Evaluating New Members - Business vs. Life Experience

We had a new potential member create his one page profile and submit it to my Mastermind Group that met last week. He is a very early stage business - in fact he currently has a full time job and is working on his business part time. One of his goals is to transition to full time and continue to grow his company.

Usually such a candidate is not ideal for our Mastermind Groups. Most of our members are beyond the startup stage and have between $100,000 and $2,000,000 in annual revenues. They have hit a ceiling and need help getting to the next step. This new member, however, was referred by an existing member and I always meet with someone who was referred.

I'm glad I did.

What the new potential member lacks in business experience, he has made up for in life experience. To protect confidentiality I cannot go into detail in this post but the candidate has definitely seen a lot in his life to last three lifetimes. He could offer some valuable insights to the rest of the group and definitely bring a different perspective.

The group read his bio and agreed to meet with him for his test meeting next month. Whether he gets accepted into the group or not depends on how he interacts with the other members and if everyone feels like there is value being created but it was a valuable lesson to learn that life experience can sometimes be just as important as business experience when you are looking at adding new members to your group.

Evan Carmichael

How To Select New Members Into A Mastermind Group

The Mastermind Groups that I run typically have between 4 and 8 members. We start with 4 as a founding group and build up to a maximum of 8. You want enough members so that there are a number of opinions to solve the members' challenges but not so many that the individual members do not get enough time to talk about their problems.

Adding new members can be a tricky process. You always want to make sure that everyone is compatible because if two members are constantly add odds with each other it will bring the whole group down. Here is what we do when a new member is interested in joining an existing group.

1) Face to face meeting
I personally meet with every candidate face to face at a local coffee shop. I want to make sure they understand the concept of the Mastermind Group and that they are not there to just sell their services. While many sales do happen between members, the point of the group is to have an advisory board for your business rather than a group of people to sell to. I answer any questions they might have, learn about their businesses, and see if there might be a fit with one of the groups based on my knowledge of the members and the various challenges they are facing.

2) Written, one page overview
Assuming they are interested in joining a group and I think they would be a good fit, the candidates would prepare a one page overview of themselves and their businesses. It usually comprises of a background on the entrepreneurs, their relative skills, company histories, and a list of the challenges they are currently facing. This one pager would then be shown to the members of the Mastermind Group with the best fit. The existing members read the overview and discuss if they would like to learn more about the potential member. Some of the usual issues that come up are if the new member is a potential competitor / client / supplier of an existing member, if the new member can add value to the discussion, and if the industry that the new member represents would be a missing knowledge base for the existing members.

3) Trial meeting
If the existing members agree to learn more about the new potential members, they are invited to a meeting as a trial. The new members have to sign the non disclosure agreement and they participate in the meeting as a full member. They get to meet the existing members and see how the meetings are run. They then get the opportunity to discuss their companies and the challenges they are facing to get the feedback from the other members. After the meeting is over I will follow up during the week with both the new potential members and the existing members. If everyone agrees that the new members brought in value then they are added. Similarly the new members have to have found value from the meeting and from the existing members to want to stay.

The key I have found really is the screening meeting at the coffee shop. I do most of the eliminating because I know what the groups are looking for and who makes a good member. By the time the new members get to submitting the overview and coming to a trial meeting they are usually accepted in the group.