IS GENIUS NETWORK A SCAM?
T
he first thing I noticed when
I started delving into online
marketing last year was that
the leaders in the industry
had three things in common:
1) They’re all
health-conscious: either Cross Fit or
supplement obsessed (often both).
2) They’re into efficiency: they Slack,
Evernote and Asana themselves and their
teams into princes of productivity.
3) They’re all in mastermind groups.
I was cool with the first two; it was fact
number three that had me the most suspect.
Masterminds, for the uninitiated, are groups
of people whose careers are in similar places
but are all looking to 10X where they are
(this is a crowd, by the way, that’s really into
the term 10X). The meetings can consist of
monthly calls, regular in-person gatherings or
both and are usually led by a leading expert
in the field. And they’re expensive as can be.
The cost factor is what stopped me in my
tracks. Sure, I was interested in networking
with people who could give me ideas,
introduce me to even bigger fish and help
me promote whatever I had to sell but
was I willing to part with large chunks of
money for that privilege? I was not. And
so, about a year ago, I started looking
into MeetUp mastermind groups. Alas,
without even having to attend, I could assess
what those were: a collection of people
too broke to go to a real mastermind.
I gave up on masterminds, telling myself
that I could get successful on my own.
Then I was invited to attend one of the biggest
masterminds out there—Joe Polish’s Genius
Network $25K group. Joe Polish, for anyone
not familiar with this world, is a once-broke,
once-ponytailed 40-something dude from
Arizona who’s widely considered one of the
world’s greatest marketers and marketing
coaches. His phone regularly buzzes with texts
7
from Tony Robbins and Arianna Huffington.
He’s Richard Branson’s largest fundraiser. He
runs multiple marketing companies, connects
the biggest players in the field to one another
and hosts several podcasts. His greatest
achievement, however, is his Genius Network.
The Genius Network $25K group, if you
haven’t figured it out from its name, costs
$25,000 to join. For that, you get to attend
three meetings a year—an exorbitant-
sounding amount until you compare it to
Polish’s $100K group, which operates under
the same principles but is for people who
can spare, well, 100 grand for this privilege.
In other words, bigger fish, smaller pond.
I couldn’t understand why people intelligent
enough to have a spare $25 or $100K
would fall for what was clearly a scam.
And yet the group of 50-odd men and women
I met while stuffing some gluten-free muffins
and Bulletproof coffee down my gullet in
Polish’s Tempe, Arizona, office seemed
like savvy folks. If this mastermind thing
was a scam, it was a subtle scam indeed.
As the group settled into their seats around
a winding group of long tables, I took a look
around. The set-up was simple enough: name
cards at each place, a large countdown clock in
the corner and a Truman Show-like attached
room from which a team made sure the
entire production was shot and disseminated
perfectly—for Facebook Live streaming as
well as for future marketing purposes.
I essentially had the whole bottom floor of
the office to myself, watching the video feed
in a room filled with unique odds and ends
(a squatting sumo wrestler, a book on farts,
a plastic monkey hanging from a pillar),
photos of Polish with people like Bill Clinton,
Donald Trump, Arianna Huffington, Rupert
Murdoch, Bill Gates, Jeff Bezos and signs
that posed questions like “What would you
attempt to do if you knew you could not fail?”
This, as far as I was concerned, was an oasis:
I could see everything the group members
could, had first access to the delicious, healthy
GENIUSNETWORK.COM