Ep 6: Building Success Through Community with Million Dollar Sellers

Tim Jordan:

When I think back to some of the most profound moments in growing in my business journey, one ofthem was in Orlando, Florida at the Gaylord Opryland Hotel and Resort there. I just showed up to reallyone of my first conferences for e-commerce sellers, and I didn't know a soul. Complete strangers there tome. But I knew I wanted to connect and learn more. And there was already a community built around thisevent and it was hosted on a Facebook group. So in that Facebook group specific to that event, I made apost that said, "The first six or eight people that respond to this post, I'll buy you a steak dinner tonight."So all these complete strangers jumped in, responded, and I said, "We'll meet at a steakhouse there at theresort at" whatever time it was.

So sitting around the table was a bunch of complete strangers to me, but that steak dinner, thatopportunity to network and meet other folks within this larger community helped me meet lifelong friendsnow that I've been friends with for 10 years. Our family's actually vacation together now. It helped memeet future business partners, and I learned a lot of things just sitting around that table that I didn't knowabout business that fundamentally changed my trajectory of success.

Community is important. Community is massively important. My role at Carbon6, Chief CommunityOfficer, is focused around community, but there's also a lot of major brands and products out there thathave built communities around their businesses that have fundamentally changed their success. Today, thetopic is community and whether or not you're interested in educational community or building acommunity around your physical brand, it's going to be an important episode. Great information coming.Hope you listen to the end. Here we go.

Hey, everybody. Welcome to another episode of the Growth Gear podcast. I'm your host, Tim Jordan, andtoday we are talking about community.

Now, I live in a community. A lot of you live in communities, but that's not the community I'm talkingabout. The community I'm talking about specifically relates to entrepreneurism, and it kind of doublerelates to you if you are a product or a brand seller. There's really two types of communities that apply tous, and today we want to discuss some things that are pertinent to both of those types, so if you're a brandowner and you're trying to develop a brand community or a community around your brand, or if you're anentrepreneur and you want to be engaged or involved with a community to help you level up. Preferably,you're thinking about both of these.

Now, many of us understand the idea of an educational community. These are fellow entrepreneurs thatwe work with, that we learn with, that we kind of jive with and hopefully grow together with. The conceptof a brand community is actually a little bit newer. And as I was doing some research before this episode,there were some that obviously made sense in my head. There were some that were new to me. Some ofthose brands or brands with communities include Apple and Starbucks.

And I thought, "Well, Starbucks has a community?" Well, the example they gave was the Pumpkin SpiceLatte, right? When that comes out in the fall, Starbucks makes this huge thing around it. They have brandambassadors, they have chats that pop about it. But what about companies like Harley-Davidson? Harley-Davidson has a massive brand community. All the guys that get together for meetups, the guys that ridetogether, the guys that meet literally in clubs at the Harley-Davidson stores. Lego, Airbnb, Sephora,GoPro, these are all brands that have communities.

So to talk about this concept of community, I brought in two guests today that are both brand owners andbrand builders, and they're also the founders of one of the most prestigious, and I believe elite,communities in the e-commerce space, the Million Dollar Seller group. So I want to introduce Ian Sellsand Franky Farina who are, like I said, the co-founders, the CEO, Ian, and the CMO, Franky. Sowelcome, guys.

Ian Sells:

Man. Thanks for having us here.

Franky Farina:

Stoked to be here. Thanks.

Tim Jordan:

All right, so honest answer. Of the brands that I mentioned with communities, which one of those weresurprises to you and which one were kind of like duh moments?

Franky Farina:

I think the duh moment was, I think, Harley-Davidson because when you look at that brand, it's like that'sall you picture when you think of Harley is these groups going out and doing their rides together.Certainly, the Pumpkin Spice Latte was a surprise.

Tim Jordan:

So as we jump into this, I'm going to pick both of your brains on a lot of these things, and I realize this isthe first episode we've done on this podcast with three guests. So for those of you listening, bear with usas we try to get our cadence and figure this out, and hopefully I'll incite some sort of riot and get theseguys arguing with each other and extract some nuggets that way.

But if you guys would, one of you jump in and talk a little bit about the genesis of the MDS group, kindof how that idea got started, and maybe the first year of that group, what did it look like, assuming thatyou had no idea it would turn into what it is today?

Ian Sells:

Yeah. Well, it started back when I was just building my own brand on Amazon and finding people on theinternet basically that were kind of doing the same thing as me. Stumbled across a lot of people who weremy age or whatnot, going to China solo, things like that. And we were just sharing ideas because therewas no roadmap for how to sell on Amazon. There was no guidebooks and there was some info beingsold and shared as courses and stuff. But from my previous background, I was not trying to reinvent thewheel and I was trying to stay ahead of the curve essentially.

So I was able to find people in different Facebook groups that I was chatting with and say, "Hey, join mygroup. We're talking high-level stuff. These are the people who I'm verifying that they're actually sellers.They've been selling for a certain amount of time and they have reached a certain level of sales."

And so that's kind of how the community started. It was just a community, it wasn't a business, wasn't amodel. It was really just a network that I could rely on. And it made going to China more fun because sixyears ago, I had friends to hang out with and have dinner with when I was there by myself for three weekstrying to figure out how to bring a new product into market.

Tim Jordan:

Frankie, I know that you're leading a lot of the charge on recruiting and on development of thecommunity now. Give me the 30-second version of what MDS is now. Talk about size a little bit, talkabout structure. Just for context for the listeners, what is MDS today?

Franky Farina:

Sure. So we're a e-commerce virtual mastermind, let's say, community for sellers that are in e-commercethat predominantly sell on Amazon. The common thread for most of our sellers is Amazon, but e-commin general. And we represent about $8 billion in revenue on Amazon specifically with our 650 members.

The curation of this group means that we've created this collective of shared experience that everyonecould tap into because there's likely not a single issue that you'll run into when you sell an e-comm and onAmazon that someone else in the group hasn't already been down that road. So there's no reason toreinvent the wheel, right? You just kind of learn from each other and instead of trying to find the answeryourself.

Tim Jordan:

$8 billion is a big number. And all of that is essentially branded e-commerce sales.

When I was looking at the definition of community before we got started, this is what ChatGPT threw outat me. It said that, "Community is people who share common characteristics, interests or goals, whointeract within a particular geographic area or virtual space." And I like that as a definition because whenwe think of community, we do think of in-person, but obviously we live in a world that's virtual, that'sdigital. The folks that are talking about Pumpkin Spice Latte in the Starbucks community are probably notmeeting up in parking lots like the Harley-Davidson guys, and the Harley-Davidson guys would probablymuch rather meet up in the parking lot of a Harley shop than chatting on Discord. So I think that thecombination of those is important.

When I continue to read that definition, I looked up the key elements that ChatGPT lists as important forcommunity. They include things like shared identity, interconnectedness, similar purpose or goal,communication, shared resources, and norms and values. Anything in there that, I don't know, stands outor missing when it comes to the key components of community in your heads?

Franky Farina:

Sure. I think from a shared value standpoint, I think that's actually one of our core values is we're all like-minded and driven. I think that this world, you kind of nailed it, it's virtual more now than it's ever beenpost-COVID, post-COVID era. So there's so many people who are just operating on their own, maybe notlone wolves because they have a team, but their team is also virtual and they can't talk the same way totheir team that they can with other entrepreneurs.

And then your normal day-to-day life where you're surrounded by your friends from college or highschool, your neighbors, those are all kind of working professionals, very great people and jobs, I'm sure,but you can't have the sort of dialogue that you're really going to feed off of like having someone that youcould talk to specifically about what you're going through in this journey of navigating Amazon's newestthing that they're going to throw at you. So having that shared identity is really important, and I think thatis what resonates really big for a community like ours.

Ian Sells:

Yeah, I would add to that there is a big difference also between a community for a certain type of thing.So like Harley-Davidson, right? That is a niche community of motorcycle enthusiasts. And so if you go toa motorcycle enthusiast community, you're not going to align as well with those people in that roombecause they're going to be talking about different types of bikes that you don't ride, or they might betalking about dirt biking. So these niche communities are actually really prevalent and actually bring thecommunity even tighter and closer together because they have such a common thread of the way that theythink, the way that they act, what they buy, how they live their lives.

And so that's where MDS has become this community of e-commerce Amazon sellers, not justentrepreneurs in general because we're all entrepreneurs that were doing this, but we found that niche ofe-commerce, and Amazon is our real core focus, but in general, e-commerce is what we do, and we'realways looking to expand and grow in that way, but we all have similar interests when it comes tomarketing theory, how to launch products, what to do. Our network is really tight in that way.

And so I think there's levels to communities and being in this community is really going to probablyprovide you the most value for your specific role. Now, if we were in the larger space, we might learnmore about other things. I've been in other communities that are entrepreneur-focused like EO and YPO,but I'm with people that are owners of businesses, but we have nothing more in common than beingfounders of businesses. They own 10 pizza joints or whatnot.

So it's really cool to see how community has evolved because same thing in any big community, whetherit's a school or a neighborhood or a church or whatever, there's going to be subsets of that community thatget deeper and deeper.

Tim Jordan:

As I break up this list of key elements, I kind of circled some: shared identity, purpose or goal, norms andvalues. Those are almost like the stabilizing base foundation of this thing. That's how you get started. Theother thing, shared resources, communication and interconnectedness almost seems like the facilitators ofcontinuing that community. If you're not communicating, if you don't have some sort of connectivitymechanics, I don't know if that's the right term, and then being able to share resources, whether that'swisdom, education, support. So it sounds like there's kind of two levels.

So for the listeners, what I'd like to do is ask you some questions and get some advice here because ourlisteners are thinking about how do they build a community or they're thinking about, "Should I beinvolved in a community?" I was just on a call with a new seller who's watched a lot of online content andshe wants to build a community around her brand. She also wants to join a community, doesn't even knowwhere to get started. Where is the place that she needs to be?

So hoping we can glean some great information. I have no doubt that we will for our listeners here. So I'mjust going to start lobbing out some questions and we'll see where it goes. Sounds fair?

Ian Sells:

Sounds great.

Tim Jordan:

So as we're thinking about communities and the communities that you're building and leveraging yourexisting community to create growth and some sort of levers that people can pull to continue finding moresuccess, how do you effectively engage with those community members yourself? Because myunderstanding with communities is that there has to be some sort of strategy from the top, otherwise it'sjust a bunch of disjointed communication that falls apart. So if you're Harley-Davidson, you need to befacilitating that community. If you're MDS leadership, you need to be facilitating some sort of growth.How do you engage with the community members specifically at MDS as opposed to just letting all themembers communicate independently, which also happens, right?

Ian Sells:

Yeah, that's a great question, Tim. And I think it's one where it really makes us different than othergroups. We are member-driven and member-led, so I'm not the voice of reason. I'm not the one that'stelling everybody how to do things. The members are really the value of the organization, and that's whatwe lean on. And so we put together core values that allow our members to align with that. And so thatallows them to say, "Hey, this person doesn't align with our core values. This person should be in ourgroup because they do align with our core values and they are proven and they will be willing to put thegroup first whenever they're talking about things."

And so from our standpoint, we put together frameworks and ways to help organize the content, theresources, the members, and give them more touch points, more ways to connect. And so that's kind ofwhat we do as leadership is not really being in the front and center, but really finding ways to makecertain members front and center, whether that's winning Member of the Month and getting a prize fortheir contributions that month, or we have MVP, Most Valuable Post or Person, that contributedsomething just crazy value or people that have traveled across the world to come to one of our amazingevents where we bring together the top minds in the industry to network and learn and educate each other.So we do a lot to cultivate that.

I think Frankie could probably talk about our chapters. We have squads, other things that we do as anorganization to really make sure that these people are getting a ton of value, 10X, 100X what they'repaying to be a part of us, but also getting way more than that personally.

Tim Jordan:

So what are the core values of MDS?

Ian Sells:

I'll be happy to share those with you. Yeah. So one of our core values is called, "Give more, get more." Sothe more that you put into the group, the more you're going to get out of it. That means that the more youshow up, the more you help others, the more they're going to be willing to help you. You can't just comein and take, take, take.

"What would Mom say?" is another one. So that's living with integrity and understanding that you need todo things that your mom would be like, "I'm proud of you" for, not like, "Hey, you shouldn't be doingthose things in class."

"Like-minded and driven" is really what connects us all, and that's really how we are motivated to besuccessful, want to help others, but we're also like... This is not a back burner thing. We're taking this tothe full extent.

"We put the group first." So that's really where the members... And these go for us as leadership and themembers, so they kind of resonate in both worlds. Group first, so whenever we're doing stuff as aleadership, we're thinking about how that impacts the group, not just like, "Hey, I'm going to make moremoney from this." And same with the members. They're like, "Hey, I'm here to bring value. I'm here toput the group first over my own monetary benefits or my own personal benefits."

And "proven" and "show up" are our other two, which is basically in MDS, we're one of the only groups Ithink that has a requirement of doing at least $1 million in revenue to get in our group. So it really sets astandard of the type of person that's in there. We believe that's somebody that's either a full-time ortransitioning to full-time in the e-commerce space.

And then "show up." If you say you're going to come to a call, come to that call. If you're going to cometo an event, come to an event. If you're going to say, "Hey, I'm going to jump on a call with a member andhelp them out," do that. Be present when you're doing that, and you'll get more out of the group.

So those are the basics of our core values, and we live by those, members live by those, and even ourpartners that come in understand those values and they resonate with everybody. We took a lot of time toput that together.

Tim Jordan:

So Frankie, from an advertising marketing perspective, as you go over these core values with potentialcommunity members, which one of those resonates the most initially? And is there one that laterresonates more as they've gotten involved with the community, realized, "Hey, this is actually moreimportant or more impactful than I expected it to be"?

Franky Farina:

I love that because there is kind of this evolution of like, "Okay, this makes sense. This is why I'mjoining." And then you realize when you're in deep enough in MDS, you're like, "Holy shit. I didn'trealize the impact of this that they were telling me about from the start, but it didn't really resonate untilnow."

And the one that I think right out of the gates is "proven," and Ian kind of mentioned, there's a barometer.You need to do $1 million to join. $1 million this day and age is not a lot to do in revenue, but what itdoes is it filters out a lot of the noise from other groups that are out there that maybe have a lot of entrypeople trying to figure things out. So the fact that everyone in the group's doing $1 million, to do $1million, you're likely not getting lucky. It's very likely you're good at some aspect of the business, whetherthat's launching new products, whether that's PPC or influencer marketing or listing optimization. The listgoes on. Maybe you're good at sourcing.

So you put all those guys in a room, and going back to the facilitation question you asked prior, our job,we're not an education platform. We are facilitators because the beauty is you get these guys and gals inthe room who are proven, who are doing well in some aspect, and you put them in room together and youkind of get out of the way. Obviously, you guide them, you give them something to start them off, andthen the magic happens just getting out of the way and letting them talk because they're starting to solveeach other's problems, they're starting to get better. Maybe you're good at influencer marketing, but you'renot good at listing optimization. And when you leave the room after that meeting, when you're at eventsor on these virtual calls, you've now leveled up on those other aspects of the business.

And I think further, once you're in the group longer term, I think that like-minded and driven value thatwe have, you start to realize, "Wow, this is my tribe. I came here to learn and for my own personal gain tolearn the latest strategies or hacks or whatever," but then you realize, "wow, this is actually... This is just areflection of who I am and who I want to be." And you start understanding like, "Wow, this guy's doing$30 million a year and he's no smarter than I am, so I can do this." And people start coaching others andmentoring others, and you start to break through these kind of barriers of limiting beliefs.

And there's a lot of talk around that within the group. We've got sellers who came in doing $2 million ayear in revenue, thought that was basically that's where they're at and they're happy with that number, andthey'll do $400 million this year because they surrounded themselves with entrepreneurs of this caliberthat were doing things that they didn't even think were possible and they just went and did it. So

Tim Jordan:

Whether our listeners are thinking about becoming part of an educational community, forming aneducational community or forming a brand community, how should they measure the KPIs of success?What are the components of, I don't know, the success metrics that people should be looking at todetermine if this is a success or failure?

Ian Sells:

I would say they definitely need to look at themselves because whenever you go into a room or acommunity, the KPI is can I go talk to enough people to get my value out of this? Can I open myself up?Can I put my concerns away and go and approach this group of people and ask, "Hey, what do you guysdo?" You have to have value that you have something to offer. You may not know what it is, but you canfigure out ways to communicate and be more confident.

So I think the KPI is can I do this? And you get what you put in. That's like our "Give more, get more."So if you just come in and you're like, "Hey, I'm the best seller in the world. I don't need anybody's stuff,but I'm just checking this out," you're probably not going to be a good value of the group and you'reprobably not going to fit in. If you come in there and you're like, "How can I help others? What can Ifind? What can I do to support others?" and then gain from that and gain connection and resources andstuff like that, that's really a one great KPI.

I mean, financially, you're driven. One, when you're doing $1 million or $10 million in revenue, one littletrick that you learn every month can literally pay back your entire investment in an event, in a community,whatever it is that you're paying for. Because saving a penny or 10 cents per unit or reducing your cost by1% is going to actually pay dividends and compound over time. So you don't know what you don't know.And the people that are cocky and have that confidence that they just know everything, they usually endup suffering and they're missing out on so much opportunity than just open and honest and authentic.

And so I think the KPI is really internal, I guess. It's an interesting question because we don't reallymeasure that, but we do award people that have grown their business since coming into group and all thatgood stuff. But I think the way I see it is people coming out of their comfort zone and we try to pushmembers to do so, and that's where they get the breakthrough, the value, and they start to build thoseconnections.

Franky Farina:

It's also, it's just really critical to lean on certain people within the group early that you know just fit thatmold and let them serve as leaders within the community. Because at the end of the day, like myself, Ian,and Eugene, our third partner, we're not the ones who built this. It's our members. And we really leanedon so many of those and rewarded them. We sent them whatever, awards and gifts and call-outs and thatkind of stuff, and we just had this thing where everyone wanted, they had this desire to just help andcontribute and add value where they could. And that's really hard to replicate. It's really hard to get right.

And I think part of the other thing too is we were very methodical with our growth. We only added eightto 10 members a month. We had them assimilate or integrate into the community with a value-add postand an introduction that was meant to lead with value. We didn't want the group ever to feel like, to ourexisting members and our legacy members, like a foreign place, like, "Where is this? I don't recognizethese faces here." So we're very intentional about how we add people and what we expect of them, and wedo a good job of onboarding them and providing resources for them to get the most out of the group.

But at the end of the day, it's not a cash grab. We're not trying to add 50 people in a given month. We justwant to make sure that we're adding just enough to not make it feel like it's not a familiar place to thelegacy members who are really the core of the entire group.

Tim Jordan:

So I've heard a lot of stuff that I have follow-up questions on. One is this idea of fostering internalleadership, or maybe not individual internal leadership, but hive leadership, like let everybody run thisthing, which is I think empowering because when we think of everything that we have to do to run asuccessful brand, it's a lot and we have limited bandwidth. So for me, the idea of building a brandcommunity seems daunting because I would've envisioned that I would have to take the leadership onthis. But what you're saying is leadership doesn't mean doing all the work. Leadership doesn't mean you'rehaving to carry all the weight. What you're doing is facilitating an environment where other people cantake responsibility and start contributing, and you don't have to do everything yourself.

As we were sitting here talking, I was Googling some more on my laptop, and I came across a HarvardBusiness Review article that talks specifically about the Harley-Davidson community. And it's talkingabout myths and realities. One of the myths is that opinion leaders build strong communities. Whatthey're saying the reality is is that communities are strongest when everybody plays a role.

So in an entrepreneurial community, that's tough because a lot of us are Type A, we're go-getters, we wantto be helpful, and sometimes we think that our way is the best way. How do you facilitate an environmentwhere maybe the people that see themselves as natural leaders, are most outspoken and kind of want to becenter stage, don't overpower and overwhelm and subdue the folks that may be introverted, silentgeniuses that have a lot to contribute? How do you balance that out in your community?

Franky Farina:

Great question. I mean, you're making a... Very thought-provoking, right? Because this is exactly what wehave and what we see all the time in the group. And to your point about Type A, it's hard. A lot of our,especially our team, our staff where they're trying to interact with the membership, but hey, you got toremember these guys and girls are... They're true Type A. They're the boss and in their environmentalways. And so it's hard to really break through in a meaningful way all the time, especially if you're notan existing founder. For us, as members who also have ran businesses, it's a little easier because they'relike, "Okay. Again, this is someone that I can resonate with because we fought the same battles."

But as far as getting the most out of people who are introverted versus those... I think Eugene, our thirdpartner who's not here, he's done a great job, especially at our events, to pull out what he can from thosepeople. We do a lot of really good, I guess they're icebreakers, where everyone's meeting each other in avery intentional format where, by the beginning of our events and stuff, everyone has already meteverybody. So immediately, the wall comes down a little bit and so people feel a little bit moreempowered.

There was just a guy yesterday at one of the virtual masterminds we did. We just told him. He describedhimself as an introvert, and he said he finally, at our event, felt like he had a place because people wereasking him and we created these sort of roundtables and everyone's like, "Hey, you're here. You have tocontribute." So there's a layer of responsibility and accountability that we make everyone kind of partakein, and that forces a lot of people out of their comfort zone often, but they end up obviously getting a lotout of it when they're willing to challenge themselves what they thought, the kind of person they thoughtthey were.

Ian Sells:

Yeah, I can add to that too. Just our core values have really helped us with that because it allowseverybody to identify who that person is that maybe hasn't checked their ego at the door or thinks thatthey're better than others. We've had to remove people who can't follow, "What would Mom say?" Berespectful and having integrity and whatever. Just because you're a great person or you sell a lot or youhave big reaches isn't an excuse. And so we really foster that relationship internally to make sure that thepeople that are here, they can raise their hand and stand up and provide more value and be center ofattention. That's totally fine, but you got to do it in a certain way that actually is providing value.

And in general, whenever you go to a conference, there's usually, if you look around the room, there'susually a certain handful of people who are talking a lot. And so when we bring in new people to ourcommunity, I kind of use the metaphor of like, "Hey, you're walking into a room of people you don'tknow. You can't just go and ask people, 'Hey, can you help me with this?' You got to come in there withthe best foot forward, give some value, start to interact. 'Hey, where are you from? What's up?' Then youcan start to extract value. Then you can start to find relationships." But we're trying to foster that valuethat everybody here is proven, so everybody deserves some time. When you're at normal conferences, youdon't know who you're sitting next to.

That was one of my issues. As we grew, I kept sitting next to people or getting invited to have dinner witha friend, teach them about Amazon, and nothing would happened. And it was like, "Well, I'm wasting mytime. This guy next to me, we spent all day building a relationship and he's just not going to be able toadd value to me." That's not a bad thing, it's just I wanted to level myself up. And so by surroundingmyself with people who are like-minded, I can understand that I'm not going to be the biggest person inthe room or the smallest, but everybody here has value, and that's kind of how we have facilitated thatreally good culture. That's really what it is, culture.

Tim Jordan:

So if we have people that are listening to this that are considering an educational community, anentrepreneurial community, what are some of the biggest mistakes you've seen folks make when they joina community that leads to a "failure" for them? What is the most common thing that people do that screwsup their whole opportunity and doesn't allow them to succeed?

Franky Farina:

I think the expectation that, "Hey, I punched my ticket. I paid my dues. Give me what I'm due." That sortof mindset is one that doesn't resonate with the rest of our members because at the end of the day, it's allabout the shared experiences and knowledge of each other. Again, we're not an education platform, so ifyou're going to lean on each other, it means you got to put in the work. Not to echo too much what Ianwas saying, but "give more, get more" is probably the most important core value that we have.

I think there's a interesting thing we plotted. We award our most active members each month. They get anaward. And there was a point in which I plotted these guys' growths on a map, on a chart, and I was like,"Wow, look, as a group, whatever, we're growing at like 40%. And these guys and gals who are winningthese awards for being active and adding value to the community consistently, they're on a another level.They're going at 50, 60%." So it's really interesting how that works because these are people who'vededicated obviously lots of time and effort and energy in investing in other people in the community byproviding value.

But something about it, call it karma, call it what you will, but they're getting back many times overbecause it's very clear in their businesses that they're on a different growth trajectory, and so...

Ian Sells:

Yeah. And I'll add to that, it's like how many times have you bought a course and then you downloaded itand then you did nothing and you just expected that that purchase was going to translate to your learnings,and then you don't take the time to invest in that course, right? I mean, I've done that numerous times. Oryou come in and you're like, "Give me, give me, give me, give me," and it's like, "That's not how itworks." Yes, we have documents. Yes, we have resources. Yes, we have hundreds of hours of recordedcontent that you can watch all of our pack calls, mobile calls, expert calls, whatever, all that stuff, but ifyou don't take the time to do it or you don't take the time to network to short... The networking is theshortcut, right? Going to a conference, listening or watching a podcast or reading a book is a long way toget a little bit of information. But that little bit of information really can make big changes.

So by talking to somebody and then distilling down that information, "Here's exactly how you should useinfluencers and what's working for me," versus I'm going to take a seven-hour influencer course and thenI'm going to get started. So it's really the shortcut. And to do that, you need to be able to interact and buildyour relationship with those people.

And so that's the mistake I see people out there, not choosing the right community to be a part of andunderstanding how the community actually benefits you, and then also not being clear on your intentionswhen you join that community.

So for us, it's not just about selling on Amazon, it's investing in real estate and making good stockpurchases. It's life. It's how to lose weight, it's how to deal with family issues. We have different sectionsof our group to fulfill those needs of a community. But everybody has shared experiences, and that's reallythe most important thing is fostering that shared experience and having members that really just want tocontribute to that resource.

And also, sometimes I see that even putting it down a paper and getting it out there and letting otherpeople to see it is actually a lot of value for yourself because you took the time to put that down and nowyou have a resource that you've created, you can share with your friends, your team, whatever. And so itdoes feel good when you actually contribute authentically to a community.

Tim Jordan:

So let's talk about conflict. And this applies to anybody that's listening that wants to build a brandcommunity, wants to build an education community, or maybe is a part of or thinking about joining aneducational community.

Now, the way my brain works is I hate conflict. I love everything to be hunky-dory. But when I imaginemyself in a community of 600 people, there's going to be differing views. Specifically at MDS, there'sgoing to be people that have different ideas of how they should rank and launch a product. And if you'reexpecting everybody to jump in and be helpful, you're going to have people that differ on their opinions.You're going to hear conflicting advice, you're going to have hard-heads bumping heads with other hard-heads. It's going to happen.

As an example, going back to Harley again, I know we're kind of beating a dead horse, but in this HarvardBusiness Review article, one of the myths is that, "Communities should be lovefests for the communitiesor for the faithful brand advocates." And it's saying, "The reality is smart companies and smartcommunities embrace the conflicts that make those communities thrive," so like a iron-sharpens-ironthing. Specifically to some of their examples here, they're talking about how PlayStation gamers hateXbox gamers, and Apple enthusiasts hate Microsoft and Dell and Androids, Dunkin' Donuts folks shunStarbucks, and on and on.

Within your community, you want to consistently provide an environment where people can level up andwhere productive debate happens, so that new ideas are brought in. So how do you try to balance this ideaof healthy conflict without tearing apart your community?

Ian Sells:

For the most part, again, I think our core values and our culture prevents that from even happening. Yeah,there's disagreements. Yes, there are people that have different ways of launching. There's differentpolitical views, which we say, "Hey, can you take down that post? It's too polarizing." We're not here todo politics. That's not what our community is about. It's really about leveling up your entrepreneurialmindset and your business, so we do have ways of controlling that type of stuff.

But in general, I think our culture, our community really monitors that, and we don't have to do a wholelot of that at the level that we're at. When we had 100 members, there was a lot more opinions. Everybodythought that they were the tip of the spear, and eventually we had to control that. I had to make my owndecisions, even though I ran it democratically very much in the beginning, like, "Hey, what do you guysthink about this? What do you guys think about this? Should I do this?" Now, it's like we take that advicethrough our advisory council, our member-elected advisory council, but we still make decisions based onwhat we think is best for the community, putting the group first, and then do we raise prices? Do we addthis type of perk or extra? And stuff like that.

So yeah, as far as conflict goes, I mean, we don't really have a whole lot of that. What we have is peoplewho start to fall to the background because they're busy in their own lives, they have issues that they don'ttalk about, and so we try to help those people come back into the foreground and get re-engaged and getre-involved because we value everybody's opinion in MDS.

Franky Farina:

Obviously, there is going to naturally be that. It is fairly mitigated for as big as we are for as much Type Aand polarizing viewpoints. But to your point, Tim, about sometimes conflict is good because it createskind of passion on both sides and it creates engagement, and for us, we've had definitely some topics thathave arose in the community that were pretty polarizing, but at the end of the day, we just have guard railsup but we want the dialogue to continue. And we've found some of these hot topics are some of the postsin the group that have had the most comments because everyone's got an opinion and everyone's battlingfor, posturing for what they think is right in that specific topic or category.

And as long as it doesn't get disrespectful, that's where the line is crossed where we've had to ask peoplelike, "Hey, make your point without being condescending," or, "make your point without name-calling,"let's say. But I think in general, it is healthy, it is healthy to have difference of opinions. And sometimespeople think that the bounds of morality and ethics are being crossed, but who are we to really determinethat?

Tim Jordan:

Conflict is going to happen, new ideas are going to be brought in, which sometimes are good, sometimesare not. It makes me wonder how big a community should be.

Now, Ian, you talked specifically early on about these niche communities. So a niche brand community,Harley, not just motorcycle riders. We're talking about education specific to Amazon, not justentrepreneurial. But where do we find that balance or how do you see that balance landing betweenbringing in more ideas and more collaboration and more network versus getting too distracted and notfocused enough, and I don't know, losing value in the community because it's just too wide and too broad?

Ian Sells:

Yeah, I think people should join many communities. I think there's communities that... I look atcommunities everywhere. So the way I see it is you should join a community and try to find out what thevalue is. Maybe it's not in education or a resource, but it's for your family or the way that you want to live.You're surrounding yourself by people who you respect and that have done things that you are looking todo.

And then within our community, maybe this isn't a community for you forever, but it's a good communityfor you for right now. So if you're just doing things on your own, you're in your own little world, even ifyou're a doctor and you don't partake in all the doctor conferences... I was talking to my neighbor and he'slike, "Wow. You were on a four-hour meeting?" I was like, "No, this is my friends, my squad. We talkabout things that are deep and it's not all business and it's not all fun, but I have to hear their stories, theyhave to hear mine." But there's so much value in hearing other people's struggles and stories that you cansay, "Okay, I'm going to try and avoid that," or, "I'm going to learn from this experience."

So whatever it is that you're doing, we need to get out of our comfort zone. We need to get out of ouroffice in our garage or our basement or our guest room and make connections that are real and authentic.And I think that's really important. So whether it's a niche community or a big community, I think there'svalue to all of those. And there's even value in the other communities in the Amazon space besides ours.But there's different levels to those things and we're trying to achieve the level where we can help you inmany different steps of your journey. And then some communities might be just, "I'm just trying to figureout how to launch product. This community's all about launching products."

But you can go and do that course and join that Facebook group, but that's not being part of community.Being part of the community is actually investing time and energy into that and then getting value out ofit. So to me, it's like you really got to not do this on your own and don't reinvent the wheel. I could goback to that. Just find that community that's really your niche or what you're looking for right now andexplore it is as full as you can, you know?

Tim Jordan:

So one of the things that keeps coming back up is this set of core values. You've mentioned it severaltimes in the episode. A lot of the things, like what you just described or maybe talking about conflict,leads back into core values.

For the folks that are listening, would you say that maybe the core values is what you look at when you'redeciding to join a community or the core values are very important in how you would form a brandcommunity? Do core values really kind of become the central point of all of this in determining success orfailure?

Ian Sells:

I think yes. I think what I've learned in business is core values matter to your business. If you're starting afitness brand, which I used to have, I didn't have core values. We just made products. Once you put corevalues behind it, then the whole company gets behind it, then your clients and your customers get behindit. If I was really deep in that business, I would have the core values about fit over whatever, and take careof yourself first. And it would be all about that kind of ideal. But distilling it into that way where I thinkmy company, the people I hire can get behind it, quality matters, ingredients matter, whatever it is,because then your customers can also be a part of that.

And everybody's looking to be a part of community and they also are brand ambassadors. There's peoplethat like different brands, "I like Lululemon," or, "I like Adidas or Nike," or whatever. You have anaffinity to those particular brands. And it's not because the price is good, because you like the quality, youlike what the company's about or you like how they support you as an individual.

And with MDS, it became this thing where it's like there was this time where people didn't wear theirbrand, they don't share... I mean, even to this day, they don't really put their brand on their chest or theirhat because they don't want people to know what their thing is. But I think MDS kind of unified it forthem. It was like, "Oh, this is a brand that I believe in that I would tell my friends to join that I think thatis really good and I have an affinity for it because I feel like this resonates with me. I'm a Million DollarSeller." And so that was a changing point of going, "Oh, wow, I finally have a brand that people actuallywant to wear and support because it resonates with them." It's not about MDS. It's not about that. It'sactually about what that brand represents, and they're proud to support it.

And so when you put that behind your actual Amazon brand and start to take it from this product that youfound in China at a trade show walking around the Canton Fair to turning it into a brand, which I thinkyou should do at a certain point in your journey, that's when people and your company, you'll be able tohire better, you'll be able to inspire people better, and move the needle forward and build a communityaround it.

Nike has, "Just Do It," right? That's what people wear. They don't really wear The Swoosh. That wasbranding. The "Just Do It" is their culture. That's just get out there and do it, right? Run that race, do thatthing. And that's what people want to wear and it really speaks volumes.

Franky Farina:

If you think about it, you're defining your identity, whether that's your identity as a brand, your identity asa community. So then if you now know what your identity is because you have these set of core values,then all your decisions within their day-to-day become a little easier. Again to like, "Okay, well, if we gotto fire this person," or, "if we're going to hire this person, we look at that. We got to remove this member.Okay, let's add this member. Here's the thing. We have this opportunity to do a strategic partnership withthis brand or this software service. Okay, does it fit within our identity, our core values?"

So it just makes life a little easier when you can lean on that and have more confidence in the decisionsyou're making because you know that it aligns with what you've already decided who you are.

Tim Jordan:

It makes complete sense. And for those of you that are listening, I know that these two guys are talkingspecifically about their experience or leaning on their experience with an educational community, buteverything that we've talked about applies also to brand community. So if you're thinking just on thebrand community side, there's a lot of information and great wisdom baked into this episode, but I wouldalso ask you to at least consider an educational community too. Every successful entrepreneur that Iknow, no matter what topic it is or what industry, they do better when they start aligning themselves witha network of folks that can help them level up and help them level up by also contributing into thatnetwork. Consider that.

If you are an entrepreneur and you're thinking about joining one of these educational communities orlevel-up communities, lots of great information here. I'm familiar with the MDS group and there's a lot Ilearned in here today about how they structure things or their core values that I was not aware of before,so all great information.

Guys, if there's anybody that's listening to this that would like to find out more about MDS and what youguys have going on, whether it's to potentially become a member or just to learn more about how you'vestructured things, I assume that your website is the best place to do that, but throw out some locations orlinks here.

Ian Sells:

If you want to learn more about Million Dollar Sellers, go to milliondollarsellers.com. That's one greataway. You can also reach us out on LinkedIn or Messenger, and we always check in those as well. Andwe are here to support you. Whether we're the right fit for you or not, that's not the question. We're reallyhere to see if we can help you.

Tim Jordan:

Well, again, thanks, guys, so much for being on. I know it's time to wrap up. Lots of good informationhere. Probably worth listening to twice because there's little nuggets.

For any of you that appreciated what these guys are doing or found some value in this episode, make sureto leave us a review on whatever podcast platform you're listening to. If you're listening on one of themajor audio platforms, make sure to jump over to YouTube and subscribe to the The Growth Gearpodcast channel because when you're scrolling aimlessly, that will cause some little Shorts and Reels topop up, which are probably valuable to you. And we're on all the major social media platforms as well.

So thanks again, guys, for being on. Thanks for all of you that have listened to the end, and we'll see youguys on the next episode of The Growth Gear podcast.