Grow your business in 2014 by tapping into the power of mastermind!

Posted on October 11, 2013 by Scott Graham, One of Thousands of Career Coaches on Noomii.

I am looking for 14 other coaches who are interested in forming an accountability and mastermind group to grow their business.

This group will be built around Michael Port’s book, “Book Yourself Solid: The Fastest, Easiest, and Most Reliable System for Getting More Clients Than You Can Handle Even if You Hate Marketing and Selling.” Regardless of whether you have read this book before (or not), regardless of whether you like Michael Port’s writing style (or not), regardless of whether you have done all of the actions delineated by Port in this book and accompanying work book (or not), I believe your business will benefit from applying a mastermind approach to the concepts.

This mastermind group will take place every Tuesday from 7:30 pm – 9:00 pm EST beginning January 14 2014 and concluding May 29 2014.

This group is free.

There are however some MUSTS:

• You must get the book and workbook and commit to reading it and commit to doing the exercises in the workbook to your BEST ability.
• You must commit to attend all 16 group meetings.
• You must commit to facilitate 1 of those 16 group meetings.
• You must commit to provide 1:1 coaching to each of the other members of this mastermind group one time.
• You must commit to providing 30 minutes of feedback to one of the other coaches in this group at the conclusion of this process.
• And finally, you commit to participating in the selection process for this group during the first two weeks of December 2013.

Mastermind Group Details:

“Lessons”

There are 14 lessons in this book, some are meatier than others. Nonetheless, for organization and expediency purposes, I have broken the book into 14 weeks of 90 minute masterminding, book-ended by a 90 minute introduction and a 90 minute debrief / wrap up.

Those 14 lessons are:

1. The Red Velvet Rope Policy
2. Why People Buy What You’re Selling
3. Develop a Personal Brand
4. How to Talk About What You Do
5. Who Knows What You Know and Do They Like You
6. Sales Cycle Process
7. The Power of Information Products
8. Super Simple Selling
9. Networking Strategy
10. Direct Outreach Strategy
11. Web Strategy
12. Speaking and Demonstrating Strategy
13. Writing Strategy
14. Keep-In-Touch Strategy

Group Facilitation

You will be facilitating 1 of the 90-minute group meetings on one of the lessons above. This has two immediate benefits for you: it will sharpen your skills around facilitating a group coaching session and will necessitate that you know one of the lessons inside-and-out.

1:1 Coaching

During the week immediately following the group that you facilitate, you will be providing 1:1 coaching to other members of this mastermind group. While this coaching is topically focused (revolving around the lesson and workbook exercises for that week), your approach, focus and deliverables are up to you and should parallel what you already to in your coaching practice. Maybe you are an action oriented coach and you do 3 15 minute coaching calls each week to increase accountability for your clients. Maybe you do 1 60 minute session focused on identifying mental and emotional blocks. Maybe you ask your clients to do prep work before each call. Maybe you provide documentation after your call to clients. Maybe you email reminders during the week.

Whatever PROCESS you TYPICALLY do in your coaching practice, that is the coaching deliverable you will commit to provide during the week following the group you facilitate.

Feedback

At the start of this masterminding process, you will be randomly assigned by an independent third party, a coach to monitor. You commit to observing this coach and keeping notes on your observations, thoughts (even inklings of thoughts) each week. After week 15, you and this coach will get together for a 30 minute call where you give them the gift of feedback. Their job in only to listen and seek to understand what you communicate. It is not a coaching session.

Next Steps:

If you are still reading this, it means you are probably interested in doing some serious work on your business. Please apply.

Application Specifics:

• Deadline for submitting an application: November 30 2013
• Maximum applications accepted: 42
• Application format: Word document (2003-2007, .doc version). Document should be named as follows: LastName-FirstName.doc
• Maximum application size: 500 words
• Where to send your application: send as an attachment to coachscottgraham@gmail.com

Decision process:

On or before December 2 2013, a ZIP file containing all applications will be emailed to all applicants along with a link to vote for the top 14 applicants. Assuming you will vote for yourself, that means you need to choose another 13 to join the group. The deadline for voting is December 15 2013. Those 14 applicants with the most votes will receive an email invitation to join the group by December 20 2013. Additionally up to 7 applicants may be wait listed. Those who receive an invitation must confirm by December 25 2013. Seats not confirmed by December 25 2013 will be opened up to those on the wait list.

Application Questions:

Please use the following headers in your application (Max 500 words):

1. Full Name
2. How invested are you in joining this Mastermind Group (1-10 scale where 1 is low and 10 is high)? Why did you choose that number?
3. What would you bring to this Mastermind Group (this is your opportunity for shameless bragging)?
4. Describe what you will do for the 1:1 coaching for other members of the group.
5. Based on your impression of the 14 lesson titles, which do you think is your strongest area and which do you think you is your weakest area?
6. What is your biggest struggle as a Solo-entrepreneur (note that this is not a question about you as a coach but you as a business person)?
7. Thinking about how you engage in group process, what should other members know about you at the onset?
8. What is your proudest moment as a Coach or Counselor?

Why am I doing this?

The benefits of this group should be heartily obvious to you at this point. I want those benefits. I trust the process I have outlined in this email and believe this process will identify and bring 14 of the best coaches together for an incredible experience. It is my hope that I will end up with 14 unbelievably deep relationships that I can tap into to help me grow my business in the years to come. BTW – you will reap those same benefits as one of the fourteen coaches who are invited to join this mastermind group. We all will be doing our part and will benefit collectively. I will facilitate the first mastermind session and the last mastermind session. And, in facilitating the creation of this mastermind group, I will have 14 coaches coaching me! (as will you). It is that simple.

I hope you will join me. Please apply and please forward this on to other coaches – especially if there is one you have been itching to work with!

Want more information?

Feel free to call me, Scott Graham at 617-475-0081.
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