I have consistently seen people in our different inner circle groups take what they are making a year and in a relatively short time start doing that a year. I just had a consulting session with a couple of people and we set some action plans in place where I think we will be able to add $20,000 a month to their income by making some small changes in what they are doing.
I think Jim Rohn has it right when he asks how long do you give your child to graduate from the 3rd grade? Well, one year of course! Well, do you think it is possible that a person change what he or she does and go from making $10 and hour to making $20 an hour. Of course you probably say. But could you do that again, and start making $40 a hour if you change some small things and increase the value of what you are adding to the value of the company? Of course you can. As a business owner there are several variables you can work on to make this happen - more customers, higher price items to sell, and frequency of purchase from your customers.
Well, how long do you give yourself to double your income? What can you do to improve just 10%? And how many areas can you improve by 10%? How often can you make that happen?
While some business people settle for a 10% increase a year, many of the inner circle members are looking at doing that a month!
What about waste and spending time on lower level activities? Well, do it backwards - divide by two. How long will it take you to cut your waste by half? This is where the most successful people are doing it - focusing on cutting waste and increasing profits by focusing on the most productive activities. This combine action plan produces more results in a quicker time than most people achieve in a lifetime.
Terry Bryan is one of our Independent Business advisors for the Glazer Kennedy Inner Circle and this article was to the point of the effectiveness of a good Mastermind if people will listen to you.
Janet Napora runs a network marketing business and her own blog. She's setting up a new type of Mastermind Group that I haven't previously heard of before.
She's calling it the Mental Cleanse and the idea is to have a group together for only 30 days. The purpose of the group, as Janet puts it, is:
Stopping all the negative chatter. Turn off the tv, the radio, the newspaper and the negative talk around us. Find out who you REALLY are. Reprogram your negative thinking. Many people are lacking success in there business or relationships or even their health. They don't think enough about themselves to think they deserve success and happiness. You can't always control what goes on around you but you can find positive like-minded people, a mastermind group, people who have the same goals and the same positive mindset you are trying to attain. You can't help but be touched by these people. The 30 day mental cleanse is a mastermind group, a group with similar goals. people who will not judge you but support you in your efforts.
It's a free group and open to "anyone who is ready for a change."
From my experience, free groups are hard to maintain the commitment level after a few sessions and if the group is left open to anyone you don't get the right mix of people with the same goals at the table. That being said, my groups run on annual membership and I'm curious to see how the 30 day concept works.
The concept of the Mastermind Group comes from Napoleon Hill in his now famous book, "Think And Grow Rich."
For those of you who haven't read it yet and are curious about the origins of Mastermind Groups, I came across a paraphrased overview of it concept in a recent blog posting:
The Power of the Mastermind
No two minds ever come together without thereby creating a third - a third invisible, intangible force that may be likened to a third mind. You may have noticed many times that by discussing something with another person you suddenly get good ideas as a result of the discussion, ideas you would not have gotten without this association. Well, the same thing happens to the other person. A lot of good ideas have been born in individual minds as a result of having met in committee.
Associating with your mastermind alliance is not meant as a means of letting others do your thinking for you, far from it. It is meant to stimulate your own thinking through the association with other minds. No one knows everything. The more sympathetic minds you get together - that is, minds working for a common purpose - the more related information is going to be available. Great ideas are a combination of related information.
Pick the members of your mastermind group with care. Make sure they're people you respect and who are hard working and conscientious. You'll have a lot of fun, and you'll reach your goals just that much sooner.
Ryan Mercer wrote a great article on the Importance of Masterminding. In it he outlines what Mastermind Groups are, how members can get the most out of their experience, and what the top 10 benefits are of joining a group.
He also provides 7 suggested guidelines for how a Mastermind Group should be run. They include:
1. Invite the 'givers'. In other words, create good company and be in good company.
2. Coordinate in the spirit of harmony. Complaining or whining, arguing with or negating anyone else's ideas is not productive. Gently remind people to express positive solutions.
3. Plan a mastermind session bi-weekly or once per month, and make them fun. Try lunches, dinners before or after the weekly conference calls when the energy of the group is naturally high.
4. Start each session with a time "Good News", Success Stories, or Joke of the day, from the group or even Chicken Soup Books. This generates incredible synergy for the group.
5. Encourage team members to determine their "Top Challenges." One person can facilitate and lists the challenges out on a board, overhead, or shared electronic media.
6. Let the group prioritize and take a vote on each of the challenges listed by asking the question: "How many of us would like to focus on this one first and work on it until it's resolved?" And then take a vote. Do that for every challenge down the list.
7. The facilitator can then asks the group, "Who has any experience that can help with this challenge?" Then, brainstorm all of the solutions on the overhead/board/media.
Andrew Cocks recently wrote an article on 8 tips to get the most from your Mastermind Group. His main tips include:
Choose a good group
It should go without saying that the most helpful people will be determined to achieve the same essential goals that you hold dear. You also want people who will commit themselves to the group. It won't work if people are sporadic in their attendance.
Set and hold your first meeting
While some in the group may be familiar with the mastermind concept, others will not be. Explain what you see as the group's goal, how you envision the group functioning, the commitment the group will require.
It's not for everyone
It's not for everyone; and it's not for people who are out there only for themselves. You will spend lots of valuable time and energy helping the other members of the group, and you'll also be the beneficiary of the other members' creative thinking.
Set some sort of attendance policy.
Obviously, things come up, vacations, sick kids, business trips, but without an attendance policy in place, the smallest things will prevent members from attending. Agree on how many meetings members may miss.
Organize some form of structure for the meetings.
Without structure, the meetings have a tendency to be hijacked by more talkative members. Everyone will soon lose interest if only a few members have a chance to speak. Devise a meeting format and follow it each week.
Be action-minded.
Yes, the mastermind group is supportive of each member. But you're not there just to talk. You're there to strategize, to develop tactics and plans. You're there to take the plans you've brainstormed and put them into action.
Network for your group.
You'll find yourself in a position to help each other with business contacts. You'll know these people really well in a short time, and will be a great advertisement for them. Be generous with your match-making, open your contact list to the group whenever you can.
Keep your lips zipped.
This should be obvious, but as part of a mastermind group, you've been given a position of trust and should honor it completely. Loose lips are a horrible way to destroy your credibility and reputation.
Many of the great achievers in history used mastermind groups. Innovators in business, sports, literature, spirituality, all have a history of proving that the sum is greater than its parts. Mastermind groups are worth every minute you invest.
I'm always interested to see how people are applying the Mastermind Group concept to help themselves learn, leverage, and grow. My focus is on Mastermind Groups for small business owners but people are using them for all sorts of different initiatives.
One newly formed group I came across recently is the Value Investing Mastermind Group. It consists of 6 members who are all focused on trying to find undervalued companies on the stock market.
One of the concepts I like about this group is they've split up the members into research teams. It's a young group of people and the research component is needed to help them better hone their skills. A big component of this particular group involves gaining an understanding of different investment strategies so they have divided themselves into three groups of two in order to analyze a list of 50 companies and pick the top 10 that would fit their portfolio.
By breaking the work down and delegating the research they'll quickly be able to leverage the knowledge and expertise that the other members come up with thereby learning much more quickly that it would have taken each member to do it alone.
I'm excited to see what this group produces - and by the way, they're looking for two members to finalize the group at 8 (what I also recommend as an ideal group size).
As members of the existing Advanced Planning Group (APG) we are jointly writing to offer you a personal invitation to join the DBS Mastermind Group (MMG) for 2007.
We are making some important changes based on client feedback and I want to explain how the MMG will be evolving next year - and "what's in it for you."
The idea of an APG first developed in 2000, after The Dental Business School had been offered for 3 years and a number of clients were asking "what next?"
With my background in financial services, I knew that Mastermind Groups were successful, as a means for experienced practitioners to meet with a peer group and enjoy good conversations on how best to take their businesses forward.
I myself formed such a group way back in 1989 and 6 of us helped each other enormously for the 5 years that we met on a quarterly basis.
So in 2001 we created a new Dental APG and the demand was so great that we formed 2 separate groups, meeting in Manchester and Oxford.
Once a quarter we would meet on a Sunday evening for a working dinner - and then all day Monday in conference.
What worked best about these groups was the community and bond that formed between the members - life-long friendships were born and the attendees gained external feedback, ideas and opinions on their own plans for the future.
With hindsight, what worked less well was the decision to abandon "agendas" and allow each member to arrive at the meeting and simply ask "how can the group help me?" on any current and burning issues.
It's no surprise (with hindsight) that preparation was low or non-existent and so the conversations were often just about current "stuff".
By 2003 Chris's work commitments on both sides of the Atlantic were such that facilitating the APG was becoming a challenge - and so Chris invited Simon to become group facilitator and (say's Chris and the clients) Simon has done a great job for the last 2 years.
Feedback to me has been that the APG members have gained enormously from the group dynamic and from Simon's personal style of coaching - very narrow and deep!
We now come to 2007 and the result of a series of conversations between Simon and myself since August this year.
Our principal objective is to:
Work alongside you to ensure the future success of your practice.
Mentor/coach/train you and a small, elite group of like-minded colleagues, who are determined to stay at the leading edge of dental practice.
Provide leadership, management advice and contemporary ideas and solutions to meet the demands of owning a successful practice in 2007
The DBS Mastermind Group 2007 - proposals:
That the meetings continue on a quarterly basis - Sunday night dinner and a full day on Monday;
That Simon and I join forces - so that there are 2 facilitators for the group;
That we create 1 group of 20 practices (no more than that allowed);
As usual, membership is restricted to those who are Barrowed-up and we feel can make a positive contribution - that's why this is a letter and not just an ezine broadcast;
That we keep to one location for the year, that is easily accessible;
That the meetings are in 4/5 star hotels close to easy-access airports and road/rail connections - we have chosen the Forest of Arden hotel close to Birmingham airport, the NEC and the railway station;
That each Sunday night dinner is for all 20 clients and contains a formal presentation before dinner on individual progress plus a social element;
That on the Monday we split into 2 groups of 10 practices, to be facilitated one by Chris, one by Simon - so the group sizes are small enough to allow everyone to benefit;
That there are agendas for the meetings - focusing on advanced planning in each of the DBS 8 key strategies (presented by Chris and Simon) - as well as break-out sessions where individual members can bring current issues to the table;
That each Monday meeting contains a group round-up and summary of the key insights gained;
That each group member continues to send in Weekly Work Out Logs to Chris and Simon;
That we have a dedicated call-in day especially for MMG members, which allow longer duration phone calls;
That we have a dedicated monthly bridge call for MMG members;
That we create an on-line chat group so that MMG members can stay in touch with each other as well as their 2 coaches.
So that's our vision - and we are personally excited about getting back involved in moving clients forward.
I truly believe that this is a unique opportunity to take your business to the next level.
And remember that, as an MMG member, you can still attend any or all of the core DBS workshops for just the delegate rate - and you can send any team members to the core DBS workshops for refresher days or to get "Barrowed up" if they are new team members.
Your investment
In January, we are raising our fee for the core DBS programme to £6,000 plus VAT. As you know, you have the additional costs of staff wages and lost billable time to factor into this as well.
We intend to price MMG membership at the same level - that will be £6,000 plus VAT. Your additional investment here will be travel to the location and your accommodation for the meetings. Your investment in the MMG will include dinner on the Sunday evening.
As with the core DBS, you can either pay up front or we will arrange finance for your fees.
Early-bird discount
Payments received (or finance approved) before 1st December 2006 will enjoy 2 significant benefits:
1. An early-bird discount of 5% - your fee will be £300 less and 2. No Vat payable on fees received before that date.
So an early decision would save you £1350 on the overall costs!
Act Now!
There are only 20 places available in the DBS Mastermind Group 2007- and we already know of 10 places that have been reserved and invoiced, in addition to this letter to the 6 existing APG members - so technically we have room for you and 4 other practices and a waiting list of 15 who have requested further details - before we contact them we are giving you "first refusal" on places 11 to 17 inclusive.
For further details, or to reserve your place, please call Bonnie Mockett on 01326 377078 or email here on bonnie@thedentalbusinessschool.com
The term "Mastermind Group" was first coined by Napoleon Hill in his famous book "Think and Grow Rich." In it he explains it as a group of people who put their thoughts, ideas, and experiences together to create a synergy and compilation of ideas that benefits each individual.
I highly recommend reading "Think and Grow Rich" and came across a valuable suggestion from blogger Reg Gupton:
Read Think and Grow Rich to learn more about the Mastermind principle and many other ground breaking ideas that I have found so useful in my life. While re-reading my copy, dog eared, marked up, I recalled that for years I read this powerful book every year between Christmas and New Years. Every year when I revisited the book I took something new away. The book was the same and I was different. It is now in my reminder system to be re-read every year from now on. You should read it too.
I hope you take the time this holiday season to read the book - and if you've already read it, read it again! I certainly will be.
One thing to think about when you're setting up your Mastermind Groups is how long you want to be around for. There are many groups which are designed to run indefinitely. I've been fortunate enough to be around a few where the members have been meeting for over 20 years!
That being said, many groups do not last as long. A recent post in the eMoms at Home blog discusses the end of a Mastermind Group after 12 weeks in operation. The group got what they needed and the members are continuing on their own paths.
My own local Mastermind Group ended yesterday after a wonderfully insightful and productive 12 weeks. We had a wrap-up dinner last night and shared with each other the highlights of the time we have spent together, talking specifically about what we learned and what were our key takeaways from such a huge investment of time, love and work.
The groups that I run are setup as annual memberships. The entrepreneurs who join commit to being a part of it for one full year. You should do at least 3 months to be able to see some improvement with your business as the connections and advice you get begin to unfold in your company. I like the one year model as it really brings together the members and gives everyone a chance to get to know each other. The more you can understand the other people in the group, the better advice you can give them. The groups tend to form a little family of their own as we meet once a month and follow up via phone calls every week.
I would suggest having a timeline for your group. Test it out for 3 months and see how it goes. Is everyone getting value from the group? Are the members you have the right one for what you want to achieve? Are you learning and being challenged by the group? Hopefully you'll build a group that can last 20 years or more!
I've found that the ideal number of members for a group is 8 members. It makes sure that you have enough members with different backgrounds to bring value to the discussion. Usually when someone is explaining a challenge with their business, in a group of 8 members, 2 or 3 of them have already been through that challenge and have ideas and suggestions to help. If you don't have enough members to bring different experiences to the table it's not as valuable an experience. The idea is to leverage the expertise, knowledge, and connections of the members in the group so you need a good number of members to pull from.
Why we stop the groups at 8 is because with the intro brainstorming session and then everyone having 15-20 minutes to talk about their businesses, the meetings will go on for too long. After a 2.5 hours of intense discussion people begin to get tired and stop focusing. You also lose the intimacy of the group as it builds beyond 8.
I ran across a meetup event for women entrepreneurs that has Mastermind Group meetings open to the public. Events are $20 (you get what you pay for) and from the pictures attract over 20 members. With so many people you can't really get the value of a Mastermind Group - it could be an effective networking group, which carries a different purpose from a Mastermind Group.
Try to keep your groups large enough so that you get a variety of opinions and expertise but small enough so you can keep people focused and the intimate environment. For these reasons I've found 8 to be the perfect number.
Cameron Johnson is one of the hottest things going in young entrepreneurship. Now 22, Cameron has been featured in over two-hundred newspapers, magazines and television stations worldwide discussing entrepreneurship and small business success.
In a recent interview with Ralph Zuranski, Cameron touched on the importance of Mastermind Groups:
Ralph Zuranski: How important is it to have trusted friends or a mastermind group to bounce your ideas off?
Cameron Johnson: I think it is so important that you have trusted friends. First of all, if you have friends you can't trust, then you can't bounce an idea off of them. You have to be able to trust your friends, and your friends also need to be able to trust you, likewise.
I think a mastermind group is so rewarding, because it is not just rewarding to you to be the center of that group, but it is rewarding to everyone who gets to participate. I am a participant in several mastermind groups, and I have one myself.
It is so rewarding to just bounce ideas off for each other and help all of us move forward and be more successful. I think it is also probably one of the most important things you can do, and the most cost effective, to bounce an idea off of someone before you spend the money or go out and write the check to do it. So I think mastermind groups are so rewarding and so valuable.
Ralph Zuranski: Well, how did they make a positive difference in your life?
Cameron Johnson: I think they save you a lot of time! They save you a lot of time from trial and error. You can read books about things that have worked and things that haven't, and you can also ask people that have been in that exact same situation.
You can see what decisions they made and whether they would agree that they were the right decisions or the wrong decisions. You can use that advice to move forward, and hopefully to make better decisions in your life, and to save time.
Because we are only here for a certain amount of time, so we need to be as effective as we can be. So I think that is exactly how they can make a positive difference every day.
Creative Venture is a weekly podcast designed to bridge the gap between creativity and practical business sense. In their most recent post, they discuss the most common things business owners need to consider before getting up and going.
Among the recommendations are to seek support and set up a Mastermind Group:
Finding some support is a great way to stay on target. Enlisting a spouse, partner, or good friend to make sure you are sticking to your original timeline. Last week I mentioned forming a small group of creative entrepreneurs. You may have heard the term Mastermind Group, from Napoleon Hill's classic "Think and Grow Rich." It's basically a group of like minded folks who are interested in personal development and want to get and give support. Small workgroups of writers, artist, musicians, craftspeople, or programmers for example are a great way to get help working through the challenges faced by a creative entrepreneur.
Mastermind Groups can help business owners of all sizes - from startups to well established companies. It's important to keep in mind though that the members are all of similar sizes and can provide advice for each other. When some members are far more advanced than others they don't tend to find value in the group and it falls apart. Make sure all the members are getting value from the group to ensure an effective atmosphere.
Technology entrepreneurs are ahead of the curve with new products and tools and many of them are also picking up on the Mastermind Group trend.
A growing trend in Mastermind Groups is to bring together entrepreneurs within the same industry with each member having a different focus. For example, in the technology world, entrepreneurs can specialize in eBay, SEO, Internet marketing, blog marketing, etc and share knowledge and resources to help each other.
Tan Kian Ann writes a blog helping business owners make a living through blogging. He wrote a recent post about the importance of Mastermind Groups for technology entrepreneurs. It included:
We need to work in a mastermind group that consist of people that complement each other. Mastering everything is crazy. Members of a mastermind team also help to push each other to keep up with work.
I'm looking forward to seeing more tech focused business owners getting involved in Mastermind Groups and the trend expanding to other industries as well!
Jesse Boland recently wrote an article for home business owners to help them make more effective use of their time. Time management is a typical challenge with home based entrepreneurs and solopreneuers. Building a company beyond yourself can be a monumental task. Jesse's suggestions are to:
1. Find a mentor or create what Napoleon Hill calls in "Think and Grow Rich," a mastermind group. A group of people who meet regularly to game plan and work out answers to problems that they or the other members are having. This group can be in person or via an online conference room. These types of people will guide you with their own successes and difficulties the have faced in business and provide you with a reality check about the level of desire, commitment, and dedication you must have to build a successful business from home.
2. Stay away time wasters.
3. Make "Work Time" actual Work Time.
4. Just because you are on the phone with a prospect doesn't mean that they are the type of person you want to do business with.
5. If you find something that works, stick with it.
The main purpose of the Mastermind Groups that I run are to bring entrepreneurs from different fields together to discuss their business challenges. Each business owner must be from a different industry so there are no competitors in the room. In fact, we get the best results where members are from completely different industries and have a variety of backgrounds and skill sets.
Another popular way though is to create Mastermind Groups around niche topics. For example, if you want to improve your website's presence you can form a Mastermind Group for internet marketing.
One expert's suggestions on building an Internet Marketing Mastermind Group are:
Gather 2 or more individuals ( not more than 4 ) to meet, discuss and exchange pointers with your laptops in tow. Show and share with one another. This is probably the best and cheapest way to grow your knowledge among each other. Assign each person in the group to research and learn about certain aspect of internet marketing. Eg. for a group of beginners, 1 person to find out how to setup blogger blog, 1 person to find out how to register clickbank, 1 person how to buy a domain name and 1 person on how to buy hosting.
These groups work when everyone has a common goal and can split the research work thereby leveraging the time and abilities of your fellow group members.
The power of the mastermind group is unmatched, the search for its members, unending. There are only so many hours in a day and only so much information you can acquire yourself. Thus, you must rely on the skills and information acquired by others. Whether they provide the advice upon which you base your legal decisions or your financial ones, whether they can provide costing or sourcing information.
Anything that you venture requires is going to have to be provided by you. You must have a mastermind group in order to be informed enough to provide it.
You should therefore ensure that your mastermind group represents all areas of your business and that you can turn to them individually or collectively for their input at any time. One person can never hope to collect the knowledge that a larger group has spent years accumulating.
To further illustrate this point, your job as an entrepreneur, is to become the finest generalist you can become, someone who knows a little about each of the functions of your business. Your Mastermind group therefore must be made up of the finest specialists you know or can afford. On this point, specialist advice is not always cheap, so you should not be either. Hire and defer to the best. Put the leaders in their space on retainer if you must.
Ultimately your success in your venture depends upon the quality of the advice and support received from the specialists in your Mastermind Group.
The power of many is far, far greater than the power of one.
Getting the right members in your Mastermind Group is one of the most important factors in launching a successful group. Every member who comes to our groups is first screened through a 1 on 1 interview process. After that they are invited to a meeting as a guest to see if they fit with the other members.
The CEOConsultant blog had an interesting post that brought up some suggestions for how to find the right Mastermind Group Members.
The books you read and the people you interact with most determine 90% of your success. So surround yourself with successful, positive people. Join a mastermind group. It can consist of like-minded individuals all around the country where you talk by phone once a week.
Attend business and personal development seminars to find the right people.
Who are the people you spend the most time with?
What about their goals, values and priorities?
Do they have any goals?!
You are an average of the five people you spend the most time with.
Try this exercise: Add up their yearly income and divide by five. Most likely your income is within 10% of that sum.
You can spend time with people less successful than you and feel like a big fish, but as you discover your passion and climb the ladder of success, those same people will drag you down and discourage your dreams.
One of the greatest benefits of a Mastermind Group is to have accountability partners. In our groups, members pair up with each other and have a call once a week to discuss their goals. The idea is to have members push each other to achieve their goals as well as get new strategies on how to overcome obstacles. When you commit to someone else you are more likely to follow through than if you just commit to yourself.
The eMoms at Home Blog had a great post that mentioned the importance of getting an accountability partner:
Get an accountability partner No matter if I am working for myself, or working for someone else, every year I have a hard time focusing on work in December. It's one of my favorite times of the year and family comes first. But if you drop the ball too much now, you will go into overwhelm mode in January, and lose precious business opportunities along the way. Here is my simple formula for being accountable: Create consequences. If I don't do things on my "Must" list, my Mastermind Group holds me to my self-imposed leverage. Like I would have to give each person $250, or I would have to destroy a favorite photograph, or I would have to grow out my usually well hidden moustache (remember I am a mom, not a dad ). I actually feel far less stress when I don't procrastinate.
One of the author's suggestion is to form a Mastermind Group:
Years ago, some of the best advice I never took was "You can't succeed alone." It took me a long time to buy into this very simple concept. Today I belong to a Mastermind group that meets every three months. We've been doing this for five years now.
While his group doesn't meet as frequently as many Mastermind Groups (ours meet monthly with weekly follow up calls), it has lasted 5 years which is a testament to the value of having good members to help you achieve your goals and leverage the knowledge and experience of others.
A blog post I came across recently by protea discusses the seven traits of highly successful people. According to the author, successful people:
1) Love Themselves 2) Don't Procrastinate! 3) Have Focus 4) Have Money 5) Are Leaders and Thinkers 6) Have a Unique Ability to Adapt 7) Have a Support Group
Rarely are successful people hermits. They usually have the support of a mastermind group, an advisor, or a coach. Look at Tiger Woods – the man is ultra successful and arguably the greatest golfer of our time. He is still surrounded by coaches on a daily basis.
Successful people understand that having a team to develop ideas and move forward quickly, is key to their success. To them, synergy means 1+1=11.
I've gotten some of my best business ideas from the creative entrepreneurs around me. It's hard to operate in a vacuum and try to do it all yourself. By opening your ideas and challenges up to people around you, including Mastermind Group members, you can get a flood of suggestions, experience, and contacts that can help you get your business to the next step much faster than if you try to go it alone.
Alice Seba is an Internet marketing mother. In a recent blog post she wrote about how to work smarter and not harder. She explores the idea of how you make more money with less personal time invested in your business.
Her 4 key points were:
Value your time
Leverage the strengths and time of others
Implement Passive Income Models into your Business
Don't be afraid of technology
Smart ideas for any entrepreneur. A part of her "Leverage the strengths and time of others" was
"Being part of mastermind group that shares business strategies and experiences."
Kudos to Alice for realizing that as entrepreneurs we tend to wear too many hats and run everything ourselves. The more we can leverage others the faster we can build our businesses. Mastermind Groups are a great way to leverage the intellectual capital and personal networks that other members have spent years to develop. They can help put you on the fast track to success.
Phil Gerbyshak writes a blog on Making It Great to promote a book that he's written on the topic. He's recently started a virtual Mastermind Group.
Phil outlines what he sees as the benefits of joining a Mastermind Group:
It's one way to surround yourself with people who can help you, one of the chapters in my book. It's a way to reach your goals by having a group of people to help you achieve more by creating goals together, brainstorming ideas, and supporting each others' hopes, dreams, and inspirations. It also is a chance to get some honest feedback on ideas one might have, because you are being totally open and honest, and will share with each other in a spirit of growth, respect, and compassion. To say that I'm excited is a major understatement. I don't know what to expect, as I've never been part of a MasterMind group before. One thing is for sure: I'll learn a lot about myself and about some other unique folks I wouldn't otherwise have gotten to know.
An interesting component of Phil's group is that it is completely virtual. They will be communicating via conference call, Skype, e-mail, and other collaboration tools. This can be a big challenge as so much of the benefits of having a Mastermind Group is to be able to discuss issues face to face but it's not always possible if members are located around the country (or the world!).
A great step that Phil has taken is to get facilitators to run the meetings. Many Mastermind Groups fall apart because they don't have leaders with established roles.
EvanCarmichael.com is the world's #1 website for small business motivation and strategies. Evan also runs a series of successful Mastermind Groups in Toronto for entrepreneurs.
Guest Contributor: Patrick Dougher
). I actually feel far less stress when I don't procrastinate. 
