Types of Peer Advisory Councils & Mastermind Groups

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

Hello everyone, and welcome to today's episode of Mastermind Mastery. We are going to tackle the concept and all the ideas wrapped around all the types of peer advisory councils that you can do. We're particularly going to talk about what are the two types that are trending. How can you decide what type of peer advisory council and mastermind group is right for you? And what are the pros and cons to all the 7 different types that exist? So the goal is, is that if you're already running groups, maybe there's one that you can spin up for an additional one that you would enjoy doing that kind of fits a specific niche that you are passionate about. Or if you're sitting there considering, you know, I want to get into this and I want to do groups, but I don't know how to figure out what type is right for me. Well, we're going to dive a little bit into that right now, and I'm going to open up your mind by you immediately kind of listening to all these types that can exist. So the most common is CEOs from various industries, right? Typically they're local and they're in-person groups. You can also have business owners from similar industries, and it might be on a national basis, and you might do that virtually. Or presidents of large marinas that will meet. They're all over the place. They're national, and it might be hybrid. They might do in-person and they might do virtual. You can have senior leaders of family firms, female executives only, faith-based entrepreneurs. You could have CHROs, so chief, right, human resource officers from the healthcare companies with over, let's say, 1,000 employees. And so it might be a global group that you do. You could have CFOs from global companies aspiring to do business in foreign countries. That's very specific. You could have leaders within the same company, right? And have your own group. Well, you might have like industry-specific, like manufacturing clients, let's say of an accounting firm. So let's say an accounting firm wants to pull in their specific type industry and do groups for that. So as you can see, There are all types that you can do, and the purpose of this is to get your mind going. So the question to answer is, do you already know what type of peer advisory council you want to moderate? Or maybe you're already doing it today, and again, you want to expand your business. But have you identified the intersection of where your passion lies and where your expertise lies and where you have the most connections? So as we get started, I just want to go down each one and open your mind and give you food for thought, right? Because I've been doing this for so long that new types of groups come up every single day. So to give you an example, even in our community that we have within LX Council, we have individuals doing groups of CEOs that are running privately private equity companies. So private equity puts a CEO in to run that company that they've acquired, and those CEOs are in a group. So that's very niche, right? So here we go. So when you talk about the traditional level, right, of a group, most commonly known is that of a small business owner, meaning a privately held business owner. So it might not necessarily be a small company, It could be a very mature company with hundreds of employees, but they're privately held. So that owner, i.e., it could be the actual chairman, the CEO, the president running the group, but whoever is in charge of this strategic part of the company. So by position, that's what we're gonna call it, is how you construct the first type of group. So the most common is a CEO peer group, right? And so then the things you have to think about, if that's the type of group you want to do, is do you love working with that type of leader? So in a position, you can also have not just CEOs, but you can have business owners, in essence, founders, president, the CFO. That's another position. Senior leaders, executives, CIOs, CHROs, CMOs, COOs, you name it all. But the point is you put a group together wrapped around the level of responsibility everybody shares. So one of the things you want to think about is in running that type of group is do you have the passion for that type of leader? And do you have knowledge around what it's like to be that leader? Because some of the advantages of that group is, first of all, you can include all kinds of industries and you have a broader market to pull from. Another advantage is, is pursuing leaders as group members. They tend to be relatively easy sell because they make the decision and they have a budget and P&L responsibility, right? And it's of course the most common and well-known category that people can relate to. But also members have a tendency to easily think that they're with their true peers because they have the same title. And what, while this isn't exactly true, their belief makes them want to join. There are disadvantages when working with just this type, which is one, how do you differentiate yourself among everybody else that's doing the same type, right? And you know, what about matching mentors by title only isn't always sufficient and doesn't result right in a group of true peers. So we're going to do a deep dive and I will do that later in future episodes about how do you actually assemble your groups strategically. But you get first, you can put a group together based on title. But number 2, you can also have a group based on industry. So this is where everyone operates in a specific industry, like the marine industry. Many of you might be familiar with Marine 2020. That's an example. The manufacturing industry, technology, it could be construction, it could be accounting, it could be law. But point is here is that industry-specific has its advantages and it also has its disadvantages. But as you think about whether to do a group like that or not, consider, do you understand something about that industry? Do you know the lingo, the common challenges, the pitfalls, the trends that are happening? And does geography matter? For example, one time I put together a construction focus group and it was in the same geography. So in that group, there was like one plumber, one electrician, one concrete guy, one, you know, um, what else would you have in construction? But one, for example, one thing that wasn't like, there was a roofer, et cetera, but there was not a GC. So a GC couldn't be in that group because typically his subs were those in the group in many cases. And so that would have been conflict of interest. So what you have to think about when you put this type of group together is you want to make sure there is no conflict of interest, right? So advantages are though, they share commonality in lingo, industry terms, contacts, a lot of times might be customers, right? And this reduces the need to educate members on industry nuances. So there's shared financial data and metrics can lead to true benchmarking. Industry 10, um, trend analysis, for example, discussion, observations that are very relatable to all is very easy to do in this type of group. And the level of conver— conversation can be more specific. So take the construction group I talked about, you know, it was easy for them when they talked about bonding and the requirements around having the right type of bonds for running, right, construction-related jobs, that they all understood the nuances of bonding. So that elevates the level of conversation and allows therefore, you know, to get to another higher level of a deep dive conversation because everybody already understands the basics, right? And they don't have to reinvent the wheel as there's frequently someone who's already done or maybe even perfected what others are thinking about doing. So industry knowledge, resources, connections can be shared, and those are all great things when you do an industry-only group. The disadvantage to watch out for is groupthink, because that can emerge because they may just accept, well, this is the way it is in our industry, and they all believe that. And so for them to think outside the box may be a little bit harder on the more common challenges that seem to forever plague that industry. So you have to involve creative thinking into the methodology of your meeting in order to disrupt the status quo. You could do that with a speaker. You could do that with prompting very powerful questions that are thought-provoking in order to kind of prod them into thinking differently and not settle for the way it is. So other things of ways to counter groupthink is to make sure that you have a, a full group that includes diversity in thinking. Meaning when you put somebody in the group, even though they may be in the same industry, they just might think differently because of their experience, how they grew up, where they grew up. They will have different perspective. So you'll just look for somebody who just thinks differently. And that's a good add to a group when you have the same type, meaning industry that you're building the group around. Now, the one thing to be aware of before we move on is after a period of time, the meetings can get stale because the wealth of commonality. So bringing in new ideas, changing up the format, pushing the envelope on performance will help keep things fresh. So number 3, in putting a group together, it can be geography-based. So do— what do I mean by that? So they all can operate globally. You can have global interest. You can have specific challenges based on geography. And so including geography into the mix of how you put your group together can also increase the value that your members get from being in the group. So for example, I had mentioned earlier that you could have a group of CFOs who are wanting it to enter a country. Specifically to do business there. So they all are sharing commonality from where they want to operate in, which is the country, and but they're not in conflict with each other, right? So you also might have a situation where, let's say, geography-wise, it's a small area. And so the local trends there are unique, maybe how people do business or how they're impacted by recession or inflation could be very different. It could be a touristy area. It could not be. So sometimes geography has its uniqueness in order to, um, that people are most interested in and therefore want to be in a group that way. Geography you want to take into consideration when your specific type indicates that you can't be maybe local. And you have to expand because if you were local, there would be conflict of interest. So advantages are that when you have a group centered around geography, it can be very powerful because it can create change beyond their own organization. They can create global change, local change, impact a country, whatever it might do. But usually this is aligned with strategic initiatives inside that organization. But you have the opportunity for the members to be a resource connector. That's what we call in order to help each other share connections, resources, et cetera, that helps everybody operate better. It's what I always used to say is, you know, do you know a guy, which is I need to find somebody who can, right? And typically that's a big advantage by being in a group like that. Disadvantages is when you're global or when you're in a certain geography, it does limit, right, what in some cases where you can pull from. You have time zone differences, et cetera. Getting the members to truly bond because most likely you're going to be virtual in that case, or you're going to be virtual many times until you can actually get together, which would be a hybrid model that we call. Of an in-person and also virtual meetings, and you just alternate on some sort of regularity. Now there's specialty groups. So what are specialty groups? Specialty groups typically, to give you an example, are where there's a specific type of member characteristic, like women-owned businesses, family firms, women in technology. It could be religious groups, exit planning, succession-focused groups. It's to be people specifically looking to have, you know, fast growth in their business and they're, they're, they have some specific challenge. So here in thinking about a specialty group, this is going to be where you have an affinity for helping this type of member succeed for some reason, because the advantages can be very rewarding to work as you share something important with powerful the members, because you understand that type of group. The bond is stronger because they all share something in common already. And the advantages are you're exposed to conversations around topics that are important to you that only certain types of people will understand. For example, let's say a single parent running a business, trying to balance both critical responsibilities of home and being a boss, wouldn't necessarily get great insight from members who aren't balancing that. Or maybe they're not a parent, or they are a parent, but they don't, they're not a single parent. And so a lot of times you can have women who are running businesses, but they also have families that being in a group really helps them because they get special insight as to how to do that balance and being successful. Now disadvantages, there's tunnel vision can occur. Because when you discuss challenges and opportunities that don't take into consideration the real world of business, sometimes that's one of the things to watch out for if you have and lead a women-only group. Because women don't just deal with women only in the business world. And so a blindside could be in interacting with all diversity in the business world. But there are also advantages. Again, if it, if you were in a woman-only group and a woman, you just have to, as you are a moderator of these groups, understand where the blind spots are and mitigate them. That's really it. So I'm going to pull out family firms briefly because family firms have a unique dynamic that they deserve special attention here. So members would be individuals from privately held family firms in any industry. You could even get specific in industry. You could do family firms that are in manufacturing as an example. The criteria is that the company is majority owned by a family and that the family is in primary control of the strategy and leadership. So if you're thinking about, I would love to work with just family firms and have a PAC around that. The question is, is do you genuinely have experience or knowledge of family firms intricacies because they have special challenges like with succession and compensation, but you have to love and understand some of those key challenges so that you can know how people are showing up and what's going to happen when they're involved in your group and trying to impact change. And then the other thing is, are there enough family firms geographically geographically, right, close to begin a local in-person group, or will you have to be virtual? Some of the advantages of having a family firm only group is their personal and business intersect and are very unique to the family dynamics. There will be endless situations for help from their peers, and their peers will have plenty of stories and perspectives on both the personal and the business levels. So they can find relief in discovering many times they're not alone in family challenges because typically family firms are very close to the vest and they don't reveal, right, to many people, particularly to the outside world, any of their family challenges. So when they're very private and they don't discuss this with anyone outside their family circle, being in a group and being able to be vulnerable with people who understand them really can be a breath of fresh air. So disadvantages is they will have groupthink. So family firms have business and personal challenges others don't have. And since it's this tendency to be private, they are sometimes reluctant to be vulnerable. So vulnerability is vital for the best insights and issues that arise that get discussed in the meetings, and you're gonna have to try and pull that out. Right? And it can be frustrating because a lot of times some of the hard things they need to do to change is very difficult for them to implement. For example, firing a family member. Well, maybe they need to do that, but maybe that's just not going to be an option. Compensation is always a big one. And maybe the normal way that a business would do compensation is just not going to work. For this family firm. So there will be times when it will be hard for them to do what I would say is normal for other businesses because there's family involved. And that makes things cloudy because there's boundaries and different roles, and they still need to be able to eat dinner around the Thanksgiving table, right? So getting family members to choose one member to participate and represent them can also be difficult. So the key is to kind of work with the whole family first and get them comfortable with the concept and decide who's the best person to join the group. And it could be that you might alternate out every so often. And when I say so often, it's not frequent, like every couple of years, if maybe it's better to insert a different family member into the group. Point is, they— it's very exciting, though, to work with family firms, and it's a great category and type of peer advisory council to do. It's you want to be prepared for what you're doing when you get into it. So now, two exciting trends. The pandemic really created a need for better collaboration methods, and there's definitely been a shift in business emphasizing the more, like, human aspects of advisory services and highlighting the importance of meaningful relationships as the way to re— retain and acquire new clients. So the peer advisory industry typically now can be the mechanism to accomplish these goals. Because its value comes from human relationships. So it's a whole new way of thinking for many, and it's one that I've had many conversations with of opening up how people can leverage already existing relationships that they have. For example, the client/community group. So this is any organization that has a large community of customers they regularly interact with as opportunity to improve those relationships and expand their reach exponentially through packs. So how do they do that? By creating a pack composed entirely of their customers. So say, for example, an accounting firm has a problem. They need to increase their advisory services, meaning higher margin. So to compensate for the commoditization of traditional services, that now have lower margins. So to make matters worse, new competitors are emerging, offering these traditional services at no cost to lure clients to their firms. And additionally, partners are retiring and transferring relationships, and that can be tricky to newer partners. But finally, they want to retain their best clients and grow, you know, simultaneously. So all of this is like a big, tall order. So because securing new clients is costly and time-consuming, it takes a lot of effort. To build trust and relationship. And a lot of times accountants aren't really good at that. So how do accounting firms get to know their existing clients better strategically by developing a stronger bond? And that is, you guessed it, through the peer advisory council. So they can use this mechanism to accomplish the firm's strategic initiatives, right? And what they would do and consider is actually look at their client base and see if they want to put together any type of group. I previously just discussed. It could just be the founders of businesses. It could be specific niche like family firms or manufacturing or technology or healthcare, whatever it might be, but it would get them closer to their existing clients that in essence will help them build their businesses better and they'll need more of their services and a deeper relationship and help retain them. So it accomplishes all those strategic initiatives. So you can have anyone as a firm who has an existing client base to pull from do their own peer advisory councils, right? So it's with their clients. The other trend is in company. So this has been tried off and on in the past, but it is now way more successful than it has been. And this is a company typically with a complex organizational structure. It's ideal for an internal PAC. So it's similar to kind of what's called community of practice. This category of PAC consists of companies' employees, hence in-company. But unlike a community of practice, this PAC has an intentional design and structure because it doesn't come together spontaneously or casually like a community of practice does. The levels and type of interactions increase the collaboration. right, and improve problem solving. So any topic or complex challenge that can benefit from different perspectives and insights can use a PAC as a way to surface those thoughts. So what an in-company does is that will increase collaboration against top leaders. So say, for example, is that you have a global company that has directors of countries, right? So these directors leading countries come together and operate just like a peer advisory council, even though they work for the same company. But it helps them collaborate, share better practices, and solve problems together. So it actually helps the company, right, internally prosper and grow, solve problems together, et cetera, in a structured format. So you've heard lots of different types, pros and cons to all of them. Hopefully this gives you some good ideas in regards to, hmm, maybe I will start a new type of group, something specific, because you can absolutely have leverage based on who you're already working with or you know to already put another group in place, or it's to give you ideas on what's the right group for you. So for more resources, I actually have a pack checklist on how you can decide what type of group is right for you. And you can always get that at TinaCorner.com, TinaCornerStolz.com. And we— resources are located there, or just at the end of the podcast, you'll see and be able to download resources. So thanks again for another great session together and look forward to hearing from you. And as always, right, have a great day and 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, 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.