LK Consultants regularly seeks experts in their field to help bring additional value to readers of The LKC Blog. Please enjoy today’s special guest post by Ashley Covelli of Big Flavors from a Tiny Kitchen.
Joining a mastermind group is one of the best things I've done to advance my business over the last few years. My group consists of five different businesswomen from different parts of the country. We started meeting back in 2017, and our regularly scheduled meetings have helped each of us grow our businesses and achieve our goals.
Having the support of other entrepreneurs, gaining outside perspective on issues and ideas for my own business, talking about industry trends, and having accountability for my goals is something that has helped me immensely over the past few years.
Today I’m sharing some tips for how to set yourself up as part of a mastermind group to truly achieve your business goals.
Choosing Members for Your Mastermind Group
There are several ways to find members for your mastermind group. My group formed out of a Facebook group of female entrepreneurs. I have friends who have joined local groups of people in their industries, and some who met other members online. There are plenty of groups both on and offline where you can meet other business owners and like-minded people.
It’s helpful to find people who are at a similar level to you - if you’ve been working in your field for 10 years, a person who has just started working on their business may not be an ideal match. You want to have members who have ambitions and goals that you can collectively empower each other to achieve.
Some people enjoy having members from their own industry in their mastermind group, however, I find that having members with a variety of backgrounds is helpful in gaining outside perspective and a fresh way of looking at things. There have been so many occasions where one of us has offered up a solution to an obstacle that another member has encountered, and that diversity is incredibly helpful.
In order to make sure that everyone’s voice is heard, keep the number of members fairly small. My current group has five members from a variety of industries, and I find that this makes for a great mix. In my experience, three to five participants are ideal.
Establishing Ground Rules for Your Mastermind Group
Wherever you find your members, remember that you all need to be committed to the group and your goals in order to be successful. It’s helpful to establish some ground rules that everyone agrees on before you begin with your meetings.
Confidentiality:
Since you are being open and honest about the inner workings of your business, you need to agree that what’s said in your mastermind group stays confidential. Things like website traffic, sponsored content, social media stats, financial information, ideas for new projects, etc. are sometimes shared in the safe space of your group in order to get feedback, advice, etc. You need to be able to have trust, honesty and integrity to keep that information private.
Meeting Format, Frequency, and Location:
How often will you meet? If you meet too often, people may not have enough material to report on. If you don’t meet often enough, you may feel overwhelmed with the number of things you need to check in about. When my group started out, every other week was perfect. We were all trying to get into the flow of setting goals and being accountable for them. After about a year we switched to monthly meetings, and it has been going well for us.
Some mastermind groups meet in person, and some meet online. Either way, you need to make your meetings a priority. Schedule your meetings in advance and make every effort to attend each meeting. There are some groups that have a policy that if you miss more than two meetings, you’re out of the group. Try to be flexible with your group while still making it a priority. We all know that life happens, but with these kinds of groups, you really get out of it what you put into it.
Designate one person who is in charge of scheduling your meetings. In my group, I’m responsible for that. We’ve found that the easiest way is to post a poll in our private Facebook group to see which date works best for everyone. Once the date is chosen, I then set up an event so everyone can have it on their calendar, and we meet via video chat on that date. We started with Google Hangouts, then moved to Zoom, and will be testing out Skype soon. We like using video so we can see each other - it feels more personal than a conference call, but that’s something that each mastermind group has to decide upon based on what everyone is comfortable with.
My group has a shared Google document for our meeting notes. This serves as an agenda so we can make sure everyone gets equal time to discuss what they’re currently working on. When we started, we’d each list out our goals in the document and note the progress we had made before each meeting to help us stay on task. Currently, we keep our notes separate and use the shared document to list any things of note that we discuss during the meeting, links to check out, articles that we’ve shared, etc. We also use our Facebook group page to share information, get feedback, and ask questions in between our monthly meetings.
Discussion Topics:
Some examples of topics to discuss during your mastermind meetings:
Projects you’re currently working on
Social media
Scheduling content
Editorial calendars
Current struggles you’re having with your business
Quarterly goals
Website traffic and analytics
Industry trends
New and emerging technology
Video
Physical and/or digital products for your business
Benefits of a Mastermind Group
Working for yourself can be a wonderful thing but it can also be isolating. I love having a solid group of people who I meet with regularly to help make sure I’m on track with the goals I’ve set for my business. They also help me come up with new goals when I’m stuck and offer perspective at times when I may have a hard time stepping back to see the bigger picture. The accountability, advice, and friendships that I’ve gained through this group have been so beneficial for my business, and we’re still going strong!
If you’re looking for a way to keep on track and grow your business, I highly recommend joining or forming a mastermind group. Giving and receiving support for other professionals is so valuable and rewarding to be part of. You celebrate your accomplishments together, and it’s truly wonderful to see how everyone grows and changes as time goes by!
Ashley Covelli is the food writer and recipe developer behind Big Flavors from a Tiny Kitchen, based in Ossining, NY. Ashley’s goal is to encourage people of all ages to cook delicious food, no matter what their skill level. In addition to creating recipes, she also teaches cooking classes and hosts workshops locally. Find your next favorite recipe on her website. You can also subscribe to Extra Helping: the Big Flavors from a Tiny Kitchen Newsletter or follow her on social media: Instagram, Pinterest, Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, and YouTube.