Mastermind Groups are most effective when you do some simple things up front.
If you have just joined a business mastermind group you are probably looking forward to your first meeting.
It's a good time to ask "what can I do to ensure I get the most from my investment?" Making a firm commitment to your group is the first order of business.
This sounds like something simple that doesn't need to be said.
It's all too common, however, for a business person to arrive late, miss several meetings or join the meetings unprepared.
When you join a group you decided that is an important strategy for the growth your business and worthy of your investment.
For your investment to be of maximum benefit to your business you need to attend regularly, arrive on time and be prepared for the meeting ahead.
The give-and-take that happens at meetings is what provides the benefits you identified when you joined the mastermind group.
It's the reason you joined in the first place.
When you attend regularly, and come prepared, the next important items are to provide honest and open feedback to your peers in the group and keep an open mind when receiving feedback.
It's important to know that your group is not a one-on-many coaching relationship and it's generally more expensive to hire a skilled coach to provide an objective view of your business so that you can obtain success.
In a mastermind group everyone functions as a coach.
The best coaches keep an open mind.
Perhaps primary benefit you can expect is the synergy, what Napoleon Hill calls the "third mind", which is created when members openly and honestly discuss the issues they are facing, provide ideas and feedback, and relate their experiences to the other group.
In a great mastermind group this synergy enables the group to outperform even its best individual group member.
The value of the group becomes far more than the sum of its parts.
If the free flow exchange of ideas and experience between all the members is inhibited the synergy is drastically reduced.
It is unreasonable to assume that the synergy of a mastermind group will be fully expressed during the first meeting.
The members don't know each other very well at this point so it's important to allow the group members some time to get to know you, to understand your business and to fully appreciate the challenges you face.
Over time the members of the mastermind group will obtain an objective view of you and your business and provide effective feedback.
It's important that you commit to the members of your group long enough for the information to flow, the understanding to develop and the synergy to materialize.
This generally takes a few meetings.
You will receive tremendous value from your mastermind group but you will receive the most value, when you come with a firm commitment to attend each meeting, you spend some time to prepare before each meeting, and you are open to both giving and receiving feedback.
With a mastermind group, as the saying goes, you will get out what you put into it...
and then some!