Top 5 Reasons A Mastermind May Be Right for Your Business
How often do you find yourself pushing as hard as you can toward a singular goal with your business? It can be exciting as you push closer and closer to the next feature launch, that next sales goal, or that other low hanging fruit that helps boost your psychological well being.
It can be exhilarating - but can also send you down a path with blinders on to the other needs of your business. That is why it is critical to have a few sets of eyes on your business that are not your own and are not those of your customers.
About 10 years ago, internet marketing circles were buzzing with a concept that was bolstering both creative exchange of ideas and interpersonal accountability strategies. A small group of colleagues that worked in the same headspace as you and that could compliment your skills, Masterminds serve as a close network of peers that have a non-tangible stake in one another’s businesses.
If you want to get past the major hurdles in your business that you just can’t seem to cross alone, here are the Top 5 A Reasons Mastermind is Right for Your Businesses.
It’s Hard to Smell Our Own Bullshit
Have you seen the cleaning product commercials where the parent walks into the kids bedroom and their entire room is made up of smelly socks? Olfactory fatigue happens when we live in our own funk for so long you become nose dead to it. It can be guaranteed that the same phenomena occur with other repetitive functions of our day to day - including running our businesses.
But the minute someone else steps into the sphere - they notice when something is off. Having a peer or two listening to your entrepreneurial story from week to week helps them spot the bullshit in ways that you may be completely blind too.
Radical Honesty = Change
It can be incredibly easy to lie to ourselves about details of our businesses. Day to day churn increases may send off less red flags than they used to because of trend lines we’ve built into our models, but there is something in those day to day losses that we may stop asking along the way. Without being radically honest with ourselves about the minutiae of our businesses, we may be missing the trees for the forest.
By introducing others to a radically honest POV of your business, they are able to dig into details you may glance over until the numbers are more alarming or can be assigned greater meaning. All it takes is one member of your mastermind to ask “Why did Mary decide to cancel their subscription?” to take you into a different headspace. And that is where real change can start to happen.
Creative Solutions Live in Others
There are billions of people on this planet. You (nor I, or anyone for that matter) didn’t get all of the creative goods this world has to offer. You may know your product and the industry it serves inside and out - better than anyone else out there - and still miss what may be an obvious opportunity for growth. By putting your trust in people who think like you, but have a different set of experiences, you may see some exciting new concepts take shape.
Letting Others In Relinquishes Tyrannical Control
No competitor can do as much damage to your business as you can when you are blind to a critical weakness and are unwilling to make a change. By welcoming other minds into the highest level of decision making within your business, you loosen the vice grip that is strangling your work. There is simply so much value in being a founder, feeling vulnerable in a space with peers looking out for you, and building something great as a result. Don’t be afraid to let go of some control and see what happens.
Having Meaningful Celebrations
When you are the founder of a small business, maybe a solo founder who only has one or two remote team members (or, like so many MicroConf founders, are just hustling on their own) you can find yourself celebrating some pretty huge victories in a vacuum. When you are in a mastermind, each success means just a little bit more because each of you are working towards similar goals and are supporting one another on your way to reach them.
In Conclusion
The reality is that masterminds are a must have for anyone really wanting to 5-10x their business. Constantly grinding away in your own little bubble not only feels daunting, but you may be missing some glaring issues that another few sets of eyes can see. Now there is very little tangible data here to prove out this concept - this is one of those mushy, ethereal things that we can point to as an indicator of success, but struggle to measure.
What are some ways you can quantify the value of a mastermind? Let us know in the comments below!
Resources:
Learm More About MicroConf Masterminds
Startups for the Rest of Us | Episode 277 | Five Ways to Structure Your Startup Mastermind
Startups for the Rest of Us | Episode 167 | How to Organize & Run a Startup Mastermind
