Mastermind Group and Brain Trust – what is it, how do they work, what are the differences?

Mastermind group – what is it and how to choose the best one? You can read about it in this article.

Running your own business is very exciting, but also difficult. As an entrepreneur, you are often left to your own devices, making decisions and facing business challenges. Even if you have the support of your loved ones. If they are not entrepreneurs, it is often difficult for them to „walk in your shoes” and therefore help you. To overcome business challenges, find a group of like-minded entrepreneurs in mastermind groups. These communities of entrepreneurs or business coaches offer support, ideas, and competences, ensuring you’re not alone in your struggles.

What exactly is a Mastermind or Brain Trust and what should you know about it?

What is Mastermind?

The first groups of mastermind entrepreneurs were established in the 19th century. Napoleon Hill wrote about them in the book „Think and Grow Rich”. These were groups organized around the greatest American businessmen. Therefore, the richest people of the 19th and 20th centuries, such as Andrew Carnegie were included.

Mastermind, translated from English is simply „master mind”. Furthermore, „Brain Trust” is a group of people of mostly entrepreneurs. Their main goal is to develop themselves, their business and support other people for a similar purpose. In mastermind, entrepreneurs motivate each other, exchange their experiences, inspire each other to create new ideas and help each other in solving business problems. Thanks to such a group, you gain a completely new, fresh perspective on a given problem/idea. Resultantly, this is very beneficial cause it sheds a completely new light on your business. Mastermind is also an amazing solution to the feeling of loneliness in the entrepreneurial world. Despite the sincere desire to help from your loved ones. It is other entrepreneurs who know the realities of running a business. They are able to actually provide you with the support you need.

How many members of such a group should there be and who can join it belong?

Typically, there are several people in a mastermind group usually from 3 to 5 entrepreneurs. This ensures equal time is devoted to each person during the meetings. For such a group to be very valuable and bring benefits to your business. It is important that its members are entrepreneurs from different industries and with experiences other than yours. Thanks to this, you have the opportunity to learn from those who are better than you in a specific field. In turn, you can help others by offering your knowledge.

This means that such people understand you as an entrepreneur, but they can show you completely new things that you didn’t know before. This then allows your business to grow. Another important thing is the similar experience in business of people belonging to the mastermind together. This is so that less experienced people do not feel that their problems are less important because older entrepreneurs have already „gone through” them. And so that these more experienced people do not look for support from people who are simply unable to provide it due to a different business experience. 

How to organize a Mastermind group?

To find your mastermind group, consider whether there are people in your immediate environment who have a similar number of years in entrepreneurship as you, but belong to different industries. Therefore, this translates into different business experience. These must be people who want to look for specific solutions to their problems and will be able to offer help. The more you give of yourself in a mastermind group, the more you can get in return.

The next step involves getting to know your group. This includes setting mastermind goals, sharing personal and business information, and arranging formal matters like meeting frequency.

An additional option and often a better solution than establishing a mastermind group is hiring a business coach. Entrepreneurs do not always have time to organize mastermind group activities. You can always hire a business coach from PerfectCircle to set up a group, but you can also create a mini mastermind group with him. The coaching process will give you much more than a mastermind group. Unfortunately, in mastermind groups, another entrepreneur may accidentally harm your development. Entrepreneurs do not always have the latest knowledge in the field of psychology, coaching, business development and effective implementation of goals, which business coaches from PerfectCircle always have. Therefore, think about this aspect before choosing or organizing a mastermind group.

Specific goal

One of the assumptions of the mastermind group is the implementation of business goals. Think about what specific goal you want to achieve. Listen carefully to other people and their plans. Talk openly about your plans and what you are proud of so far. To receive the appropriate motivation, it is crucial for others to understand your most significant concerns. Staying informed about the mastermind group’s business affairs helps you understand their motivation needs. Speaking openly about your business goals, can make you feel more responsible and motivated to achieve them. And this is a way of not disappointing the rest of the group and feeling „left behind”. 

Meetings

There is no need for entrepreneurs creating a mastermind group to live close to each other and meet in person. Such groups also exist, but they are increasingly moving to the „online” form – which is even more preferred nowadays. You can use tools such as Zoom or Skype for this. It is important to take care of a form of contact that suits everyone. Online meetings have many benefits. To begin with, you can connect with your group anywhere you only have access to a computer/phone and the Internet. In the case of „live” meetings, you have the opportunity to meet group participants directly, drink coffee with them and discuss the meeting in an interesting place of your choice.

A completely different meeting dynamic is also created when participants see each other, sit next to each other or have the opportunity to pat each other on the shoulder for another great meeting.

Policies

At the first meeting of the mastermind group, the principles of its operation should be defined. Aspects that need to be discussed include:

• meeting time
• expectations towards group members
• meeting schedule
• way of communication
• meeting goals
• determining whether meetings will be recorded
• selecting a moderator, i.e. the person conducting the meeting
• defining other roles, such as the person responsible for keeping track of the meeting time or the person responsible for writing down the goals set by the participants

Benefits and disadvantages

Depending on the type of group and the way it is run, there may be the following advantages, but also disadvantages.

The greatest benefits of participating in a mastermind group are:

• opportunity to establish new, interesting business contacts
• motivation to act
• looking at your business from the perspective of other people, i.e. seeing it „from the side”
• the opportunity to solve your business problems with the help of the rest of the group
• inspiration and new, fresh ideas that you can implement into your company
• the feeling that you are not alone as an entrepreneur, and you have your own support group
• using the experience of other people

Disadvantages

The disadvantages of mastermind groups may be:

• lack of professionalism of group members for the development of other people and other businesses
• failure to stick to or have a meeting agenda
• group participants focus on „taking” instead of „giving” and do not provide value for the rest of the participants
• threat of the conversation straying into side and frustrating topics, for example: politics
• infecting people with difficult emotions among themselves. Example, when one of the group members has a bad day and came in a bad mood. As a result he will infect others with his sadness or complaining
• threat of conflict in the group and lack of competences and tools of group members to resolve this conflict on their own. The effect of such a conflict may be the deterioration of personal and business relationships of group members.
• it may also happen that one member of the group may dominate it and only he and his supporters will benefit and receive value.

It is for this reason that business coaching was created to eliminate the disadvantages of mastermind groups. Business Coaching professions was created in the second half of the 20th century from three main areas. These consitute of psychology, sport and business, give clients much more than the mastermind group. The business coaching process with an experienced business coach from PerfectCircle leaves all the advantages of the mastermind group, completely eliminating the disadvantages. This happens thanks to coaching tools, knowledge and competences of the coach in the areas of psychology, management, sales, marketing, development of the most effective leaders, entrepreneurs, sports and media stars, and even strategic management.

Additional materials about mastermind groups can be found HERE

Mastermind Groups – Summary

Being a participant in a mastermind group is an incredible benefit. Especially for entrepreneurs, students, scientists or people gathered around an idea.

At PerfectCircle we use the knowledge, tools and practices of mastermind groups. We are sometimes hired to support mastermind groups or resolve conflicts in groups. We regularly create mastermind groups of entrepreneurs, leaders, mentors and business coaches in the Business Coaching OPEN program, and graduates of this course create the #PerfectCircleCommunity. Read more about the Business Coaching OPEN program. The first stage in our School of Business Coaching and Executive Coaching HERE.

The latest start dates of the nearest group can be found HERE and in our store HERE

Mastermind groups implemented at the PerfectCircle Academy. For instance, the Business Coaching OPEN, Business Coaching ADVANCED and Business Coaching MASTER programs. These are precisely planned development for a business coach, mentor, strategic advisor, consultant, entrepreneur and leader. Here, entrepreneurs, business coaches, mentors, trainers, strategic advisors exchange business ideas, experiences, knowledge and support each other with the most effective methods and tools. A big thanks to peer coaching and the presence of a master coach.

Many times, both during and after studying at the PerfectCircle Academy. Members of the #PerfectCircleCommunity recommended each other and helped each other make decisions that were important to them.