FORD Method

Hello and welcome to Mastermind Mastery, the podcast for professionals who want to create and run successful peer advisory councils, or as we call them, PACs for short, or they're also known as peer groups or business mastermind groups. I'm your host, Tina Corner Stolz, founder of Elixir Council, where I've been in the industry running groups since 2005 and now help those like you with education, certification, and support wanting to do the same. At one time, I ran 10 groups, nearly 100 members, and sold my groups For a Good Multiple and recently released my second book, Your Seat at the Table: How to Create and Run Your Own Peer Advisory Councils, published by Forbes, and grateful to you that it's an Amazon bestseller. I invite you to join each week where we share strategies and techniques to successfully launch and become a master of running your PACs. You'll hear insights, perspectives, dos and don'ts, learn from my and my guests' mistakes, successes, and get the inside track to key takeaways. Each time we have a guest, we'll be having a bit of fun. So are you ready? Let's get going and dive into today's episode. Hello everyone, it's Tina here. We have a special event coming up in November in St. Petersburg, Florida. It's the first ever national open conference for anyone wanting to run and already running peer groups or mastermind groups. Join us for 2 days, VIP reception with the keynote speakers, and a full day of upping your game and running groups with peers like you who are experienced or just want to get more knowledge before starting their journey and creating their first group. This conference is for you if: 1, you're already running groups and you want to be better, or you want to be the best. You want to learn from other experienced moderators and get inside tips to the latest meeting techniques. Or 2, if you're thinking about creating and running groups and want all the knowledge on how to do it right and learn from veterans, then this conference is for you. But time's running out. There's only a few VIP tickets available and the conference has limited capacity. So as soon as we hit it, we're going to have to close registration. So join us in downtown St. Pete, November 9th through 11th. It's the best self-development gift you can give yourself. And don't you want to be the best at running groups? See you in November.

Welcome everyone to a new episode of Mastermind Mastery. I'm your host, Tina Corner Stolz. And I am very excited today to share a concept that I just, I love, and it made such a difference in how I strengthened and deepened my relationships and also how much of a difference in regards to screening those that I was determining if they were a right fit for current groups or not, and also just in determining, um, how you work with people. And the more you know about them and the deeper your questions, the deeper the connection happens. And so I came across this concept, um, a couple of years ago, and it's called the FORD method. So I don't know if any of you all have ever heard of the FORD method, But the FORD methodology is definitely research-backed technique on how to build relationships. And so I wanna share with you like the FORD concept, how you can use it in your groups, and also just how can you use it in your everyday life. So the FORD method stands for, if you think about F-O-R-D, Right? So F is about family, O is about occupation, R is about recreation, and D is about dreams. And it's an excellent way when you use this methodology to build rapport and also to listen to their answers, which drive further answers. So there's a concept I'm gonna share with you all in a future episode about 4 to 1. And that concept, when combined with FORD, is such a powerful concept in regards to really deepening your relationships. So let's dig in a little bit as to how you would use it and what does that look like. So when you start with F, and you can do this in any combination, right? You might want to start with R, or you might want to start with D, their dreams. But the point is, is that pick one and you kind of do a deep dive on it is a good way to think. So occupation is like the most easiest and usually the one we always start with, right? Because it's where people spend most of their waking hours. It's easy for people to talk to, talk about, and in some cases work is the last thing they want to talk about. So you just kind of have to be careful about sometimes people are just like, especially if it's at the end of the day and you're asking about what do you do. A lot of times they'll be like, you know, I, I, I, I— that's the last thing I want to talk about right now. But people's jobs or their educations are often related to something they're passionate about. So this can provide you real insight into their interests. So again, what I'm talking about today is how can you give some structure to your conversations that you have with people? So for example, when we're talking about occupation, okay, you might say, describe how you got to where you are today. You know, how did you get involved in the line of work? What's your favorite part of the role? What skills do you excel in? What's the highest and best use of your time? Right? And you might be asking that because you're talking to a CEO and you're thinking about how it is that they might need to get to the next level. In running their business and the type of leader they need to be. So those are definitely some questions around people's occupation, but it's more than just asking, what do you do, right? If you notice, the questions were all open-ended, right? They're not closed-ended. And if you ask people about what they do, a lot of times that's kind of a perceived closed-ended question. And so by saying a little bit more and structuring your wording a little bit different, like, describe, like, how you got interested in what you do today. You know, what do you love about it? And just getting more and more detail will draw out the real reason of why they love the work and why they chose that work. So that is in regards to the O in occupation, of occupation in FORD, right? So that's why you might want to start with that. But if you want to start with the F, okay, which is family. Since most people have some sort of family, they tend to like to talk about. Now, this can be a good icebreaker. Just remember that the concept of family isn't necessarily blood relatives. It can just be people they're close to. It could be their business partners, it could be friends, it could be pets, right? And you can build on that. So some people may think this is kind of, um, You know, an area where to tread lightly because sometimes family can be a very touchy or challenging conversation for people to have, or it might be very personal and they might have something very major going on and they really just don't wanna share that with you, but that's the only thing that's on their mind. So if you sense this, then you might want to say and keep it more lighthearted and you might wanna say things like, You know, family consists of lots of different, you know, makeups like friends and pets, et cetera. Just, you know, kind of tell me about your family. Where did you grow up? How did you know? You can talk about their childhood in that way. You can talk about what's their favorite part of their childhood. You know, you can talk a little bit about their family from the standpoint who had the most influence on them. Was it a grandparent? You know, that's an example. You know, how did— if they're married, how did the two of them meet, right? You know, if they have children, of course you can ask all kinds of questions about their children. So the point here is, is that we've talked about F in FORD as family, we've talked about O in FORD as occupation, but what I hope you're taking away so far is that you're You're focusing on one thing and you're diving deep into it. Okay, so you're really wanting to know about an underlying, right, concept of building on the question you asked before. So what you're doing is when you ask a question, you're listening for the answer, and then you're building the next question on that, right? So for example, if I said, tell me about your childhood, where'd you grow up? Oh, well, Tina, I grew up on a farm in Missouri. You did?

Really?

So was that a farm that had been in the family? Or, you know, was that something that your parents just decided to do? Oh no, a farm had been in the family from my grandfather's standpoint. And so that's what we did. Well, what kind of farm was it? Oh, well, it was, you know, we did grain, soybeans, wheat, corn, and then we raised cattle too. Oh, you did? So what was your favorite part about all of that? Did you work on the farm? Oh, I did. And so instead of just saying, right, where did you grow up? I grew up on a farm. Oh, well, that's great. That's interesting. You move on to another question. You don't. You build on it, right? And see how much more you learned about me. So now, why does learning all of that matter? It only works if you're sincere.

Right?

And so asking those questions, you have to be sincere in really wanting to know their answers, right? You also show though you care and you're listening when you are asking these questions. And what happens when people realize that you care and you're listening? Your connection with each other deepens. And then why is that important? Well, when you have a more deeper connection, that allows for more honesty and trust to develop. And when you have honesty and trust, you're more likely to get authentic answers, but you're more likely to get an authentic person. And so why does that matter? Because you're also listening to where you have commonality, where there's things you might share. You're also listening to maybe how you can help them. You know, you might be able to introduce them to someone. That can be a great connection for them. You might be, you know, listening because you're trying to discern if they'd be a good member in your group. When you're listening for wherever there's other commonalities with the other members, or you're listening to their experiences, right? The fact that earlier I talked about I grew up on a farm, that tells you something about me, right? And it probably tells you what kind of experience that I had as a childhood. How does that play into who I am today? Right? And so as you go along, we did the F and we did the O. So what is R? R is recreation, right? And so when you talk about recreation, this is probably the most fun, right? Because what do people do for relaxation? What do they do for enjoyment? It's about fun, and that's beyond work. So you can really easily get to know someone on a more personal level by finding out what they love to do in their spare time. So what are sample questions for something like that? What's your favorite thing to do for fun? Right? Sometimes for people that work a lot, this is a super hard question, right, for them to answer. And sometimes they feel bad they can't answer it very well, like, and sometimes it's insightful because they think, well, maybe I'm not doing a lot of things that are fun. Maybe I'm not such a fun person. I want to be more of a fun person. I can remember that in one of the groups that I ran for years, one of the annual goals. Okay, so this was a goal for the year that one of the women members had was be more fun. And so that was her deal. So the group had to ask her every month, what did you do for fun and what are you doing that, you know, in your category is fun and that you feel like you are more of a fun person. And so You know, think about that. And that when you're asking the question, you might also ask what's the most interesting thing you've done? Most interesting thing you've— place you've visited? Where was your last vacation? Where are you planning for your next vacation? You know, why did you choose there? What did you love about it? What do you do to relax? What do you do to get re-energized? You know, this is just such a wide open Um, you know, topic that you're gonna have so much fun with when you talk to people about what they love to do in their spare time. And you can even ask, what would you love to do in your spare time that you're not getting to? Um, and why is that? So you can really have some deep conversations here, but what you're gonna find is that you're gonna find that you've got something in common. And what a fun thing to know about someone else that you might share fly fishing. You might share, you know, knitting, or that you both are getting ready to go to Italy in a few months, or one just went to Italy, but then the other one is getting ready to go, and you can share, you know, places and, and, you know, the, the, the little gelato place that you found that was the best you've ever had, that kind of thing. Again, what does that do? Deepens the connection, right? So the last, and fourth, is dreams. So this is all about allowing the conversation with someone to really get into kind of a dream state. And what do I mean by that is rarely does anyone ask, what are your dreams and your aspirations, right? When was the last time somebody asked you that, right? And so now this can also be an eye-opener because every time I ask someone, You know, I would love to know about your dreams and your aspirations. What are they? They just have the deer in the headlight look initially, like, one, I can't believe you're asking me. Number two, I can't remember the last time somebody asked me. And number three, what are my dreams and aspirations? Hmm. Right? And so give them time because this will reveal a lot about that person's inner world. They might also open the door for deeper conversation about You know, asking for dreams is fun, and asking open-ended questions will make things flow easily. But while talking about dreams, it may not always be appropriate for the initial small talk, right? Dreams can become beneficial when you've already established a connection with someone that you want to probe more deeply, right? And so you have to be kind of careful on when you ask the F, the O, the R, the D. Because it depends upon how personal somebody takes that question, right? So as a recap, FORD, the FORD concept. Family is F, occupation is O, R is recreation, D is their dreams. So if you think about centers of influence, you think about your really best friends. Can you answer the F, the O, R, and the D in regards to them? And if you can't, then you pick the one you can't, and that is a great conversation next time you run into them. And when you do this, I guarantee you, when you utilize the FORD concept, it will enhance, right, what you learn about people. It will allow for further openness. Vulnerability, honesty, and connection. Because this business that we're in, the peer group business, is a relationship business. And Ford helps you accomplish and advance and deepen your relationships, whether it's your members, centers of influence, or your family and friends and just business colleagues in general. So that's your takeaway for today. And I look forward— I just, you know, use FORD, have fun with it, practice it. And, you know, we'll add another layer of a concept 4:1 on it in a future episode. But until then, use it. And thank you for joining today to Mastermind Mastery. And I look forward to seeing you again next week. So go make it happen.

Hey, moderators of groups, thank you so much for listening to today's podcast. To get access to today's show notes and exclusive content and resources, visit TinaCornerStolz.com/podcast or lxcounsel.com, where you can also become part of an exclusive online community, attend our academy, or get free resources, templates, checklists, and more. And you can even contact me there as well. So if this episode resonated with you and you know someone who can also benefit from listening, please share with them by taking a screenshot and even posting on your social media. I also love reviews and appreciate hearing from each of you, those actually doing this wonderful work. Please tune in next week for another episode of Mastermind Mastery.

And I'll close by sharing something my mentor did after every learning moment.

He shared a shiny pebble from his pocket with anyone he passed knowledge to and asked them to forward that pebble knowledge on. So now I encourage you to go pass on a pebble, the takeaways you learned today, to either your existing groups or fellow peers. Now, go make it a great one.