in this video I talk about how to run a mastermind meeting I invited my friend
Rob Atkinson he and I are in a mastermind group together and we talk
about how we run our meetings and our experiences in other meetings
I'm Doug Cunnington I'm the founder of niche site project and I talk about
internet marketing and project management if you're new to the channel
have a look around if you like what you see please subscribe hey Rob how's it
going good I was going pretty good here this is the session on running a master
cons of having mastermind group and how it's you know sort of shaped the way you
know Rob and I have been able to grow over the last few years so today we're
gonna talk about actually running a meeting now from my perspective it was
actually like fairly straightforward so I was a project manager in my old
corporate job and mainly like most of my activities were setting up meetings and
running meetings and creating agendas and then facilitating the meetings so it
was kind of like exactly the same kind of work I was doing before I didn't
realize that was actually like a useful skill once Rob and I formed the group it
ended up working pretty well that I could you know sort of organize certain
things and then help the meeting move forward now that is something that you
can everyone can develop the skill I was awful when I first started you know in
my corporate job got really nervous I'm trying to run a meeting and you know
maybe you don't know people really well and you have to you know tell them to
hurry up or you know let other people talk and actually those are some of the
main issues that people have so people may not have any idea how to actually
just run a meeting right it sounds straightforward to say but it's just
hard to do sometimes especially if someone starts talking and they don't
stop talking so usually if you put a group two people together there is
someone who will kind of dominate a little bit now the other part is when
you have meetings you want them to like start on time and end on time again
sounds simple but in practice when you have a few people it could be difficult
and you have to do this stuff and tactful way so you don't piss everyone
off and the last thing it kind of goes hand-in-hand with what I mentioned
before but like if you just don't have a very tight structure for your meeting
one person is probably gonna dominate and other people are gonna be a little
shy I'm fairly like introverted and kind of quiet I wait and see like what
happens and then I'll speak up usually I'll try and make some funny remark but
it doesn't always work out but the point is someone like will probably take over
if you have a few people now before we get into the details of it I will
mention we're going to talk about the agenda how often to meet logistics of
the meeting and sort of how to grow and be flexible before we get into that it's
important to understand like what size of a mastermind group this can work for
so Rob I talked for a long time I need to catch my breath what do you think
about the size of groups in that sort of thing
right so if you caught our last video we were talking about you know having
different minds to help you uncover problems in your business and see it
from a different perspective so okay I've had I've had two three four and
five number of people in my group currently I have a three member group
which includes you me and some other guy and I have a one-on-one with someone I
don't really recommend the one on one I'm doing it because you know we're both
a very similar levels he's a good kid but I think two is kind of limiting I
think three and four is kind of the sweet spot I think three gives you in
enough different perspectives and it's not too hard to manage if you can pull
off four you know kudos to you that I would go that direction and then I
personally feel like a five and and more is just gonna be a train wreck in most
cases right so I agree with everything you just said so I'm not even gonna you
know like go over it but the agenda and the ideas we're talking about in this
video are mainly around like that three to five person range and if you want to
do something different right let's say you want to have a group with twelve
people maybe you don't meet us often right maybe you meet once a quarter or
something like that and stay in touch and
some mechanism but if you meet less frequently it's it's easier to manage
basically if you have you know three to five people you're able to meet in a
shorter period of time and everyone has the opportunity to speak but if you have
12 people and everyone wants to talk for five minutes
I mean that's just an hour right there right if I did the math right hopefully
I did it's tough to do it that's a good point and you're managing a lot of like
you spoke about earlier also managing a lot of different personalities and
motivations and yeah yep so with that said this is focusing on you know the
sort of sweet spot for the mastermind group that we defined last time in this
type of a group the you know thing I'll mention as we're getting started leave
us a comment and let us know your agenda if you have a mastermind group let us
know your agenda interested to see how other people structure theirs we're like
Rob and I have been in multiple groups and we've changed the structure multiple
times so you know that's one thing that we're open to if there's something that
other people are doing that we can take advantage of then we'll do it so alright
the agenda it's a pretty you know standard agenda that I've seen for this
internet marketing you know sort of group but it should apply to any kind of
mastermind group you have there are three main sections number one is
talking about quick wins so everyone it's kind of a roundtable situation
everyone spends you know a minute or two talking about when something positive
that happened in the last week or two right so since the last meeting you talk
about something good to happen it puts a positive note on on the meeting and you
know one of the key things you have to make sure of is to keep it tight in the
beginning so if you talk about your quick ones you do want these to be quick
if you have someone that goes on for 10 or 15 minutes then you kind of you ruin
your whole timeline for the meeting robin e anything on the quick win
section no I think you nailed it you really have to kind of start off
positive and kind of set the right tone for the meeting there's I mean we're all
humans but we've definitely had meetings but with us where we just start off on
tangents I mean today was a he kind of got off on one of those but it happens
but yeah the majority of the meeting is spent on
what's called the hot seat so one person has the floor to work through a problem
right you're presenting a problem or an issue or something you need help with it
could be a big sort of a big like vision issue that you're having where you're
like I'm not sure what to do with my my business or if it's I have an
opportunity to start a service business but I also have you know this affiliate
marketing thing that I'm interested in to like it could be something like that
where you kind of weigh the pros and cons or it could be like strategic I
brought a problem in a little while back on like email automation marketing
really and it was all about you know the nuts and bolts of using a tool like
Aweber or drip or get response and like how to build an email you know auto
response sequence so very technical and you know Kay it could be anywhere in
between - and I think this is sort of the area where you get a benefit from
having all the minds you know the mastermind group like this is where the
problems are solved totally agree I would add one thing about this section
that's critical to the success of your group so if it's your turn to be on the
hot seat right you bring your problem you have the ability to be as selfish as
you need to be this is your time but when it's the next meeting and it's you
know if it's your hot seat or somebody else you got to make it all about that
person and I've seen it over times where someone brings up a problem and then
someone answers it by like saying oh I have that same problem and I'm
struggling here it's like no no no like we're talking about you so yeah I
probably done that was that directed at me Rob former remember gotcha no and as
you said it I was like huh I wonder if I does sound you know everyone as you're
as you're working through like helping other people like you are thinking about
yourself and experiences so it but you're a hundred percent right I mean
like the the floor is yours so you could bring in like I said my new problems
like I did that that day and you know I actually I figured it out because you
guys told me what to do like if it a lot of trust there and it
spirals to likes thing where that comes up and there's something you need help
with that's cool but just in general especially at the beginning if you
consistently see someone you know taking the floor and hogging in and all that
stuff it's it's not a good sign yep and that is sort of like the job of the
facilitator and I'll talk about that in just a second but when these hot seats
are coming around the other you know key thing is present the information as soon
as possible right so when you you're really good at this Rob so you'll
prepare like a Google Doc and send it out to us like a week ahead of time
where you're like here is what I'm working through here's the thesis here
are the bullet points of like the background information you need to know
and you know here's what I'm thinking and then you don't have to spend the
whole time explaining like the problem you can talk about clarifications kind
of set the stage let us know if you've learned anything new but if you do all
that ahead of time then you're saving a bunch of time and you're just working on
like the solution of the problem not explaining the problem yeah and to add
on to that personally myself like I'm not very good at thinking on my feet
like you should see me on the phone sometimes and people ask me like in an
interview I'm horrible oh yeah I could attest to that
I'm horrible so so if someone doesn't bring it to the table and I'm trying to
on a call like critically think of something or a solution my answers are
gonna be a hundred times worse than if I had 30 minutes to like sync it let it
sink in yep and then be you know on some other level you get a benefit from
cleaning up the thinking by writing it out so if you just if you walk in and
you explain it it's all the information in your head but when you write it down
like it cleans up so and I think yeah you're nodding so it's it's huge just to
brain dump get it out of your head and then you can edit it clean it up and
then it's much more clear for everybody so the last part of the meeting would be
like upcoming goals so you don't have to do this I've I guess found that it's
kind of nice to just mention one goal at the end
your major thing you're gonna be focusing on over the next couple weeks
so usually that could just take 30 seconds per person if they already know
what's going on and that pretty much rounds out the meeting so anything else
I'm forgetting there Rob no I think earlier in our mastermind
groups I'm not gonna say that we don't take it as seriously I think we've
evolved and we're very comfortable with our flow but if you recall back in the
past we used to know our quick wins like we dried them out we dried out the hot
seat we wouldn't know our upcoming goals I can personally say I don't do that as
much as I used to so you know a little bit of time on the front end just think
about your goals so when it comes to your turn on the call you're having
something meaningful to say rather than just spitting something out yep and you
know on that note for the upcoming goals like going back to some of our very
early meetings we've done this in multiple groups to where like we didn't
understand how much we could accomplish so we would say like 10 goals and we
would only be able to get one done right so then it became very apparent that
well we can't do as much as we think we can and that's why you know we'll we
don't have ten goals anymore we have like one like that's the most important
thing that's the thing like we're accountable for so we've we whittled it
down quite a bit I think it speaks to like the way we've evolved to and grown
in our business we used to just be so in the weeds and do this this this this
this but now we're just like okay what's the one or two most high level things we
need to accomplish so pat on the back yeah yeah we've done good the agenda
portion right so I told you quick wins hot seat and upcoming goals sounds
straightforward right the thing is you have to have someone
facilitating the meeting and when someone is you know on minute five of
their quick wins the facilitator should have chimed in at like minute three and
said hey remember we're keeping it quick we got to keep the meeting moving and
then you know you have to do this in a diplomatic way to make sure you know no
one gets their feathers ruffled or anything like that but it's really
important to be able to run the meeting and I think you know this is the skill
that I didn't realize I had that is so powerful
- just say ham sorry Rob we need to move on like any last thing you want to
mention you know I think we got your point that kind of thing and I could I
don't know think I've ever told you this story about about two years ago I had
some friends I was in the Skype SEO group with and we decided to form a
mastermind they kind of pushed for it I was the group leader and unlike you with
your kind of project management background I never really managed ran
any meetings ever right so I think I'm terribly suited for this position we did
one meeting and it failed it flopped I didn't have the heart to like cut this
person off so they just kept going on and on yeah
so you know trying to grow as like a manager and be more like okay yeah it's
a huge skill to have for this yep and it's it's awkward and you could imagine
I mean I learned this from you know actually sitting in meetings with like
people in the office across the table and you're like you have to interrupt
them like in person face to face which is like maybe I think harder especially
when you know at the time I was like a consultant so usually the company and
the employees there with you they don't really like you that much it or maybe
you like opposing like companies there too so kind of a difficult situation but
that's how I learned how to do this stuff and you know it'll probably be
awkward it'll feel awkward as you're doing it but you keep the meeting going
and you know drive I guess like drive the meeting so it'll end on time you
have an idea of you know the timeline for each of the sections and how long a
person has you don't have to sit there with a stopwatch or anything but like
you know if you know there's a person talking about their hot seat and they've
talked for you know ten minutes and they're starting to repeat themselves
like you just say hey we get the point we got it you know let someone give you
input so really important and the way the facilitation should work is you
really should rotate so it depends on the dynamic of the group
I suppose that I'm such a strong personality about though but it's fine
like I kind of keep it going and I'm gonna you know call out Rob here give
you a pat on the back like I run like the the meetings a lot of time to just
kick it off and like hey let's move on to the next thing you know Rob wouldn't
you talk about your quick win now blah blah blah and all that kind of stuff
but there was a period where you would actually prepare the agendas and the
hotseat when we were to run the meetings on Google Docs so you would you know
make a copy send it out to everyone and do that so there are pieces where like
everyone should pitch in and rotate so you know I think Pat Flynn and his group
if they're still meeting the same way I think they rotate on like the the hot
seat and the facilitation just so you know a person doesn't always own it
we'll get to why like we don't have to rotate in the second and it's based on
the logistics and how to run the meeting as far as like documentation and stuff
that'll be in just a second so anyway the next part that we're gonna get to is
how often to me so this is up to you know your own group it can vary based on
your goals and stuff but we meet every two weeks and that's kind of the sweet
spot for us so what do you think Rob what have you seen out there yeah so as
I mentioned I have the other one just with the the one other guy and we meet
now like once every three or four weeks I definitely don't recommend once a week
you could try it out and see how it goes for you but once every two weeks I would
say is really really frequent and if your group is going well that's really
good to keep those short-term goals did you finish what you needed to do I think
it depends like you said on your overall goals who's in your group I think two
weeks works for a three or four person group pretty well I think like a weekly
meeting would work if you were doing say like a sprint of work over eight weeks
and you know it was kind of faster paced and like you were only working on that
one thing but like our businesses and the things were working on like we need
two weeks to you know get some progress and that sort of thing now it would be
fun and I think we did meet once a week for quite a while but we ended up
chatting and just you know it's not a bad thing
since we don't have the social aspect of like a corporate office or something but
you know we realized we were just you know just chatting and catching up too
much it was fun but at the end of the day we're like we're pretending like
we're working and doing a passerby meeting but we're just like you know
talking on the phone interesting point you brought up to is don't forget that
you guys are likely in a skype group together so even if you only meet once a
month let's say you have like a while to develop your goals accomplish things if
something comes up that's you know a quicker question you need help from your
group you guys can message each other - yep yeah exactly and you know just
little updates like hey I accomplished the goal that I said I was gonna do and
just to you know share that so there's always this guy on the other side though
on the other side though if it gets too social like you said it just even in the
chat it becomes too much just social and we're forgetting that were I think
there's a theme here there's a balance yeah there's definitely a balance and I
was gonna say I do remember a couple times we would come back from you know a
couple days off like each of us and there'd be like 400 messages and I'm
like what happened when I was going well I was in Thailand my time is different
so I would wake up the first thing I look at my phone and it's like 78 skype
messages is like what yeah yeah I know what you mean
like we were on the receiving end we're and by the way we were all across the
world it was really hard to meet so you know someone in like GMT timezone
Thailand and then you know u.s. time so it was pretty tough it's actually still
pretty tough to me sure okay let's get into logistics right now so you
mentioned Skype so it doesn't matter what format you use we happen to use
Skype but you could you know use like Google Hangouts or you know iMessage or
I like FaceTime or whatever it doesn't really matter video is great if you are
not in the same location just you know especially if you haven't met the people
before so it's just a nice way to connect with folks and all that stuff as
far as like the agenda and keeping notes and all that stuff we lean on Google
DOX a little bit but mainly we've moved over to Trello so Rob you know from your
perspective since you've done both like you know do you have any strong
preference or anything no I think it comes up to just determined by what you
group likes I did enjoy the Google Docs if your group is really involved and
likes to prepare before the call and fill in their goals I liked using Google
Docs for that but I guess at the same time that can be done with Trello but I
feel like Trello is a little bit feels more independent and you're just kind of
setting up your own blocks I guess although there is comments
section but yeah I think I slightly when you just get down to it like Google Docs
is just like less complication but there's something that looks cool just
having it organized in Trello that way ya know my explanation was really
horrible and what you said is exactly how I feel
slight slight favor for Google Docs but for some reason I think Trello just
looks and feels cooler right and the thing is with Google Docs like you can
create the document you can put comments and you could assign the comments to
people and resolve the comments like it has all the functionality you need but
it's just for some reason it's fun to drag those cards around maybe it just
feels easier to ignore that's true that's true so yeah it doesn't matter
what you use folks I mean you can just use a text document and email if you
want but and actually now that I'm saying it out loud email would probably
be fine I mean the threading make it a little bit funny but if you just have a
small number of people that would be a fine way to do it you know if you just
didn't care so next on I guess just remember that
you can be flexible with your mastermind group so as we mentioned we've had like
different iterations we've been in different mastermind groups we have
different formats we've changed agendas and stuff like
that and what happens what can happen is you meet and you keep talking about the
same goals you're not really having this any sort of major issues you're just
working and it becomes kind of stagnant like no one's really pushing each other
anymore and it gets boring like nothing and it's just not as enjoyable and one
thing that we've done is to add like annual reviews now quarterly reviews and
stuff like that to make sure we're adhering to what we wanted to do when we
did the annual goals so that you have huge flexibility on how to structure and
change up a meeting the danger is if you're not flexible if you just if you
saw our agenda and then you're like you know we have to stick to the agenda team
you know otherwise we're not doing what we're supposed to and if it's not
working then you should adjust or like disband the group and stuff now Rob
since you've been in a few like how do you structure your other you know your
other group we we started the one that I have just with the other guy
we started with exactly what we kind of outlined you know your quick wins your
hotseat your upcoming goals with two people we kind of got rid of the hot
seats so we come in and we review our goals after we review our goals we just
kind of have an open discussion it might start with this week you started off
like what what are you struggling with what do you want to talk about and then
I'll give some feedback we'd go back and forth then it's kind of spirals into
mind so we kind of share the hot seat and at the end we talk about upcoming
goals and then go from there got it so a quick idea for you know
changing up a meeting format we've done this for a few weeks and it's it's
almost like an open discussion or you could think of it as like a mini hot
seat so at times we've had you know all three members didn't need a hot seat
didn't want to you know take the floor but they just had like one sort of
smaller problem in each of us knew like individually and personally that the
problem was a small one and it wouldn't take a full hot seat so we've kind of
had some you know round table type discussions where you just need about
you know five or ten minutes and we'll go back and forth and just like sort of
keep it at a higher level so that's a great way to adapt if no one needs the
hot seat then you're able to just you know catch up make sure you you know are
moving forward and then you have full flexibility really I agree how you guys
would structure your mastermind meeting perfect thanks Rob enjoyed talking with
you today and we'll catch you next time thanks for having me
thanks for checking out the video Rob and I really appreciate it
by the way if you liked the video with Rob let us know in the comments we you
know love going back and forth on different topics if you have any
suggestions let us know in the comments that makes it easier to come up with
ideas you know if you just give it to us it's way easier so thanks again for
watching we'll catch you next time
you
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