The unspoken danger of business masterminds

Today, I need to share something that really bothers me about masterminds. In fact, this applies to give business advice in any situation.

It’s something I see frustrate a lot of business owners. It can even lead them down a path that is damaging to their business if they don’t know how to recognize this problem.

But once you know how to keep an eye out, you can avoid this pitfall and still get all the amazing benefits that mastermind groups offer.

(SIDENOTE: I have a few spots left in my mastermind for coaches, consultants, and other experts. Click here to get the details and apply.)

Once, I was sitting in a mastermind meeting where one of our group (I’ll call her Erin) was in the hot seat asking for ideas to generate more leads for her business.

Immediately, someone jumped in to share with Erin how they were doing really well with paid ads and sending leads to a webinar.

As soon as there was a gap in the conversation, another member of the group started talking about how much his podcast had been growing his email list.

It continued like this for the next fifteen minutes. Bit by bit, I could see Erin’s eyes glaze over. I knew this look. She was totally overwhelmed. But because she didn’t want to seem ungrateful, she wasn’t saying anything.

I see this happen a lot in masterminds. The problem is two-fold.

First, people want to appear accomplished and smart. This leads them to offer advice even when it might not be the best fit for the person they are helping.

Second, people genuinely want to be helpful, but they offer advice before asking questions to better understand the problem.

You can’t get the right help unless the person offering advice understands what the real problem is and had an adequate understanding of what you ultimately want to accomplish.

This requires people to ask you questions first.

In Erin’s case, she felt like she needed to generate more leads to grow her income. But had the group asked more questions, they would have realized that the best thing she could do to bring in more revenue was to change up how she was interacting with her list rather than trying to grow it faster.

By asking questions, they would have learned that she didn’t have the budget or bandwidth yet for paid ads and she had no interest in podcasting.

Masterminds are most effective when the group knows what questions to ask before giving advice.

Additionally, it’s important that the group members know when to NOT offer their advice, even if it’s something that worked well for them.

Sometimes advice is just noise.

The goal should always be to offer the advice and input that best fits the specific person and their business at that time.

Keep this in mind when giving advice in a mastermind.

Even more important, keep it in mind when asking for advice. Notice who asks questions first. You can also request that the group ask questions before jumping in with ideas.

A good mastermind facilitator will lay down grounds rules to make sure this happens. This is something I do with my masterminds.

I’m currently looking for one or two more of the right people to join my six-month mastermind for coaches, consultants, and other experts.

We’ll focus on growing your income by creating new digital products and other streams of income.

We’ll also focus on raising your visibility and authority as a thought leader and growing your audience.

You must already be making consistent income from your expertise to qualify. Click here to get the details and apply.