How I became the official Big Idea Mastermind Facebook administrator

Restored from the Empower Network archive (2011–2017), lightly edited to meet our current advertising standards. Views are the original author’s.

I remember when I joined Big Idea Mastermind on February 1, 2013. I was overwhelmed by the sheer amount of marketing options at my disposal. Sure, Empower Network advocates blogging daily, but let’s not forget the social networks. They are extremely powerful.

Facebook, LinkedIn, Google+, and others are being used for business more and more with each passing day. I’m sure you already know that they are powerful because they help to create relationships between people. Well, building relationships is exactly what nabbed me the position as the official BIM FB group moderator and admin.

And here is my story:

I actually used to hate Facebook. I hated seeing people post drivel about what they ate that day, or what movie they saw. I just never saw any value in it, as much as I tried. And to top it all off, I would occasionally get scammy messages from people trying to hit me up with their ridiculous business opportunities. I was a jaded Facebook user. It wasn’t until after I joined Big Idea Mastermind though, that I began to see Facebook as a worthy online tool.

I was the 1150th person to join BIM, but I didn’t know any of the other members, aside from my sponsor. So naturally I gravitated to Facebook. Back then, there was no official BIM group so people connected with other Bimmers by searching through the unofficial groups. My sponsor hadn’t even started his own group at that point, but his team began commenting on his personal page. And that was how I met Francisco J. Lerma, Anca Iantu, and Shafina Dhanani. Back then, everything was brand new and we were all so excited that BIM was a blank slate – ready for us to bring creation and life to it.

I started my own BIM group and began posting anything that I thought was of any interest on my own profile page. Back then bigideamastermind.com consisted of a basic page with some pictures and some text describing the different membership levels. It was hardly impressive at all!

But it wasn’t the drab website that drew me in, it was the incredible value of Vick’s free HTA videos (put in a fake email address if you want) that did the trick. And when I watched Vick, I realized he was the expert that I wanted to learn from. It is now May 10, 2013 and to this day, I can’t imagine using any of that Internet marketing garbage that you see plastered all over the web today.

Big Idea’s Facebook Page Goes Live

Sometime in March, the official BIM group went live and somewhere around 1600 members scrambled to get into it as quickly as they could and began posting joyous messages. It was an awesome day to see so many people pop-up on a group page all of a sudden.

I posted in the group daily, but only wrote about things that were of value. And people began to take notice. I also branded myself and started this blog, Shakedog’s Blog. People liked what I had to say. It wasn’t hard at all to talk about the events that were unfolding each day within the BIM community. I did not have to dredge my soul to come up with content. I had mastered my product and I was simply explaining it to other people.

I soon began to develop some very powerful contacts within the community (Henry Brady, I hope you are reading this!). Although these individuals weren’t quite in Vick Strizheus’s inner circle, they were full of vibrant ideas, creative ideas, ideas that caused me to realize that success in Internet marketing is really just a series of small creative tests that you run online. The results of those tests will give you indicators as to how to tweak and move forward with future tests. That pot of gold really is waiting for you at the end of the rainbow!

I was now adding many friends on Facebook daily (and getting slapped by Facebook at times too!). I also made sure to go through Facebook’s newsfeed every day and comment on people’s posts. I got involved with Stephen Munson and Paul Munson and got on their Google Hangouts every day and participated in promoting their system – Join A Mentor (if you are in BIM already, ask me if you are interested in how the JAM system can benefit you). I realized my influence was increasing when I was one of the major winners of the JAM affiliate which was only open to BIM members. The BIM community was growing and people began asking me for advice. Never had I experienced such social interaction online before.

The pressure was building, as people waited in anticipation for bigideamastermind.com to go live. Looking back on it now, although I worked extremely hard to be well-known within the community, timing also played a major role in determining how I had established myself. Each day I pursued knowledge about Vick and even the Daves. I dug deep, connecting with people from High Traffic Academy. I really yearned to be the foremost expert on Vick and Big Idea Mastermind. If I had all the knowledge, then I could provide all the answers.

Getting Sales Even Though Facebook Hated Me!

Facebook really tore into me for adding lots of friends who admitted that they did not really know who I was. I hobbled along each time they restricted my use of the site – sometimes as long as 30 days at a time!

Right after the launch of Big Idea Mastermind, on March 28th, 2013, people began messaging me on Facebook asking how to become a member. It was a great ride, but it did not last long. Once the initial newness of BIM wore off, so did the automatic sales process!

During this time, people began messaging guys who I signed-up, asking who Shakedog was! I was shocked. Some of my closest contacts also told me that people were talking about me. Apparently my name was going around the BIM family circle, and the prospect circle too. I was excited, but was working 15 hours a day – trying to squeeze every sale I possibly could out of the initial BIM goldrush.

Empower Network Chicago – Blissful Chaos

On April 19th, I went on my first Internet marketing trip to Empower Network’s Get Money event in Chicago, Illinois (click here for my blog post on it). Once I got inside the doors of the event center and registered, a small group of Bimmers started gathering in the lobby. Instant friends were made and over the course of that weekend, I connected on deeper levels with these people than I had with friends I had known my entire life! But what was truly shocking was to have people come up to me and say “hey, you’re shakedog, right?” I was blown away! There were people who introduced themselves to me, but who weren’t immediately recognizable to me because I had never met them in-person before.

Over the course of those three days, I forged bonds with these people, shared meals with them, spoke about their lives at home, their hopes, and their dreams. And when we parted ways, we hugged and shared business cards and contact information and, before I even made it home, many of them were already posting pictures on Facebook of team Big Idea Mastermind.

Shakedog’s Opportunity

After recuperating from the event, there was still quite a buzz being generated within the community. Those of us at the event had updated our Big Idea team mates at home, in real-time, with photos, video clips, and memorable quotes. One quote that Vick had made which stuck in my mind was this:

If you have a plan B, then your plan A is going to fail

Over the course of the next week, more photos and videos of the event began to surface (see the interviews I gave with Anca and Shafina on my post about Chicago here).

Then one day, while I was hanging out in the official diamond Facebook group, which is only available to Big Idea Mastermind diamond members, support manager Paul Olefirenko posted in the group asking if anyone would be interested in taking a position as the Facebook group moderator. I remember the moment that I saw his post and I remember thinking “I am perfect for this job.” Paul asked the diamond members to cast their votes for the person who should be chosen.

Within an hour, I had amassed a long list of votes and support. I remember being incredibly nervous that day as I waited for the outcome.

In the meantime, I sent requests to my non-diamond friends for support. Looking back on it now, I doubt Paul even saw those private messages because he just gets so many of them, he can’t possibly read them all.

All-in-all, I would say at least 50 people rallied to help me get the position. People like Paulo Barroso, Miles Segers, Shafina Dhanani, and Stephen Munson – all people who I admire greatly, showed their support and at about 5:40pm later that day, Paul Olefirenko announced me as the winner. I did not go to sleep that night.

The Moral Of This Story

I’ll leave my trials and tribulations as a Facebook group admin of a team of approximately 6500 now for a later date. What I want to emphasize though is how I was able to attain this position. People are sort of known as either unsuccessful or very successful. You rarely hear the stories of people as they are on their way to the top. Except this is one of those stories! Right now, it is May 11, 2013 at 4:10am on a Saturday morning. As I’m writing this, I have proof that my hard work is paying off. You have to know what you want in life and take it. You can’t wait for success to be handed to you.

Big Idea Mastermind is the hottest product in the Internet marketing industry and it will stay like that for a very long, long time because of the people more than anything else. Of course the products are unbelievably awesome (and I agree, more content does need to be uploaded in the BIM back office), but we are, when all is said and done, members of Empower Network – a well-oiled system that is already in place and has all the training anyone would need to be able to do very well in Internet marketing. The difference is that we are on a team that gives us immensely more leverage by its ability to position us even further above the normal Empower Network crowd.

If you have watched Vick, if you know anything at all about Vick, you can tell that he is a warm, genuine person. He says what he means and he means what he says. People like this are hard to find these days, especially online – where anyone can easily disappear when something goes horribly wrong for them. Instead, we are the real deal – we would never need to hide and we won’t disappear either.

There are so many join links scattered throughout this post, I’m not even going to bother to add another one (except for this one right lol!). If you want to join a team that will help you every step of the way, no matter how much or how little you know about Internet marketing, then Big Idea Mastermind is the right team to join.

Never before has their been a team who has been able to make the kind of money that we are right now within the short amount of time that we’ve been able to do it. Hey guess what, that kind of sounds like what Vick did huh? Join a group that’s getting results. We don’t mess around!

Thanks for reading and aloha!

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