Content & Framework For Effective Mastermind Groups!

I received lots of questions last week with regard to how I set up my Mastermind Groups as well as ideas for topics for discussion. Let's take a look at both!

Set up:

6-8 people seems to work best. More than that and you have a bunch of "Type A's" interrupting the hell out of each other. Less than that and you may hear crickets on the phone.

60-75 mins in length. More than that and you are starting to shoot the sh*t, less than that and you won't get to your content.

Meet Once A Month: I tried twice monthly for the longest time and quite frankly it became overkill. Learn from Uncle Paul's mistake on that one!

Leadership: You switch leaders each month. This is a good system because you get the benefit of different leadership styles and content. Each participant gets to give their leadership muscles a work out.

Leadership Responsibilities:

A. Choose the topic
B. Email the agenda and appoint a scribe. The scribe's responsibility is to take detailed notes and then send a recap to the group within 24-48 hours.
C. Keep the meeting on point and within the agreed upon time frame.

Note: It's real easy to get off topic when you have people who are passionate about being successful. To that end you'll need a . . .

Parking Lot: The parking lot is simply a place for you to park ideas and topics for another meeting. This way if someone starts going off topic, you can respectfully say "Why don't we 'parking lot' that for a future meeting" Which of course is French for STFU. Seriously, I worked with a group of sales reps in Michigan who used this. Within one mastermind meeting they had enough topics for the next year! If you keep a good parking lot, you will almost never struggle for topics!

D. Enforce the rules:

The meeting starts and ends on time

It isn't a "Bitch Session" Trust me when I tell you that if you allow your meeting to be a forum for complaints, your group will become what experts refer to as "Sucky":

Participation: Make it clear that everyone shows up and participates. Don't ever tolerate people telling you "Something came up and I can't make it" That's how groups begin to suck! Granted, emergencies can and will happen but there's a difference between an emergency and a flake! For planning purposes you should set it up in a way that's easy to remember such as the third Thursday of every month or something like that.

Content:

You can decide in advance the topics you all feel would be valuable and you can also use the "Parking Lot" to continually refresh your supply.

Here's 6 months worth of topics for you to consider:

1) How do you get a prospect off the fence of indifference without blowing the deal or giving away the shop?

2) Creative Door Openers: What are some creative ways we can get the attention of our prospects?

3) Objection Busters: Each participant comes up with 1 comeback for each of the following: Not Interested, No Time To Meet With You, Send me some information, We already have a vendor.

4) Send an article or have everyone read a book prior for discussion. Challenge everyone to come up with 1 idea that speaks to the topic. As the leader of the discussion, come up with 1 Devil's Advocate question.

5) Resource Meeting: Everyone brings one resource that others can benefit from. The resource can be the name of a cool website, blog, article, book etc

6) Your best advice for selling during challenging times. What have you done differently? Want to kick this one up a notch? Have each person ask this question to either someone in their network, in a Linkedin group, on their blog, at their company sales meeting etc. Why limit your answers to just your group?

And before I forget, you can get tons of content by checking out the discussions on Linkedin. My Sales Playbook Group has over 400 discussions you can pillage from!

Note: Sales managers, the Linkedin discussions are a great place for you to get ideas for your next sales meeting too!

So there you have it. A basic framework and some ideas for discussion.

What are some topics you can suggest?

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Free Webinar From Kelley Robertson: Kelley Robertson is one of my sales guru amigos and he's quite talented to say the least. He's offering a free webinar Secrets To Overcoming Objections this Wednesday, January 27th from !:00 pm - 2:00 pm EST.

Here's the link. You won't want to miss it! https://www1.gotomeeting.com/register/843250257