088: What a Mastermind Can Do for You and Your Business

Have you dreamt about sitting around the table, geeking out on your business with other people that just get it? That's what a mastermind is all about. On this episode, I'm sharing what a mastermind is and what it can do for you and your business. I wouldn't be where I'm at today without being challenged, being nurtured, and being held accountable. And that's what a mastermind is all about. Come listen.

Welcome to the Launch Your Box podcast with weekly tips, tricks, and strategies to start, launch, and grow your subscription box. Now here's your host, Sarah Williams.

Welcome back to the Launch Your Box podcast. I've got a solo episode for you today. It's been a minute since I've had a solo episode, but it's a good one. And I want you to think about the bigger picture, the long-term game. And today we're gonna talk about what a mastermind can do for for you and your business. You, some of you listening might have heard about masterminds. Some of you are like, Sarah, what is a mastermind? I don't even know what that is. And we're gonna break it down for you today. And those of you that have heard about masterminds, you probably think it's like some exclusive group of people getting together and having top secret conversations. And while that might be true, it's so much more than that. Being in a mastermind is about the small group experience. So typically they are small groups of people. Now, I do know some facilitators that have masterminds that are 50 and 100. That's not the kind of mastermind that I'm talking about here. I'm talking about less than 30 people, sometimes less than 20 people, but it's about connection with other people that are like-minded. It's about having accountability for what you do in your business. It's about implementing, and that comes with the accountability about not only learning but implementing. It's about scaling. It's about creating a life that you want, all with these like-minded people and a facilitator that you align with. And what I mean by that is that there are a lot of people across the country that facilitate masterminds. But when you decide you want to be in a mastermind, it's very important that your goals, both personally and professionally, align with that person's goals. It could be somebody doing something that you want to do. So if you see someone that is doing the same thing that you want to achieve, that's a great person to align with. If you see someone that has the same style of learning, you know, Teaching style is really important for me. I don't learn well from people that are in your face and yell. I don't learn well from them. And so I don't wanna be in a room like that. So someone that you align with, with their personality, with their coaching style, with their teaching style and their facilitation style is really, really important. Typically when someone joins a mastermind, a high-level mastermind, it's from someone that they've learned from, someone that they've taken courses from or some kind of mentor or training or learning from. So you already know that person, you know that person's coaching style, you know that, that person's, you know, beliefs and values, and that usually aligns with who you are and what you do. I've been a part of masterminds for about 5 years now. I joined my first mastermind in 2000. 2018, I think it was December of 2018. And, and it was really at the point where I was scaling my business and there wasn't a lot of people in my circle that were doing the same thing. I had a very local-based business and I had a local brick-and-mortar store. And when I started the subscription box, I started to really, really grow, but I didn't know anyone that had a business that was growing as fast as I was. My business friends that I was business friends with at the time, we had done like local craft shows, local markets, holiday pop-up shops. They weren't growing in the direction that I was growing. And I took a course in 2018 and, and through that course, obviously I met my mentor, Stu McLaren, and I met other people that were taking their businesses online. They were taking their in-person businesses and, and creating this online business. Businesses, and I was doing the same. And so when I got to this point of like, I don't have anyone to ask questions to, right? There wasn't anyone else doing what I was doing that I knew. And so there was a lot of things that I didn't know that I knew I didn't know, right? You don't know what you don't know. And there wasn't any place for me to be in a room to ask people questions. And so I knew that I wanted to join a mastermind, and I was in a couple business groups at that time, and I had applied for a couple different masterminds. Masterminds just to see what the process was like, to see where I was a good fit for, to see how the process worked. And I was really excited. I applied for one mastermind and I was really excited about it. I'd been a part of this kind of business group for over a year and I thought, okay, this is where I wanna be. And I got denied. I laugh about it now, but I was devastated at the time. I got denied and they didn't think I was a good fit for their mastermind or their mastermind was full. I I don't even remember the reasons, but it made me want to be in a mastermind even more because I wasn't qualified to be in that mastermind. And so I joined Stu's mastermind in late 2018 and went out to my first meetup that next year. And I was probably the least qualified in that room, which was scary because I had all these different fears about who these people were sitting in this room. I had, followed a lot of them. I was, had taken some of their programs and I was almost intimidated by it, but I knew that it was gonna stretch me and help me grow. Right. And so it's like putting yourself in uncomfortable situations. Me as an introvert, challenging myself to be in a room with people doing bigger things than me and how could I learn from them? And also it was important and it was something that Stu asked me, but it was, what did I bring to the table? Because when you belong in a mastermind, or when you get accepted into a mastermind, you're not going there to learn from the facilitator necessarily. You're going there to learn from other people in the room, and it's just facilitated by one person. And so everybody has to be able to bring something to the table— experience, knowledge, industry information. Like, you have to be doing something that brings something to that table for everyone else. And so that's— I, I was, I was bringing my subscription box knowledge to the table in that room. I was bringing my business knowledge. At that time, I had a high six-figure business. I wasn't quite in the millions yet, and I was growing rapidly. And so I was bringing that to the table along with learning about all these other people and all the different industries that they were in and what they were bringing to the table. And so I went out to that first mastermind, super intimidated by the people in that room. And I'm still in that mastermind 5 years later. And the relationships I've built through that mastermind, the connections, the networking, the opportunities that I've had because of the people in that room is pretty incredible when I look back at the last 5 years. And so I wanna encourage you to, when you think about being in a mastermind, it's not just about what you're gonna get out of it, but also what you're gonna bring to it. And I joined another mastermind a few years later, and for me it was that person was doing something that I wanted to do. They had a super successful product-based business and they turned that into a super successful coaching business. And I was right on the of that. I had this super successful retail business turned subscription box business, and now I was doing one-on-one coaching and I wanted to turn that into a full-blown coaching business. And so I saw that person and I was like, okay, he's doing what I wanna do. I need to be in the room with him. And I bring so much knowledge to the table. And so I joined another mastermind. And so there's a lot of things that you can learn just by what other people are doing and being able to, to freely share about your business at the table is really important in a mastermind. The ups, the downs, the wins, the fails, all of it matters. All of it's a learning moment, all of it's teaching points. And the connections made around that table is really what will propel you and will motivate you going forward. You have somebody to talk to. When you're just fumbling around in your own head, overthinking everything. You built relationships outside of that room, people that you can call, people that you can get advice from. Even to this day, people that I will go on vacation with. The other thing that was really, really important for me is that, and I hadn't done this prior, was me getting away from the day-to-day business to sit in a room at a different location and work on my business. And that is super duper powerful. And so when you think about those things, if you've not given yourself the opportunity to do those things, it's very, very important, not only for your business growth, but for your personal growth as a leader, as a business owner, you need to continue to learn and grow and stretch yourself. And these masterminds are the way to really do that. As I've been a part of different masterminds, I've taught in a lot of different masterminds. So not only am I teaching in the masterminds that I'm in because that's what I bring to the table, but I'm also invited in as a guest to teach in other people's masterminds that I'm not a part of. And over the last year, as I've been teaching in different, in different masterminds and different coaching groups and things like that, it became very clear to me that I needed to facilitate this for my own audience, for my own audience and students and members of Lunch or Box who just need to be at a table like that so they can continue to work and grow on their business. And you know, for me, it's, I always just, I don't start things. I'm gonna take this back, but I'm gonna say I don't start things on a spur of the moment cuz sometimes I do. And some of my best ideas coaching week, start from one thought and two weeks later I'm hosting a coaching week. But something like this is different. Something that's high level is different for me and I don't go into it lightly. And so I really had people encouraging me to start a mastermind for a long time, over a year before I was finally ready to do it. And I wasn't sure about it even then. I wasn't sure that I wanted to be tied to another group of people for a whole year. I've got this great membership and it keeps me very busy. We've established our signature course this last year called Scale Your Box that has been amazing, and I facilitate that live once a year. And so for me it was like, you know, I've got the, I've got this work-life balance thing that I've been working on and it's been going great. I've been able to be home more, but if I do a mastermind, how much will that take from that? And I, and I don't, I'm not at the point in my business where I wanna take back my free time, my time that I've struggled to pull back on over the years. And so I didn't wanna add one more thing to my plate. So what I did this year is I offered a one weekend beach retreat mastermind, and I only offered it to people that came through and took my course this year called Skill Your Box. So it was a small number of people that it was offered to. And I thought, I'm gonna test it. I may not even like facilitating a mastermind. Like, I may just wanna be a mastermind, you know, participant, and I may not even wanna be the facilitator. I'm gonna test it before I wrap myself into a full year of this, and then I'm mad at myself for doing that. So I had 16 amazing women that quickly signed up for this one weekend mastermind retreat, and I hosted it out in Florida at the beach. Like, we were literally on the beach because here's the thing, if I'm I'm gonna add anything else to my business, it needs to fulfill me. It needs to be what I wanna do. It needs to be where I wanna do it at. And so for me, the beach gives me life. It is my happy place. It always clears my head and helps me think big picture. And so I knew if I wanted to host a mastermind and add something to my plate, it had to be at the beach and it had to be in a beautiful setting. I wasn't gonna be in a conference room somewhere in some dark, dingy hotel. I, I really needed it to be in a space that I love. And so I met these women out at the beach and hosted our mastermind at this beautiful beach house. And during even facilitating, like setting up the weekend and planning it out, I just was falling in love with this idea of going deeper and deeper with this one group of people, going deep with them. And I know more than anything that business is personal. Okay, business is personal. You cannot shut off business and your personal life. They are not separate. They are not compartmentalized. When we are business owners and we own a business, they're very much intertwined. Business is personal. Okay. And so there's a lot of different things that are wrapped up and it makes things complicated. And when you can sit in a room with a dozen other people that are going through the same things, the same seasons, the same stages of business that you're going through, you realize that you're not alone, number one, and you realize that they're going through similar things that you are. And so you're instantly connected and you're instantly bonded. Now, we went through 2 days of training and accountability and connecting and working through hot seats You know, day one I did a lot of training for them and it wasn't like this new brand new training. It was like, what is coming up and what do we need to be prepared for? I took them through an entire day of fourth quarter planning and that is setting up our promotions, setting up our marketing plan, implementing what this looks like, putting 'em on the calendar. Like I needed them to leave there with a solid plan. A solid plan for the next 3 to 4 months. And we needed to talk about it, and we needed to work it out. And everybody at the table has a different business, and what made sense for some didn't make sense for the others. And it wasn't just a blanket, everybody needs to do this. It's, let's talk about the intricacies of your business and let's make sure this fits a plan for your business. And everybody laid out a plan with me that day. And we worked through the parts of that plan that needed to be implemented and when they needed to be implemented and who was responsible for creating the assets for those promotions. And so that was a whole first day. And our second day, we worked through struggles. We worked through hot seats, which are just short bite-sized questions that you have been struggling with in your business. And everybody around the table has input on that, everybody. And you get so much clarity and you get so much just feeling like you can— okay, yes, I can do this and I'm going to move on to the next thing. And you're not stuck on this one thing over and over and over again like a lot of us get stuck on in our businesses. And some of those hot seats got personal because some of the reasons that they were struggling with that particular thing was in their head. It was in their mindset of why they couldn't push through that blocker. And being able to sit in a room and be vulnerable like that and say, this is why I'm struggling to grow. This is why I'm struggling in my business. This is why I can't make a decision here. And being able to say, hey, business is personal, and being able to walk through the problem and being able to have multiple different views about a solution for that problem and then leaving there knowing the direction that you need to go when you go home. It's powerful. It's super powerful. And so we spent day 2 working through those questions. We also spent day 2 talking about a few more things that came up in day 1, things that I hadn't planned for. And so we got to look at some of our backend and analyze some of the data that we were looking at. We talked through price increases, we talked through lots of different things. And here's the best thing about having those hot seat conversations is that someone else's hot seat can spark so many different ideas for you. So imagine sitting at the table with 15 or 20 people and everybody's walking through a problem and you're like, oh, Oh, I can see that differently for my business now. Oh, I have the same issue. I can see this differently now. And so you go home with this whole bucket of things that you now see differently than you did before that weekend because you removed yourself from the day-to-day. You went to a beautiful, peaceful place with people that are like-minded. And are working on the same things in their business that you are, and you got new perspective, fresh ideas, and a rejuvenation for your business. Because you might be listening right now thinking, I'm stuck in a rut. I don't love my business. I don't love— it doesn't light me up anymore. I feel like I'm just in the same rat race every day. And that could be true. But if you can remove yourself from it and remember why you started it and come up with ways to reignite your passion for your business, you're gonna feel so much more fulfilled. You're gonna feel more fulfilled at home. You're gonna feel more fulfilled at work, and you're gonna create this bond of being vulnerable in front of other people that connects these people. Like, these women are so solidly connected after this weekend. Like, we have a Voxer channel, which is like a walkie-talkie app on your phone where you can have conversations. Like, They can't stop talking to each other. They're so connected because of their vulnerability at the mastermind, their struggles, their wins, what they're working through together. And it gets personal. It gets personal. I knew going into it that I didn't want this to be a one and done. I knew going into it that I wanted to continue to build a relationship and go deeper and deeper, which with each of these business owners. And it's not just putting on another event and hoping they'll sign up, but it's creating a space where we can be together for an entire year, that we can go through each season of business together an entire year. We can show up for each other, we can support each other, we can hold each other accountable. We can start to really make a difference in our business, in our personal life. And in that moment, I decided that we needed the full year and, and I made the offer to have a full year mastermind there. And I'm so excited to have almost all of these women that have rejoined to go deeper and deeper a whole year later. And it's called the Elevate Mastermind because what we did and what we will continue to do is elevate our business, elevate who we are as leaders, Elevate our personal life. All of it's tied together, and one thing can't be elevated without the other thing. One half of your house can't be elevated and the other half of their house stay on the same level. So we have to elevate everything together. And so it's for people that are in my community, people working on subscriptions. People working on memberships, people that are product-based business owners that are doing the same types of things and really supporting each other. And so I know how important those connections are for me, and to be able to facilitate those connections for other people have really just filled my cup more than you know. And so if you're listening right now, And you have your business launched, you've got your— and whether that's you've launched your subscription box or not, I have people interested that have large product-based businesses that just haven't even started their subscription box, but it's based on your knowledge. So everybody needs to be on a similar level. And, and in not so much a similar level, but have a similar path. So if you're at the point where you're ready to grow and scale and do the work and have hard conversations and challenge yourself, like this is for you, but you can't just be starting out. You can't just be starting your business. You have to be at a different level. If you're just starting your business, we need to work through Launch Your Box. We need to work through Scale Your Box. But if you work through starting your business, you're in a different season of business where you're— you've got your business going and it's time to start scaling it and you're really ready to dig in on both the personal and the business side. That's who this mastermind is for. And so we'll have it in the show notes here, but if you are interested, I have a few spots left for the Elevate Mastermind, and you can email me and we'll put my email in the show notes. But I want you to think about where you're at right now, and maybe you're inside Launch Your Box and you're not quite ready for the mastermind, and it's okay. I want you to continue to work through what you're working on. Right now and keep elevating yourself, keep taking yourself to the next level. And maybe that means that you're ready for Scale Your Box when we open that in the spring and you go through the 8-week course with me, because that's going to come up after the new year. And so you're going to learn so much more. Launch Your Box is getting you started, but Launch Your Box is an amazing community full of people at all different levels supporting and sharing and nurturing each other. But we have to keep challenging ourselves. So Scale Your Box could be the next, the next step for you. And, or maybe the Mastermind is the next step for you, but you can't go from nothing to the Mastermind. You have to have something you bring to the table. So what are you bringing to the table that makes you a good fit for a Mastermind? That's the question. Because when you can bring something to the table It's amazing what you're going to get back in return. Make sure you subscribe to the Launch Your Box podcast. I'd love for you to take a minute to rate and review it. Let me know which episode is your favorite so far. Don't forget to join me next week right here.