The Mastermind Group

What do you get when you put four smart, interesting people getting together to help each along the wily, treacherous path of growing a business? The magic of a Mastermind Group!

In August of 2006, I posted an article called Why your business needs a peer-led MasterMind on Mastermind Groups by Mark Silver.

He did a great job of explaining the basics of what one is, how it works, and how it compares to some the other support systems available.

Even before that article popped up, I’d been thinking about how great it would be to have a Mastermind Group. Well it only took a short three years for that to happen.

Yup, it swam around the idea phase for a good two years, broke the surface several time in that last year trying to get beached on my Project List, and then in November of 2009, it gathered up the momentum to shoot out of the water like a dolphin doing flips in the air and yelled, “The time is Nowwww!!!” Splash!

That moment fortuitously happened at an Open Conference for Leadership right at the time that the participants were being asked to volunteer subjects.The next thing I know, I’m offering a session on Mastermind Groups–zero planning or pre-meditation.

While most people didn’t know what it was, the name Spoke to them. A good 35 people showed up for that session.

I described my understanding of what a MM group was, called on some people who had been in several groups to share their experience, and then suggested a structure:

•4 people
•commit to 6 months
•meet once a week
•meet for an hour
•divide the time up between people there
•each person gets to lead their time
•use a timer
•finish and end on time
•be supportive and honest
•and as Mark calls it, compassionate accountability
Four groups of four people initiated right then! Mark’s group meets over the phone. We meet in person.

A success story
One woman in my group is rebuilding her jewelry business. She resisted calling up a new account because she was afraid that nothing would have sold. (The mind is sooo creative in coming up with horror stories when it comes to our personal work!) She finally made the call only to find out that most of the pieces had sold and the buyer bought ten more pieces.

After reporting back on this success, another woman in our group, a landscape architect, immediately identified a phone call she’d been procrastinating due to fear. She made it her homework that week to make the call.

At our next meeting, she reported back that the jeweler’s courage helped her take the bull by the horns and she had made her dreaded phone call (which also had great results).

There are books on the subject to help people jump in and kick-start their group. My experience supports the idea of just getting it going. The critical ingredients:
Commitment and Respect.

Whether concrete ideas of how to proceed in a confusing area, determining what the next step is for marketing might be, how to handle a tough client, or guidance on starting a blog–it’s likely that someone in the group has experience where another lacks it.

The progress that people can make based on this weekly support structure can be akin to magic–it’s that powerful.

Such an empowering way to let it be easy!

http://projectsimplify.com/out-and-about/the-mastermind-group/