True peers share comparable size, revenue, employee count, and ownership structure. The speakers warn that mixing an independent sole proprietor with someone reporting to a public board can break group dynamics. Geographic proximity gets groups started, but careful selection matters more than reaching critical mass.
True peers, let's just start with, how about that definition? What does that mean to you?
Yeah, what it means to me is being in a group of people who are facing similar size and type of situations. So, you know, a lot of the peer groups that are brought together are done geographically. So you're in the neighborhood and it's, you know, hard to put a peer group together, as your listeners know. And it's always easier to start with to say yes to somebody who wants to join your peer group because you want to reach that critical mass that you need to have a meeting. So you seek to be inclusive. But if you bring in people who don't fit in some way, whether it's the size of the company they're running or, you know, maybe their openness to learning, a lot of different ways of looking at it. But if you have a sense that somebody's not gonna be a fit in that group, it's important to protect the, the core as you're growing to have the right people in there. So true peers, not always, but very often similar revenue, similar number of employees, ownership structure can have an effect on that. Or am I an independent sole proprietor that I get to do whatever I want? Or do I report to a public company board? Big difference in how you're gonna be able to engage in conversation.
