Tips For Your First Mastermind Group Meeting

Guest Contributor: Chris Barrow
Chris' Posts - Chris' Blog


Many people seem to have enjoyed my first post on Evan's site, sharing the "recruitment" letter that we sent out to invite members to our 2007 Dental Mastermind Group.

Last Sunday afternoon I drove down to Birmingham to meet for the first time with our Mastermind Group for 2007 - 18 dental principals who will meet quarterly for a working dinner and then a full day of coaching.

In addition we will offer them:

Unlimited email access to myself and my co-coach Simon Hocken;

An individual 30-minute coaching call, once a month;

A group conference call once a month and

A group email facility so that they can communicate with each other.

On Sunday we met in our hotel bar for pre-dinner drinks and, to my delight, the atmosphere was vocal and friendly from the very start.

This happened because some were old friends who have met at The Dental Business School (my core coaching programme) and others who have met on our one or two-day specialist workshops.

When we entered our dining room, I asked the hotel staff to stand back whilst I formally greeted everyone and asked them to stand and share with the group:

Who they were;

Where they were from;

A mini-profile of their business and

A little known non-business fact about themselves (my ice-breaker)

Dinner was fun and, again, vocal. I retired to my room at 10.30pm and heard on Monday that the last group of 4 left the bar at 1.45am (I had warned them not to get too much alcohol in their system so, thankfully, there were few fuzzy heads the next day - but don't lose sight of the social element - many of my clients are single-handed healthcare professionals who seldom get out to play).

On Monday (9.00am start), the energy in the room was immediately electric and full of anticipation.

We spent the first hour presenting to them – rules, boundaries and objectives for the group together with an explanation of the support services I mentioned above.

Then it was straight into 2 syndicates – one of 10, the other of 8 (because we have found that more than 10 is too many and less than 6 is too few.

They have in common:

• Ownership of a dental practice
• At least one year of Dental Business School membership.

When we first created MMG's 4 years ago I mistakenly believed that I would be required to come up with sparkling new "advanced" material to engage their interest.

But we quickly discovered they had heard "the basics" but not implemented them all.

So the MMG evolved as an environment for implementation of the standard stuff they had heard me present on the core programme.

The format is to spend approximately 30 minutes helping each client to deal with specifics - facilitated by the coach but helped by all the other people in the room.

Themes yesterday were:

• I need to employ a full-time business manager
• I need to do the Patient Journey basics
• I need to do the marketing basics
• I'm still overwhelmed and my task list just gets longer

We agreed that, in fact, there was only 1 "to do" on their "to do" list.

The only "to do" is to employ people "to do" the "to do's" on your "to do" list.

Delegate to a business development manager, do dentistry, communication and leadership and let others do everything else.

My favourite comment of the day (from a client) - "have you noticed that there is a tit in the middle of practitioner?"

As always, we spent more time with the earlier volunteers for coaching and, as the day progressed, time became a pressure – but the later delegates require less time because many of their own issues have been addressed in earlier conversations.

Although we nominally allocate 30 minutes per member, it is important to reinforce that the objective of the day is to be results-based and not time-based. If the members get the answers they were looking for in 30 seconds that's OK. Move on.

If a member has been coached but complains that there are "15-minutes of my time left" they may be unsuitable.

The day flew by - and before we knew it there were farewells until next quarter.

A truly inspiring experience - I love the "buzz" of the mastermind group - which is why I am looking forward to attending my own MMG(as a delegate) on Friday this week!