I believe one of the most productive ways to grow your business fast is through joining a mastermind group.
Although most people are familiar with things like coaching or even group coaching, masterminding and being part of a mastermind group is still a fairly new concept to many.
So What is Masterminding / A Mastermind Group?
The idea of masterminding has been around for over 100 years but I first learned about the mastermind concept a couple of years ago through reading Napoleon Hill’s book Think and Grow Rich.
At its core, a mastermind group consists of anything between 2-50 individuals (but typically around 8-10 people) who meet on a regular basis. The group then combines the collective knowledge and experience of all these individuals with the core purpose to help each other succeed.
It is a place where you can surround yourself with people who you can learn from and who can help you build your business (and vice versa). Within these groups you can openly share obstacles and challenges in your business and then receive answers, feedback, support and encouragement from all the other members to help you move past these obstacles and challenges. It is also a perfect place to share and celebrate your successes – something that many solo-preneurs lack in their business – we often do not have people who understand and celebrate our business successes with us.
How Does a Mastermind Group Work?
The members of a mastermind meet regularly. This can be weekly, monthly, quarterly or yearly, depending on the group structure and needs. These meeting can be over the telephone or in-person.
A mastermind group can consist of only peers meeting regularly (typically free) or the group can have a leader who provides more structure and guidance (typically paid). Both types of groups are beneficial.
In my experience however, groups that offer the most benefit are paid groups since they have a leader / coach who can provide deeper training that is applicable to everyone in the group. Paid groups also have a clear advantage in that the members tend to participate much more in order to benefit from their investment.
How Can Masterminding Grow Your Business Faster?
Masterminding helps to spark new ideas on how to grow your business faster. This business growth usually happens when you hear yourself “think out loud” by sharing about what you do and growth also happens by listening to others where they either show you the way or just share about what happens in their own businesses.
Therefore, participating in a mastermind often gives you immediate results, because you leave each session with more wisdom, having a better perspective on your own business, feeling supported and being motivated to take bigger risks.
Your group also keeps you accountable and focused. This is something that we all could use more of in our businesses and our lives. Although it’s true that you can set your own goals and then try to keep yourself on track to achieve them, your commitment and desire to implement stuff is taken to a whole new level when you know someone else is also going to keep you accountable.
This added accountability is often the key to implement things faster – to not procrastinate on doing things. And we all know that when you take action on your goals and implement things, you get results. And with every result you get, you move closer to what you want to achieve in the end. So the faster you implement, the faster you grow and for me, that is one of the biggest benefit of a mastermind group.
Whether you are starting a new business or own a well-established business, you can benefit from the stimulating input that mastermind groups have to offer. When you surround yourself with other like-minded people who support you to reach your bigger goals, it becomes one of THE fastest ways to grow personally, and to grow your business. The saying of “two heads are better than one,” really comes into play during masterminding as it becomes easier to find solutions to overcoming the obstacles keeping your business from moving forward.
So, tell us in the comment box below what your thoughts are about mastermind groups. Have you ever joined a group and how did that work for you?
As a solo entrepreneur, whether you are just starting out or in business for quite some time, you often encounter the following problem: “Running out of time”.
There are just so many different things that need to be taken care off on a daily basis… and sometimes the most important things like building your business and getting more clients easily slip through the cracks OR are intentionally put on the back burner.
This not only causes frustration, but also hinders your success.
With only 24 hours a day to your disposal, how can you ensure you get everything done, be more successful and accomplish more in one day?
Developing a smart and effective time management strategy is a great start to get the important things done and still have enough time to do marketing and grow your business successfully.
5 Ways I Use To Create a Smart Time Management Strategy
1. PLAN & PRIORITIZE YOUR DAY:
Spend 10 minutes at the beginning of the day to plan and prioritise all tasks / projects you want to complete that day. Ask yourself: Of all the things that are on your to-do list, what 3-5 things will you complete before end of day to get closer to your goals? Those will be your priorities for the day.
2. ALLOCATE SPECIFIED TIME PER TASK
For every project/task you intend to do, allocate a specific period of time in which to do it. If you do not have a specific defined work period you will find that work will expand to fill the time available and you will not be managing time – it will be controlling you. If the task is large, break it down to ‘bite size’ pieces and allocate a time to each piece. By breaking a big task into smaller sections will help you to assess the results or outcomes and you’ll feel good about your achievements.
3. SCHEDULE SPECIFIC TIME IN YOUR DIARY EACH WEEK TO WORK ON YOUR BUSINESS
As a service professional, most of our time is spend on working with clients. But when you want to grow your business, you have to make time to work on your own business as well. Thus make time each day or each week for business development and marketing activities. These specific time slots can be used for re-evaluating your goals and plans; developing new plans for growing your business and getting more clients & taking specific actions to implement all those plans.
4. IDENTIFY YOUR 3-5 BIGGEST TIME WASTERS DURING A TYPICAL DAY
Take note of all the activities during a normal work day that eat away your time. This can be things like watching TV during the day, spending hours on social media, lunch / coffee with friends, emails, searching the internet, playing online games, running to the shop etc. Make the decision to set boundaries and put a pause button on these time wasters at least during your normal working hours.
5. SET UP SYSTEMS TO SUPPORT YOUR TIME MANAGEMENT STRATEGY
To dramatically increase your productivity and profits, start using and leveraging systems to automate or make your routine tasks easier to handle. These systems can include things as simple as making lists; using a calendar to effectively plan your time and managing your yearly/monthly/weekly projects; creating templates for routine activities like answering questions via email and automating some marketing activities like social media updates.
Charles Bruxton wisely said:
“You will never “find” time for anything. If you want time, you must make it.”
Thus, if your income is stagnating and you are not making progress in your business, it is most likely that you can spend your time more effectively. Successful time management i.e. making time for the important things in your business, getting your focus back and spending time on those things that will have the biggest positive impact on your business and eliminating all the time wasters is a really smart strategy to more clients and a growing business.
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As a solo-entrepreneur, who do you turn to when you need help, advice or just plain support to grow your business?
If you are like many other entrepreneurs, it might sometimes feel as if nobody really understands exactly what you are doing. Thus, you’re hesitant to ask for advice because you’re not sure if people can give any good advice.
Perhaps it even feels you need to figure out everything on your own – the hard way – and that this is just a part of the journey towards success.
Luckily that’s not true at all!
What I’ve learned over the years is you don’t need to struggle all alone. And there’s actually an easy way to speed up your success.
Build a business support system and learn from people who has already “being there and done that”?
This way, you save a lot of time, because often implementing only one little technique shared by one of your trusted advisers, can make something easy which was once very hard.
It also saves a lot of frustration because you can avoid making the same mistakes that others have made.
So, here are 5 types of individuals or groups that I’ve included in my business support system and find tremendously helpful in growing my business. Perhaps people or groups like these can help you too.
1. Work with a mentor or coach.
Having a fresh pair of eyes that focuses specifically on helping you grow your business is invaluable. The right mentor / coach can help you define the actions you need to take, act as a sounding board, help you define your goals, give personalized support, share appropriate know-how, systems and tools you haven’t thought of before, give you the necessary confidence and hold you accountable to implement the plans for growing your business. Without a coach, I wouldn’t have grown my business so quickly.
2. Join a mastermind group.
Being part of a group of like-minded individuals that regularly meet and with whom you can discuss problem areas in your business or just brainstorm new ideas can do wonders for your business. It is like tapping into the collective experience, insights and wisdom of a group of people all with one goal of supporting you to grow your business while simultaneously growing their own businesses.
3. Work with an accountability buddy.
This is someone that you can get in contact with on a weekly basis to participate in regular accountability calls. You share your goals with each other as well as the action steps you want to take and then keep each other accountable to take those actions and reaching those goals. This really ensures that you continue to make progress, implement what you say you want to do and stay inspired to grow your business.
4. Network with other business colleagues.
This can be other solo-entrepreneurs or business owners either in the same industry or in another industry. Talking to other business owners, even when they are not directly in your industry or line of work is a great way to tap into advice and expertise that you wouldn’t otherwise be able to get hold of. It can also stimulate your thinking, allow you to look at things differently and help you generate new ideas to implement.
5. Regularly talk to your spouse, a trusted family member or friend about your business.
Even though they might not be an entrepreneur or know and understand exactly what you do, they are not wrapped up in the day to day workings of entrepreneurship, and can often provide alternative or fresh insights to stimulate ideas and help you see things differently. My hubby is an engineer and he does not fully understand entrepreneurship or even what I’m doing, but his analytical way of thinking has brought many a-ha moments to my business.
Forming a support system or a group of trusted advisers for you and your business can be invaluable to your long-term success. Most successful entrepreneurs have one or more of the above included in their support systems, because they know they can’t do it completely alone.
So, who are the members of your business support system? Do you have one in place?Share your comments with us below.
To Your Success
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Everybody wants to have more clients, make more money, be recognized in their industry and feel good about themselves. It is life and part of having a business.
Unfortunately there is no magic wand that can make all of this happen.
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The plain truth is: What you are and what you become is totally up to you. Click to Tweet
I was recently confronted with questions like:
• “Who motivates the motivator?”
• “What do you do with information you receive at seminars, online training, webinars, teleconferences, email newsletters etc. etc.?”
• “What will be different in your business a year from now?”
• “When are you going to implement what you’ve learned?”
…and again came to the conclusion that it is totally up to you to make your mark.
To go from ordinary to extraordinary you should “Decide to Do”.
Running your own business requires more than just following the flow of things that are thrown your way, it involves actively steering your business in the direction that you want it to go into.
It requires from you to:
Be your own motivator;
Sift through the sea of information that you receive on a daily basis and take action on the things that can help you make your mark;
Set and/or renewgoals and targets in order to grow your business to its full potential;
And the most important one – Implement what you’ve decided to do.
The truth is:
“There is a fine line between dreams and reality;
it’s up to you to draw it.” ~B. Quilliam~
So, I want to challenge you today to draw the line; step over the line; erase the line …whatever it takes for you. Just make a conscious decision to start making thing happen in your business and in your life…
Thank you for reading my blog! I truly value you!
To Your Success!
Grab your copy of my FREE report: “9 Essential Tactics to Get More Clients”
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It’s easy and comfortable to network online, right? You can sit in front of your PC, with no make-up, still in your PJ’s and have ground-breaking conversations with clients, prospects, partners, colleagues and friends.
However it is important for us as solo-preneurs who primarily work from home, to regularly break out of that “online” comfort zone, get away from the house and meet and network with like-minded people face-to-face at live business conferences, networking events and workshops.
Attending live events can be one of the most inspiring and transformational ways to boost your business results. It completely remove you from the pressures of your daily business activities, and give you an opportunity to get inspired, revitalized and motivated to take your business to the next level.
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Attending live events is an inspiring and transformational way to boost your business results. Click here to tweet.
Here Are 8 Great Benefits of Attending Live Events
1. Spending dedicated time on YOUR business.
We are often so focused on doing great work and helping our clients, that we do not spend the same amount of focus and time on growing our own business. Attending live events is a great opportunity to give 100% attention to your own business. At these events, you are the focus and can explore new strategies and plans to implement in your business.
2. Learning valuable information.
Live events usually have one or more keynote speakers who share their information and knowledge freely. This is a great time to learn from the experts and to stay updated with new technologies or trends in your industry while enjoying the company of others.
3. Meeting the experts
It’s a great opportunity to meet the experts. You might be following someone for a while and are just dying to meet them in person. At live events you can do that! As this might be your only change, make the most of your time and go introduce yourself. You never know where that connection may lead.
4. Meeting like-minded individuals.
People who show up to live events are the ones who are serious about growing their business. They are searching for solutions, open for new connections and are willing to take the necessary action to make things happen in their business. It is therefore so refreshing to have a conversation with someone who shares some common goals with you or people who are in the same industry, because they understand what you do and where you are coming from. For me it’s so inspiring to be around others who are just as passionate about their business as you are about yours and to have open discussions about it.
5. Getting Inspired and Motivated
When you go to events with an open mind, it provides a ton of inspiration and motivation. You not only get inspired and motivated by the speakers, and can go away with a ton of new exciting ideas to implement, but you also get motivated and inspired by just being in a room full of advancing entrepreneurs.
6. Sharing best practices
The really exciting thing about live events is that you can have really good, relaxing conversations with people and still learn a lot from others. Everybody talks about the content of the presentations and shares their own experiences, tips and strategies openly. It is thus a good place to find out what is working for somebody else that maybe you haven’t applied to your business yet. Getting all these new ideas and valuable learning from others are often priceless.
7. Making high-quality connections
Attending a live event give you the opportunity to come in contact with some amazing people that you may never have had the chance to meet in your office or even while networking online. Some of these people can become a potential joint venture partner, a new colleague, a client, someone you can refer to others or who can refer you, or even just a new friend. The collaboration and camaraderie from these new acquaintances, friendships and joint ventures helps to keep you motivated and excited about moving forward.
8. Receiving discounts on materials, courses and programs to deepen your learning
A really cool benefit is that the speakers at live events typically offer special discounts and promotions on their products and programs to attendees. This makes it a great opportunity to get access to their training programs and products at more affordable rates.
So, here is what I hope you take from this article: One of the best investments you can make in your business is to invest in continuous learning by attending events because it complements and supports any investment you make in high-quality training products and programs.
Attending live events, such as conferences, workshops, and networking events will empower you to go bigger than you’ve ever thought possible. It will expand your thinking and open you up to many new opportunities that otherwise may not be available to you…and once you’re back home, you’ll be excited and recharged to jump in and take your business to the next level with all your new knowledge and connections!
To Your Success
PS. At my Purpose to Prosperity Networking Events on July 3rd and July 18th in South Africa, you’ll experience all 8 of these benefits! ;-). Register to attend here.
Thank you for reading my blog!
Grab your copy of my FREE report below:
“9 Essential Tactics to Get More Clients”
Francis van Wyk is an experienced business and client attraction mentor who supports women solo-preneurs with planning and achieving business success online.
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