The Power of Saying No: Creating Sustainable Peer Groups with Chuck Smith

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 PACTs. 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.

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Let's get going and dive into today's episode. All right.

Ready? Welcome, everyone, to another episode of Mastermind Mastery. I'm your host, Tina Corner Stolz, and today's episode is about using quotations, true peers. How is it that you know when you're putting groups together that everybody will truly be a peer? In the peer group, right, environment, in that ecosystem. And it is not as really simple. You need to take it extremely seriously in doing this because it matters. It matters to your members that they are really with their peers. And today I have a good, longstanding friend, Chuck Smith, as our guest today. And Chuck is Executive Director of Chief Executive Network. So welcome, Chuck, to today's episode.

Hey, thanks for having me. Glad to be here.

Absolutely. Now, Chuck and I met when I was an alternative board franchisee, and he was really what I call a friend of the franchise and running a business back then that we all really utilized your services for the members. And now you have— you're in this role with Chief Executive Network and just perfect to have on today's show to really talk about this topic, to really help everyone out there in running groups. So, Chuck, anything else would you like to add about what you do and what you do at Chief Executive Network as we get into Troopers?

I'll just give you a little background on how I got here, I think, because sometimes thought of as an interesting story. I finished graduate school so many moons ago, it's hard to remember and needed to find a job. And so I started temping at a temp agency. One thing led to another and I bought that temp agency from the founders. And so I always call myself the only temp who bought their agency. Uh, and not long after that, we started to think about recruiting in a different way and built a software platform, uh, to do some recruiting. And, um, that's when I ran into my first peer group. It was an alternative board franchisee from, uh, Chicago area named Paul Detlefsen. He came to help me out because I was struggling as a business owner. And, uh, I'll never forget the first conversation I had with him, uh, in which I interrupted his conversation with me maybe half a dozen times to answer the phone, and I thought he was going to blow a gasket.

I know, I love Paul. That's so funny. That would be true.

Isn't there anybody else who can answer your phone at your company? And it's like, well, you know, we have a race to answer because we don't want our customers to wait. So I started learning a lot from him about how to run a business and participate in peer groups. And it turned out pretty quickly that Paul pointed out that the thing that we did in helping companies recruit was something that many of the TAB members in the country could make use of. So he sort of sponsored me to sponsor the organization. And I spent many fruitful and fun years in that universe, meeting lots of franchisees from TAB and then also the alternative— well, the alternative work, but also Renaissance Executive Forum and Vistage and and many of the for-profit peer group models. So I know a huge number of peer group leaders, and I participated in many peer groups. And it even turned out that I liked peer groups more than my own business. So when I sold my business, I was really excited to join Chief Executive Network, which is a national peer group, part of Chief Executive Group. We provide peer groups for industry verticals like CEOs of manufacturing companies, CEOs of software companies. And then we have the senior executive network that has peer groups for functional disciplines for financial folks like CFOs, sales, marketing leaders. We really have 14 functional disciplines that we run peer groups for. And, you know, over the years, I learned a lot about how peer groups work when they're working well and when they don't work so well. So Happy to share with you today.

Excellent. And I appreciate you going through that background so that our audience knows you have a long history in this space. And so what we're going to talk about today and what you're going to share comes from that, right, involvement and your own experience. So it's, it's what being in a peer group is all about, sharing your insights and your experience. So we're going to get started like 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 is not going to be a fit in that group, it's important to protect 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 going to be able to engage in conversation.

So when you think about how you all put groups together, Can you get a little bit into the nitty-gritty in regards to, to kind of how you figure out and then align all of that together? Because what comes to my mind is a big spreadsheet, which is, okay, they've had these experiences and this level and, and all of that. So let's dive a little bit deeper if you, if you can, uh, about that.

Well, And I think a lot has to do probably with targeting, like who are you going after? So it's always best to have a good target in mind. I think you are the person who many, many years ago told me the difference about marketing and sales. And marketing is about making sure you know who you're targeting with your message. And so if anybody is the target of your message, then you're going to get everybody. And so you're going to have to figure out how to navigate that. And it could mean that you're going to say, you know, person, you know, Sally, you're great, but we don't have a group for you right now. So hold tight. We're going to, we're putting that group together where Mary, you know, we're ready to go because you are leading a company that's $20 million in revenue. And I have, you know, 5 other companies that are $20 million in revenue or so in the, in the, in the group. If I had somebody, you know, like Sally, my, my first example, who's at $500,000. Sally would have a lot to learn from the folks running $20 million companies, but how will the folks running those larger companies feel about educating Sally all the time? Dragging along. And then there's a lot of external demographics that you can look at, but then there's the internal workings of the individual people. Are they open to Receiving wisdom from others. I mean, I think that's, as you know, a huge part of being able to participate well in a peer group. If you always know what's best for somebody else, but you can't hear it from other folks, then you're not gonna be a really good fit. And I think as a facilitator or whatever you're gonna call the group leader, depending on the organization, as they are putting people in place, they have to have their antenna up for, How's this person going to fit?

Absolutely. So do you have scenarios where people could be similar in revenue but still not be a peer?

Yeah, 100%. Think about third generation owner versus, you know, a bootstrap entrepreneur that got to, you know, the solo entrepreneur who got to $20 million, probably pretty hard charging, knows what they want and very directed. The inheritor of the third-generation $20 million business might not be nearly as focused. And, you know, those two attitudes to what they want their business to do, maintain, keep making me some money, make sure my family's well taken care of on the one side perhaps, and grow big and sell on the other. While they can have a fruitful communication with one another, and I wouldn't say they can't be in the same peer group, they could also, you know, end up being little thorns under one another's saddles. My first peer group experience way back when, when I was a member, I really came to the point where after, I don't know, maybe 7 or 8 months, I said, if this, if this person comes back to this meeting and says they're going to have their marketing plan next month again for the 6th straight month, I'm going to blow my top because I, I'm busy trying to get someplace, and I don't need to spend time listening to that.

Yep. Frustrating. Yep.

And it requires from the leader the hard decisions to make about whether the person belongs in the group or not.

Absolutely. Yes. And so taking it a step further, I loved that you used that word, like the inner parts of the, the business versus the obvious external of revenue and number of employees in the industry and all of that, right? Um, and if I'm hearing you correctly, you have the inner part, which is the one part of that is the individual and their desire and kind of where they're going, etc. And then, then there's the other part of just the company, right, and where it is going, what experiences they've had, and kind of where they're going. And it sounds like you really look at that as well.

Yeah. And the business type, right? So, um, but there's lots of ways to put these together and many of them can work. Um, when you are locally, when you're doing a local one, uh, group with the local geography, you tend to get the butcher, baker, candlestick maker effect in order to not have competitors. You have, you know, very disparate kinds of companies in there, which can be super fruitful. But it takes longer for the members to get to know one another and understand the mechanics of one another's businesses. So, and I think that's why, I mean, it can take longer because those groups tend to meet more frequently and they have more social interactions than Chief Executive Network members who come twice a year to really high-level strategic meetings to focus on business for, you know, 36 hours and then go back and do it as opposed to, hey, do you want to meet for lunch after the meeting or do you want to play golf over the weekend? And you get more time to get to know each other. So there's a way in which the local meetings provide more personal support across all the leg, you know, the business, the personal, and the family life, which is awesome. And, you know, let me just say everybody should be in a peer group. Just finding the right one is the right one.

Right? Yeah, exactly. And are there any other learnings, kind of, this is a general statement, to share with the audience of just either some dos and don'ts about really when you are looking to put true peers together, either from your own experience that kind of covers the gamut of, you know, you always want to watch for this or watch for that, or, you know?

Yeah, well, you know, I, I don't want to be repetitive, but targeting is really key. I mean, I know some folks who run really great little peer group networks for, um, for independently owned laundry and dry cleaners, right? Right. They meet on a national basis. They help one another a ton. And there are a lot of these national peer groups, either run by individuals or, or, or associations, that know that their target is you know, $10 million launderers. Great. Um, your target might be people within a 50-mile radius. Okay. That's a lot of different people. So how do you want to put them together? Do you want to aim for a group of manufacturers or do you want to aim for a group of service companies or is it a revenue mark that you want to get something that they'll have an affinity for one another that will allow them to, make a cohesive group in a relatively short amount of time where they can find one another helpful. And so that curation process for the organizer of the group is critical and scary, right? Because it's that, especially as you're starting, telling somebody no who wants to give you money to come to your meeting is a super hard thing to do.

Yes, it is. Yes, it is. Well, I think you underscore something that comes to mind, which is you want the person, the business owner, or whoever's participating, a senior leader, et cetera, wants to feel like they're with their people, right?

Yeah.

And what you're saying is there's this common— you got to start with some commonality so they feel that right out of the gate, right?

Yeah. And then you have to listen carefully and respect different people's perspectives and every once in a while make the hard call. And there's a— the corollary for, you know, putting peer groups together is, you know, when you're running your own company, and I think most folks who have run peer groups have probably, or wish to, have been involved in leading some part of a company before. It's hard to fire people, uh, and when you do it, you often get a great benefit afterwards because everybody who is there says, what took you so long? And you get the right person in the place and everything goes better. But That the first step is making that hard decision.

Absolutely. Well, one other thing I want to talk about before we close out, though, is you mentioned the frequency of your all's meeting and the intensity over 36 hours.

Yeah.

So I would love for the audience to hear just a little bit about kind of a little bit of the format, but what you find really beneficial about it being like that.

Awesome, thank you for that. Um, I'm just going to give you an example of a meeting coming up that we're going to have up in your neck of the woods in, uh, Orlando, the Shingle Creek Resort, in a couple weeks. We're going to bring together 100 architects, engineers, general and subcontractors in our AEC group— architects, engineers, and contractors. So already they have some commonality. They're coming from around the country. Uh, they're going to start bright and early on Thursday morning, 7 AM breakfast, 8 AM the first of two 90-minute speakers so that they really get the juices flowing and start thinking about some topics. And we gather from the members what they want to hear about. So obviously we have an AI speaker, and, uh, because you have to—

you have—

I said it, AI is now in the recording, so we are okay for 2024. And, um, you know, they'll, they'll be 100 people. They'll share meals and networking and, uh, and cocktails and, and all that, and the speakers together. So compared to like a small group that you gather locally for your 10 or 12 or 15 people, you have a large group to actually network with. But then after lunch, we'll break down into groups of 8 to 12 by, uh, industry. So 12 architects, 10 engineers, each of them will have a professional certified facilitator, and they'll run through an agenda that includes roundtable topic discussions that were voted on before the meeting by the members to be on their agenda for their top of mind. And then we do a go around the room over the course of Thursday afternoon and Friday morning, issue processing. So we use a formal issue processing methodology that I'm sure you have in your toolkit, and I know Vistage has it as well. Rather than just using that when a person says, hey, I have a challenge, we actually ask everybody to do it each time so that each person gets the benefit of the wisdom of the whole group for some period of time and also get to hear what's top of mind for other folks. So your blind spot indicator, your, you know, So many people tell me they get more out of hearing other people's issues than their own because they're so much in their own head when their issue is being processed. And then, you know, getting to see how executives do their jobs in a different way than you might is also a great way to learn, a great form of professional development. So all that issue processing happens Thursday afternoon, Friday morning. We have a nice cocktail reception and buffet dinner on Thursday night, but it's very intense. The folks leave both mentally refreshed and exhausted from having been in the room with folks who are really you know, in similar situations. We'll have a group of contractors who will be $100 million to $1 billion. We'll have a group $50 to $100 million and a group $10 to $50 million. So you can, you can really dig into what's going on in your world because, right, right. If the $10 million guy does not have a CFO, the $100 million woman does, right? So how to manage your CFO and get the data you want is important for that person, but The other guy's going, I wish I had a CFO. I have to get that data. So I think that's how that works. And then the— I really appreciate that every 6 months, even though it becomes a little harder to get to know people over time, the ability to keep the whole conversation strategic and not bog down into that, well, you're going to bring the marketing plan or not.

Yeah. Yeah.

So absolutely. And our members commit to 2 times a year plus a conference. So it's a more limited time commitment. Across the year, although each instance tends to be a little bit more intense. And the value there is getting to put your phone away and not be within driving distance. You know, when you register at the hotel and fly to the hotel, we figure you're going to be there for the whole time. You're not going to get called away or get distracted. So we get their attention, which I think is really important.

Absolutely.

But I love— I really do love all peer groups. So whatever model somebody's running. If you have 10 people who really want to be in the room together helping one another, it's likely that good things will happen.

Absolutely. And there is no one right model. And to your point earlier, it's whatever is really right is the need of that particular member. And that's why sometimes we find people in more than one. So for—

absolutely—

lots of reasons, you know, they might be in a local one and then they're one that's more national and specific and Oh, you know, it, it helps in all ways.

So we definitely have people who participate in multiple peer groups for that reason.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. So, Chuck, appreciate, right, the discussion on the whole True Peers. And we always end an episode with what words of wisdom would you like to leave the audience as we close out?

Uh, I once talked to Craig Newman, who founded and owns Craigslist, and I asked him to do something for me and he said no. And I was like, oh, just no. He said, just no. Very simple. I would leave people with the power of saying no, that sometimes you have to say no to a prospect to be in a group because you know it's not going to be a good fit. And when you get that little feeling, You're probably right. Follow it. You'll find the next, the next good person, and your members will appreciate the fact that you're looking out for them.

I would like to put an exclamation point at the end of that.

Well said.

Well, so thank you for joining today, for sharing your thoughts with the audience. And aside from that, it's just great to see you since we've known each other for so long.

Absolutely. Thanks for having me. I really had a good time, and, uh, good luck with all you're doing. I really appreciate the work you're doing.

Thank you. And thanks to the audience for listening to another episode of Mastermind Mastery and getting some really good takeaways from when you're really thinking about putting together the group that is going to be sustainable, right? That your members are actually going to hang in there for multiple years because you did the right thing by putting True Peers together. So with that said, until next week, um, look forward to, uh, seeing you and hearing you guys and you guys being here next week on the next episode. And until then, have a great rest of the week and make it happen.

Hey, moderators of peer groups, thank you for listening to today's episode. To get access to show notes and exclusive content and resources, go to tinacornerstolz.com or www.ellxcounsel.com, where you can also become part of our online exclusive community, attend our academy where there are over 13 modules of how to create and run a successful peer advisory group, mastermind group, as well as free resources, white papers, checklists, and more. And you can even contact me there as well. The If this episode resonates with you and you know someone who can also benefit from listening, please share with them by taking a screenshot or post it on your social media.

I also love reviews and appreciate hearing from all of you, all of you who are doing this wonderful work of running peer groups.

Please tune in next week for the next episode of Mastermind Mastery, and I will close by sharing something my mentor did after every learning moment with someone he connected with. He reached into his pocket and he shared a shiny pebble with anyone he passed knowledge to and asked them to forward that pebble knowledge on. Now I encourage you to pass on a pebble, the takeaways you learned today, to either your existing groups or fellow peers. Now go make it happen.