Hey, friends, welcome back to another episode of the Business Journey podcast. I'm Rebecca. And today is going to be such a fun conversation. I'm talking about the best investment I ever made for my business. Before we dive in, I wanted to let you know about a free class we have going on right now. You can sign up today. It is all about marketing for mini sessions. If you're wanting to level up your mini sessions game this fall, I highly suggest going and watching that class. It's completely free and it's jam packed with information that you can apply immediately. So if you want to sign up, you can go check it out at Rebeccarricephoto.com/minis-class, go check it out. You can sign up and it's going to be awesome. You'll learn so, so much. So let's dive into our topic today, the best investment I ever made for my business. Now, I am several years into this photography business, Rebecca Rice Photography, and I've invested in a lot of different resources. I've done the templates, the guides, the mini courses, the full courses, literally all the things. And I'm a huge believer in investing in education and, you know, really using the knowledge of other people to accelerate your growth. And now, out of all of the investments that I've ever made, the very best investment by far that I ever made in my business was investing in mastermind's. And if you don't know what a mastermind is, basically it's like group coaching where you have one person that is sort of in charge and they do teaching or hot seats. And there's a group of, you know, usually like, oh, six to 12 other individuals that are in this group learning alongside you. And together you learn and you bounce ideas off of each other and hold each other accountable. And it's just an incredible concept, the mastermind concept. So I've been a part of one, two, three, four masterminds in the last like 18 months. And I added it up to see how much I spent on those mastermind's. And since the beginning of last year, I've spent over eighteen thousand dollars on mastermind's. And that may seem like a shocking number, but I will say it was by far the best investment I ever made in my business, because not only did I, you know, gain incredible knowledge, but I made that investment back and then some. Obviously, that's how you know, that it's a great investment. And there are just some key reasons that I want to talk through for why this master or these masterminds were the best investment that I ever made in my business.
And if you're thinking about joining a mastermind or looking at joining a mastermind, I'll talk about this more at the end. But I want to give a little sneak peek that I actually am opening up a mastermind for you guys. And I'm really, really excited about it. It's been something in the works for a long time, and I was just waiting for the best time to launch it. So I am starting this master that you will be able to jump in. It's by application only because I want to make sure that, like, you're at a good place in your business to be able to, you know, really take, you know, what you learn in the mastermind and make the most of it so you can apply. Today, it's Rebeccaricephoto.com/mastermind, and I will be in touch if I feel like we are a good fit. So I want to dive into the reasons why I believe a mastermind is the best investment you could ever make in your business. For me, no one is that it greatly accelerated my growth. Now, I have grown tremendously in the last 18 months. Do I believe I could get here on my own? Sure, absolutely. But I know that if I didn't have the influences in my life that I did in those mastermind's, it would have taken me a lot longer to get where I am just because there's so much that I learned. I gained so much value not only from the master mind coaches, but from the other people in the mastermind that helped me to accelerate my growth. You know, I kind of think of it like having power steering in your car or like horsepower in your car, because if you have, like, a dinky little Honda Civic. So my very first car that I ever had was a 2004 Honda Civic and his name was Stewart. I was a youth pastor. Some of some of my students named him. His name was Stewart. And Stewart was great and did well for me. But there reached a point in Stewart's life where it was looking really sad. And at one point the bumper got ripped off. So I didn't have a front bumper and the power steering went out and one of the handles fell off the doors and the windows, whatever, all down like. A sad life for Stewart. So when the power steering went out, holy moly, you guys, I had a lot of issues and I didn't realize, you know, how helpful power steering was until I didn't have it.
And if you've never experienced a car without power steering, just imagine this. You're at a light ready to turn left. But the only way you can turn left is by using all of your might hand over hand, trying your hardest to turn this wheel. You all I felt like I was going to get an accident every time I had to make a left turn because my car, it took so much effort and energy to turn this thing, whereas whenever I upgraded my car and I traded it in which funny story about trading it, I you know, we went to the dealership, I handed the guy my keys for him to go, like, check it out and see what the values of the car.I was prepared to like pay them to take my car because it was a piece of junk. I knew it did not work worth anything. And so I handed him my keys and he was like, OK, great, which one was it? I said, oh, you'll know. He's like, what does that even mean? I said, Don't worry about it. You'll know. So of course, he went out onto the lot, came back a few minutes later and he looked at me because I knew because this car looked so sad. So anyways, when I traded in and I got my current car, I drive. I had to sign and it had power steering. Oh, my gosh. The difference that it made in my driving experience was night and day. Like, you could not even compare the ease that I was able to drive with. That's kind of how I feel like my mastermind's experience was that could I have done it on my own? Absolutely. But you know what? It would have been a ridiculous grind to get there. It would have taken me so much longer with so much more energy to get to where I am today. It's like I wouldn't have had power steering that I would have, you know, just all the blood, sweat and tears to make this thing go. Whereas with my mastermind's, I was able to grow so quickly and my growth was accelerated because I had other people that have been there and have been successful influencing my decisions and, you know, helping to guide me in ways that they, you know, learned how to get there because they went through trial and error and maybe they didn't have those influences in their life. So it took them a long time, whereas they're able to teach me and I can learn from their experiences, from their mistakes, from their successes, and be able to apply that to my business and just watch it soar. So the accelerated growth was a really, really big reason why I'm a huge believer in mastermind's. The second reason I'm a really big believer in mastermind's is that I built incredible relationships through these mastermind's. Not only did I get industry leaders in my corner that were cheering me on that I had their ear, they were in my back pocket, that I could just call on them literally whenever while I was in the mastermind and get their eyes on things and get their opinions. And it's just so great to have those industry leaders in my pocket. But I also built incredible friendships and just community with the other mastermind members. Some of my greatest and closest friends from, you know, in just the industry in general, I met through mastermind's. And it's just so sweet to be able to have people that you can cheer on and they can cheer you on and you can talk about the hard stuff in business with because you can't always have those conversations with, you know, friends, family. You're able to, like, talk about money wins. That's something that, you know, it can be really uncomfortable talking with family or close friends about money wins, whereas in a mastermind, that's a safe place that you can, like, cheer, you know, come to the brag table and brag on yourself because you deserve to celebrate those wins. So building those relationships was just so special and really made the mastermind worth it because we were able to, you know, bounce ideas off of each other. And even though those masterminds have ended, I'm still a mastermind currently, by the way, I should mention that the other masterminds ended and I still stay connected to those girls because their opinions are valuable to me. And I appreciate what they have to say. And they're just nice people. And I hope we do like mastermind reunion's because they're just so awesome. But even like the mastermind that I'm in right now, there are some incredible minds. And getting to, like, build those relationships with these people is so valuable. And to hear, you know, there are some people that are way farther in their business than I am. And so I get to hear about what they're doing and celebrate with them. And then you draw on their experiences to apply to my own business. So those relationships and those friendships are invaluable and such a great, beautiful part of a mastermind, because you really don't get that with a course. Sure, you know, courses like mine come with a student community where we have a Facebook group together, but it's different when you're on a Zoom call once a week together that, you know, you just build relationships in a different way than you do in a course. And so especially if you're like looking for industry friendships, a mastermind, maybe a really good place for you. So reasons why the mastermind is the best investment I ever made. It accelerated my growth. I built incredible relationships. And the number three is I had a group of people to help keep me accountable. Now, I'm the kind of person I'm I'm very much a self starter. I have a lot of big ideas and I'm motivated. I like to get things done. I'm an Enneagram three. So we're the achiever. I like to do all the things. But it was really great to have people in my corner to help keep me accountable because I dream really big dreams and they can say, Hey, Rebecca, like whatever happened to, you know, such and such that you were going to do. And it's really great to have those people be able to like, call me out and be like, hey, you said you were going to get that done and you didn't like time to buckle up and get this thing done. And, you know, maybe you're not as much of a self starter and you really need and crave that accountability. A mastermind group is the perfect place to get that because you have a group of people that want to see each other succeed. And so you can help keep other people accountable. They can help keep you accountable. And it doesn't even have to be just business stuff like I've helped and, you know, I've helped keep people accountable for personal things. I've had other people keep me accountable for personal things, things as simple as like taking a break and resting, you know, not working on the weekend or, you know, if I my goal is to read a book this week, then those people can help keep me accountable and read a book this week. So there's so many benefits that come with, you know, having people there to keep you accountable. And I would encourage you, if anybody is going to invest in a mastermind, make sure you get the most of it by reaching out and growing in relationship and community with the people there, because that's the mastering principle, is that all these mines are so much greater when they work together. Whereas if you're just by yourself, like, you can get it done, but it's going to take you a lot longer. And so by having other minds, they're working together and, you know, brainstorming and bounce ideas off of each other. It's just so incredible the things that you can accomplish and the ideas that you can generate from having a sounding board. That was something really cool that in my own mastermind that I'm in. Last week, we had somebody that was on the hot seat where, you know, we're focusing entirely on their business and these calls are longer. So we go for about an hour and a half. And towards the end, all of a sudden, it's like we all had this big light bulb moment and had this incredible idea for his business. And all of us started bouncing off ideas. And it took us a while to get there. But once we got there, like we were able to generate this awesome plan for him and he was super fired up and excited to go and like do the thing because all of us were able to just come up with this incredible idea together. And I really believe that any one of us on our own wouldn't have been able to generate that idea, that it took all of us together brainstorming and saying things out loud, just thinking out loud to then spark this idea that we all generated together. So masterminds are very, very powerful, and I just believe they're ten times better than courses. Are courses great? Absolutely. I think there's a time and a place for a course. And if there's something specific that you're trying to learn and there's a course out there designed to teach you that thing, like, absolutely. I like I said at the beginning, I do have the opportunity for you to join mine, if that's something they are interested in. And if not, that's OK, like join somebody's. But if, you know, you may want to learn from me and, you know, continue your growth, whether you're a new business owner or you're seasoned, this mastermind is designed to help anybody level up their business. And so if you are already, you know, doing really awesome in your business and you want to hit six figures, this is the place for you, because I want to help you level up to six figures. If you're like, you know, kind of newer and you want to make this thing full time, this is for you. I want you to be able to level up. And make this thing full time, and so, you know, if you're the kind of person that you're really content with, this being your side gig and you don't want it to grow more than that, then maybe this isn't for you and that's totally OK. But if you are wanting to, like, really level up this business thing, this mastermind is definitely for you. So I mentioned that's application only because, like I said, I want to make sure you're in a place that you're ready for an investment like a mastermind. And so you can apply today at Rebeccaricephoto.com/mastermind, you'll find all the info there. You can fill that application out. And I will be in touch, especially if you are a good fit, if you're not a good fit. I'll let you know. I want you to feel really encouraged to know, like I'm not going to let you invest in something if I feel like you're not ready. So I will let you know if you're not a good fit. But if you are, then I'll encourage you like this. Now's the time to jump on it, because guys, I don't do one on one mentoring like I have. People reach out to me all the time asking if I do. And occasionally I'll do like a one off thing usually if it's just, you know, a friend of mine. But for the most part, I don't do one on one mentoring. And so if you're ever wanting, like, my personal eyes on your project and me, you know, speaking into your business and giving you that real one on one guidance, then the mastermind is the place to be because you'll get weekly calls with me. We're going to do it's a one month intensive, a one month intensive. So we're going to do four calls for weekly calls and you'll have unlimited Voxer access to me for the entire month. So Voxer is kind of like walkie talkies. It's kind of funny, but it's like voice chatting back and forth. And so you'll have unlimited Voxer access to me. You can send me any of your, you know, your portfolio, your website, your anything for me to, you know, get eyes on and just help you however I can in this month. And so if that's something that you're interested in, definitely apply today. If you're like I just don't know if I'm ready for it when in doubt, go ahead and apply. Don't disqualify yourself. Let me tell you if you're not ready. And like I said, I'll let you know because I want this to be an investment that's worth it for you and for you to get the most out of it. But if you are ready, go ahead and apply and see what happens. Spots are extremely limited. I'm only taking twelve at a time. So if you want to be one of those twelve, definitely apply. And if we can't get you in this month and you're a good fit, we may have a spot for you for next month, but definitely fill that out again. It's Rebeccaricephoto.com/mastermind. And I will link it here in the show notes so that you can have it if you have any questions at all or you are wanting to sort of see if you should apply or things like that. Feel free to message me on Instagram at Rebecca Rice Photography. It's really me there. I do have a big team, but I'm the only one in my DMS. So if you're like, is this really Rebecca responding? Yes, it is really me. I'm the only one in mediums, so feel free to hit me up. And I would love to chat with you to see if this is something that you want to invest in. If you want to do like a short zoom call, I'm open to that as well. If that, you know, helps ease your mind, we could do like a quick ten minute zoom call and chat about it, whatever you need, because I know making an investment in your business, it can be really scary and intimidating. And you want to make sure that, like, you're being a wise steward of your money. And so I want to help you however I can, to make sure that this is the best move for you. All that to say, go check it out, go apply to my mastermind. And I would love, love, love for you to be a part and to be able to speak into your business. That would just be a huge honor for me. And I'm so excited to see everybody that ends up joining. So with that, like I said, if you don't join my mastermind, look into a mastermind might find somebody that you can learn from in a group setting because it is the most incredible experience that you'll ever have. My only regret is not doing it sooner. So I really highly suggest checking out a mastermind if you are not in one already. So with that, we'll go ahead and sign off for today. I hope this was helpful and insightful for you. And again, I can't wait to chat with you guys and just see how I can serve you best. So we'll see you this time next week. Bye, guys.
Episode Transcript
