5 Reasons You Need a Mastermind
I recently attended a 3 day gathering of women entrepreneur-authors at Denise Linn’s Summerhill Ranch here in California. It validated and strengthened my belief that a small, intensive group of women collaborating is the most powerful tool to acheiving greatness in business and life (for many of us these are one and the same).
Only 1.8% of women owned business break the $1MM revenue mark, and I believe masterminds are one way of changing this.
The top 5 reasons to mastermind are:
1. Shared resources. Through my 13 years in building Zhena’s Gypsy Tea into a multi-million dollar company, I learned a LOT and one of the great lessons was in finding great vendor partners I could trust. Web designers, graphic designers, videograhers, printers, packaging designers and makers, and the list goes on. Through building my company, I worked with and grew relationships with some of the most phenomenal vendor partners in the world and these resources are valuable and can be shared in a mastermind.
2. Perspective. When you are a solo-preneur you cannot necessarily see your offerings from a distance and with a mastermind, you can get perspective and shape your offerings from a potential customer’s point of view. This has so much value. While in the author mastermind, I learned so many beautiful ways of getting the word out about my book, things that were right under my nose but I didn’t see them.
3. Support. The other women in my mastermind were all family centric. Either mothers or women on their way to motherhood, they had a lot of amazing tips on mothering babies and business at once. From my friend Erin, I learned that a 20-hour workweek can be possible. I learned ways to schedule my time so that I could have more dedicated, focused time with my children while growing my new business–Zhena.TV. For this I am deeply grateful.
4. Fun. We drank margaritas, laughed and told crazy stories about our mess ups in the business world. We howled at some of our own shortcomings and they all seemed so much smaller in the face of our belly-laughing guffaws. Never underestimate the power of humor to grow your business! If you’re not having fun neither will your staff or customers. I’ve always loved the saying that if you’re funny you’re in the money :-). Levity works.
5. Best practices. We shared our practices on how to love and cherish customers, readers and vendors so everyone feels cared for. We discussed ways to maximize our online services, make better offerings and develop programs to support other women entrepreneurs. We realized that we were each other’s best customers and we all had offerings to share with one another from that point of view. Best practices in online communications, blogging, social media and which classes to take were all demystified.
If it takes a village to raise a child, it takes a metropolis to raise a child and a business. Masterminding is one way to acheive this so that your dreams can become your reality. If you are interested in joining a mastermind, please comment below!
Here’s to your health, happiness and the realization of your most audacious dreams,
Zhena
