Mastermind Groups-A Bridge to Success

I hope ya’ll read last weeks post about Mastermind Groups. I outlined some of the key differences between long and short-term groups. Both types of Mastermind Groups have benefits.

A little backstory: I contemplated starting a blog nearly a year before I took the leap. Investigating, researching, trying to get all the apples in the right barrel so to speak. Excuse me while I eye-roll and face-palm myself! There is no amount of preparation for starting an online biz that will get you there faster than just doing. If you are a planner, just start doing.

Anyway about three months in, I quickly realized that if I wanted to take this thing seriously and turn it into a profitable income that would replace the need for a 40/hr workweek, I’d need to put together or join a solid mastermind group.

What is a Mastermind Group?

A mastermind is basically a board of advisors/co-workers who put their skills and knowledge together to help one another succeed. Some work strictly on an advice only spectrum. Others actually get their hands gritty and do tasks and projects for one another or as a team. These people offer support and accountability.

The idea is to eliminate years of wasted time trying to figure our everything on your own. Google should not be your best friend. And at 3 am when you’ve been searching for the answer to some tech question you can’t figure our, trust me, it won’t be.

[bctt tweet=”Everyone has skills and if you combine those skills into a team environment that has equally vested interest, you are suddenly a powerhouse.” username=””]

How Do I Start a Mastermind?

First, you’ll need to assess your skills and needs. What do you have to offer a group? What would you need from the group? For me this looked something like this:

• I have decades of leadership experience and have run in-person masterminds in the past.
• Can proofread and edit in speedy time.
• I have run a business before so I am familiar with some of the tax in and outs.
• Have a degree in business finance
• I am comfortable speaking in front of others.
• I have put together retreats before and am confident I could do so again.

What did I need?

• Someone who could customize a website better than me!
• A knowledgeable person about email lists and webinars.
• Someone who can edit videos or photos
• An affiliate marketing guru, or at least someone who was more capable than me.
• Support: Yep good ole fashioned support. Because when you are running a website or online biz, some people just don’t get it!

I decided to start my group from scratch. There were a few bloggers/biz owners I was following on Pinterest and Twitter. I continued to monitor these accounts for about three weeks and then I reached out to one of the girls. She had a few questions and poof we were a two person team. I told her about the third person I was interested in and she hopped over to that site. We agreed that it would be a good fit and then we took on member number three.

At this point, I asked the girls what their needs were too. After all, you can’t start a group that only benefits yourself. So we reached out to a few ladies. We got some no’s because of time constraints or lack of interest etc. Within a month we were up to five members, later we dropped back down to four.

Mastermind Basics

You need a mission statement. A unified goal for your members.

I sent an email to my original members basically outlining my expectations. Both what they can expect from me and what I would expect from them. Each member needs to be able to commit a predetermined amount of time to the “hotseat” member every two weeks. A hot-seat member is a person in the group that all the other members put their focus on for that two-week time frame. Every two weeks, you rotate members, thus surging one another forward with the extra assistance during those weeks.

1. We all know that trying to do it all alone as an entrepreneur is a recipe for eventually giving up when the going gets tough. So to join forces with people who get what you’re doing, who you can bounce ideas off of — it’s basically a way to build an informal board of advisors into your business.
2. If you’re organizing a group, we recommend seeking people who are in a similar business stage. It’s totally cool if one of you is a food blogger, one is a personal finance podcaster, and yet another is a personal trainer. But you want to make sure one of you isn’t tens of thousand of subscribers or dollars per month ahead of the rest of you. An inning or two is fine but the idea is to grow together.
3. A mastermind group needs strong but balanced ground rules. If there’s no structure, an hour goes by really fast and you might just find yourselves “catching up” as friends. That sounds fun, but not exactly productive.

The members you seek should be diverse but all share a common goal. For example: Women trying to build an online business to escape the 9-5, non-profit bloggers trying to further a good cause, etc.

A contract. You should put into place a legal binding contract that each member signs with an outline of basic expectations, rules for joining and leaving, privacy and monetary concerns. If you are joining a paid mastermind, read all the fine print and do not sign unless you know exactly what you are agreeing to.

Reasons Mastermind Groups Can Fail

Non-Commitment or Accountability: Mastermind Groups can accelerate your growth, but only if they fulfill their main purpose: keeping you on track and support from each member. 

Selfishness: One person decides they have a great idea or side project they want to try on their own, and it sucks up all their time and loyalty to the group accomplishments. Include your group, they can help you with whatever you are trying to achieve. One game-changing mastermind tip is to have the group secretary jot down a few keywords summarizing each person’s commitment. These notes should be posted to the group’s communication channel of choice for everyone to see (and therefore, making you much more likely to actually do it!)

Inconsistency: This may be the number one reason groups fail. When people start skipping meetings, or if they aren’t set up in advance, the group will quickly fizzle out. We know there are real challenges here, such as time zone conflicts, family commitments, day jobs and more. But since inconsistency is such a mastermind killer, the group should commit to some amount of time to really go “all in”.

Chemistry: Even if all members are super talented, a lack of chemistry can throw off the entire group. Don’t be afraid to fine-tune a group until you have a well-oiled machine. Ideally, this means working like busy bees during your meetings but also going out of one another’s way to make a connection outside of group meetings. Groups who meet in person within the first 18 months of coming together, have 5x the likelihood of success and staying power as those who don’t.

The idea is that they are interested and vested in one another enough to really make a go of it. [bctt tweet=”When people get to know you personally, and you click, they start to view one another’s success personally, not just professionally.” username=””]

A Good Mastermind Enhances Your Chances for Success

Don’t let your group fizzle before it even gets off the ground. Treat your group like your personal bff’s and in no time at all, you probably will be. Care about one another and helping each other succeed.

Give your group a chance to get the wheels turning. It’s totally normal for the first few months to feel a little awkward. Production might be a little slower while you test the waters and exchange members. The chemistry needs to be ideal before you start to really move along lol! Once you hit your stride, progress should feel fairly steady. Each member should be in unison.

Think of it as a rowing team. Each member should do their share, thus making the rowing much faster and more productive.

If one member is slacking its dead weight in the boat. On the same token, if every member is honestly trying, the other team members should do their best to make sure that one member isn’t being left behind. Having someone fall behind the rest of the group financially will eventually lead to that person feeling failure while the others succeed and will cease to see the value in staying a part of the group.

A good mastermind will enhance your chances of success greatly. It’s a bridge that connects you to your goals. It’s always great to have support from others who are on a similar journey. We learn, teach, and share our wins and losses, successes and failures!

Let me know if you take part in a mastermind and how that experience has helped shape your business!

xoxo-Deanna

Ditch Mediocre!