Make the Most of Masterminding


If you’ve been in business for any length of time, you’ve probably been a member of a mastermind group (although you might not have called it that). If you’re new to self-employment, start or find a mastermind group... fast!

I’ve written about mastermind groups before as a way to get your own ‘board of directors’. They can take many forms. I’ve been fortunate to have been a member of several during my years as a small business owner. I’ve started and ended groups, joined and left groups.

Some groups have been short term with a specific purpose. A few years ago I studied an internet marketing course with a small group over a 6 month period. It was fun and educational to learn together.

Some groups have been more long-term and general purpose. I currently meet with two other women business owners monthly to discuss ideas, learn from and motivate each other.

Whether short term or long term, specific or general, big or small, I’ve learned a few things from my experiences. The members must be:
  • committed
  • trustworthy
  • likeable
  • varied in their skills and character
  • willing to share and learn

Remember that participating in a mastermind is an investment of time and effort. Make sure you're getting greater value in return.

Originally published in Work Better, Not Harder on October 24, 2012

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Quick Tip - Avoid Hidden Format Problems

Image
When you're inserting content into your newsletter, website or blog, you're often copying it from other documents.  I suggest you always compose in Word (or similar) to take advantage of its spelling and grammar-checking functionality. Your formatting in Word may not be the same as your default formatting in these various applications.  While there are a raft of applications that make it easy now to do your own newsletter, website and blog, most of them are converting your content to html code in the background.  When you copy in text that is already formatted, you're possibly creating problems behind the scenes .  As well, you'll end up with differing fonts and sizes that all have to be corrected before you publish. You can avoid the potential for problems by stripping off all formatting before you paste into the application.  An easy way to do this is to use Notepad (or similar).  You simply open a blank notepad document, paste your content into it, then copy
Keep reading »

I Love Uphill Graphs!

Image
I've been known to fixate on graphs and measurements . See, I really hate working for no reason. I like to know that my efforts make a difference. If not, I either tweak and retry, or I give it up and put my efforts elsewhere. You can imagine that I've been keeping an eagle eye on all this online stuff - blogging, social media - since I took those first tentative steps . And it's really cool that the stats get dished up for me! I was delighted when I saw this graph of our blog statistics:  Before December, the highest number of page views we'd ever had in one month was in October - 997 views. I was kind of happy when that happened. In December,  our page views more than quadrupled! We did something right... but what was it? How do I replicate it? I think this happened because 3 or 4 times a week I started posting links to older blog posts on Twitter and LinkedIn. But, well, doesn't that seem just a little too easy? I'm wondering if perhaps the
Keep reading »

Make a Personal Connection - A Success Story

Image
Brenda Fay and her husband Dan of BrenDaniel Productions Corp. have trained people all over the world on project management. As a result, they have many contacts across several time zones. They had been using email marketing to promote their services. A couple of years ago I suggested to Brenda that she can get more out of her email marketing if she also gives some value to readers . Now her brief newsletter is bringing her success every time it goes out. Recently I asked Brenda where she gets her ideas . “From things that happen every day – talking with people, listening to CBC radio, and reading books are three main ways. I write about ideas that strike me as related to project management in one way or another.” Brenda told me that her goals are to stay in touch with people and to get information out about public programs she’s offering. It’s not a one way street. “It is fun for me to write the articles, and I am very pleased when people write back giving comments on the
Keep reading »

How to Get People to Open Your Emails

Image
How long did you think about the subject line of that email you just sent to your brand new client? Will they be interested or excited to open it? Or will they leave it sitting unopened, floating closer to the bottom of their inbox? I've discovered a little quirk. In fact, it feels more like a secret I shouldn't acknowledge, maybe even a tad manipulative. It didn't start out that way but now I know what I know... well, I can't un-know it. Here it is. If I send an email to any of my work friends with the words 'no rush' in the subject line, it's likely to get opened faster than any other email I send them. Of course, this may not work any longer once my friends read this article. But let me be clear, I've never used that knowledge to manipulate. And that's why it works. When I send an email with 'no rush' in the subject line, I really mean there's nothing inside requiring their attention soon. Usually it's a business idea in
Keep reading »

Up the Value of Your Redirect Pages

Image
Many of the people connecting with you online are arriving at one of your redirect pages at some point. A redirect page is the 'thank you for signing up' page you send them to when they sign up for your newsletter, or the event registration page you send them to when they sign up for your events. Often, these pages contain minimal, basic information. A thank you message in the case of the newsletter or confirmation of event details (location, time, date, etc) in the case of event registration. But why stop there? For one moment, you have managed to connect with that person. You have them at your website and they have already let you know they are interested in what you are doing by signing up for your newsletter or registering for your event. Why not think about what value you can offer them while they are there? How can you expand on that connection? With both your target market and your marketing strategy in mind, take a fresh look at your redirect pages and con
Keep reading »

Do You Need an Editorial Calendar?

Image
An editorial calendar makes it easy for people to work together, helping them follow a plan. What if there's only you in your business? Does it make sense to create an editorial calendar? Absolutely, but for different reasons. If your plan is in your head, writing it out will reduce stress - now you don't have to remember it. Handwriting activates the creative part of your brain and your memory . More importantly, having a plan will prep your brain to be on the lookout for appropriate content. You can use fancy spreadsheets, or find a detailed editorial calendar online. You can use coloured file cards, sheets of paper, or a whiteboard. The most important thing is that it works for y-o-u . It doesn't have to be like anyone else's editorial calendar. Of course, before you create an editorial calendar, you need to generate a bunch of content ideas . If you are like me, your content ideas may not be well organized. Creating an editorial calendar forces you t
Keep reading »

Boost Your Expert Reputation with an Evergreen Series

Image
Writing a series of articles is a great way to connect related content together . It is also an attention-getter, encouraging readers to subscribe or return for the next installment in the series. And it can be a showcase for demonstrating your expertise on a particular topic. A topical series of blog posts should be planned in advance to maximize its effectiveness. Here’s why: The finished series will flow more easily from one post to the next when you’ve created and edited a bullet outline of the entire series in advance. You can determine your link strategy and execute it seamlessly. You can promote the upcoming series in advance to generate interest and anticipation. Suggested Workflow to Create Your Series Determine your topic and create your series outline. Create and post some teasers on social media with a call-to-action to subscribe. Determine your link strategy and gather all relevant links. Paste them into your outline or create a separate text doc to put
Keep reading »

It doesn't have to be About You

Image
Let’s face it: some businesses are in a better position to provide valuable information through newsletters (blogs, social media) than others. Take our own newsletter as an example. We could easily publish a newsletter about publishing newsletters. (Stay with me here.) It would have lots of tips and suggestions and advice. We could really show off our expertise and share our opinions. Now, who would that appeal to? People who are publishing their own newsletters. Perhaps even people who are publishing newsletters for others. These people aren’t our target market - not even close. Our newsletter has nothing to do with our area of specialty. But of course we have to have one. What’s an 'enewsletter boutique' without its own newsletter ? So we found something else of use to our target market:  ideas and tips for small business owners shared by other small business owners. And (big bonus here) members of our target market are the authors of our newsletter! Giving va
Keep reading »

Content Template - The Checklist

Image
Using a content template can shorten your writing time and also keep you more focused. The purpose of this particular template is to give people a useful tool to complete a task more efficiently. This type of article shows off your expertise . Because it is so useful, people will bookmark it and return. Part of its usefulness is its simplicity: no long paragraphs, no complex sentences. Grab The Checklist content template here (.pdf). Get More Templates If you like this template, grab the mini workbook Quick and Easy Content Creation with 14 more templates , plus some tips for using them to be more productive. Click to Tweet this Article
Keep reading »

Do You Want 1,000,000 Subscribers?

Image
Tasting Table ( www.tastingtable.com ) grew its contact list to 1,000,000 subscribers in just 3 years. That’s pretty amazing on its own but here’s the kicker - it’s a daily newsletter. (I only have to get 998,000 more subscribers to catch up.) Would I want a mailing list of 1,000,000 subscribers? Most definitely ... if I owned a marketing company that sells advertising. I don’t, and most of you don’t either. (If you do, you know this stuff better than I do.) If Daley Progress had 1,000,000 subscribers, we’d never keep up with all the work generated. Because our capacity is limited, the time and effort spent to get that many subscribers would be wasted. We try to match our efforts to our desired results. As small business owners, our email marketing goals can be quite different and distinct. Not all of us want 1,000,000 subscribers. But we do need to continually get new subscribers because, over time, our lists can drop by as much as 30% over a year through attrition (calle
Keep reading »