Revolutionizing Prospect Qualification: Steering Clear of the Most Common Mistakes

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 Elix 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 PACTs. You'll hear insights, perspectives, do's 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, and welcome back to another episode of Mastermind Mastery. I'm your host, Tina Corner Stolz, and today's episode is controversial. I know, controversial. Why do I say that? I say that because I am going to talk about something that I believe many of you will possibly disagree with, but I hope that at the end of today's episode, you might change your mind. And what is that topic today? We're going to talk about matching the right members with each other and how to do that effectively, where not only it increases your member retention, but the whole member experience in your groups. So you can have two takeaways today. The most common mistakes made that I believe that impact your retention rate and the member experience and their satisfaction. Number 2, the top 2 things to consider when matching members into a group. So let's get started. What are those most common mistakes and why do I say this is going to be controversial for you? It's because every time I talk to someone about how they put members together and how they screen their prospects for membership is they always talk about two things. What are those two things? Revenue and employees. So when talking to a prospective CEO or a senior leader, it is always that question, well, what is your revenue and how many employees do you have? As though that's the only two things you need to know on whether they should be in your group or not. Wrong. I'm encouraging you, that is irrelevant. Many times when I do what's called the discovery call, I can actually discern if somebody is the right fit and will add to the experience of the other members around the table without even knowing their revenue number and how many employees they have. So how is that possible and why? Why not revenue? Why not number of employees? Because I believe it is misleading and it's not really the true measure of how to match appropriately members in a group. So let's talk about that for a minute and reflect a little bit. What's the definition? So what is the definition of actually matching those members? So I'm gonna encourage you to think of it this way. To actually match on experience level and sophistication, and that those are the two criteria to use and not revenue and number of employees. So why is sophistication and experience level more important? So I'm going to give an example. You could have someone like, let's say, a general contractor, okay, in the group and their revenues are typically extremely high with lots of employees. But then you could have somebody in commercial real estate where their revenues are extremely high, but they have very few employees. So does that make them not a match for the group? Or you could have someone who is a serial entrepreneur and maybe on their third or their fourth, right? Company or opportunity, and they may be in the beginning of where they don't have that many employees or they don't have that much revenue. They have a proven track record. So would they not make a good member for a group that maybe has lots of revenue and lots of employees? And how is there a relationship between revenue employees in an actual group setting where you're matching people. So I know many of you may think, well, the reason that that is, is because if you have a certain number of employees, a certain amount of revenue, then that automatically means you're at a certain level of sophistication and experience. And I'm going to argue with you is that that is not entirely the case. You can have someone who has a lot of revenue and employees but is maybe not a very sophisticated business, business at all. And maybe their experience level is extremely limited. And is that a good match with other top CEOs that have lots of experience and maturity? Probably not. So we're back to what to consider. So I'm going to first open in that one of the other key things I learned really early on was matching in regards to strategy and tactical. And that a good rule of thumb is when you have your group, think about your ideal member. So I want you to think about currently the groups that you have. And those members in that group, what percentage would you say their time is spent tactically leading the company and strategically leading the company? So you could take on one end of the spectrum that majority is tactical, like maybe 75% tactical, 25% strategic. You could take middle of the road where it's 50/50, and you pick the high end where maybe it's like 90% strategic and, and 10% tactical. So I encourage you to first of all match based on that. So consider where someone is and the amount of time they spend tactical versus being strategic in the business. Why is that important? Well, what happens do you think if you match somebody at those opposite ends of the spectrum, very tactile, they can't be very strategic, with somebody who's extremely strategic and not tactical any longer? They have other people in the organization who are really doing that tactical more day-to-day. So when you match those two, what do you think happens? It can be a mismatch.

Why?

It's a mismatch because— person being tactical can frustrate somebody who's very strategic, all right? Especially when the majority of the time they're tactical. Exactly how to do this, exactly in the weeds of their questions to the group and where they need help. Because that is a sign that they're at a certain maturity level of their business and as a leader, which is why the majority of the time they're tactical versus That CEO who's mostly strategic has worked his way up to be more strategic. So the conversation is going to be completely different. Now, that isn't to say that someone who's most of the time tactical can't help that person who the majority of the time is strategic. I am just suggesting to you is use that as one of the benchmarks when you're matching your groups and be very careful about mismatching too much. What's another thing that they consider against revenue and number of employees? So aside from tactical and strategy is think about the skill set. What skill set is missing in your group? Do you need someone who's more financially astute, someone who's more strategic, maybe someone who is very good at sales and marketing because that's their background, or operational possibly? So when you think of that skill set, maybe it's leadership, you know, is another opportunity. Is you want your members to have different skill sets that come together where you've got a variety that can always happen regardless of the conversation. So skill set, consider that. Number 2, experience level. So what am I talking about experience level? I'm not talking about how long they've been a leader. I'm talking about what they have experienced in running the business. What's an example? I'm talking about how they've gone through acquisitions, partnerships. Have they gone through scaling? Do they have remote workers? Are they an ESOP? Are they global or local? Are they B2B or B2C? My point is, is that what have they experienced that have gotten them where they are now. Experiences, both positive as well as their pitfalls. What have they learned? What has not gone well? So like from a partnership standpoint, maybe they've been in a partnership, it was awful and they exited. That's an experience. By doing acquisitions, you know, has that gone well? Not. That's an experience. You know, have they gone through, let's say, labor unions? And not, that's an experience. So what you're doing is you're wanting to understand what that CEO is bringing to the table in regards to both positive experiences and key learnings. Because your ideal scenario in this case is— and this is what I always have done— is I have as simple as a spreadsheet. And it's really just a T column. And then that column, it has their experiences, what has been positive, and then what has been their learnings. And I've also— what their skill set is. And as I'm speaking to them and asking them to share all of this, I'm writing them down in the columns. And what I'm listening for is where have they had success that will have a member already in the group that could use that experience to help them be successful because they're getting ready to experience that. So for example, if someone has— is wanting to do acquisitions for the first time, you want other members in the group that have gone through that and can share their positives and negatives about that. If you have someone in the group that, let's say, is getting ready to scale into different markets, you want someone who already has done that If someone has been in partnerships or is in a partnership or is a family business, sometimes it's really good to have other organizations that are in a partnership or a family business so they can relate and understand. Somebody's global, it's a good idea to have another global organization, or somebody's very local, very local organization, or somebody who's B2B with somebody else who's also B2B. Do you get the gist? You getting what I'm getting at? Is that what you're doing is you're matching for commonality, and then also you're matching for where I've been. How can I help those of you that are going there as something new, uncharted territory? And then where have they been? It's going to help me where I'm going in new and uncharted territory. So it's commonality for understanding. So for example, professional services firms or government contractors. So if you only have one government contractor, not everybody's going to understand the nuances of government contracting or ESOPs like I mentioned before, or family firms like I mentioned before. So I'm back to matching is much more what I call intricate and a true interview to truly understand the journey that, that individual has taken and where is that journey that can help the members in your group currently, where is that path they're about ready to take and that they need, and where can the existing members help them there. The level of sophistication matters. So you're wanting to match your members with level of sophistication and experience. Otherwise, they will not feel, believe, and experience true peers around the table. Now, there are always exceptions to the rule, and the best exception I use is the one I mentioned earlier, which is about somebody who's a serial entrepreneur. They might be on their third company or something developing it, so their experience is enormous in the past. But for the current scenario, they're in a small organization. They can hold their own, and they need to be at the table with the big guys if that's what their experience sophistication level is and has been. So back to matching. You're matching not on revenue and number of employees only, but you're matching on sophistication and experience level. Because the mistakes typically match— or typically made is matching all tactical with all strategic, not considering a startup like I just mentioned that could be something of bringing lots of value to the table, and also not matching relative to maybe age as well. Because just because somebody might be young, they could have enormous experience that they bring to the table to fill a gap in your group. So have I convinced you yet to go way beyond revenue and number of employees? And can I pose the challenge that the next time you have a conversation, don't even ask what the revenue and the number of employees are and see what happens? Because when you don't ask that to a prospect, they recognize that you're truly wanting to get to know them and where it is they're going so you properly match and know if the members that you already have in your groups are going to be helpful for them. I guarantee you, if you do that, your close ratio will increase undoubtedly. And the reason why is because they truly believe that you're trying to do the best thing for your members in the group as well as for them. So with all of that said, I hope that you're taking away something, if anything, to add some questions within your own process as you screen for your right fit members. Thank you for joining for another episode of Mastermind Mastery, and I look forward to seeing you next week.

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 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. 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.