Home Office Organization–21st Century Style

Blog Mastermind Mentoring Program Review

Saturday, August 2nd, 2008

Name: Blog Mastermind Mentoring Program
Creator: Yaro Starak
Link to Program: Blog Mastermind
Purpose: Learn how to earn a full-time living by blogging part-time

I’ve published several posts on this blog about the reopening of the Blog Mastermind Mentoring Program. I signed up in December 2007 and I recently graduated in June 2008. I enjoyed the lessons, I love Yaro’s laid-back teaching style and his ability to point you in the right direction while warning you of pitfalls that will lead you astray.

Yaro is a born teacher. He is passionate about sharing everything he knows with those who are willing to learn from him. He gives away material that others would charge hundreds or thousands of dollars to sell. He is very responsive on the course forums and will answer your questions directly if you aren’t getting the information you need from the lessons or forums. I have studied under few others who are as good as Yaro is. In my opinion, he defines under-promise and over-deliver, something very rare in the internet business world.

Yaro did not start off writing his blogs for the money. He started them because he loves the topics he writes about and he loves writing. Earning a living from his blogs was more of a happy accident than an intentional process. He had other jobs or other businesses online and offline, and he blogged for the enjoyment of it. He goes into detail about his background in the course.

Does Blog Mastermind really work?

The key question I get is does it really work? Am I now making a full-time income blogging part-time after the 6-month course? Honestly, I am making some money but not a full-time income yet, and not because the program didn’t teach me how to do it. Other students that started around when I did are making significant money with their blogs. Mert Erkel and Caroline Middlebrook are two I can name off the top of my head.

At this time in my blogging career I just haven’t finished learning and implementing everything Yaro has to teach. It’s one of those it’s not him, it’s me situations. Let me explain…

I’ve been a lazy blogger until this summer. I have a 3/4-time job as a high school math and science tutor and I’m pulled away from the computer during some of my most productive writing hours of the day, 3 p.m. – 8 p.m. My computer was in the shop 3 times for about a month each time since I signed up for Blog Mastermind. I only had my computer in working order for 3 of the 6 months of the course. I used the desktop we have in the den that I had to share with my son, and my productivity during those periods was far less than optimal to say the least.

Because of a lack of computer access during my lessons, I often did a lesson but then didn’t implement anything I learned for weeks. I had to go back and review lessons because by the time I had my computer back, I had forgotten what I was supposed to accomplish. As I got into the more advanced lessons, I had to go back and review previous lessons because I rushed through them and hadn’t completed everything correctly.

I would get some momentum going and get a lot done, and then my computer would break again and I would lose all that momentum. Momentum is very important when you want to accomplish anything. Without momentum, inertia sets in and you tend to backslide. It seems like a higher power is testing my commitment to blogging for any amount of steady income because of all the interruptions. I’m taking this as a test rather than as a signal to throw in the towel and do something else.

Since I’ve had my computer back for a reasonable period of time now, I’ve rebuilt my momentum, reviewed lessons and then spent the time I am supposed to implementing them. It’s fantastic that all the lessons and resources are still available to me even though I graduated from the program and I’m no longer paying for it. Being able to consistently blog 5 days a week is getting me much better results.

The biggest lesson I’ve learned from this program is that consistency, momentum and diligence in writing great, authentic content for my blogs every week is the key to success.

I’ve had most of my blogs for a year or more, and since I started implementing my Blog Mastermind lessons, even during the very sporadic periods I had this spring, traffic to my blogs has grown steadily each month. I am steadily getting more subscribers and I began making enough money to cover my web hosting and autoresponder monthly service fees. Then I started making a little more than that, and I’m presently making at least $100 per month right now.

A hundred dollars doesn’t sound like much I know, but it’s the tip of the iceberg, or more accurately, the beginning of a snowball. As time progresses, I get more search engine traffic, and the more traffic, the more people come to one of my blogs looking for honest information about something and buy something I’m selling. More visitors = more sales = higher income. Lather, rinse and repeat for increased growth.

I have a small snowball right now, but each time it rolls over I can foresee considerable growth as I go back through the lessons and implement more of what I learn. I’ve become a far better blogger and writer since last December, but I still need practice and to implement more of what I learned in the program.

Who Should Study in Blog Mastermind

I’ve talked about the money I’m making, but blogging is not solely about getting traffic to sell products. Blogging is about your passion for writing regularly and copiously about a topic or topics you love. Not like, love.

Blogging is about writing, so you must love to write and want other people to read what you write and comment on it.
Blogging is also about writing regularly, often daily, so you must want to write most every day, or at least regularly each week.
Making a living blogging is about keeping up the process (diligence) and growing your online blogging business from a seed to a giant tree. As we all know, trees don’t grow over night. Blogging for a living requires you to have the passion and patience to grow a business. It is not a throw-up-a-website and make millions with no effort. (None of those schemes work, by the way).
It’s for those who have the desire and discipline to keep writing on a part-time basis for 6 consecutive months or more even though lots of money isn’t coming in yet. The money will come as you progress through the course. Follow Yaro’s teachings closely and the money will come faster in bigger amounts. Do as I have done and the money will come slower in smaller amounts.

Who Should Not Sign Up

If you hate writing, it’s a pretty good clue this course would be a waste of your time and money, and would be a painful chore for you.
If you have your eyes on setting up a website and forgetting it, that isn’t blogging. Blogging requires writing consistent, good content on a regular basis.
If you want to get rich quick, blogging isn’t the path.

Blogging can make you a millionaire, but not over night. It takes consistent work to build your blogging business and grow your online income. After a few years, Yaro is now making 6 figures consistently. But it didn’t start out that way. It took time and effort to make that kind of money. Yaro isn’t a millionaire yet, but one of his students is. You can listen to or read Alborz Fallah’s story here. As a teacher myself, I know how great it feels when one of your students takes what they learned from you and goes to much higher levels with it. No amount of money will ever give you that feeling.

What Does Blog Mastermind Teach You?

If you are passionate about writing and willing to devote yourself to blogging, read on.

Blog Mastermind consists of 27 lessons. You learn and implement one lesson each week for 27 weeks. Here is a list of topics covered:

Let’s Get Blogging – setting up your blog if you don’t have one
Blog Foundations
RSS, Social Proof, and Plug-ins
Finalizing Your Blog Structure
Setup Key Content Pages
Content Focus and Structure
Authentic Content
Personal Branding and Sourcing Content
Hiring Bloggers
Copywriting For Blogs
Marketing Through Conversations
Leveraging Content For Traffic Part I – Forums
Leveraging Content For Traffic Part II – Article Marketing and Blog Carnivals
Leveraging Content For Traffic Part III – Guest Writing
Search Engine Optimization for Blogs
Impact Marketing
Podcasting
Publicity
The Traffic Secret Every Blogger Knows
The Monetization Process
Contextual Advertising
Affiliate Marketing
Direct Advertisers
Five Powerful Ways To Make Money With Your Blog
Email List Profits
Buying And Selling Blogs
Blogging As A Business

Included with the program is a private Yahoo group where you can interact readily with other students and graduates of the program. You will have access to the forum where you can interact with Yaro, graduates and other students. You get a great deal of extra material in the form of reports, podcasts, and videos that go into lesson material in greater detail than the lessons themselves. The lessons are very detailed, but if you want to know the deep meaning of why you should do certain things, this extra material answers those deeper questions. You will have access to several interviews Yaro did with “A-list” bloggers before he was an A-list blogger himself. They are loaded with valuable information.

Are there any downsides to Blog Mastermind?

In all things, there are positives and negatives. Here are some things you must be aware of:

If you don’t fit the program it will not work for you.
If you don’t study the lessons carefully and implement everything, you won’t be successful as fast as you will be if you do.
The lessons will not complete and implement themselves. You have to do the work. This is not an “autopilot business”. It can be hands-off to a great degree and can be very portable, but you or someone must continue to create content for your blog to continue to be successful.
Many internet marketers will review your blog and tell you to stop giving away so much free content and publish something you can sell. If this is where you want to go, blogging isn’t for you. Blogging is about free content and a lot of it. If you have the mindset that you’re giving away what you could be selling, you have the incorrect mindset to be a long-term blogger. As a blogger, you will be able to write your own ebooks and do your own videos and podcasts and sell them, but if you want to hit the road running with sales, that isn’t blogging. I’m not saying that’s wrong, but you won’t be satisfied with this course. You should find another mentor and a different program more suited to your desires.
I wish the program included a way for Yaro and my fellow students to kick me in the pants and keep me going when I lose momentum. I could have done better on the desktop computer, but I was busy tutoring and got lazy about it.

How Much Does It Cost?

This is the last big question and the answer is $97 per month for 6 months, or a one-time fee of $497 up front. That’s an $85 savings if you pay up front.

If you pay monthly, you have access to all lessons up through the weeks for which you have paid. If you pay the one-time fee, you get access to all the lessons at once. If you decide to pay the one-time fee, you should restrain yourself and complete the lessons in order anyway. Skipping around will be less productive for you in the long run.

Are you ready to be a blogger and make it a business? Sign up at the following link:

Blog Mastermind Mentoring Program

Sherri
Blog Mastermind graduate and still studying

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