For twenty years I’ve participated in masterminds. A mastermind is a group of people who come together to share ideas, create new opportunities and leverage each other’s brain power.

In Think and Grow Rich, Napoleon Hill talks about how Andrew Carnegie tapped into the minds of 50 men who at any time he could ask them for advice or access their resources. Just think…what could happen for you if you did not have to solve every problem or challenge alone!

Beyond the amazing benefits of synergizing ideas through brainstorming, masterminds have become one of the best ways to create strategic partnerships. Think of it like this. Each business owners builds their own power base of resources – clients, marketing channels, expertise, vendors, etc.

If you can utilize what each person has built and exponentially multiply your own resource base without recreating the wheel, then you’ve got business leverage! Now of course most people don’t overtly join a mastermind with a grand plan of each and every person using each other’s resource base.

However it happens very naturally because…

In a mastermind for business owners, you develop an affinity for each other that makes you want to extend your resource base to each other. Some of the ways I’ve been able to tap this power of leverage has been:

* Being invited to speak at coveted events or on teleconferences
* Sharing vendors or contractors not available outside the inner circle
* Tapping expertise or mentoring available to others at top dollar
* Becoming their “referral of choice” for my expertise
* Having insight into their trade secrets they don’t share elsewhere

Obviously there has to be a lot of trust and confidence for a mastermind of this caliber. I’m very selective about who I join a mastermind with and when I host masterminds for my clients, I’m just as picky about who gets in.

As I prepare to kick off my 2010 mastermind programs (which are always a blend of private coaching, cutting-edge performance training and facilitated mastermind experiences) I’m excited to see my clients and community gain the benefit of this powerful growth technique!

Happy Masterminding.

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This entry was posted on Tuesday, November 24th, 2009 at 2:12 pm and is filed under Business Strategy. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.