Why Launching Your First Group Is Tough and How to Succeed

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 a guest, we'll be having a bit of fun. So are you ready? Let's get going and dive into today's episode.

Welcome everyone to another episode of Mastermind Mastery. I am Tina Corner Stolzl, your host, and today we're talking about why is launching a group so hard? So why is launching a brand new, particularly if it's your first one, And that's what I'm really focusing on, that it's your first one. But it also applies if you're trying to launch your second or your third, but you've already had that experience. If you've already tried to and successfully launched your first one, you know what it takes. So for those of you particularly who are thinking about launching or you're in the middle of trying to launch a Care Advisory Council, a PAC as we call them, then today's episode is for you. Because if you know what to expect, then you can plan for it in order to be successful. This is such a passionate topic for me because I saw and still see so much failure in this space. With anyone that is trying to launch, whether they're part of a franchise or part of another organization, or they're trying to do it on their own. The success rate literally is less than 30%. So why in the heck is it so low, generally speaking? And there are many reasons for that. So today I'm actually going to talk about just one aspect. This is a huge topic, but you will learn today the mindset needed to launch. What I see trips a lot of people up in regards to that, and you're gonna learn 3 things that are extremely underrated that are required to launch. So let's start with mindset. You may again underrate this, and this is not part of one of the 3 things that is very underrated. But the mindset plays with everybody. I have been extremely surprised that my licensed partners— this is a major issue. So when someone comes into my program and they're going to go through it and they're going to launch, I consistently see that their head messes with them and surprisingly, to a detriment that actually trips them up. Now, what do I mean? First of all, there's an imposter syndrome, and this is not to be something lightly taken, but here's why it's critical in this space on how the imposter syndrome really surfaces. It surfaces because you haven't done this before. And so you don't have experience. It's the first time that you're gonna launch a group. So why would someone believe that you can deliver a great member experience? So fear, which we all know the acronym is false evidence appearing real, but I also say it is full emotion, absolutely real. So full emotion, absolutely real. It is real. The fear of, I haven't done this. Why would somebody want to be part of my group if this is the first time? The fear of not performing, not being able to answer a question, not being able to, not being able to, not being able to. So it's a first-time thing, but you have to act and sell a new member like it's not. So you're gonna feel like an imposter because you haven't done it, even though you're convincing others that they will have a great member experience if they come onboard into your group. So mindset, I see this show up and I'm going to give you a great example. And if there's one thing you take away from this is take away this because it is actually very important for not only your mindset or for who you're talking to as a prospect. And the example is, is what I call having a forward mindset. Versus a hopeful mindset. So it starts with when you're talking to people, you're not saying, you know, I hope to launch a group in April, or I'm looking to launch a group, you know, because this is what I'm going to do now. No, no, no, no, no, no. There's no hope. There's no looking to. Instead, you say, I am— you're emphatic. You're decisive and you say, I am launching a group. I am launching a peer advisor council. I am launching a CEO peer group. I am launching a manufacturing-only group. And then you don't say and follow up with, I hope to do it in April. No, no, no, no, no, no, no. I am doing this. I am launching, and my first meeting I expect to be in May. The reason for that is it shows it's happening. It illustrates in your head over and over. You are prophesying this is what you're going to do. So mindset is really, really super important. Yes, you're going to lack confidence. Okay, you have to hide it. No one wants to be part of a group if you aren't sure that you're going to launch, not sure you'll launch, not sure you deliver value, not sure, not sure, not sure, blah, blah, blah. No. That goes out the door. You can think it, but you got to push it down. In your words, you have to appear and say, I'm doing this. So that's number one. I have seen over and over individuals who let this play, meaning their mindset, their lack of confidence, etc. They let it play out and it trips them up and they don't launch in a timely fashion. Their confidence level goes down. It's not where it needs to be, and therefore it shows. And people don't want to be part of something that, that, you know, they don't want to, right, go with a leader if the leader isn't sure. So again, mindset. I can remember back in 2005 when I went to launch, and I was like, geez, I have never done this before. I had to fake it. But then again, not really. So I want you to kind of realize that you're really not faking it. And what I mean by that is you have experience. So I had experience that was relevant. I had facilitated countless executive meetings. I've worked with business owners, you know, I created teams, right, with a group. And when you are launching a peer group, it is like creating a team. You're developing, you're creating a team. So if you've done any of those things, you have experience that's relevant. And transferable. So one way to boost your mindset and confidence level, okay, which by the way, I've always said that confidence is what— what is the definition of confidence? It's arrogance under control. So take that, get in control, and that will translate to arrogance. Look at your skill sets and see what is really relevant. And that is what's going to remind you and boost you up that you can do this. Now, another thing is I also had burned the boat, meaning there was no going back. I had to launch groups. I went all in on it. And that's another way to make sure that your mindset is where it needs to be, is because there is no alternative. So I used my name, Tina Corner Stolzl, the acronym of There Is No Alternative, to be sure that I had the right mindset to be successful because I had no option. So mindset is crucial, critical to have a positive expectant, and that is the biggest underlying word if I could bold it, expectant, determined mindset. So I think about, um, show you guys this if you're even looking at this, and if you're not, um, I'll describe it. But this is, um, a picture of an autograph of AJ Foyt with what he would always say, which is, get out in front and stay out front. So AJ Foyt, if you all don't know, extremely successful race car driver. The most winnings. Um, and I was a fan, you know, and it's still a fan, but you know, he's, he's not racing. Um, about this, because he got asked the question, why was he successful? How come he could win so many races? Which is extremely hard to be a consistent winner as a race car driver. And he said, you know, the point is I get out in front, I stay there. And that wasn't an arrogant response. But if, because if you really thought about his response, I get out front and I just stay there. So how do you stay there? He clearly has a strategy on how he stays there. He has a strategy on how he gets out in front. And I am going to, I equate this, and I'm gonna talk about this also in a minute, is you always have a plan B because plan A doesn't always work out as we know. So you always have a backup plan. And when you have the backup plan, enables you to have that right mindset of confidence. So what's an example of being able to have a backup plan? I'll use when you're launching, you will have tactics on how you're reaching out to your ideal client, your ideal member. And the tactic, one tactic might be is you're working with a center of influence, and I'm gonna talk about this more later on the 3 things in just a minute about volume. But you're working with a center of influence, and let's say suddenly they get sick and they can't actually follow through on inviting some of their clients, right, to introduce you to. And that is a detriment to your timing and how it is that you're trying to get groups off the ground. And now it's like, oh no, this is a major setback. Well, your plan B is you just don't have one center of influence. You have multiple centers of influence. Okay, so plan B is always, I'm going with A because that's my, my highest and best opportunity and outcome percentage. But if that doesn't work like I want, I need to have this that I do next, or I need to do this in addition to. But really, plan A is where my major effort and focus is, but I'm still making sure that if I have to fall back on something, I do have a plan. So you always need a plan B because there will be failures. There's always going to be someone that says yes and then ghost you. There's going to be no-shows to appointments. There's going to be no return calls. There's going to be false starts. And you maybe will feel like you want to give up at this point because you get very discouraged. No mindset. Mindset. If this was easy to do, right? More and more people would be doing it, right? It's not— the most rewarding things in life are not easy. And this is so rewarding that you get your group off the ground, you get it full, you keep it full, you do a great job. It is amazing. Amazing. You just have to get through this initial period. Mindset. Right. Got it. Now, what are those 3 things that are so underrated to get launched, and why is it so hard? So here's where I see number 1, volume. Why is volume, you know, why do you need volume? And what do I mean by volume? Volume means this. First of all, You're not selling an individual one-to-one client, meaning, okay, I'm a business advisor and so I'm gonna get just one client for my program and I go sell it when they're ready to go. It's all one-to-one. It's on their timing, your timing, you know, that all gets coordinated, et cetera. It's one-to-one selling and how you're gonna deliver is one-to-one. This is not one-to-one. This is one-to-many. You're trying to get a group of— and I'm going to call them members, regardless of what the type of member it is that you're going after— you're trying to get a bunch of members, meaning a bunch of your prospects, to say yes at the same time. And that means, ooh, not everybody's a right fit to be in that group. So you could get somebody to say yes, but it's not a right fit to whoever else is saying yes. And so you need more yeses than you normally would because not everybody might be a fit for each other. There might be a conflict of interest. You might have two marketing firms that say yes. Obviously you can only have one. So it takes volume, volume of prospects, volume of conversations, volume of yeses at the same time to get a group off the ground. It's not easy. That's why you need volume, right? Because you're not only trying to get the right people together and the right people that are ready to start at the same time, and you're herding them. This is like herding cats, herding business owners to get on their calendar for a recurring Meeting is like a nightmare, right? And you got to keep them all excited at the same time. So it is a bunch of balls in the air that you are juggling. It's, it's not easy. So where this falls and why so many individuals don't get launched is volume, right? And it's a whole nother episode of how do you get volume? How do you reach out to enough people? And where this doesn't play is if you're someone who already has a whole boatload of clients that you immediately can go to for this concept— past clients, existing clients— then it's way easier. But if you do not and you're reaching out to individuals for the first time and building a relationship, in order to create and launch a group, then it's way harder. It is not impossible, but you have to have a plan for volume. All right. And we teach, you know, the concept of strategic partnering and centers of influence, etc., not cold calling, not a crapload of LinkedIn outreach, etc. But whatever it is that you do, you have to have volume.

Right?

And I know that's like a whole nother segment, but it's underrated about the need for volume. Okay? Which is translates into you need help doing this on your own unless that scenario I talked about that you've been in business for a while, maybe as a business advisor, or you might be an accounting firm with lots of clients. You might be in an M&A firm, etc., whatever. Then you can rely on that on getting your groups off the ground. But where you need help if you don't is you need strategic partners, centers of influence, you need referrals, you need that, and you got to work it all. Okay? So that is what helps create the volume, but you need help. Doing it on your own is like the heaviest lifting ever and will take Too much time. Okay. Third, you need time. So just speaking of time, you need time. You have to go all out. You can't get volume if you're not working it every single day. So in order to launch, if you're doing it in conjunction with something else that you do, like business advising, consulting, coaching, whatever it might be, you have to carve out time. It's kind of like taking a certification. You gotta carve out time. This is— I gotta do this. I gotta concentrate on it. You can't just do a little bit a week. Okay? It is every single day, right? When you're going all out to not only identify, have conversations, maybe have events and webinars, et cetera, to get your group launched, you gotta set aside the time. Where I see a lot of people fail is they start off and they're trying to fit this in either to a full-time job or something happens and we're back to plan B. They get sick and they have to stop, right? They get the opportunity, the shiny object of a new project. And so they think, I can take that on and do this. That's not possible. So you have to stay focused as to why do you want to do this, how this fits into you. You got to remind yourself as to why, and you have to prepare that this heavy lifting in the beginning. And what am I talking about? Like 150 hours over 90 days. You've gotta devote at least like 10 hours a week at a minimum to get launched. The more time you can devote, the faster you'll launch or the more successful you'll launch, but the less time you will struggle. It is almost impossible. And if you don't struggle, it's because you have a network you can rely on, whether it's existing clients, past clients, or however other network. And you can, and you can make that happen. But traditionally speaking, it's extremely hard. So not allocating enough time because it's volume. And in order to have volume, you have to have the time in order to have the conversations and do what you need in order to get launched. After that, totally different story. It doesn't take that much time. But it's like launching a new business. You've got to spend that amount of time. If you can't, do not waste your time and try and do this. Wait till you do have the time. Because we're back to stuff happens and a plan B. So if you allow yourself no grace whatsoever in your schedule, you're going to be challenged. You're absolutely going to be challenged in order to do this. But I'm back to not discouraging you today. About volume, needing help, and needing time, as much as I am encouraging you that you can manage all of those and your mindset and be successful. Do not be in that 70% plus people who never launch and struggle. The reason that that stat is there is just because they're not doing these things I'm mentioning on this on this episode. All right. It's because they just don't know. They haven't been told. They just don't know. You guys now know. So think about it and plan for it, and you can be successful. Plan A, Plan B. AJ Foyt, get out in front and stay there. And how you do that is because of Plan B, right? So recap, mindset. Right? Always keep your mindset in check. Need volume, get help and time. So a bonus, all right, that I want to talk about as we wrap up is the Plan B mentality. Again, always be ready for the unexpected. All right? And you will succeed because the unexpected exists in every single thing we do. And you gotta think through, if this doesn't work exactly how I want, what is it that I'm going to do? And there are tons of options on other things you need to do and that you can do. Do them all because you never know which one is really going to succeed more than maybe what you thought. And I'll get, you know, an example of that is I can remember when I initially launched back in 2005, and I did it through having, you know, like experience webinars, right? And/or workshops where people would come and they kind of would experience— very common to do. And I thought, you know, I need a plan. I need a plan B. Number one, I have multiple dates. What if one of the dates there's not enough people? So it can be as simple as this. What am I going to do? Well, I'll just roll them to the other date, which is why I have another date. Right? Or if I don't have enough people, what I can do is those that I do have, I'll invite my centers of influence to that meeting and then they'll feel like enough is there and I'll be able, okay, to still run it with my main prospects that are in the room. So that's plan B thinking. And that's what I am suggesting that you're constantly doing throughout this process of getting launched. Because it will matter that if one extra prospect says yes, it can make all the difference in the world of you launching and launching successfully. So everyone, thanks for listening again on today's episode of Why in the Heck It's So Hard to Launch. And if you ever have any questions and you just want to talk about it more, I am here to do that. You know, this is my favorite topic, but I know how hard it is. And it is my mission to make it easier for people to launch and launch successfully and have full groups and make a bunch of money, have it be rewarding. And you'll have time no matter how much. You can do as little or as much of this as you want, but feel free to reach out to me through our website, elixcouncil.com. You can schedule an appointment with me. And look forward to talking to you, or drop me a note if you have comments about today's episode, and I would share it in our newsletter, etc., just to get the word out there. We're all here to help each other and have an abundant mindset. So until next time, go 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.alexcounsel.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. 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 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 what you learned today to either your existing groups or fellow peers. Now, go make it happen!