How to Find Your Ideal Mastermind Group | Evan Carmichael's Advice in 8 Minutes

Hi, I'm Evan Carmichael. Welcome to another edition of Ask Evan. Today I'm answering a question from one of our YouTube viewers, GWest011, who wrote in asking about mastermind groups. And the question is, "I have a question that I would love for you to comment on. I was recently reading a book that talked about a mastermind circle. How can I get or find people that I can bounce ideas off of and give advice to. So thanks for the question, awesome question. I'm a firm believer in mastermind groups, and I've been running a couple of them here in Toronto for the past 7 years, I want to say. One of the things that I've done as part of the website is we interview famous and successful entrepreneurs, and one of the entrepreneurs we interviewed from Western Canada has built his company from $0 to $8 million in a couple years, and he credited his success to starting mastermind groups. And so that got me interested in the concept, as well as reading Think and Grow Rich. We actually created a worksheet on it, so there's information on how to launch and create your own mastermind group, but in terms of kind of high-level overview of what to do, first I would look at, you know, are there any groups in your area already that exist? And if there are, it may be worth investigating those instead of creating your own, because there's a lot of headache, work, hassle, admin in setting up a group. So if there's something that already exists, then that might be worth investigating. I really prefer meetings in person. I know there are a lot of mastermind groups that meet online or by phone, and they can work, but my personal preference is to have ones where you're actually meeting face-to-face. And I think the reason is you get to know people a lot better when you're sitting across from the table from them, and also you have people's attention. It's too easy when you're on the phone or online to get distracted, check email, tune out, go check Facebook or some other website and you hear clicking always happening on the computer. So I prefer to have it in person, but again, explore your options, see what's out there. If there's nothing available in terms of creating your own group, I try to think about the types of people that you want to have as members. And when I first created my very first group, I did it by approaching a few of my friends who are entrepreneurs who I met with every now and then to talk about business, but thought if we had a formal structure where we met, you know, once a month to talk about our businesses that would be helpful to everybody. And so a number of them agreed, and we started the first group around that, and then we expanded by bringing new people in. So I started with people who I already kind of knew, who I wanted to tap and connect with on an ongoing basis. So think about the people who you've met with in the past to talk about business, and you may have gotten a few ideas from them, and, you know, they've— you've given a few ideas to them as well. That could be a great way to start start. From there, I create even just a simple website. And most of the people who find our groups now find it through the web. Whatever area you're in, like say you're in Portland, if you created a website that had a page that said Portland Mastermind Group, anybody searching for that kind of stuff is going to find you. And chances are, if you've already done your research and you haven't joined another group because there's nothing there, anybody who's searching for that is going to find you. And so, for us, if people search, you know, Toronto Mastermind Group or Toronto Peer Mentorship Group or Toronto Entrepreneur Group, the page shows up and people self-identify and write in to say, "I'm interested in joining this group." We have some information on there and people end up coming in, you know, potentially as members of the group. There's a whole process that we go through to make sure we get the right people in the group. You don't want the wrong dynamics or the wrong types of people in the group because that can bring the whole thing down. You have two people who don't like each other, so you have to really make sure you do a lot of qualifying. Going through that whole process, I guess, is another Another video. We answer it in the worksheet as well. But in terms of finding people to come into the group, I again started with my friends, people who I, who I knew, who I found some advice helpful to, and who I was able to help as well. And then expanded by creating a simple website that explained what we were about, explained the types of people we were looking for. And you want to be really clear on the types of members you want. Do you want startup entrepreneurs? Do you want people who are beyond the startup stage? Are you going to have a minimum revenue criteria or employee criteria? Are there types of businesses you want to have, certain industries that you want to have or don't want to have. The more you can clearly lay that out, the more people can self-identify and won't waste your time and won't waste their time as well. So for us, for example, we look for members who are beyond the startup stage, have $300,000+ in revenues, and so that helps eliminate a lot of people who may not be at that point yet, so I don't want to waste their time in coming into a meeting and, you know, use up my time as well when it's obviously not going to be a fit for the group. So the more you can be clear about that criteria, the easier it is for people to self-identify before they even write to you. But having a simple website that can be found in the search engines, people will start coming to you and you can go through your process before bringing them into the group. Again, a super helpful tool, one that I definitely recommend for entrepreneurs to go through because it's hard and it's lonely, and I find with the mastermind group that the two benefits are: one, you get to bounce ideas off each other. So you're thinking of a problem that you're facing, and if you can surround yourself with a team of people who have different skills than you and different expertise and different backgrounds, they may be able to help you and stretch you and help you grow beyond what you thought you were able to do, which is great. And the second reason I find the groups helpful is just the motivation. You know, there's something about hanging around other entrepreneurs that gets you excited and gets your juices flowing, and you hear what they're up to and you want to do more and do better and get out of whatever rut that you may be in at the time. A lot of entrepreneurs go through peaks and valleys. You know, you get excited, you're working like crazy, you're on top of the world, and then life sucks, nothing's happening, you don't feel motivated to get up and out of bed. It's such a strange existence, I guess, but that's, that's the roller coaster that we ride. And I find that being around other entrepreneurs gets the motivation going, gives you ideas, gives you that spark, and we always leave the meeting motivated, energized, want to go out and achieve new things with our businesses. And so it can be definitely lonely being an entrepreneur You may have friends and family who understand what you're doing, but if they're not entrepreneurs, they can't really give you advice. Like, they can maybe give you an ear, they can listen to your problems, but they can't really help you. And even if you have staff or partner, it can often be hard to talk to them about the problems that you're facing in your business. And so having an external group to be able to turn to is awesome. My last bit of advice is is on the selection side, really make sure you do your work in qualifying people and, you know, both from a size of business and type of business, but also from a personality point of view. We're never in a rush to bring members into the group. We'll start a group with 4 and build it to 8 as a maximum, but we're happy to stick to 4. You know, my groups now are 8 and 6 with a 2 potential people coming in, but it's never a rush. The group with 8 that sold out, we were at 7 for a year and a half. Just because they loved each other, yes, we had an open spot, but there was never a rush to fill that spot. It had to be the right person. And so it's much more valuable to get the right people in the group and have fewer people than just have somebody in the chair because there's an extra space and you want to try to get it up to 8 or 10 or however many people you want in your group. So hopefully that helps. Again, love the concept and I think it could be helpful for you and for any entrepreneur who's watching. So thank you guys for watching this video. If you liked it, please give it a thumbs up below. I'd also love to hear what you have to think. If you have a comment about this video or a question about your own business that I can answer for you, feel free to leave in the comment section below. I always read those and I try to respond as quickly as I can. And I'd love to hopefully one day answer a question for you about your business. So thank you, and I'll see you on the next episode.