[EMERGENCY EPISODE] Shutting Down Facebook Group of 58,000 Members and Starting NEW RYB Group

00:00 - What's up guys. This is going to be a random episode that does not have a place in the schedule. I didn't want to wait because while something really important is happening, actually a pretty bold move I've been told. And, uh, I wanted to share it with you guys because it's been a big decision, but it's been something that's been long overdue. And you guys know if you're listening to this, we have, you know, changed the name from the amazing seller to the rockier brand podcast. And that was a few months ago and it has been awesome. It's been amazing. And I want to thank all of you that really stayed listeners, but also said, Scott, this is awesome. This makes so much sense. And I love the direction that you're going, building brands, all of that stuff. So that's awesome. So I just want to say thank you.

00:52 - But I also wanted to let you guys in on what has just happened and I didn't want to wait two weeks before the next episode to tell you. And that is, I literally made the decision two days ago, the time of airing this, or maybe it's three days depending. And I decided to close down the private Facebook group for the amazing seller, the podcast, that is where that group came from. And I don't know if you know that or not, but I started that Facebook group over five years ago when I started the podcast, I actually was about six months after I started the podcast because I wanted it to be a place where people could elaborate more on the topics that we were talking about and then also help each other. And over the years it's gotten really big, right? Really big, one of the biggest for really Amazon slash e -commerce.

01:52 - Okay. It's also attracted a lot of spammers and a lot of people that don't belong there or just people that I am not, not that they're bad people just that I'm not really sharing the same vision where the future is going. So I actually had a conversation with Chris Schaffer and, uh, you know, he had said, Scott, you know, we've been getting a lot of spam complaints in that group and him and I have been having conversations about closing it. And we just said, you know what? We just got to pull the plug. We're going to archive it. So anyone that's in there still has access to it. As of right now, we may eventually just delete the group. But right now, as long as you know, people in there are able to use it and grab the resources that are in there, I have no problem leaving it archive, but there will be no more activity in there, uh, from this day moving forward.

02:46 - All right. So what does that, where does that leave us? Right? Like what, where do we go from here? Well, you guys know I have brand creators Academy, which is our paid group. Okay. It's where I'm helping brand creators every single month. It's a very, very small, but very active group of brand creators. They're actually paying to be a part of this group. Okay. So what I decided to do was in a sense, create eight, another private group, but very, very focused on building brands and also would be in a sense, a filter for people that could qualify to become a member of brain craters Academy down the line. Okay. Not that you have to, but basically just another way for me to help people before they would ever invest in any training that I have, which the training is, all of it is pretty much inside of the Academy, right.

03:40 - But I also wanted a free group where I could post my podcast episodes. I could post our coffee talks. We could do our coffee talks live in this group. And I know that I'm going to go from 58,000 people, which by the way, a lot of those people aren't even there anymore. Right. It's just a vanity number. Uh, you know, but I never drove any paid traffic to that group. It was all organic. All natural, never drove a paid ad to that group to grow that group. But I just, I want smaller numbers that are quality. Right. And you guys have probably heard that saying like, you know, quality over quantity. And in this case that's a hundred percent what we're doing here. Right. I don't care if it goes from, you know, 58,000 to 500, I don't care. I want it to be the right people.

04:30 - Right. And so here's what I want you to do if you want to be part of this group. Okay. You will need to send a request in, it's basically like a little, a little application in a sense, it'll take you less than two minutes. Right. And all you're doing is answering a few basic questions. You have to have a profile picture. I can't tell you how many people submitted their, uh, you know, their request without a profile picture. Right. We're not letting anyone in there that just created an account, you know, two months ago. Right. We're basically really, really making sure that people are able to follow instructions, but also that they're not just jumping in there to self serve. Right. And so if you can't answer those three questions and if you don't have a profile picture, probably not worth going over there and requesting to join.

05:26 - Okay. But if you do want to join and you want to be part of this, this rock, your brand, you know, Facebook group, really an extension of the podcast. And you want to also get some, some other things that we're not publishing on the podcast. Some of the coffee talks that don't air on the podcast, all of that stuff. Or if you want to be a part of the coffee talks or the GM sessions, all of that stuff, it's going to be happening in this group. All right. So again, if you want to be part of that head on over to brand creators.com forward slash R Y B again, that's brand creators.com forward slash R Y B. Alright. So let me just share with you the vision here. Okay. My plan is to produce three podcasts per week, still. Okay. Going on six years, by the way, over 800.

06:19 - And I don't even know what we're at now over 875 episodes. Right. And I'm not going to stop that. Okay. So Monday, Wednesday, and Friday never missed an episode airing by the way. So Monday, Wednesday, Friday, that is still going to be the schedule. The other thing that I started was a Monday, Wednesday, Friday coffee talk, some of those become podcast episodes, or at least snippets to the podcast or for the podcast. Also my Friday jam session comes from the coffee talks. Okay. So that's Monday, Wednesday, Friday, 10:00 AM. Eastern time. Again, if you want to be part of that, all you need to do is head on over to brand creators.com forward slash R Y B right now, inside of there, it's really about you. It's about the people inside of there. I'm just bringing the right people together. I'm also filtering out the people that don't belong there.

07:18 - So this way here you have a better experience and you can benefit from this. Okay. That's, that's the goal. Now, I'm not going to try to pretend that I'm not also hoping that down the line, you get into rock your brand podcast group, right? And you become active and you become a little bit more interested or a little bit more vested in the brand building process. And you want to join us inside of the Academy. Like I am telling you, you know, upfront here, I would love for you to become a member in there, but we're also protecting that community. And we're not just letting anyone in actually a Chris Shaffer. And I recently talked, we're probably going to, to the next time we open, we're probably going to make it an application process from here on, you know, moving forward because the people in the group that are there right now feel safe there, they're sharing their niches.

08:21 - They're sharing openly what they're doing. They're marketing the things. They struggle with the things that they're, that they're winning at all of those things. So it's a trusted, trusted group, and these are paying members. So we want to protect that, right? So in a sense, we have the new group, the rock, your brand, a private group, which is going to be protected as well, the right people. But when the, when those people want to, if they choose to graduate into the Academy, they're already our people, right. They've already went through the different methodologies, the different strategy, the tactics that we follow, right? The theory that we follow. So it's really important that you understand that is my vision here. Right? And it's also to simplify things. I don't want, you know, a whole bunch of different platforms. That's why I'm not on Instagram much. That's why I'm not on Twitter much.

09:17 - Right. That's why I'm not on Facebook posting every three hours. Right. I show up consistently. And I only want these areas to focus on. And I think you should do the same in your business. All right. So this is just a random episode that I wanted to get out there before, uh, before long, because I wanted you to become a part of this. If you, uh, you know, if you want to be, and if you qualify, but I also wanted to let you know that if you've went over to the old TAs group and you find that you can't post in there and you, you know, you can't maybe even access it anymore. This is the reason why. All right. So I just want it to be open and honest and transparent with you. Cause I mean, I've always been that I always, you know, I always say to everyone, you need to be honest with your market.

10:04 - You need to be honest and where you're going. Do not pretend it will catch up with you. Right? And the more honest you can be, the more people will trust you. Right. And that's exactly what I am doing here and I'm going to continue to do in the future. So again, if you want to be part of the rockier brand, private Facebook group, then head on over to brand creators.com forward slash R Y B, fill out those few questions, have a profile picture and hopefully we'll see you on the inside. All right, guys. So that's it. That's gonna wrap up this little episode. So head on over there, if you're interested and stay tuned, more episodes to come. All right, guys, I'll see you soon.