Choosing the Best Mastermind Group for You and Your Business

Key Takeaways:

• Approximately 98 percent of entrepreneur members of mastermind groups say that the experience is valuable or very or extremely valuable.
• Be introspective—identify what you want and need from a group of like-minded entrepreneurs before you join one.
• Understand a group’s mission, members and leaders when evaluating candidates.

As a driven entrepreneur, your desire to excel means you’re always looking for ways to expand your knowledge and skills. You want to help your company do better and help yourself and others invested in your success.?

To accomplish all those things, you recognize the need to be a lifelong learner—someone who is constantly curious and seeking out new ideas.

That’s exactly why you may be considering joining a mastermind group—formal meetings of driven, like-minded advisors and other entrepreneurs who all want to be more successful and help foster the success of their peers. Mastermind groups (sometimes called CEO groups) are designed specifically to help business owners reach their most important goals.?

The issue: There are a lot of these groups out there—and they’re not all created equal. That means choosing the right mastermind group for you and your needs is a crucial step.

The value of mastermind groups

If you’re not familiar with mastermind groups, they have two main characteristics:

• They have an executive director. This person is responsible for running all facets of the group. Sometimes, the persona of the executive director plays an important role in defining the group.
• Entrepreneurs pay a fee to be members of the mastermind group. These fees are all over the place, ranging from less than $100 annually to more than $100,000 a year.?

Mastermind groups provide an environment in which you can:

• Learn from the accumulated experience of fellow members (which might include other entrepreneurs in your industry, business owners from other sectors, or both) and group leaders
• Test your ideas and strategies for solving challenges and pursuing opportunities
• Build profitable relationships
• Deliver value to other group members

Mastermind groups can enable entrepreneurs to become more successful much faster than they would have had they not been mastermind group members. Approximately 98 percent of entrepreneur members of mastermind groups surveyed by AES Nation say that the experience is valuable or very or extremely valuable (see Exhibit 3).

Selecting a mastermind or CEO group

But to get significant value from a mastermind or CEO group, you have to select the group or groups that are most likely to provide the resources and support you need and want.?

Your selection process should involve three key steps (see Exhibit 4). Before thinking about the possible groups and what they offer, you have to be introspective. The selection process starts with you. It is important that you have a clear understanding of your motivations—why you are considering a mastermind or CEO group.?

You also need to know what to expect from your membership in a mastermind or CEO group. What do you want to get out of the group? What would make it a success? Knowing your motivations, you now need to look at the possible and evaluate how well each would enable you to achieve your agenda.

Step #1: Focus first on yourself

You need to gain clarity about your reasons for wanting to join a group. You will also need to be clear about your expectations of joining a group. By knowing what you want out of the experience, you may be better able to see whether you would be a good fit with a particular mastermind group. Ask yourself questions such as:

• What do I want to accomplish?
• Broadly speaking, what do I expect from the group?
• Are there any specific things I am looking for from the group? If so, what are they?
• Which benefits of a mastermind group are most important to me?
• What will I have to do to bring value to the other group members—and am I comfortable with that?

Step #2: Understand the mastermind group

Now you need to consider which of the many mastermind/CEO groups are most likely to help you achieve your personal and professional goals. Today, there are a plethora to choose from, with more popping up all the time. You will likely be able to come up with a fairly substantial list of candidates by talking with other business owners and doing some online research.?

With candidates in hand, you will need to shrink the list down to high-potential groups. There are a number of questions to focus on when vetting specific mastermind groups, including:

• What is the mission of the mastermind group? Different mastermind groups usually have their own distinct characteristics. These are very much a function of the goals and objectives of the group, as well as its orientation and methodology. Put this all together and, broadly speaking, you have the mission of the group. You should have a solid grasp of what a particular group is aiming to accomplish—and how it could be useful to you.
• Who is the executive director, and what are his or her qualifications? The executive director organizes and facilitates the group, as noted above, and is typically instrumental to its success. Knowing who this person is, including his or her background and qualifications to run the group, is very useful when selecting a group. In particular, consider the executive director’s track record of success in supporting driven entrepreneurs.
• Who are the members of the mastermind or CEO group? From potential business opportunities to business owners who can provide sage advice and guidance, the quality of the members is key. You want to know the attributes and track records of the entrepreneurs involved in any group.?
• How much is it going to cost? Think in terms of the total expense. This includes hard costs such as the fees for attending, travel and lodging expenses, and ancillary fees. It also includes soft costs such as the time and effort you will put into the meetings and helping other members, and opportunity costs.

Tip: Talk with some current members of a mastermind group you’re evaluating. You may get a clearer sense of how the group really functions and delivers value by learning what the participants see as the most and least valuable aspects of the group.

Step #3: Make your selection

With all this information in hand, you can now seek to make a smart, well-informed decision. Take your criteria for success and match them to what the different elite mastermind or CEO groups say they deliver, along with your sense of their ability to really deliver. Then match what each group will take from you in the way of effort, time and cost with what will make being a member extremely worthwhile.?

Then take the final step to ascertain what would make joining a particular elite mastermind or CEO group not just a success, but an over-the-top success.

Conclusion

Mastermind groups can potentially add tremendous value to your business, your personal wealth and your overall life. But they also require a real commitment from you. Make sure any group you ultimately choose to join is one that can deliver the results you most want and need—and one to which you can bring insights and connections that benefit others as well.

VFO Inner Circle Special Report?

By Russ Alan Prince and John J. Bowen Jr.

? Copyright 2020 by AES Nation, LLC. All rights reserved.

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