By Joe Vitale & Bill Hibbler
For a vacation or home remodeling mastermind, you might want to go with five or six couples. For most other types of groups, ideally, you want five to six members. When you have more, meetings can drag on too long.
If each member gets 20 minutes and you’ve got six members, that’s two hours. Getting the meeting started, taking a short break in the middle, and wrapping things up will add a half hour. That’s two and a half hours. Beyond that is too long, especially if you meet once a week. So if you choose to go with more than six members, we’d recommend limiting each person’s turn to 10 or 15 minutes.
On the other hand, when you have fewer than five members, meetings are unproductive when one or two people can’t make it. You’ll end up either canceling meetings or having people drop out.
It’s possible that you will need to start out with more members than you ultimately want. The Wimberley Group currently has 6 members, but we’ve had as many as 10. Over time, you’ll find that one or two members have a problem with attendance. Or they’ll decide the group isn’t for them.
Early on, with the Wimberley Group, we had members missing two to three meetings per month. We’d have three people one week and nine the following week. Because many had been absent for weeks, meetings sometimes ran four hours because extra time was needed to get caught up.
Out of concern that our group would drift apart, we announced that we wanted to narrow the group down to six firmly committed members. We asked all members to either commit to regular attendance or let someone else have their spot. It was a bit awkward at first, but we ended up getting a strong core group with consistent attendance.
Another way to go about this initially is to just seek one other person to mastermind with. Make sure you get along well and trust this single mastermind partner. Once you’re comfortable with him or her, start looking for a third member together, taking the same approach. Once you’ve integrated the third member and there’s a spirit of trust and harmony, the three of you can begin looking for a fourth member. And you can continue this process, adding one member at a time, until you reach your ideal group size.
If you take this approach, your chances of building a strong mastermind are great, but you’ll notice that each time a new member joins the group, you’ll have to take a few steps backward before moving forward. That’s due to the mandatory “getting to know each other phase” that all groups go through. A trio, for example, that’s been meeting together for several weeks will develop a level of trust that allows them to be comfortable sharing certain information. When a new person joins the group, the older members won’t feel that same level of comfort. Once everyone feels comfortable with the newest member, that level of trust will return.
So how many people are in your mastermind group? Let us know using the comments section below.
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I like 4 myself. As long as all four are good about showing up. Anything over six seems like a major time suck.
Hi Chris, with four members, I agree, showing up is key. One member goes on vacation and another skips and you don’t have much a meeting.
Bill,
Please write something about the level of the members. I was in one group where I became the teacher, and another where everything went over my head. These were both Internet marketing focused groups.
Connie
Great suggestion, Connie. I’ll do it.
We currently have four members and have had only two meetings, with a third cancelling because two members couldn’t make it.
I think we need to add two members to decrease the chance of meetings cancelling — that way, if someone can’t make it to a meeting, then it’s not disrupted.
I’ve had similar experiences with smaller groups, Sherm. I think 6-7 members is ideal. I don’t know the circumstances with your two absentees but having two people miss a meeting when it’s only the third meeting isn’t a sign that everyone is making a strong commitment to the group. I know groups like BNI, which are networking groups rather than true masterminds, require perfect attendance. If a member has to miss a meeting, they must find a substitute to represent them at the meeting. That wouldn’t work for a mastermind group due to privacy but I like having some kind of attendance requirements in place that eliminate casual skipping of meetings.
I think “Mastermind Groups” are the wave of the future. When Sherm approached me to be one of the original 4 in his group, I was ecstatic. At my first one…I showed up long before anyone else…making sure we got the “best table” and total access to the nearest “outlet” for our laptops…and I was eager to go.
We have since solidified a few more conditions for our Mastermind Group…such as the “same time/same place” idea. Its a “half way mark” for anyone anywhere in the Central Ohio area and its “cheap.” We truly are very excited to “interview” maybe two more and then “close the membership.” One thing I thought of is choosing an “odd” number of members. That way, if we ever want to “vote” on something within our group, we’ll never have a tie.
Our Master Mind Group is going to be awesome…especially because of the professions we are in and the diversity of our backgrounds. I look forward to our next one.
Sounds like a great group, Pete! The ‘odd number’ strategy is a good idea, too.
When I first saw this title How Many Members is Best For a Mastermind Group on google I just whent and bookmark it. Simply wanna say that this is very beneficial , Thanks for taking your time to write this.
I have had a group for about 3 years now. We started with three and it soon become two. This worked out well for quite some time as we were both starting our businesses and were a great support for each other.
It did tend to dwindle out the end of last year. We have re-started with the same two people, (we both missed Masterminding) and have added a third person.
What I am finding is we are not always sticking to the same time frame (ex. Wednesday @ 10 AM) due to other things coming up. It is still working out, for the most part.
I would like to add 2 more people, but it will be challenging without a set time that works for everyone.
Any suggestions?
Hi Melody, the time frame issue would be a problem for me, especially with only three of you. Might be worth having a housekeeping session before or after your next meeting to discuss resolving that. Everyone needs to renew their commitment and promise to show up. If necessary, agree on a time that everyone can agree to. You didn’t mention how often this happens but everything is amplified in a 3-person mastermind which is why I prefer 5-6 members. If you’ve got six people, it’s less of a problem if someone has to miss a meeting.
One thing I’d suggest is asking members to commit to six months. At the end of six months, you can agree to continue for another six months. You can also move on from anyone that’s not showing up, that’s not a good fit, etc. without rubbing anyone the wrong way.
To find additional members, see if you can find good candidates using LinkedIn or even Facebook.