In this conversational segment, speakers discuss how mastermind groups can accelerate business growth by focusing on experience sharing rather than direct advice. They explain that diverse group members bring varied perspectives, allowing entrepreneurs to uncover unconventional scaling tactics, such as partnering with vendors, accountants, and lawyers who serve the same audience. The dialogue also highlights a psychological resistance to advice—people often claim they want guidance but push back when it’s presented as prescriptive. By framing challenges as prompts for peers to recount their own experiences, participants receive actionable insights without triggering defensive reactions, making the mastermind format a powerful tool for scaling ventures like book sales.
So that kind of moves into business growth and scaling. The diverse backgrounds in a mastermind group mean that members often learn strategies for scaling and expanding their business. By tapping into the collective knowledge, business owners can grow faster and more efficiently.
We call our masterminds experience sharing. So what's interesting is we're looking to grow our business as an example, and we want to sell more books. The traditional route is, well, what do other authors do? And we consider the 5 things they do. Is it social media? Is it, and so forth? getting into a diverse group and posing that same problem, people can come to me with different perspectives. But instead of saying, here's what you should do, they say, here's an experience I've had in growing my business.
Yeah.
One example I can think of is Larry. He had a tech company and he said, Mike, one thing I did was I called on the vendors serving my common client. So I had a client, but they had other vendors. I called on them and said, we have a common client. Is there ways for us to work together? He said, who are the non-authors that work with your readers, they all have accountants perhaps. They all have lawyers. Maybe it's relationships with accountants and lawyers that are your form of growing and scaling your business. Like, oh my gosh, my mind doesn't think that way.
Right.
This is amazing. So you put the challenge in front of them, whatever it may be, growing and scaling, and then you ask people to share their own experiences. Don't tell me. Don't give me advice. I'm resistant to advice. If you tell me, Mike, you could— what's up with these plaid shirts you're wearing nowadays? Not working for you. I'm I'll hear it, but I'll resist it. I'll say, screw you, you're wearing plaid, Amy. That's basically plaid. It's not plaid, but it's getting there.
It's getting there. It's got lines.
Yeah. It's like coming out of an '80s retro thing. You suck. And you're like, no, you suck. When we give advice, there's subconscious resistance. Right. We want advice. We just don't want to hear advice.
Right.
But I love hearing experience. I love hearing, hey, when I dress wearing this, I notice that it makes me look lanky. And when I wear a different kind of outfit, it makes me look more balanced. Whatever the terms may be. Now you have the option to say, huh, I wonder how my clothing works for me, and I wonder if I can take something from Mike's story. So instead of me forcing something down your throat, you gotta choose to swallow it or not.
