Why business is better when it's shared - start your own mastermind

Have you ever wondered how some entrepreneurs manage to consistently achieve their goals and stay motivated? Tune in to uncover the secrets behind business masterminds and how they can revolutionize your entrepreneurial journey. This episode promises to equip you with the tools to create your own mastermind group, perfectly aligned with your unique goals and schedule, while bypassing the hefty costs of traditional setups. By gathering a group of like-minded individuals, you can tap into collective wisdom and support, fostering an environment ripe for collaboration and innovation.

We break down the essentials of forming and maintaining an effective mastermind group, highlighting the importance of clear goals, a consistent meeting schedule, and a supportive atmosphere. Learn why rotating leadership roles and sticking to an agenda are key to keeping your meetings dynamic and productive. We also address common challenges such as schedule coordination and group dynamics, providing practical solutions to keep everything running smoothly. Don’t miss our inspiring anecdotes and actionable tips designed to help you harness the power of mastermind groups for unparalleled business growth and mutual support.

Transcript

Speaker 1 0:35

You're listening to the Secrets of Successful Business podcast, your go-to source for business tips, tricks and proven strategies that will help you create a streamlined and profitable business. We chat to the best minds in business about their journey, how they started, what they learned along the way. How long are you going to give this Going harder?

Speaker 2 0:55

to get more Focus on growing more with what you have.

Speaker 1 1:00

What they learned along the way. How long are you going to give this?

Speaker 2 1:03

What compromises are you going to make Just because you can do it?

Speaker 1 1:06

doesn't mean that you should do it. It's really important to remember that it's a long game and, of course, we'll ask them for their secret sauce for creating a successful business. If you're not failing, you're not doing it right. You should be struggling at times. That is part of the journey. Join us as we take a sneak peek behind the curtain. Talk solutions for those business pain points, working smarter, not harder, mindset and the challenges of fitting it all in with the demands of today's busy lifestyle. If you're a business owner, side hustler or just starting your business journey, this podcast is for you. Now here's your host, business coach and content creator, justine McLean from Flossie Creative.

Speaker 2 1:48

Hello and thanks for joining me on the podcast today. In case we haven't met, I'm Justine, a small business owner on a mission to uncover and share the secrets of creating and running a profitable, sustainable and successful business. I've been in business for over 20 years now and I get to use all that I've learned along the way to help other women in business reduce the overwhelm, gain visibility around their numbers, charge what they're worth and make more money. It's about designing a life you love that fits into your definition of success. So, if I can help you create the profitable business you deserve, it's about designing a life you love that fits into your definition of success. So if I can help you create the profitable business you deserve, please reach out Now. Without further ado, let's dive into today's episode. Hi everyone and welcome to the podcast Now.

Speaker 2 2:37

Whether you've been in business for five months, five years or you're a seasoned entrepreneur, one thing that you probably have realized by now is that business can be quite isolating. It's often hard to find a person or group of people that you can talk to about your business, that really get where you're at, who can provide a collective wisdom, support, accountability and motivation, and a lot of us spend a lot of time looking for a group, a place where we feel like we can belong or where we can ask questions and hopefully get some answers to help us keep moving our business forward, and so that's why, today, I thought I would talk about the idea of a business mastermind. Now, traditionally, business masterminds are groups of business owners who come together, usually created by another business owner, and you pay to play. You pay to be part of these groups. Now, whether it is a few hundred dollars a month or several thousand dollars a month, obviously there are different levels in these groups. They're all set up a little bit differently, but the idea is that in the collaboration you'll find in this group, in the community that you'll find in this group, there is a benefit to your business, whether it is sharing ideas and challenges or celebrating one another's success. Working with these like-minded individuals can no doubt lead to greater innovation, better problem solving, and it can help you get to where you want to go faster. In most cases, the mastermind or the group that you join is curated by someone else, so there's likely to be a diverse group of business owners who are going to come from different business backgrounds, have different areas of expertise, different perspectives, and who are going to be able to help you increase your networking opportunities and those potential partnerships and really accelerate your personal and professional growth. So there's definitely a lot of benefits in being in one of these groups.

Speaker 2 4:44

But the thing is for a lot of business owners that barrier to entry is money. To join a mastermind, to be part of a business group or a membership, it's very expensive and, particularly if business is slow, it's one of those things that you probably put on the back burner as fast as possible. It's probably that first thing to go, if I'm honest. The other thing is that quite often when you join one of these groups, you might find yourself in a group of people that aren't quite right. Maybe you don't have similar goals or values. Maybe those complementary skills and that commitment to growth aren't there. Maybe you're't have similar goals or values. Maybe those complementary skills and that commitment to growth aren't there. Maybe you're in a group with a whole bunch of extroverts and you're an introvert and you can't quite get what you want out of that group because, even though you're paying just as much as they are to play, they're the squeaky wheel and you never get to ask your questions and it just doesn't work. Maybe the regular meeting schedule and the format doesn't work for you. There are lots of reasons that masterminds are good, but there are also lots of reasons that they don't work, and when you're paying for a mastermind, in that scenario, you'll often find yourself wondering why you bothered joining in the first place, particularly if you can't turn up and take advantage of being in that group setting.

Speaker 2 6:02

So today I'm going to suggest something a little bit wild, because business is better when it's shared. I think we all know that and that is you consider starting your own mastermind and I'm not talking about a paid mastermind here. Sure, if you want to do that, go right ahead. That's a whole other episode I can do on how to create a paid mastermind, but what I'm talking about here is a mastermind of a business collective that you bring together, people who pay for things like their accommodation or their airfare to get to wherever the group is being held, who are happy to turn up, whether it's online or on person, at a time that's agreed to by the entire group. So essentially, it's a free group. It just it's going to cost you your time and if you choose, to go away somewhere to have a bit of a retreat style get together. That's where you're going to have to pay for accommodation, airfare food, as I said, but otherwise it's something you for accommodation, airfare food, as I said, but otherwise it's something you could run for nothing really.

Speaker 2 7:06

Now, while I'm not part of a mastermind of this type yet, my aim in the next 12 months is to create this mastermind. I already have two other women that I meet with every month. We sit down and we have coffee quite often, or we all meet virtually. But we're going to add to that group and we're going to make it a little bit bigger, probably about six of us, five or six of us in total, and we're going to get a bit more structure around it, what we do, where we meet, that sort of thing, but right now it's quite an informal thing. The benefit is that I get to bounce ideas off other business owners who are at the same level as me in business, who have other areas of expertise and what's costing me a bit of time and maybe a cup of coffee. So I think for me, just being able to work with people that I know and that I like is really what it's all about. But for you there might be other benefits there. So I'm starting to babble. What I will say is that if you want to start your mastermind, your own mastermind, I would highly encourage you to do it, and I'm just going to give you a few tips on the best way to go about it, because it's certainly what I have started to do in my business. So I am going to share with you how to get started with your own mastermind, if that's something you're interested in.

Speaker 2 8:25

Now, the first thing to know about this mastermind is that nobody is going to be in charge of the mastermind. There's no one person who is running the show. When you're paying for someone, you're expecting the business owner, the creator of the mastermind, to be the one in charge, calling the shots, telling you when it is. That's not going to happen here. The idea here is that even if you are the one instigating it and I would highly recommend instigating it, because if you sit around waiting to be invited, it's probably never going to happen so just because you're the one instigating it doesn't mean you have to do all the organizing and so on.

Speaker 2 9:03

It's definitely a group effort. It's going to be a group dynamic. So the first thing to do is to make that decision that you're happy to. At least get it kicked off. At least put the question out there to a couple of other business buddies whether they would be interested in doing something like this. So get the conversation started. And once you have the conversation started up and going, it's then about thinking okay, who are the right people that I want to come into this group?

Speaker 2 9:33

You often, or certainly in my case, I found that the conversation started with just one person and together we thought about okay, who are the right members, who are the people that we would be happy to meet with once a month, for example, who have similar goals, complementary skills, that commitment to growth. And so once you identify who those members are and honestly, there is no right or wrong number of members in this group it could start out literally with two of you, which is what started with me just two of us spending a day together, occasionally working on our business stuff. You can add to it, you can have a situation where you have core group and maybe you invite different individuals in at certain points during the mastermind. So there are no right or wrong when it comes to the numbers, but it's about taking that first step, finding that first member, and then the two of you together working out okay, who's next? Who else do we want to add to this group? It's about making sure that you not only get the right group of people together, but that you have some really clear goals and objectives for the group. So they're things like establishing a regular meeting schedule and a format.

Speaker 2 10:43

So, are you going to meet every month? Is it going to be every quarter? Is it going to be every six months? Is it just going to be once a year? Are you going to meet in person? Are you going to meet online? And when you do, what's the format? Is it going to be a hot seat format where everybody gets 10 minutes to share their thing and then the group weighs in on that? Is it going to be something where you invite outsiders to come in to share information with the group? So, let's say, you invite an AI expert in to give their interpretation of AI. What's the format going to be like for your group? How is it going to work? Is it going to be the same every month? Is it going to change every time? Where are you going to meet? Are you going to meet online? Are you going to aim to meet up in person? Are you going to meet? Are you going to meet online? Are you going to aim to meet up in person? Are you going to do it over two days at a retreat, like a location that is central for everybody, where you can go away from your day-to-day kind of office and environment and work in a location where you really have that white space where you're not going to be interrupted. So once you've got your group, you know what the goals and objectives are for the group and you've got that regular meeting schedule and the format that you're going to use.

Speaker 2 11:55

It's about making sure that you then have an understanding within the group. So it could be things like there's no negative talk or everything in here needs to be confidential. They're just those rules for the group. Then it's about thinking okay, what's the technology? What are the tools that we need to use to facilitate these meetings, especially if our members are in different locations and we're choosing not to meet in person. So it's deciding on whether it's Zoom, whether it's Microsoft Teams. How are you going to meet? How are you going to be able to share your problems? Are you going to whiteboard them? Are you going to share documents in advance? So it's thinking about all of those logistics and that is the get-go.

Effective Business Mastermind Group Management

Speaker 2 12:38

You need to know what that structure is, and even if you work that out with the first person that you bring into the mastermind and then, as you bring additional people in, you say, look, this is the sort of group that we've created here and this is the dynamic that we imagine going forward, then it's up to people to accept that and be part of it or say look, not for me. So once you've got that up and running who your group is you've got everything else that I mentioned set in stone. It's, then, about running meetings that are effective, because quite often you will jump on a call and people will start talking about non-business related things. You'll get off track, an hour will go past and you would have achieved absolutely nothing. So it's about having that understanding that you're coming together for a set period of time, that you're going to follow a structure so that everybody gets their turn and their fair share of the time, and that you achieve maximum productivity.

Speaker 2 13:38

So it could be that you start with your wins. It could be that everybody has one challenge that they want to bring up and everybody else brainstorms solutions. You could have a goal setting meeting, a goal setting mastermind, every third month, for example. Maybe it's a hot seat. As I said, there should be no real leader. It's probably worthwhile rotating that leadership role so that it not only keeps the meetings dynamic and inclusive, but it's not all on you, as the person who instigated the mastermind, to send out the invitations and get the next meeting sorted out. That part's totally up to you, but the idea of it is that everybody takes a turn in being part of it and getting the next meeting up and running.

Speaker 2 14:24

Then it's also about making sure that the meetings are focused and that they stay on track to whatever agenda you agree to. For example, if you agree to a hot seat agenda, you want everybody to get their fair opportunity to share and receive feedback. So it might be okay you get 10 minutes to tell us what your problem is and then we're going to spend 10 minutes giving you feedback and every person gets that opportunity. It could be okay every quarter we're going to do a goal-setting session and here is the formula that we're going to follow for that goal-setting session. But that's really important when it comes to running an effective mastermind, because the last thing you want is to turn it into a gossip session or something that you weren't anticipating when you started out. So really important to think about that. So you've got your inaugural members of your mastermind. You have got your goals and objectives sorted out. You've got that regular meetings schedule and the rules around the group so that it is supportive, confidential, how often you're going to meet. You've got that agenda and you've decided on a roster so that you share around the leadership of the group.

Speaker 2 15:41

Then it's about just getting into it making sure that you turn up for each session, come prepared with whatever is on the agenda for that particular session and participate in the group, because you're only going to get out of the group what you put into the group. And I think if you've ever been in a group, you'll know that the people who get the most out of the group, who get the most benefit, are the ones who really not only lean in and get involved during the group sessions, but then who go away and put what they have discussed or what they've committed to into place. But there's no doubt that whenever you have a collective of business owners together, there are going to be some problems. There are going to be challenges that you need to overcome, so I think it's best to be aware that they're going to exist and to address those challenges, and they could be anything from coordinating schedules to managing the group dynamics as they come up. And it's worth thinking to yourself before you get into this okay, what could the issues be? And if these issues arise, how are we going to overcome them?

Speaker 2 16:53

As I said, you're not really starting this group to be a leader. You're starting this group to make sure that you have a collaborative group of like-minded business owners who really trust, respect each other and who are prepared to work together and keep the information within the group confidential, but who are keen to participate and who want to commit to the outcomes that you've agreed to from the very start, and I think that's really important. And so there's no doubt that you will create this group and there will be hiccups along the way. There are going to be personality challenges, because you and the first person you approach might get on like a house on fire because you've known one another for a long time, for example, but maybe that third person you bring into the group isn't quite right for the group dynamic. So I think it's really important to test the waters, see how it goes and nip the problems in the bud. If there is an issue with the group, whether it's an etiquette issue, whether it's some other challenge that arises in the group, because someone is rude, for example, I think it's best to nip that in the bud. So definitely worth thinking about that before you really kick off. And then, once you kick off, it's about maintaining that consistency with the group, making sure that you stick to what you've decided on at the very beginning, that you continually emphasize with the group the importance of respecting one another and respecting the structure that you have created for the group. It's about making sure that you are looking at what people need in the group to make them comfortable and making sure that you're supporting each other in that as well.

Speaker 2 18:47

I think for a lot of business owners, just being able to work very closely with business owners who have those like-minded values, who are at a similar level maybe in a different industry, for example is really valuable. I heard Amy Porterfield tell a story the other day about a group that she was in where two of her members, two of the members of her mastermind, essentially both work in the same space. One of them is quite new to the space. The other one has been in that space for a long time and the person who had been in the space for a long time generously gave over more or less their handbook to the person who was just starting out, just to help them avoid all of those pitfalls. So I think you have to come into the group generously, but I think everybody needs to be on the same page and I think if there is an issue within the group, you have to deal with it quickly.

Speaker 2 19:41

So for me, over many years, working with one or two business buddies has definitely been influential in my business. It's certainly meant that I have achieved my goal of being in a mastermind, but I've done it at basically no cost. It's helped me not only move the needle in my business but also be able to share those highs and those lows with someone who gets it, someone who really understands what I'm going through. And having that person on speed dial where you can reach out and say, hey, this is what's going on and know that you're going to get an answer, that is probably no BS. That's going to help you know the next best step.

Speaker 2 20:27

I think if you find yourself in a group, even if you were the instigator, that just doesn't work for you, though. It's important to either put your hand up and say something or to bow out of that group gracefully, because, like anything, you can't turn something into what it isn't. So keep that in mind with your mastermind as well. Sometimes the dynamic is going to work really well, and sometimes it isn't, but there's no question that having a great group of business owners that you meet up with often, even if a few members come and go, there's no question that it's going to help you in your business.

Speaker 2 21:05

I think so often when we think about business and we think about the people that we need in our lives to help us push forward to that next level of our business, our default is to go to paid opportunities, to pay to play, to join a group or a membership where it's all very organized, all very constructed for us, and we literally just need to turn up.

Speaker 2 21:31

But there is definitely a magic in having or being part of a group that you have created, something that is not going to cost you anything, unless you choose to go to a fabulous location and get together and meet that way, and so, if you haven't considered it already and you are feeling quite isolated and alone in your business, it's definitely something that I would encourage you to think about starting your own mastermind, because, as I said, business is definitely better when it's shared. So I hope that has resonated with you. Let me know if you choose to start your own mastermind. I'll keep you posted on my mastermind. It's very small at the moment, but it works for us and that's great, and we've certainly done some good things together. So until next time.

Speaker 1 22:26

Thanks for listening to the Secrets of Successful Business podcast. For more information on all things business, head to flossycomau and make sure you hit subscribe on the show so you don't miss another new episode. If you're enjoying the show, please give it a quick rating or review, share it on your socials or with friends who might enjoy it. Catch you next time.