View from the Summit

Do you think you could start a new mastermind group in twelve weeks?

Welcome to June, and I’m fired up to share this next truckload of value with you. We’re diving back into one of my favorite books for our online mastermind groups this month. My friend Brian Moran wrote a book called The 12-Week Year, and we like it so much we’ve made it our signature tool for time management.

The old saying goes, “Time is money,” and in this example I want to compare these resources because of how easily they slip out of our hands. “Easy come, easy go,” as George Strait would say. Although money’s a lot more replaceable than time, both substances are supercharged by the spiritual world. As a Christian life coach, I see it often - you can tell what people’s priorities are by how they use their time, and how they use their money.

More on that later, but I want to ask you the question again: do you think you could start a new mastermind group in 12 weeks? That’s 60 working days.

This Is All So Sudden

You might look at masterminds versus traditional business coaching services and think, “It must  take years to put together a good group.” To be fair, I think it does take some time to get the “right” people on the ship. You’ll probably get some people who seem like they won’t be a great fit - and then turn out to be amazing. And you’ll get others who seem like a shoo-in … and three weeks later, they’re gone.

The exciting part of all this is that it’s entirely possible to start up your first mastermind online in 60 working days. Particularly if you use the resources we’ve built for you in The Mastermind Playbook, which includes The 12-Week Year. I don’t know if you’ve ever been in a thick fog of any kind, and then suddenly had everything clear up and the sun shining brightly on you. That’s what it’s like when you use these tools.

A lot of people think it’s crazy to suggest you can accomplish your goals in 12 weeks … except those of us accomplishing them every 12 weeks! The two mistakes people make are making plans for a timeframe that’s too short (like 30 days) or one that’s too long (more like a year). I know there are some things that can’t be shortened or lengthened, but there’s an awful lot more we could accomplish in 60 working days if we use the tools Brian’s given us.

Implementation Problems

It’s no accident we use the word “implementation” to describe putting our plans into action. It’s a very good word, if you consider the root word “implement.” Have you ever been to the implement store? It’s full of tractors, tillers and other machines that tear through the sod and vegetation on the ground to stir up the soil, and get it ready for farming.

People hear me say “You could implement your own mastermind business in 12 weeks,” and they get slack-jawed and bug-eyed. What they don’t understand is that you have an implement to make this happen, a machine that does the heavy thinking for you. The Mastermind Playbook! It’s like being a farmer who only sows seed, and doesn’t need to hoe a row. You plant the seeds, and water them, and it’s like that old movie “Field of Dreams” - if you build it, they will come.

Let’s spitball for a minute and say you were starting today, early June. That would make it the end of August when your 12-Week Year plan comes to an end. So here’s how it works.

The first thing you do is choose your top two or three priorities. One of them’s going to be “filling your mastermind group.” You’re looking to get at least six members signed up. Now if we use the old “10-3-1” rule, you know you should have at least 18-25 direct conversations, which means you should try reaching out to probably 50-75 people you know.

Are you seeing the math side of this yet? If you have 60 working days to reach out to 75 people, that’s fewer than two people per day. You aren’t going to be hammering the phones from dusk ‘til dawn, or pounding the pavement all day. You’re just going to build 15-20 minutes into your schedule to write or film 1-2 heartfelt messages to a couple of people per day. 

The same goes with the steps toward building your pipeline and onboarding systems. Breaking those big tasks over 60 days respects your current schedule and availability. It doesn’t mean hours spent researching things you don’t understand on Google. You just follow the steps and procedures we lay out in The Mastermind Playbook.

I know you’re probably wondering, “Where do I find 75 people to talk to?” Trust me, if you’re in business and you’re thinking about a business mastermind, you know enough people. You may have forgotten you know them, but don’t worry! We’re good at helping you refresh your memory.