In our last blog we explained how to establish exactly what your goal is for what you want your business to achieve. This time, we’re going to describe one of the support methods you can use to help you to achieve the targets that you have set yourself – and eventually get those goals.

As well as helping others with growing their businesses, I’m also constantly working on growing and expanding my own. One support method that has been very helpful for me over the years is ‘Masterminding’.

A Mastermind group is a group of five or six individuals who can be considered peers in terms of having broadly similar experience and career achievements. The group meets regularly, every month or two. The meetings are treated formally – as if it were a meeting with a major client – and, as in any business meeting, social discussion is kept to a minimum. Every group member has an opportunity to share with the group what their goals are, and what targets they need to hit to achieve the goals. They also share with the group what problems and constraints stand in the way of the targets being met.

Because they understand your business, but are detached from it, the other group members can think objectively and give you helpful suggestions. Importantly, after you have received the suggestions from the group, you commit to implementing at least one, and report back at the next meeting on what progress you have made. website loading speed test The commitment is the critical part: this maybe the only time that you, as a business owner, are held accountable to another person or group, and this is what will drive you to achieve.

These are the characteristics of a really effective Mastermind group:

–          The participants are people that like and trust each other, but they aren’t just a group of good friends or people that normally meet in a social rather than business context. This is important because they have to be able to be frank and objective, not feeling obliged to spare feelings or just patting one another on the back. The atmosphere should be a professional one.

–          There are no conflicts of interest among the members, so they should not be suppliers, or clients of one another, or members of the same organisation. Again, this is because the group members have to feel comfortable with being frank with one another.

–          The group takes their commitment to meet, and their commitment to the challenges that they set each other, as seriously as they would their other business dealings. It is the accountability that really makes it work.

We wish you all the best with your Masterminding – let us know how you get on, or if you’ve got any questions. For more ‘self-help’ growing your business, try our book Getting Down to Business, available from the online shop at www.exec-tc.com.