Anybody with an entrepreneur’s character likes to spend time with with other similar self-starters.  A business master-mind meeting gives you the opportunity to develop close, sympathetic relationships with a small number of business owners who will happily help you, as well as be given your help.

Each person in the group gets a chance to solicit help from each other member.  In this way, you help your fellow entrepreneurs and they help you in return.  Let’s explore what makes a good Mastermind Group.

Just prior to looking at some of the definite elements of Mastermind groups, let’s deal with what masterminds are not.  A lot of Internet marketers now sell memberships called premium, elite or VIP mastermind groups, or similar.  The format is for you to turn up for a telephone conference for sixty to ninety minutes in order for them to teach their ideas and methods to you.  Such calls are not based upon the principles of the first Think and Grow Rich model of a group of individuals who are like-minded, working together to assist all members attain bigger targets.  The “big names” that have become too busy to consult for single business owners, with people like Chris Cardell, who has built a big business from sales of information and CDs and MP3s of phone meetings.

First, a good business master mind is made up of compatible associates who “fit” together.  There should be nobody in the group who doesn’t logically fit in.  The make-up of the group is ideally based on a set of criteria that members determine.  For example, business size or a particular industry might be the criteria for a group.  Alternatively, maybe every member is a performer or in the retail business, etc.

Second, the group needs a clear purpose.  A good illustration could be to help every member to enjoy a lucrative and increasing firm.  Or it may be to help each member to double up their business every year.

Third, your group will be required to write down rules.  These should cover subjects such as attendance, involvement, responsibility, having only one topic of discussion at the meeting, providing encouragement for other members, etc.  In the absence of rules, you will find that some members will be a little too liberal with their behaviour, turning up only when it suits them, or failing to pay attentionwhen the dialogue moves on from their issue.

Fourth, answerability is key.  Nobody like the prospect of public shame, and that’s exactly what reporting back to the mastermind meeting will be, if you fail to complete on your actions.  The value of public accountability should not be disregarded - if you have to explain failings to one person, that’s awkward.  To explain to a group of trusted colleagues that you’ve “been too busy”, or “forgot”, will rapidly make you so mortified that you’d rather simply get the task done.

Fifth, sincerity.  If group members are not open and share what they know with you, it will be a pretty empty experience.  It’s the same the other way around, as well: you have to share what you know with the rest of your group to help them.

If you can create a business mastermind that follows these principles, you have a big chance of being in a group that will challenge and extend you.  Which means your company will develop more rapidly and your own horizons will be stretched, too.

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