so on!

I suppose you have to aim for the masses, just like with anything really. There will always be people who read and read and never do anything and there will also always be people (like me) who can be a bit impatient. You have aimed in the middle and I suppose that’d just right. I’m just kicking myself for not joining earlier as I think I could have got more out of it that way.

I’m actually really looking forward to getting stuck in and I hope now that I’ve only the first few hurdles with the blog that the course can take me to the next level.

And yes, I’d love to do another review in the future.

Caroline, like you, I wanted to study certain components in depth, and posted on Yaro’s blog earlier about such an option being available. He didn’t – though from his comment here, it’s good news we can look forward to a home study version later on.

While Yaro no doubt has good reason to deliver his course in this fashion, there’s a significant shift in the e-learning marketplace for which reason I have stopped straight-jacketing myself into packaging my teaching material into the way *I* think is best, and offer a ‘recommended’ version, along with ‘components separately’ to fit my buyer’s choice/taste.

Why say “No” to a prospective buyer when you can just as easily give them what THEY want – at a price that makes sense to you?

This is the kind of thing I’m experimenting with:

Complete SYSTEM homestudy:
http://InternetInfopreneur.com/system.htm

Modules a’ la carte:
http://InternetInfopreneur.com/modules.htm

I suspect it will soon become a necessity to do this, as the marketplace gets more discerning and demanding about it’s tastes/needs. Look at how well iTunes does selling individual tracks as against conventional powerhouse music houses selling CDs!

All success
Dr.Mani

Hi Caro,
I just sigend in yesterday. And after the sign-up you are entitled to already download lots of material. That’s what I did then last night ;-))
Anyhow, the material looks very good so far and I just started listening to all the very interesting audios.
Might be that there are some lessons I already know about (as I have a German blog already) but I am nevertheless very much looking forward to everyone of them.
Yep $ 77,00 is some money and yes it will sum up to about 6 month à $ 77,00. But for many people it might be more convenient to pay it in smaller installments.
So let’s wait and see.
Regards
Kirsten

Yaro and Dr Mani both commenting – Gosh!

The correct approach is called multi discipline learning. The principles are taught at teacher training and then you learn how to implement them in the field.

With huge respect to Dr Mani, it isn’t solved by a modular approach either. Sorry. It just isn’t.

For beginner subjects you might be getting away with it, but it certainly isn’t a great empowering learning experience.

If anyone is interested I have 15 years experience of this from lecturing in college face to face.

When applied to elearning it requires a pretty extensive backend system which is what I built for KIP. BTW Moodle is hopeless for this.
The installment pricing issue is naturally solved with this approach too.

I don’t want to clutter Caroline’s blog peddling my wares, so if any one is interested in this topic, you can probably track me down through my blog.

Peter

Peter, you’re absolutely right. I wasn’t implying that ‘modular’ teaching is better or comparing it against multi-modal teaching (a completely different concept, one I understand as a professional teacher myself of over 18 years in medical specialties :) )

What I was hinting/driving at is that the marketplace todays wants something on its terms – and won’t stand to have it packaged and delivered in a specific format ONLY… even if that ‘recommended’ format may be the best way of delivering the most value.

My reasoning is it’s better to give an interested prospect a taste of the value in your teaching (at a price that makes sense for you and your business) rather than ‘excluding’ that prospect from learning from you at all by adopting a rigidly structured program and saying ‘Like it or leave it’.

I explained it more elaborately on a post on my own blog, and Yaro made a nice comment explaining his reasoning. We’re all exploring ‘ideal delivery systems for e-learning’, I guess. In the end, everyone wins – most importantly, the consumer!

All success
Dr.Mani

Thanks Yaro for the edit comments plug-in. Although I’m sure you mentioned it in Blog Mastermind I must have missed it as there is so much material. I’m always learning from you!
Caroline, I found I learned as much or more from the forums. That has been worth the price to me as I maintain several blogs. Welcome aboard!

@Yaro, I’ve installed the edit comments plugin now :-)

Being very new to this medium myself, I can see the point Yaro is making and at the same time I can see Caroline’s point! I respect both writers and can understand that Yaro is attempting attracting the solid individual, however as Caroline pointed out, As much as I would like to, at this time, I am not in a financial situation that would allow me to join. I know that I will suffer in the long run, But we all learn from our mistakes!

I liked this review and Yaro’s comments. I signed up for the Blog Mastermind course and I find it well worth the cost. The additional materials, available from day 1 are excellent. The Forums are great and the mentors, including Yaro are also excellent. Yaro does a first rate job and he does not set unrealistic expectations – good guy!