How to Create a Mastermind Group

guest post by Brandana

So what is a Mastermind Group?

A Mastermind Group is a group of business professionals from various industries that meet up on a recurring basis to talk about their professional or personal life.

The concept of the Mastermind Group is simple – To be successful, you must surround yourself with successful people.

First off, you will need to promote or invite people to become a member of this Mastermind Group. Right off the bat, do you know of any like-minded professionals?  Go through your Facebook account and take a look at people’s profession and also create a Linkedin account if you don’t already have one. One Linkedin you could also create a Mastermind Group to stay connected with your members. You could post and share articles and of course, promote your actual meet up.

Once you’ve targeted the people you would like to invite, send them a simple email describing the event and purpose. I would try to keep it light and try not to make it sound too corporate or like a formal meeting. It’s simply a meet up for successful professionals. Also, be sure to extend the invitation to anyone your potential member thinks would be interested.

Next, you would need to have a couple of venues in mind. Affordable lounges, coffee shops and restaurants are always great. Make sure the venue is centralized to where everyone lives so it’s easy for everyone to get to it. I would recommend splurging a little and have some finger foods provided to your members. After all, they did join your group.

Like any other kind of group, organization is a key factor. In today’s world of technology, the internet has become the most effective form of communication. There are so many tools out there on the web that can help you get more organized in a time efficient manner.

The one tool I recommend for starting any kind of group is Whoozin.

Whoozin is an RSVP web application. Here you could place the group logistics and your members information and add them to a group which in this case, would be a Mastermind Group.  Whoozin provides the ability to email your members and track who is coming to your group and it also retains a history of events for the group. Whoozin can help you stay organized when it comes to registration or invitations to your Mastermind Group. I almost forgot to mention that Whoozin is free to use and provides an ad-free environment.

Finally, I don’t recommend handing out agendas like you would a meeting but you should have one in mind or a personal agenda handy. This agenda would contain topics of discussion or any announcements you would like to bring up.

After your first Mastermind Group is completed, make sure you call or email everyone a few days later to get your feedback from them. Always ask for ideas to improve the event.

Visit http://www.whoozin.com

7 Activities That Waste Tons of Time

Time wasters can be the downfall of any business. Especially if you are a Solo Entrepreneur. This article will cover the 7 things that waste tons of time and do not give you anything in return. You?ll learn to save time and keep your business growing.

1. Rabbit Trails: Here is how it goes, you get a great idea, and you jot it down and start writing out a business plan and who you want on the team. You write out the idea as much as you can, dreaming of the cash that will be flooded upon you when you launch this. An hour or two later, you look up and the work you were working on is still there. Yes, that boring work, is staring at you like Gieco Money.

The cure: Get small note book to jot down ideas and the basic nuggets for later. Just in case that idea really can make you $1 million dollars, you don?t want to lose it.

2. To do list: They just never, never, never, never, never ever end! You add to them daily, you add what you left out last week or last year. Most items have no priority.

The cure: Have a project list, then with each project, list what has to be done for that project. You can focus better and better monitor exactly where your project is.

3. Deciding: You have a lunch appt and somehow you wind up volunteering to find out which place is midway and priced correctly and has the food you can both eat without someone having a gastric emergency or rash.

The Cure: Let them decide. Once you agree to the time and write it in your calendar, tell them to pick the place and you just show up. If you look at the address and feel like that?s too far to go for that meeting, cancel it and talk by phone. Re-evaluate why you wanted to meet face to face. If it?s not going to create real business for you, why are you doing it?

4. Searching Craigslist: You want to find the one thing. Your business can use you, you can use it and you know someone on craigslist must be selling it cheap! You look on craigslist for what you want, like everyone tells you to. Six hours later, you feel like you know Craig personally, however you still have not found your item, because people are constantly listing new items, you have to keep re-freshing.

The Cure: Get a FREE craigslist reader and use it, it can sort for you while you do something else. It also keeps you from getting caught up in the scam ads.

5. Doing everything yourself: You are overwhelmed, your marketing finally paid off. You have got great new customers coming in and you are ready to pull what is left of your hair out!

The Cure: Virtual Assistants. Be clear on what you want done and know how long it should take someone, so that they are not charging you by the hour for nothing. Also if they have any contact with customers make several calls to them and listen to how they answer the phone. You want that person to help you continue to grow, not kill the growth.

6. The Telephone: You look over your schedule and realize you are spending too much time on the phone that is not productive.

The Cure: Timers: When you get on a call put on a timer, when it goes off, let the person know, you?ll have to pick it up later, you need to move on to your next appointment. This will train people to get to the point when they talk to you and not waste time. If the problem is YOU and not them, it will help you get to the point, go it?

7. Distractions: Depending on what you are doing and where you work, anything can be a distraction. The phone is not a distraction for me, I never feel compelled to answer it. I can let it ring until it goes to voice mail. If you are unlike me and feel like you have to pick up each call, turn the ringer off, so you can focus on finishing a task. That goes for email, tweetdeck and anything else that would make you stop what you are doing and do something else. The truth is this: multi-tasking does not work. I will not go into the brain science that proves it; this is something you can find for yourself. You have to remove what distracts YOU. It?s about YOU not me. Do not let anyone give you the list, make it yourself and start removing them one by one and find your productivity grow by leaps and bounds.

7 Activities That Waste Tons of Time

Time wasters can be the downfall of any business. Especially if you are a Solo Entrepreneur. This article will cover the 7 things that waste tons of time and do not give you anything in return. You’ll learn to save time and keep your business growing.

1. Rabbit Trails: Here is how it goes, you get a great idea, and you jot it down and start writing out a business plan and who you want on the team. You write out the idea as much as you can, dreaming of the cash that will be flooded upon you when you launch this. An hour or two later, you look up and the work you were working on is still there. Yes, that boring work, is staring at you like Gieco Money. Read more

Next Page »