Episode 154: Mastermind Groups with Brenda Speirs

Welcome to Skucast, the podcast for entrepreneurs in the promotional products industry. Skucast shines a light on our industry's best work, features maverick personalities, and discusses what's really involved in running a modern promotional products business. Skucast is the official podcast of Common Skew.

How are you doing? I mean, how are you really doing right now? What are the biggest challenges in your business at the moment? And here's the most important question: do you have a business colleague that you trust enough to share the details of your struggles with, to reach out to when you face a difficult decision? Decision, or are you struggling alone? If you don't have such a group, you will appreciate this episode. And if you're already in such a community, or if you're in any kind of mentor-mentee relationship— and everyone should be— you'll value the insights from this conversation because this is the story of how two entrepreneurs met and opened their lives to one another. Then their friendship became three, then six, then 10 more entrepreneurs, evolving into a mastermind group of mutual advisors offering encouragement, inspiration, and guidance. That one group grew into two groups, another group of salespeople and business owners, and then those two communities grew to three. This third group comprised of project managers and account coordinators. Today, you'll hear how these mastermind groups formed and how business relationships can blossom into friendships forged through transparency, confidentiality, trust and how to either start your own mastermind group or join a group, plus the keys to a vibrant mentor-mentee relationship. Joining me today is Brenda Spears, the founder of BuzzTag, a promotional marketing agency in Bend, Oregon. Born in the Midwest and raised in a restaurant family in New England, she spent much of her childhood helping in the gourmet restaurant that her family owned and operated out of the first floor of their colonial house. Brenda eventually worked in the hospitality industry as a general manager before venturing into the world of promotional products, where she began volunteering for initiatives such as the President of Advertising Federation of Central Oregon, the High Desert Museum, and a local certifying agent and advisory board member of WBEC Pacific. Today, she serves as a Women in Revenue mentor, the president of the board for Ability Tree, helping thousands of individuals with disabilities and their families transform obstacles and pursue their goals, She's on the board of directors for Opportunity Knox and a member of the advisory board for Bend Economic Development. And to all of us in the industry who know her, she's a dear friend. Hi friends, I'm Bobby LeHew, the chief content officer at Commenscue. Today's episode is brought to you by Commenscue, the work from anywhere platform that powers your connected workflow, enabling you to process more orders and dramatically grow your sales. To learn more or to begin your free trial now, visit commonskew.com. Now here's my conversation with Brenda.

So Brenda, what drove you to create these communities?

Well, this really started at a Skew Camp event. I had met my really, really good friend now, Kate Ivory, and had ongoing conversations with her. And this one, I think it was in New Orleans, we were there and we were just talking about how beautiful it was to have someone like we did in each other to be able to bounce ideas off of and collaborate and, and how cool it would be to have a whole group of people that could contribute to something like that. So, you know, one thing led to another and you know Kate Ivory pretty well. She doesn't have a shy bone and she's a natural connector.

We all love Kate.

Yes.

Kate is at the top of my list of favorite humans for sure. Yeah.

The top of all of our lists.

Yes.

Yeah, exactly. So, you know, just in conversations with her, she already had several people in mind that she wanted to approach for this. And then I had a lot of experience already with facilitating, leading, coordinating kind of mastermind-type groups. Locally. So I think it was just a natural fit between the two of us.

Yeah. How many mastermind communities have you created now?

So far there are 3, and I have a list going as random people keep asking, and I'm trying to keep them separated into pools of types of people, right? So they all have something in common. You know, as I grow each of those lists, You know, I'd like to get up around 8 to start with because I feel like that's the magic number. That's where things really get robust and there are enough people to take the pressure off of the facilitator and all of the members too, right? Because there's always someone available to jump into a conversation or to ask a question.

And to clarify, do you mean 8 communities in total or 8 people per community?

8 people per community. Got it. To me personally, that's kind of where the magic starts to happen. Happen. When it's under that, the groups are a little bit quiet. And then we— with the Mastermind One group, I'll refer to that as the original group— we decided to cap it at 10 because we really want to keep that intimacy and trust that sometimes you can't quite keep in a larger group.

Yeah. Now explain to us the differences in the 3 groups that are active right now.

Sure. So the first group is the original group, and that consists of mainly business owners and operators.

Right.

So for some companies, you know, they might have two people show up and one might be an owner and the other one is like a director of operations type person. But we all have a lot of similarities in the types of problems we're trying to solve and the type of outreach that, that we're going after. The second group is more business owners and operators, and then also salespeople. So there's a little bit of a combination in there. And, you know, again, that's really beautiful because, you know, there's always something different and a different perspective. And one of the people in that group used to be a supplier rep. So she's now in distributor sales, but she brings a really unique perspective to that group through her supplier experience. Which is beautiful. And then the third group is project managers and account coordinators. So those are a lot of the staff of the same companies that are already involved, but their challenges are very different from our challenges. And they're loving their group, right? They're sharing resources all the time and, you know, suppliers and yeah, how do you deal with something? So that's really cool. And, you know, the vision is to grow this to a point where, you know, even like accounting people could have their own group and, you know, any other different type roles we can create a vertical for because we all have very unique challenges. And sometimes, especially, you know, most of us are really small business owners, right? Everything gets, you know, loaded onto the shoulders of the owner. And so to have that dispersed and then have a network of people all over the country who can help support you in those challenges is really beautiful.

Yeah, I don't know everyone in all the groups. I don't know. I know, but I know everyone in the original group that started, and it's like a group of superstars and all my favorite people. And it's such a great assembly of folks, all women in the first group, right, Brenda?

Correct. Yeah.

Okay.

Yeah. And actually, all 3 groups right now are all women. And that hasn't been by design. It's just kind of happened that way.

Right.

You know, there's, there's no charter to only recruit women. And I do have some men on, on the list for future groups.

Like all relationships, it takes a real commitment to invest in a group and in our busy lives to commit the time. Pre-COVID, it would have been very difficult to squeeze in the time, but even during this experience, time has become this malaise and this constant unknown that I'm sure it's still a struggle. What are some of the ground rules for creating a vibrant group? I mean, part of the reason we're having this experience is really to help others understand how to reach out to others and create community. Around what you need, how to create community around building the future together? What are some of the ground rules and how often do you meet? What's the time commitment? Things like that.

Right. So, you know, I think the biggest aspect is just that you have to have a willingness to give, to share, and to lead. And having some organizational skills are pretty good and being a good delegator as well. But ultimately, you know, and I can only speak to myself, you know, I, I love to do this because I love to help other people and I love when I see other people succeed, even if that's someone who's in my industry, right? I'm not threatened by local providers as well, local distributors. And I've always believed in a philosophy of openly sharing with people. So, you know, I'd say that's definitely at the, the top of the list.

Yeah. And you and Kate, you and Kate who started this, are within miles of each other in Oregon, right?

Yeah, we are. So she's in Portland and then I'm in Bend, which is Central Oregon. But we have clients in each other's markets. And, you know, I think everyone, whether you're a facilitator or participant or anything, you have to come at this from a place of genuinely wanting to share and to give and to have trust. And, you know, we all commit to the confidentiality of the group, and, you know, we commit to not going after each other's clients, right? So, you know, if I know that your client is right next door and they're on my target list, but, you know, I find out that it's yours we just have in the group a healthy respect to say, you know what, I know that's yours, and so I'm not going to go after it. And likewise, if someone from that company were to approach you, that is my client, because they're not happy, then I think that that's fair game. But I'd probably expect to have a conversation about it. So openness and transparency.

Competitive concerns fade in the background when you consider the trade-off of having someone there to run challenges by, at the ready anytime, but also really just divulging and sharing in the most difficult aspects of running a business, keeping your equilibrium, and just staying encouraged. My experience has been that the competitive factor just fades in the background. If it's a concern to begin with, it will fade soon enough. No doubt it would come up from time to time, but The benefits far vastly outweigh the negatives. How often do groups meet?

So we meet twice a month. We usually pick, you know, the same day of the week over 2 times during the month just to keep it simple on schedule. So for example, the Mastermind 1 group meets on the 2nd and 4th Tuesdays of every month. And each group varies depending on time zones and, you know, what's going to fit with their schedule. Right.

For an hour? Is each meeting an hour?

Yeah, we meet for 1 hour and we're pretty strict to that hour. Occasionally, if a few people want to stay over, if there's a robust conversation, then that definitely happens, but it's not required. And in the meantime, the rest of our dialogue happens on a Slack channel. Right. And what I've found, even with the local groups that I'm a part of, the Slack channel just makes it so that everyone stays in touch all the time. You feel connected constantly. Whereas most meetings you'd say, okay, well, I meet twice a month, but then you don't really have a lot of communication in between there. It can leave you feeling disconnected if you have to miss a meeting, right? You don't really know what's going on. But with the Slack channel, we're involved all the time. And for the Mastermind One group, I bet every single day, it's rare that there's not a conversation happening. And it can be, you know, solving problems, sharing resources, and sometimes just cheerleading because COVID's hard, right? So a lot of times we just, you know, perk up and send a funny little meme or something like that to help everybody get through the day.

Yeah. What's the agenda like? How do you determine topics?

The agenda is pretty natural and free-flowing. So as people are going about their business days and topics pop into mind, we have a channel called Agenda Requests, and people post their requests in that channel, and then I just pin them. And so right before the meeting, I'll go through that and make sure we have some robust conversation to happen. And then it just, you know, like whoever presented it in that channel is the one who presents it during the meeting, and then we're never ever at a loss for topics or conversation or dialogue or anything. It's always robust.

Right, yeah. Well, and particularly now, I mean, there's enough challenges, but that's been the case. I mean, my experience goes back to helping form Reciprocity. And when we created that, for one thing, you had 8, 10 different, maybe 12 when you consider the partnerships that were involved. You had personalities and egos involved in forming a community. And I say egos positively, not necessarily negatively. I mean, we all have something to say, we all have an agenda. But one of the things that it takes a leader in a group like that really to help keep, steer everybody on point. But I really love the communal aspect of how you have built this. You already mentioned to me that you Slack, and I'm sure there's so many conversations happening offline between individuals, between, you know, because these, these relationships obviously move. They might start in business, but they can move into personal territory and anything that you need, I would assume, with some of these.

Absolutely. And I know, you know, from personal experience and then also from people sharing stories, there have been multiple occasions where someone has just, you know, reached out separately, sometimes because of time zones, right? If you're awake at 5 in the morning and have a problem, whether it's personal or business, and, you know, you just want to know that someone's there who might understand. And, you know, so I've seen some people reach across 3 time zones to catch someone else at 8:00 AM to be able to bounce this idea, right? So, and, you know, and absolutely this group has grown way beyond just business, and these are lifelong friends, and I'm proud to know all of these people.

I love that. I love that. And, you know, at Commonsku, we're such big believers in community and connectedness, and so this is such a great experience that's happened. And one question I had too was, how open are these communities? Are you, you know, you sharing clients and sales and profit and everything?

We are pretty granular. And I'd have to say, if there's one thing that surprised me from thinking about what this would be to then living what it actually is, is just how transparent and open and giving and sharing every single person in the group is. And, you know, we've had people come in and just on a Zoom call open up their books to the entire team and say, this is what it looks like, this is how you set it up. We share contracts, we share best practices, you know, really everything. Nothing is off limits. And it's only due to the fact that everyone in this group is not afraid, right? They're not operating out of a place of fear. They understand that we all do the same thing, but they trust us, right? And we trust them. And that goes for every group, not just the main one.

Can you give us some examples of some of the tougher topics you and the group have discussed?

Yes. So, you know, COVID has been incredibly challenging, as we all know, and, you know, probably say this 5 more times before we end our call today. So, you know, having COVID to navigate and on, for each of us, a local level, not having anyone who could answer questions for us, right? Like, you're hearing about this PPP. Well, how does this work? What do we do? How, you know, like, I don't know what to do or where to turn. So Immediately, our group just focused on that 100%, and we would share articles and resources and everything. So I'd have to say that that was absolutely the best thing. And then difficult employee challenges, I would say, are really at the top of the list. And as any type of a manager, employee difficulties can really be a big challenge. And learning to find your voice in that and navigating it properly so that you're doing the right things in the right steps are critical. And so, you know, our group has definitely had a few of those conversations. And then, you know, a few personal things have popped in as well. And, you know, so, and I don't want to go into too much depth on that, but sure, it's been lovely.

Yeah. How do you help others manage their expectations for the group and what needs can be met? In a way, you've already answered that it's so open and transparent, but do you need to set expectations for the group as each—

Definitely. Yeah. Yeah. And, and I'm learning as I go too, right? Like, I'm not perfect. And when you come at things, sometimes you cloud it with your own lens and don't understand sometimes what other people may not understand. So I think, you know, getting clearer in what the groups are about helping people understand what their role is, both as someone who's receiving information as well as giving information. And, you know, the biggest thing of just not operating from a place of fear and always being kind, right? Kind is written all over the documents that we've created. You know, I wound up creating a full-on document to kind of walk people through what the groups are, what the expectations are, and how it operates. And then I have really in-depth conversations with the facilitators and the people joining the groups so that they understand as well, you know, because my fear would always be that someone would be hurt in any of this process because it's only meant to do good and to help.

Yeah, you know, like in all intimate relationships, it's not all kumbaya, and the only way you often learn to live in harmony and to work together in harmony is through some disharmonious moments. How do you handle conflict or challenges when they arise? Because I, I know they do arise from my experience, right?

Yeah, so, you know, I think that the biggest lesson on, on all of that is to always have very open and transparent conversations about things. I really believe that, you know, my role and every other facilitator's role within their groups is to develop future leaders. And so, you know, we as the leaders of the groups have to lead by example. And if a challenge comes up, we can't be afraid to call it out for exactly what it is, but also to have some solutions and to teach the other people how to handle those uncomfortable conversations themselves.

Yeah, and you probably can't answer this, Brenda, but because of the confidentiality, but can you give us an example of moments that might occur? And by the way, I want to interject in your document that you share as an onboarding document with folks that want to join the community. I love the quote quote you have in there from Brené Brown about daring leaders are never silent about hard things.

It's definitely challenging to not call anything out in specific. But, you know, there have been some challenges. And again, I can only describe my own experiences and things. So for me, typically, I'll gather information. I'll reach out to multiple people within the group and make sure that I have a clear understanding of all perspectives and that I'm not misunderstanding What's happening? And then in the end, you know, I will pull the affected parties together and tell them that I'm going to do so, right? So everybody's prepared. You don't want to surprise anybody, you know. And I think everyone, everyone does everything out of a place of goodness from their heart. Yeah. So sometimes it just doesn't work. So we need to come together and have a really open conversation about You know, what happened, why it was misconstrued, how can we be better in the future? And then we all part and we do better.

I love that. 99% of the time it's perspective. It's sharing each other's perspective and how they see things. Yeah. You know, this is the epitome of mentorship in a way, a very democratic form of mentorship. What traits have you identified that are required to be a good mentor?

So I would say, first of all, be quiet and listen, first of all. And, you know, sometimes when people come into a facilitator role, they feel like they need to have all the answers. Right, right. And in actuality, you really don't. You do need to be patient. You need to listen and see what the group dynamic does with the questions that are posed. And then if the dialogue isn't robust, then be prepared to ask questions, not necessarily to just solve the problem.

Yeah, and you've already discussed some of the character traits or some of the values they should hold, like transparency and honesty and vulnerability and humility. I think a lot of those things go without saying. Often anyone that wants to put them in the themselves in the position of being a mentor typically already has, if you will, the furrowed ground of some of those things done sort of in their heart as they prepare to help someone else.

And I—

but the tactical is so helpful because they're there to help people, but you're right, they don't have to have the answers. What about a good mentee? What traits have you discovered make up a really good mentee who wants to be a part of the group?

Right. I'd say, first of all, don't be afraid to ask someone for help or opinion or guidance. Yeah, I think so many of us, and especially in this industry, you grow up feeling like you have to figure it out all by yourself.

And you do.

Yeah, right. And a lot of that goes back to the original days of the promotional products industry. You know, when I first started over 20 years ago, people held everything very close to the vest. They did not want to share anything, right? Not even a catalog, right, that you could find anywhere anyway. So, you know, for me, it was when I founded my company and really understood what my own brand was all about. I didn't— I'm kind of going off topic a little bit here, but hopefully I'll circle back. I found it really important to not have to take the advice that everyone else thought that I should follow, right, for my own company. So for me, transparency and openness has always been at the forefront. And where people are saying, well, you have to collect money, right? If you're doing that, you have to charge for it. But that's never been a part of who I am. So, you know, I follow my dream. And then to find a community of people in Common Skew, was so refreshing. And for me, that's where everything opened up. And then all these possibilities opened up. So coming back to the mentee role, right? Not being afraid to walk up to someone and ask how something is done, right? Goes back to these communities that have now been created. And it gives them the power to do that. And then beyond that, you know, just taking their own personal responsibility for what they want to get out of that mentee-mentor relationship. Yeah, because it's not a mentor's job to create charts and graphs and goals and objectives, right? It's the mentee's role to figure out what they need and then follow that guidance, but in the end, follow their own heart.

Yeah, that's great advice. What has surprised you the most about this experience?

Oh, the level at which everyone wants to give and share. Yeah, it's, it's beyond anything I ever could have imagined. And I am so grateful to all of the people who have chosen to give of themselves this way.

What are a few of those biggest lessons you've learned through this process?

Probably never underestimate the human desire to connect and to give. You know, it's especially like these days, everything's just so wonky and it's still there. It's just hidden under a layer of, you know, just garbage right now. I guess also follow your dream and don't feel pressured to own someone else's version of it. Yeah, I think those are at the top.

I know this has meant a lot to you. Tell us though exactly what it's meant to you personally.

So, you know, as a small business owner in this industry, I love what I do. I love the, you know, the creative aspect, but yet it's analytical. I love the people power, yet, you know, I also don't have to, you know, be too outwardly social. I can still be kind of quiet and make some magic. And for me, it's not about selling merch. It's really finding a unique and tactile way for my clients to connect with their audience. And I feel like my role in all of this is to connect people and so that they can all learn the value of coopetition, right? And raise the perception of what this industry is and the true value that it has, right? That it's, you know, it's kind of like the unseen, undiscovered gem that people don't really understand. And when you have a good partner to work with, rather than feeling like you have to go and just search for product all by yourself, you know, distributors can help their clients make magic. And so I guess that's really what it's all about for me.

Yeah. Any final thoughts or tips you have for folks?

Well, you know, my favorite quote by Maya Angelou, so people will forget what you said, people will forget what you did, but people will never forget how you made them feel. And I think that's a really great quote to live by in all things that we do.

Brenda, if someone wants to join one of these groups, how, what can they do? How can they reach you? Can they reach out to you?

Absolutely. So I welcome anyone and everyone. Just keep in mind I'm one person and I'll do the best I can. I'm not a business. Right, but, you know, it's free. There's no charge for anything we're doing. We're using free platforms for all of this. And the goal is to keep it that way so that everyone feels that they can be included, right? I don't want anyone to feel like they don't belong here. So if they want to reach out to me, they can email me, and that's brenda@buzztag.co. So B-U-Z-Z-T-A-G dot C-O. Or, you know, go online and find my website. You can give me a call if you want. Probably shouldn't publish my phone number online, but, you know, I welcome it. Or ask Bobby and he'll connect you with me.

Yep, absolutely. Reach out to me. I'm more than happy to. Brenda, thank you, not just for what you're doing for this industry and the communities, but thank you what you've meant to me personally and to those I love. Thank you for being you, and I will talk to you soon.

Thanks, Bobby.

Thanks so much for tuning in to this episode of SkewCast. Be sure to keep up with our latest content by subscribing to SkewCast on iTunes or to our blog at community.comonscue.com. Until next time, friends, thanks so much for listening.