Member Journey: Vulnerability and Success Through the Seventh Stage

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 guest, we'll be having a bit of fun.

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Hello everyone and welcome to another episode of Mastermind Mastery. I am your host Tina Corner Stolz, and today we get into the one stage you've been waiting all this time for. Stage 7 of the member journey. Stage 7 is about where they fully open up and are vulnerable and they are rocking and rolling as a member. So today I'm going to talk not just about stage 7, but I'm gonna highlight stages 1 through 6 high level and what you do in each stage as a good recap and tack on the last stage at the end. And as a reminder, in the show notes, there is the infographic of the member journey that you can download and use in your own practices in onboarding your members and in getting them through these 7 stages. So let's start with stage 1, anticipation and hope. This is where they sign the member application. And I'm only going to highlight these next 6 stages because we're going to dive deep into stage 7. But I want to get your mindset going along and getting into the right groove as I talk about stage 7. I didn't want to do that cold, so that's why I want to highlight these, these 6 stages. So again, stage 1, anticipation and hope. They've signed up as a member. They're anticipating an exceptional experience from you. They hope to solve their challenges, opportunities, problems, or ideas. They're optimistic because they've made this decision to join your PAC, your peer advisory council. So what do you do? Aside from high level, what I am suggesting in all these episodes about the member journey is that you share with your member this journey. This is what's going to happen. As you are a member in your group. Okay. And to enhance your experience and to give you that heads up, this is what you're going to go through to get ultimately to here, which takes time. So you're setting the stage, hence the 7 stages. So in stage 1, what do you do? What you're going to do is this is a fantastic, right, opportunity to develop healthy habits for them. Setting the stage for expectations with them, what the guidelines are of your group and how you want them to do certain things, the dos and the don'ts, and how you expect them to show up for the meeting, right? That is stage 1, and that's what you can do to move them along. You talk about it. This is your chance to set them up to be an ideal member and not develop any crappy habits. Right? Stage 2, they're excited, but there's judgment here because here they're excited for orientation, your onboarding if you've had that yet, or you've just had it because you've explained, you know, um, what you expect of them. But now the first meeting, so they're having the first meeting and this is where they're learning about the members, the meeting structure, you know, they're seeing if the experiences matched with what they thought it was going to be. And so what do you do? So as a moderator, you want to influence their perception in order to ensure that the existing member strengths and synergies are always highlighted. So the new member gets the right first impression of each of the other members, and the other members get the right first impression of the new member. And as you move to stage 3, which is awareness and confirmation, this is now how the member becomes aware of what is behind the curtain right, that what is really going on in the meetings. They're getting the, the feel for the structure, how they process their first challenge, opportunity, problem, or idea, how it is that they, um, are just show up on time, right? So they get the gist at do they need to be there 10 minutes early, 30 minutes early, or just slide in because that's what everybody else is doing, right? They become aware of what the norms are of the group. This is where they're now referring to your peer group as a group. It's a group of which they belong. Okay, and what can you do is ask the member, okay, if they concur, and being sure that they believe that the group is a good fit for them. Discuss what their thoughts are, discuss their beliefs about what they're seeing. Um, you know, what they believe, what they don't believe, because you can clarify any misperceptions. So this is extremely important to do after a member has gone to a couple meetings, that you check in again, okay, that they're doing okay, and what questions do they have, and make sure that you eliminate any wrong assumptions with them. Stage 4 is their engagement. This is the members now getting to know the other members, and the other members are getting to know them, and they're building relationships. They're starting to build trust. They're beginning to feel comfortable with the meeting rhythm, and as a result, they're actually actively participating in the meeting structure and they're interacting. So what do you do? Typically after 3 months, you got to do a check-in, like a formal check-in with them and check how is it going. This is the final key partially to their onboarding because you are being sure they are happy with the experience. So far we have learned through countless statistics that if a member is going to leave and they haven't paid annual, okay, if they are going to leave, it will be in month 4 or it'll be in month 11, because month 4, they now invested 90 days and they've given it a chance to work. And is it worth their time and investment? And you want to be sure it's a no-brainer that in their head that it is an absolute yes, right? So that is why in this stage you want to be sure that they really are engaged and they are not disengaging. So Stage 5, nurture. This is a critical stage, and this is where you and their peers nurture the new member because Something happens and you want them to lean in to the group and not lean away. Something happens is an event, an issue, something that most likely they're embarrassed by. It's major. They are disappointed. They're extremely stressed. It can cause them to leave the group if they don't believe that they have time for the group or that the group is worth their time and effort because now something major has happened. They need to go concentrate on it. Instead of— you want them to have the mindset of, this is the time I need the group. Thank goodness I have a group, right? So they lean in. That's what you're doing here. You're encouraging leaning in. When you perceive or become aware that something has happened, an occurrence, you've got to be on top of it. You got to reaffirm that that's what the group is here for. You got to reaffirm that everybody in the group can help them. You have to reaffirm this is what the group is all about in time of need by being very helpful early on when the incident happens is important for the group to get involved so they can be helpful. Not, yeah, I had this happen 30 days ago, this is what I've done, blah, blah, blah. They got to bring it immediately, even if it means you have a special session, but you have to prevent the member from retreating. That's stage 5 on nurture. Stage 6 is because they've gone through all of that. Now they are at a stage of optimizing their trust and optimizing the group. Right. So this is where referrals from the member becomes easier because they have now had a situation and you can ask what for a testimonial. You can ask for a referral because they've had the full experience. So one key takeaway here is when you know that member has hit stage 6, that's referral time, testimonial time at a minimum. If you have not done that before then, right? What do you do to optimize their experience here is you plan future COPIs now— challenges, opportunities, problems, or ideas— based on red flags you really see in the business that, that you've heard them talk about. But now this is a chance where they need to be more strategic and less tactical, right? Help them trust the group and be more intentional how they show up to the meetings about what it is they bring to the meetings, right? Because they're in a rhythm, they're self-aware more, they understand the real issues, and they begin to have more aha moments, which allows them to get to the final stage where this is the most fun and rewarding. Particularly for you as a moderator, because this is when vulnerability is at its highest. It's where they have fully opened up. It's really what I call the vulnerability stage. And it varies by individual because vulnerability is a whole nother topic in itself. Everybody has different levels of being vulnerable. Everybody has different levels depending upon the situation of vulnerability. They might be way more vulnerable personally than they are professionally or vice versa. You're getting them to max out and reach their full potential of being vulnerable, right? So this is where they're completely invested in the group. They believe it's a safe haven, that they are with their true peers. They're with their people, their tribe, however you want to call it. They have experienced tremendous value from the group. They have been extremely helpful to others in the group, and they know that. So they have a huge sense of satisfaction. In fact, this is where you start to see the signs of they truly believe that they're friends of each other. So it was interesting just the other day, I was attending a meeting of one of my licensed partners, and they told a story where one of the members didn't have gas money to come to the meeting because he actually drove every month an hour and a half to the meeting. But he had a new concept and suddenly he was struggling financially. He didn't even have the gas money to make it. Well, not only did this individual's spouse, but also employees said You got to get there. This— you need this. This is something that you lean on every month. And they made sure that individual got there with— right. So their husband got there, their boss got there, whatever was the role that person played. They had such a support system around that they made sure that because of gas money or no gas money, they were getting to this meeting. But here's what happened with this person's peers. As soon as they found that out, they said, you, next time you call me and I'll come get you. This is ridiculous. Now let's just fast forward a few months, how things change around. This person's business is an AI business and most likely is going to be the next unicorn. It is phenomenal about what is happening with this person's business. But that whole level doesn't happen until somebody's at stage 7, and they got there because of how well they went through the other stages to get to stage 7, because there's a high level of compassion. They speak without reservation in a very kind way. Obviously, it's their ultimate safe haven, and they are becoming more strategic than they are reactive in a tactical mode. Because what you can expect from your members in Stage 7 is true openness. This is, this is where it is. True compassion. They're empathetic. They help each other emotionally, right? They're there for each other. They would do anything for each other. They become more highly strategic. They bring up topics that are, that are more sophisticated in driving the business forward. They no longer typically have like urgent, very tactical issues, but rather ones that require more in-depth processing every month. So don't be surprised that you won't get through as many issues that you used to, because now these become way more thoughtful copy topics. And this is where you probably have now a lifetime member. A lifelong member because they consider each member in their group as their best friend they will have in business. So what do you do? Well, first of all, at this point, your involvement is very different, very different in that you're not having to interject, keep people back on track, reminding them what this part of the meeting structure is about. The dos and the don'ts and all that, because they already know it and they've been practicing it because they've been learning it from you. And now they're there and they don't need to hear it again, right? So they're the ideal member and they'll lead by example for everybody else, right? You can ask them how you, the group, can support them even more. This is a chance to just say, how can we take this to another level? What do you need now? And be open to innovate and take the meeting experience to another level. This may be where I see a lot of people who have never done retreats start to do retreats with their groups. So it could be a workshop. You can do all kinds of things. Socials now become even more regular, like on a quarterly basis, and the members are planning them. You know, you may see where they want to meet more often, whatever it might be. But for you as a moderator, now you have to up your game. It's less about how you have to corral them to interact well in the meeting. You have to be more challenging to them, more challenging my transition questions. And then for anybody that's new, my transition question is how you open the meeting up that sets the stage with a thought-provoking question. Well, now you got to up your game and they have to be more hard-hitting, right? You have to challenge them with even more powerful questions. Something that really starts, you know, as you start to question, they have to be more curious. So everybody's got to up their skill set in regards to curiosity and questioning. When you're at this stage, you have done your job wonderfully as a moderator to get your members there. Keep in mind A red flag is a member who can't get to Stage 7 because your group will only be as vulnerable as the weakest vulnerable member in your group. I want you to internalize that your group as a whole will only be as good as the weakest member that is less vulnerable, right? So that is your goal. So listeners, you now have all 7 stages. I hope this— and trust, because it has been so for me— extremely helpful to share this and spend the time with a new member so they can understand where it is their journey of being in your group is going to take them. But for you as a moderator to know what to do in each of those stages. So until next week, where we'll have another great episode and a guest on Mastermind Mastery. Remember, you can download the journey map from our resources page and from the episode notes. And until then and the rest of the week, you guys 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.