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Subject: Part 6 e- Creating A Good Master Mind Group

Author: Dennis S. Vogel

[ Next Thread | Previous Thread | Next Message | Previous Message ] Date Posted: 22:50:34 10/10/05 Mon In reply to: Dennis S. Vogel 's message, "Part 6a - Be Sure Your Business Is On Target" on 17:00:34 09/26/05 Mon Active involvement in a group may seem to require too much time to potential recruits. An experienced & knowledgeable employee might be a good substitute for an owner -- occasionally or permanently. But be careful, a member of a group I joined had her secretary attend meetings. Sure, since she wrote notes for her boss, the secretary wrote the minutes of the meetings. But besides that, she couldn’t contribute much. The secretary was easier to get along with than the boss. Eventually this pseudo-member figured we weren’t worth the expense of time & money. So, there wasn’t much of confrontation. The main (somewhat tacit) issue seemed to be for us to realize WE had been rejected. Then there’s the pay issue. If attending meetings is part of an employee’s job, s/he should be paid for attending meetings. So, it might still be too expensive for some to participate. You won’t recruit everybody, so don’t take it personally. As you recruit people, list what they can contribute, then use that to induce others to join. An art supplies dealer might contribute good insights about graphic designs. Somebody who was a corporate marketing director & now owns a store might have good input about competing with big businesses. When your Master Mind Group is assembled (virtually/electronically or physically), it’s time to determine - 1) what each store owner (& his/her staff) can do to ensure business survival; 2) what each member can provide for the survival of the group & 3) what customers can do to sustain the business. Think about what your businesses need now or, to be more proactive, what your businesses will need. Web sites? More referrals? Higher profits? Lower costs? When the group begins, the focus will probably be on what each business needs, but each of you should move to what will be needed after current issues are resolved. If issues aren’t resolved or, at least, significant progress isn’t made in 2 months, the group or individual members aren’t doing the right things. Or they may be doing the right things in the wrong ways. They may need to study more or be dropped from the group. How can you drop somebody without a confrontation? It’s not the best way, but if nobody agrees to deliver the message directly, your group can have committees. Each committee can gather information about specific topics. The unproductive or destructive members can be put -- voted -- into committees that seldom or never meet. Those members, who are out of the loop, might forget about the group after a few months or figure being part of it isn’t worthwhile. Or the scheduling of meetings can be times when those members can’t attend. If somebody is experiencing a short-term crisis, it may best to encourage him/her not to be concerned about the group until after the crisis passes. If you’re recording meetings or storing notes, you can assure him/her the shared knowledge will be available. If every member looks for information about a topic at the same time, it might speed up the process. But in case it doesn’t, the period for active searching for that topic should be limited. For the good of the group & each member, it’ll be necessary to move on to other topics. The timing of moving to another subject can be contested, but hopefully it won’t be a major problem. As I wrote in a previous post, I know there are many more details in the concepts I’m sharing. But there’s an opportunity cost. Time & space invested in a topic isn’t available for others. There’ll always be more information we could gather & share. In this case, I’m setting a foundation. The rest of the “building” requires more detail work & different businesses need certain details other businesses don’t. This may become an issue when you work with owners in other categories. Please be aware, if something doesn’t exactly fit your business, a variation of it might. To find a variation, you might have to generalize it or focus on something more specific. Maybe a car dealer is a member & wants to figure out how to encourage more people to test drive cars. Then you can look at the general concept of samples & trial periods. Maybe store owners are talking about getting customers to buy more often & one member owns a fitness club. Getting members to buy more often might not be applicable, unless the club also sells products or has different levels of membership. When a fitness club has annual or longer memberships, it’s renewals the owner is concerned about. The club might be maxed out, so more members would mean less time to use the limited equipment. Then there’d be less benefit in the membership. The club could lose more members than it gained. Often businesses have a capacity problem, they need a bigger building but don’t have enough cash flow to expand or qualify for a loan. But if they had a bigger building & more equipment, they could easily generate more cash flow. Then they need to work with other businesses to sell things to customers without having to store it or even take possession of it. Business owners (host) can endorse other businesses (beneficiaries) & get a percentage or flat fee the other businesses get from the hosts customers. If each member specializes in a topic, the time searching for topic information can be indefinite. Information will still be gathered (by other members) about other topics, so the group’s knowledge base can still grow. The group would determine, by results of implementation (as written in the next post), when it’s time to learn about another subject. Then, probably by voting, the group would determine which subject would be the best to pursue next. That should be based on what the majority of members need. If some don’t need something because it’s already been achieved, then they should facilitate the discussion & teach the lesson(s). Facilitators can benefit from this by realizing how to improve what they’ve been doing automatically. Many times forcing oneself to think of something brings insights a person didn’t s/he had. Plus, other members can give suggestions. You can build a strong group by including those who already know what other members need. So, which business owners have something to contribute to your group. After you know that, figure what the group has to offer potential members. Recruiting can require sales effort. But you’re a retailer, you can handle that. Dennis S. Vogel thrivingbusiness@email.com Ideas, implementation methods & money are ingredients for success. If you’ve gotten as far as you can with the ideas & methods you have, then you need to use these links to get more. http://web1.lakefield.net/~thrivingbusiness/ http://www.voy.com/31049/ [ Next Thread | Previous Thread | Next Message | Previous Message ]

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Subject	Author	Date
Part 6 f- Building A Knowledge Base for the Present & Future	Dennis S. Vogel	22:29:52 10/12/05 Wed