Ever wondered what it’s like inside a women’s mastermind group for entrepreneurs? Earlier in my business life I’d only ever invested in programs where I was one in 200+ people. Sometimes even more.

But I reached a point where I knew if I was going to move forward in my business, I really needed more tailored business coaching. An online mastermind group felt like the most logical next step. And I was prepared to invest financially knowing I would commit more to the outcome.

Joining that mastermind was probably one of the most important steps I took early on, because it changed the course of my business – for the better.

I’d left my journalism career after stumbling into a PR business, but I knew in my heart I didn’t LOVE public relations.

As The Big Leap author Gay Hendricks describes, it was my “zone of excellence” (in that I was good at it, but didn’t love doing it) but it wasn’t my “zone of genius” (that thing that is so effortless, easy and enjoyable for us to do, we’d do it for free).

During the mastermind, that thought kept tugging at me. Until we were on retreat and, in front of the group, my coach struggled to explain a sales funnel.

I offered to help explain how my PR sales funnel worked in the hope the more visual description would allow people to “see” what a funnel was and how it worked with your value ladder.

It felt so easy to explain. How…

• a blog post attracted Google traffic to my website on a daily basis
• that led to people opting in to my free media plan template in exchange for their email address
• which took them through a nurturing email sequence that invited them to purchase my PR and Marketing News Calendar
• and ultimately took them through a value ladder that continued to offer them the next step in their quest to conquer PR – a PR course via Publicity Alchemy or PR coaching.

Light bulbs went off around the room as I moved through each step and they realised what they could create in their own business.

The other mastermind members could clearly see my energy shift as I continued to speak about soulful sales funnels.

It was this moment within the women’s business mastermind group that changed my business, saw me transition into a new space and allowed me to attract clients far more effortlessly.

Masterminds aren’t about changing your entire business, of course. Everybody has their own goals or reasons for joining a business group.

 

What is a mastermind?

You may have come across the concept of mastermind groups through reading Napoleon Hill’s books. He said:

'No mind is complete by itself. It needs contact and association with other minds to grow and expand.'Click To Tweet

While the masterminds I’ve been part of have varied, ultimately a mastermind group is a blend of education, accountability and support using the coach’s experience, but also the qualities and experience of its members.

One of the great aspects of masterminds is setting powerful goals and being kept accountable to ensure you achieve them. Then, of course, having someone to celebrate with you who fully understands what you’ve just been through to reach that height.

Equally, when you’re challenged, there is a group of problem solvers ready to guide you in the right direction.

The clarity on what you need to focus on, the commitment to continually move forward and the courage to take leaps is why masterminds can become a powerful key to business growth.

A note: I’ve spoken to women who have been part of masterminds where there are 20, 50 or 200+ people in the group and they felt they gained little from it.

This is where we sometimes view masterminds as being another version of a course, because we’ve simply become a number in the coach’s rigid program – rather than a real person with a unique ideal client, business and message.

The masterminds I’ve been part of and have led have involved an intimate women’s mastermind group to ensure everyone has time spent working on their challenges and goals and so everyone in the group can provide feedback.

I’ve also chosen to have a clear focus for the mastermind – online marketing. Although, many are more focused on general business coaching.

For example, The Online Marketing Mastermind is a group of 3-4 women coming together to support each other, gain tailored online marketing training, implement strategies that are designed to make a difference to your results, and mastermind calls where you ALWAYS get your time to talk about your goals, what’s working and gain help with challenges to avoid spinning your wheels.

 

Why join a mastermind?

I spoke about how a mastermind completely changed the course of my business. However, sometimes it’s more subtle – like in the mastermind I facilitate it’s often about:

• Confidently articulating your message and using storytelling strategically to sell more soulfully after years of trying to explain what it is you do to puzzled faces,
• Setting up an evergreen system that immediately creates clients and cashflow, while also building a legacy business that will repay you and your family long into the future,
• Overcoming tech challenges that have held you back from creating real change in your business because it’s felt all too overwhelming,
• Not being alone as an entrepreneur and having a strong support network to lift you up when needed, celebrate with you without fear of coming across as boasting and to show you what you may not see in your own business due to being so close to it (like PR not being my “thing”).
• Contributing to the family finances in a meaningful way
• To shut the lid on the laptop at 3pm school pick up and not have to open it again until the next morning
• Taking a whole Friday for self care, to read a mindset book, go through a course or sit at the salon

The list is endless, because everyone’s definition of success and everyone’s goals are different.

But at its core, mastermind benefits are:

A fresh perspective on your business

• We can often get stuck in our ways and having someone else’s mind on your business allows you to see things you hadn’t seen before.

A support network

• Unfortunately, often our friends and family don’t quite understand what it’s like as a solopreneur. And that’s not their fault. But for you, it’s important to have people around you who understand what you’re going through and can offer real words of support and encouragement.

Accountable to your goals

• You know, before masterminds, I’d often set a heap of goals, but because no one knew about them, I never followed through. No one’s going to know, right? In a mastermind, the group can gently guide you back on the right track and ensure you DO follow through.

In a nutshell, masterminds will save your sanity in business.

 

How to find a mastermind group

So, how can you find a mastermind group that’s the right fit for you?

Before joining my first mastermind, I really struggled with whether I was about to do the right thing, because I had no prior knowledge of what a mastermind was. I hear that a lot from clients too. That’s where a post like this might have set me up better for what was to come (hence my reason for writing it). I’d only ever done ecourses to that point.

So, firstly, you need to get clear on WHAT your expectations are from a mastermind. As I mentioned earlier, for me it’s about intimate support, rather than being a number in a bigger group. I want to learn from other minds in the group, but I also want my time in the spotlight to work on my unique challenges that have me stuck. And it’s always been important to me that it’s not just sitting around talking, but also implementing to create big shifts.

So what was the process to FIND a women’s mastermind group? I looked online, searching via Google (maybe that’s how you arrived here?). Here’s the keyword I used to start my research process. If you’re after a specific type of mastermind, then you can use different word combinations, like business, mindset, leadership, real estate etc..

I also went through Facebook groups to see who was offering masterminds. Eventually I found two coaches (a US coach and an Australian coach) and signed up to their email lists to get a feel for who they were and what value they were going to be able to provide.

I then went through the discovery call process with both of them.

After the calls, I made a pros and cons list and looked at the things I valued, the things I didn’t care about so much and which of the two individuals resonated most with me personality-wise.

Why?

Because, as with my own mastermind, the coach tends to attract people similar to them. So I wanted to ensure they were women I loved being around, knowing that these masterminds were runing long term.

 

What is the mastermind group agenda?

This will differ from group to group, as it comes down to the coach and their definition of a mastermind, what the coach’s skills are and what the needs are of the members.

Some have calls only, some include retreats, others are heavy on training and some are a combination.

In The Online Marketing Mastermind, the agenda is focused on storytelling, strategy and systems in regards to marketing and mindset. And I’ve been incredibly intentional and purposeful about what’s included, with every element aimed at achieving a specific outcome.

In fact, it’s tailored to the members who are part of the group, so each person gets the most out of the experienced.

But as far as structure, here’s a peek at what it looks like inside of my mastermind…

Fortnightly Mastermind Calls

Each fortnight we run a call via Zoom for my women’s mastermind group, the crux of which looks like this:

• You discuss your goals from the previous fortnight, what you have to celebrate from that period, what you’re being challenged by and what you’re hoping to achieve during the next fortnight.
• Collectively, we then look at your challenge and offer insights and guidance to get you unstuck.
• Then it’s the next member’s turn…

This is similar across many women’s mastermind groups that offer more intimate support.

Having people from different industries look at your business is so powerful, because we tend to watch and be inspired by people in our own industry. We rarely look outside that.

The creative ideas other members bring to your challenge regularly provide aha moments.

These calls, run via video conferencing software Zoom, also include me sharing a simple exercise or insight related to marketing or mindset that I feel the group will benefit from most in that moment. This is often based on the conversation happening within the Facebook group or from previous calls.

So the content is always tailored to what you most need – not just a cookie cutter program or a bunch of ideas that aren’t really relevant to you (and simply throw you into overwhelm).

Get It Done Days

Have a massive “to do” list with some big chunky tasks you’re afraid to tackle? The goal of the Get It Done Days is to remove those.

For example, we set up your soulful sales funnel and create smart Facebook ads that grow your list and sales (I’ll hold your hand through the tech and copywriting to get these set up quickly and easily).

What we tend to focus on in the Get It Done Days are what I like to call the “insurance” for your business.

You see, this time last year I was sitting in the hospital’s emergency department wondering if my husband would still be with me by the end of the day.

He had extreme high blood pressure and, in a room full of 70-year-olds who looked like “death warmed up”, it was 42-year-old Julian the doctors were most concerned wouldn’t last the day.

Everything they were trying wasn’t working to bring his blood pressure down. The looks on the nursing staff said it all.

All my husband could keep repeating was “I’m so sorry”.

That moment shifted my attention from a “to do” list writing newsletters and blog posts to attract and help another soulful entrepreneur, to complete and utter focus on ensuring my husband lived.

I look back now and realise just how fortunate I was to have systemised my business enough that it kept ticking along without me. I gained a few ecourse sales and had a new client book in a discovery call – all without me needing to be present.

But that period highlighted that there was still work to be done to use storytelling, strategies and systems to further enhance the predictability and consistency within my business, without the need to rely on me writing another blog post or posting that Facebook status.

I’ll admit, I still see opportunities within my own business to keep improving, to fine tune and add another layer to enhance my community’s experience.

It doesn’t mean I’m 100% automating my business. I still want to reach out and have conversations to build those relationships with women who have a deep passion for what they do and a desire to share it with more people.

But when life happens, my business isn’t going to fall over.

My income isn’t going to fluctuate.

And my sanity is saved.

So what about you? How would you business fare under similar circumstances? Or have you experienced something in your life already that meant your business came to a halt?

This is why these Get It Done Days are so powerful.

And, as you can tell, I’m big on implementing – rather than talkfests.

Not many masterminds include implementation days.

Masterclasses

Layer the accountability of the mastermind calls and implementation of the Get It Done Days, with the in-depth training of the masterclasses that wrap around that core soulful sales funnel to strengthen it further.

Everything I teach works together as a complete strategy. There are no half-baked, one-off, flash-in-the-pan tactics.

For example, this week the mastermind looked at business storytelling to sell more soulfully, creating 19 stories that can be used in sales pages, email sequences and social media posts to articulate your message in a way that’s easy for others to understand and that inspires them to take action with you.

Each story fits into a specific part of your marketing.

No sleazy tactics in sight.

We also look at analytics, sales conversations, blogging with purpose and more through these masterclasses.

This is a complete online marketing experience for clients and cashflow.

You’ll find many paid masterminds have masterclasses, trainings with experts or some other form of education to enhance the experience.

1:1 Coaching

However, not all women’s mastermind groups will include a 1:1 element, where you get coaching sessions with the coach (or even one of the coach’s team members if you’re in a bigger mastermind for women).

However, this one was important for me to include to get my eyes on your business at separate points through the mastermind for a deeper dive into your business.

These coaching sessions will ensure you’re clear on your business eco-system and value ladder that will cement everything else you do.

These sessions also provide you with great insights to your individual analytics and an action plan to ensure you continue the incredible momentum you’ve built.

To gain this level of deep support in your business, let’s have a chat about your place in the mastermind.

YES, LET’S CHAT ABOUT THE MASTERMIND

 

Difference between a women’s mastermind group and 1:1 coaching

It can be hard to know if you need 1:1 coaching or if you need a mastermind group – or the combination mentioned above.

Ultimately, it comes down to the way you like to learn and how you work best.

If I’ve noticed anything about the women who go through the mastermind, it’s that they propel each other forward. Watching someone else you care about achieve great results spurs you on to want to do better in your own business. It fuels you in a positive way.

And the ability to celebrate those wins you get ensures you’re focusing on the positives from your business and not spiralling down by the negative talk we can often get railroaded by.

If you love working in a group environment, love knowing you have more than one mind (mine) on your business and want support and accountability at a deeper level than you can get from 1:1, then a mastermind might be a good fit for you too.

My 1:1 clients tend to have very specific goals that don’t fit into what the mastermind can offer or they’re not lit up by working in a group.

Everyone’s different – and that’s OK

If you’re unsure which is best for you, try this quick, fun motivational style quiz.

TAKE THE QUIZ

 

Ready to join a paid mastermind program?

I’ve put a lot of thought and care into designing The Online Marketing Mastermind, because it’s important to me that every element of it is purposeful, intentional and aimed at generating a certain result.

This can be generating more traffic to your website, increasing the size of your email list, attracting a more consistent flow of discovery calls, filling programs or offers, ensuring you’re paying yourself an income, regularly taking time for yourself and keeping a healthy mindset to allow you to stay focused on the goals that matter to you. It means this is more a coaching mastermind group for women.

I’ve also been conscious of the type of people I want in the group – service-based business owners, coaches and consultants.

The private Facebook group ensures there’s always someone there for you when you need them most – to overcome tech challenges, have your copy edited so it sings and gently edge you forward when you’re lacking confidence around an important goal.

I think Kyrstie’s comment summed up beautiful what it’s like inside a mastermind:

 

Deciding to join a mastermind can often be as nerve wracking as it is exciting. There are so many unknowns. But often the thing that scares us is the thing we most need to do.

If I can share anything to help you on your pathway to finding a mastermind, it’s that no matter which you choose, the women who decide to join masterminds are there with the sole purpose to give support and accountability to help you succeed, knowing the same will be returned.

If you feel now is the time to join a women’s mastermind group and gain a deeper level of support, then let’s have a chat about your place in the next group.

If you run a business where you would like a mastermind facilitated for your staff, leaders or marketing team, please reach out. I am based in Wollongong, near Sydney in Australia, and can perform masterminds virtually or in-person.