For the last year I’ve been a member of a $14,000 a year Internet Mastermind group, setup by Yanik Silver, who’s one of the most respected online entrepreneurs in the world of marketing.

You may or may not be familiar with the mastermind concept &ndash either way please pay attention to what I’m about to tell you. This is extremely important, and if you take note, this tip will be worth your entire annual subscription for many years &ndash that’s a promise. Oh, and don’t worry about the money, you’re not going to have to fork out 14 grand.

Let me first explain what a mastermind is.

A mastermind group commonly consists of anywhere between 4 and 18 members who have the same goal of expanding their business. Personally, I believe between six and twelve members is the sweet spot. You definitely don’t want any more than 18, and that’s probably pushing it.

At each meeting (we meet three times a year), each member is expected to share their best strategies, techniques, and be willing and eager to help everyone else take their business to a much higher level. When each member contributes in that way, the results are fantastic. In Yanik’s group, literally millions of dollars have been created simply by following this concept of being willing to share. When everyone is willing to give out, they receive back ten fold.

Obviously the dynamics of the group are important. There needs to be some kind of synergy between members so that everyone respects each other. In other words, I don’t believe you should have a mix of newbies and experienced sellers in one group &ndash that would be frustrating to everyone, like a class of students where some feel held back while others are out of their depth.

I can confidently tell you that the mastermind concept has made a bigger impact on my business compared with anything else I’ve done in recent years. Why? There’s a number of reasons. First, you surround yourself with a team of expert consultants that analyse your business, take it apart, and then re-build it to be much stronger. They see things you would never have picked up on in a million years, which when implemented help you take it to another level. That kind of independent analysis is extremely important because we all get too close to our businesses; we all assume we know the best way of doing something, when often there’s a much better way that was staring us in the face all along &ndash we just didn’t see it.

Secondly, there is accountability. At each meeting, you are expected to share your progress with the group. Without that accountability, you can roam free, and things get done when they get done. Knowing that you are answerable to the group for what you’ve accomplished since the last meeting is a strong motivator, and it provides the deadlines that many of us need.

Thirdly, there are the joint venture opportunities. As you get to know the other members, you’ll see natural ways to work together, and the partnerships that are forged can be extremely useful. In our group, I’ve teamed up with a number of members on projects where we’ve combined our strengths to produce and market all kinds of products and services, both on and off the eBay marketplace.

Lastly, there is positive reinforcement. It’s no secret that when you surround yourself with successful people, you become more successful. It makes sense, and it really does work that way.

By the way, there are many other benefits that I haven’t talked about and that space simply doesn’t allow, but I hope by now you understand the power of the mastermind concept.

So let’s get practical. How can YOU benefit from this information? Firstly, I suggest you read the book, ‘Meet and Grow Rich’ by Joe Vitale. He goes into depth about how the mastermind meetings should be run. Then, research your nearest Independent Business Advisor Chapter on dankennedy.com &ndash get yourself along to their meetings, and start participating. I recommend Dan Kennedy’s groups because they are well structured and run. As an alternative, there are other groups like Chamber of Commerce, Breakfast Clubs and so on. These are not true mastermind groups, but they still have value.

I also urge you to setup your own local group. We’ve done that here in Salt Lake City and it’s working extremely well. We have six members and we get together every other week in a meeting room at our local library. How did we all meet in the first place? I met two of the members at a national marketing seminar, and then we each suggested someone else that we knew. It’s a great group and I know I can speak for everyone in saying that it’s an extremely valuable part of our business now. There’s no fees involved, we work on the basis of freely sharing each others experience, and that works well. No one has taken advantage of that, but if they did they would be warned and then out in a heartbeat if they continued to take without giving back.

Let me sum up be telling you that I firmly believe that if I’d discovered the mastermind concept years ago, I would probably have been retired by now while in my mid 30’s &ndash that’s how powerful this is. Don’t waste another moment, do whatever you can to get involved in a group as soon as possible, or create your own.

Am I alone in being frustrated on an almost daily basis when dealing with suppliers? I’m convinced the ‘who cares’ attitude is spreading like an epidemic. Let me give you a quick run down of just one of this week’s fiascos to demonstrate what I mean.

A package from one of my suppliers was overdue for delivery from a well known courier company, even though the tracking showed that it had been sitting on a shelf in the local depot for several days. Now, I live in a reasonable size city, Salt Lake City in fact, which has a decent size population and infrastructure &ndash heck, there’s even an IKEA, and there ain’t many of those across the U.S. I’m not talking about Barstow here (no offence to Barstow readers, I’m not picking on you, I promise).

Anyway, so I get on the phone with the ‘customer service’ advisor who tells me that they only deliver on certain days of the week - I’m serious! Apparently however, I’m permitted to trudge the 15 miles out there to collect the package if I want it before they were ready to find a slot in their random delivery schedule.

I considered pursuing the line of reasoning that since I’d paid for two day shipping, I’d kinda’ hoped that I’d see it within 2 days of ordering, but I thought better of it. I didn’t want to appear unreasonable or demanding. Instead I bit my tongue and dutifully trotted off down to the depot and stood my turn in line until permitted to utter my request.

Not much to do while waiting, other than eavesdrop on a phone conversation between a customer and a ‘support’ rep. Obviously I couldn’t hear the customer, but fortunately in this instance, the rep had a habit of repeating the caller almost verbatim, which under normal circumstances would have been highly irritating.

Anyway, I digress. This is how the conversation went:

“So you’re saying that the driver threw the box over your fence, is that right?”

(customer replies)

“Well, obviously I wasn’t there, but I’m sure he just wanted to make sure the package was hidden from the view of any passers by.”

(customer replies)

“Oh, you’re saying the fence is 7ft high?”

(customer replies)

“And the antique set was smashed?”

(customer replies)

“Mmm, that happens a lot. I hope it was insured.”

I’m not making this up, I wish I was. At that point I was feeling absolutely thrilled that I’d escaped with only having to go outside in the freezing cold in the middle of the winter and drive 15 miles - it was a relief to know that I’d intercepted the sequence of doom, before my box had got to the throwing over the fence part.

I got my box, and little did it know that it had been spared the physical trauma that apparently was a standard feature. I didn’t even throw the box away after emptying its contents, it seemed cruel, it needed protecting…

Okay, so I got a little carried away, but actually I’m deadly serious about the lesson here. Customer service is such a rare commodity that it’s in danger of becoming extinct.

Let’s face it, the times when we experience great service with a smile are now so rare that we tell everyone, and they’re suitably impressed.

If providing outstanding customer service and keeping customers happy is a high priority for you and your staff, you’ll immediately put your business a giant leap ahead of all your competitors. It’s such a ridiculously simple principle to comprehend, but sadly many more overlook it than ‘get it’. Be one of the ones who gets it. Give it time and your business will explode over the long-term, I guarantee it.

Here’s a question that everyone has an opinion on, and usually a strong one. And the simple answer is that there is actually a simple answer, but it conflicts with what most sellers do.

Almost universally, with very few exceptions, the best price to start your listings at is 99cents, or the equivalent in your local currency. Some of you may be nodding in agreement, while others are vehemently shaking their heads, and still others of you are intrigued.

Let me explain the psychological and statistical reasons behind this strategy.

There is a predictable and inevitable process that starts to take place when you list an item for 99cents. I should clarify this only works if it’s obvious that the item is worth more than 99cents. Should be obvious, but it needs to be said, and I don’t want people wasting their time writing in to tell me that. Back to the plot…

As soon as you list an item at 99cents, it attracts bids pretty much immediately because it’s seen as a bargain, and attracting bids is the key to success because bids attract bids like bees to a honey pot.

If an item doesn’t have any bids, it’s a much bigger step for a buyer to place a bid; because no on wants to be the first. Think about this from your own experience as a buyer &ndash how often are you the first person to place a bid on an item, and if you were the first, what was the starting price?

I told you there was psychology behind this, didn’t I? Here’s what happens. When someone bids on an item, they mentally take ownership of it. Even though the auction is still going, they believe that the item is theirs because, when they place their bid, they are obviously the high bidder at the time. So when you start at such a low price, you attract lots of people who all believe they might get a bargain and, in placing a bid, they commit to buying it, they make an unconscious claim of ownership of that item. The net result is that you have a bunch of bidders who all believe the item is theirs.

This is a fantastic position to be in as a seller because, in almost every case the final bid ends up being far more than if you’d have listed the item at a starting price closer to its true value. For example, let’s say you’ve got an item that you want to sell for three hundred dollars.

If you list the item to start at two hundred dollars then you’ll probably get two hundred and something, possibly three hundred for it.

If you start the item at ninety nine cents, the price will rise rapidly within the first day or so, and again near the end, and invariably it’ll result with a far higher ending amount.

The reason for this is the initial interest the auction attracts &ndash an item with a very low starting price will attract far more interest than one closer to the true value of the item.

Another factor that comes into play is pride. When someone else comes along and places a higher bid on THEIR item, it feels like an insult (think about this in your own experience as a buyer). So bidding at that point becomes less about the actual money involved and more about. So they end up bidding far more for the item than they really should have done and often more than they intended to. A similar situation often occurs with inexperienced buyers in offline auctions.

It’s all about the numbers &ndash the more bidders you have, the more people who have taken ‘ownership’ of the item, the more they will fight to get it. It’s buyer psychology and it’s been proven over and over again to be true.

If this strategy still sounds scary and reckless, let me reassure you that it’s not. Let’s just say that something freaky happens, the worst case scenario happens, where you list something for 99 cents that was worth a lot more and it didn’t receive many bids. Well, some sellers use eBay’s facility to withdraw the item from sale up to twelve hours before the auction finishes. That’s your choice, but my personal feeling is that an occasional incident where an item didn’t reach it’s true value happens so rarely that you should send the item and be happy about the 99% of times when you raked in the cash!

The Completed Listings section on eBay will provide you with all the proof you need about the benefits of this technique. You’ll see the dramatic differences of the end result of auctions that had low and high starting prices. 99 cent auctions are one of the biggest kept secrets of eBay success, because few people are bold enough to try it. So take a deep breath, suck it up, and list something for 99cents with no reserve. You’ll be so glad you did.