Masterminds can be a powerful tool for business growth, but should you host a mastermind or be a guest? In today's episode, Meghan Lamle shares exactly what you need to know to effectively use masterminds as a growth tool for your business.

Specifically, Meghan shares:

• How to grow through hosting masterminds.
• How to grow through being a mastermind participant.
• Key things to avoid during a mastermind.

Mentioned in This Episode:

• Connect with Meghan on Instagram
• Learn more about Meghan's mastermind: Mission Income

About Meghan:

Meghan Lamle is a corporate dropout turned multiple six-figure business owner. After taking the last $200 in her bank account and creating a multiple six-figure businesses in her first year, she learned the power of sales. Meghan has taught sales to over 200+ entrepreneurs in the last three years, has had $100k+ launches, and has over 8 years of experience in the sales space. Meghan blends the power of sales psychology and behavioral economics to teach entrepreneurs how to scale their businesses and master their sale.

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About Angela

Angela Frank is a fractional CMO with a decade-long track record of generating multimillion-dollar marketing revenue for clients. She is the founder of The Growth Directive, a marketing consultancy helping brands create sustainable marketing programs.

Her new book Your Marketing Ecosystem: How Brands Can Market Less and Sell More helps business owners, founders, and corporate leaders create straightforward and profitable marketing strategies.

Angela is the host of The Growth Pod podcast, where she shares actionable tips to help you build a profitable brand you love.

Welcome to The Growth Pod. Today on the podcast we have Meghan Lamle, who is a corporate dropout turned multiple six figure business owner.

After taking the last $200 in her bank account and creating a multiple six figure business in her first year, she learned the power of sales.

Meghan has taught sales to over 200 entrepreneurs in the last three years, has had six figure launches, and has over eight years of experience in sales. Megan blends the power of sales psychology and behavioral economics to teach entrepreneurs how to scale their businesses and master their sale.

Meghan, welcome to the podcast.

Thank you for having me. I'm so excited to be here.

I am very excited. Today you are going to share how to unlock business growth with masterminds. I think this is a topic that we're both so passionate about.

But first, can you share about what a mastermind actually is and how you've been able to use masterminds to grow your business?

So a mastermind traditionally is kind of like a think tank and in the online space there's lots of definitions.

But for the sake of this podcast and kind of what I'm talking about, it is a facilitated think tank where you're bringing other entrepreneurs, whether they're in the same industry or different industries together to collaborate on a business and then to also just continue to grow. The original mastermind was like Andrew Carnegie and like Napoleon Hill and they just kind of came and talked about business.

The other thing with this is also considering that everybody brings different expertise and when you get to a certain stage of business, it's not so much like reading a book or taking a course and learning.

I love that. I think you touched on two great ways to leverage masterminds. One is you're putting it on and people are paying you to facilitate.

And the other is you are paying a facilitator to be part of a mastermind. And today I want to talk about both of those options. But let's start with hosting. How do you know if hosting a mastermin is right for your business?

I would first of all say personality. When you are hosting a mastermind. You are, you know, there I like to keep mine small, so in between seven and 12 people.

But there are ones that are larger that are like 20 to 30 people. There are really big ones that are like hundreds of people.

And going in events hosting a mastermind, you don't want to use what's a traditional hub and spoke model where you're like the focal point and then people are connected to you. You are kind of like the wheel outside of it and the hub is the mastermind.

But when you are kind of the wheel outside of it, personality wise, you are also continuing to connect and cultivate an experience, whether that's in just a coaching container or in person. And if your personality is, you're more introverted, you don't really want to be around people, you don't want to have a lot of communication.

It's okay to say, you know, as a coach to stick to a one on one model or as a service provider provider to not offer that.

I think a lot of people really like the idea of a mastermind, but then when they get into the nitty gritty of it and realize not only am I facilitating for people, but I'm also connecting people and I'm not the focal point.

That's where it's also like you have to be able to kind of set your ego aside and be like this mission, this goal, this group, they're the focal point and I'm just here kind of helping it along.

I love that you really share two ends of the spectrum. One is that you're really an introvert and you should maybe stick to that one to one model if you're not, not comfortable facilitating.

But then on the other end is wanting to be the person, the star of the show. And that's not really what a mastermind is. So what are some ways, if you are in the middle and you're like, oh, mastermind sounds like it's for me.

What are some ways to ensure that your mastermind is a success?

That is such a good question. Experiencing it and facilitating it.

One really getting to know the people you're going to put in a room together because you are kind of managing personalities. And if it's a room full of large personalities, they're naturally going to butt heads.

But finding people with different roles and what's kind of the goal of it? We like in our masterminds to do different niches and different personalities.

So getting a mixture of introverted and extroverted people with different experience.

The second thing is really continuing to hone in and have the conversation that like with sometimes with like coaching masterminds, there's a one on one component. But I don't allow my clients to just continue to come to me over and over I say, hey, like you're in this group, these are your people.

This is also not your peer mastermind if you're the facilitator.

So finding either a paid or peer led or another mastermind to be in and to be a mastermind person inside of that and then just also continuing to like while you're facilitating letting other people tie in with coaches most of the time who start leading masterminds, they want to just coach everybody because that's what they're used to. And it's like the other piece of that is allowing other people to coach.

So sometimes it's giving space before you answer a question or it's tagging someone in who has expertise around that. And even though you do as well, giving them that chance to tap in and like be there.

I love the way you put that. I think it's so important to realize that one of the pieces that make a mastermind successful is that teaching opportunity.

And so when you're saying, you know, even though you're the expert, leaving space for someone else to answer that question, you're enabling them to be able to refine their concepts and ideas by teaching it to someone else. And I love that. That's such a powerful part of hosting a mastermind.

When you are planning out a mastermind launch and you're trying to assess the workload, what does that look like? How often should you host your mastermind? Should it be in person online? Take us through some of the more structural components of a mastermind.

Yeah, we just went through this for capacity planning because we run a mastermind and a mini mind and our mini mind is shifting. So when this airs next week, we're recording it a week ahead. Our mini mind still has one on one access.

And so when we planned it, we can't have as many people in because there is. I only have so much capacity as a person and that's the thing that a lot of people forget about masterminds is having the capacity to meet everybody.

And then inside of our masterminds there's a lot of just back and forth work through like material review and stuff. So I work backwards on that.

I decide how often do I want to be taking calls, when's the best time to take calls because we do cycle planning and then really looking at My schedule and it's like what am I doing in the coming year and what kind of space do I need? Because with Mastermind obviously structure is going to vary. Some people have one on one calls, some people don't.

Some people do it in person, some people don't. For us, we meet three times a month because I like the weekly check ins. The accountability is really nice. They get to see each other.

It's on Wednesday morning so it's quick in and out. I meet with them once a month personally. So I had to figure out how many calls can I take because we changed our call capacity.

How many calls can I take in this like week or two week time frame. And then for us we always have an in person component which it's not standard anymore.

And that was like my biggest qualm when I was bringing Masterminds back. Is that like a Mastermind retreat is so fun.

We just did our retreat last weekend and yes, I'm tired but just to be with people and to enjoy people and be there and be able to just host an experience is really powerful.

Because what we kept coming back to with that in person component is like, yeah, we sit on zoom, but like there are just so many little memories that we had and even just little moments of we didn't have adjoining rooms, we had separate rooms in the hotel. We were only a couple down. But like running back and forth between the hotel rooms and being like, hey, we're going to drinks.

When you're doing your capacity planning, it's going to look different for you, your clients and your experience. So I'm always like yes to a retreat because I love meeting clients in person.

But you may not want to host people for three days, it could be exhausting to you. You may not want to meet with people once a month and have that piece out.

Or maybe you want to do more in person stuff when you're looking at capacity too. I would also say what people forget is that a lot of the facilitation two is whatever community you decide to do it in.

So whether that's in Slack or in person, that's where the meat of it is. And so when you're planning that too, you want to as the leader intentionally show up in the community and encourage other people to do so as well.

There are really cool opportunities too while you're capacity planning with like the gamification and like point systems depending on how you're doing it. I know Discord does a point system right now.

We've kind of played with like, do we move something closer that has a point system and gamifying it for them to encourage them to be in there more.

Because a lot of people think it's just the calls or it's just the retreat and it's this journey you're going with in this group of people over the next year.

And it's also like, it's an interesting experience when you get in a mastermind after being kind of solo or not being in group program, because you can also be like, hey, remember when you had that fear about that launch and then you hit that goal or someone else will bring up, you know, I remember when you did this thing and I'd love advice around that. So that's also with your capacity planning, looking at, like, if you need to spend more time in the community, what does it look like?

And also looking at pricing based on time you're spending in the community as well.

So it sounds like the very first step is assessing one, how much time that you'll actually need to commit to your mastermind, and then two, how you're going to make sure to facilitate, to provide value to the participants. But then beyond that, it's sort of a choose your own adventure based on your individual style and if you'd like to do more online or more in person.

So with that in mind, mind, what are some common pitfalls or mistakes that you see people making the first time that they launch their mastermind?

Or maybe even some mistakes that you've had to learn the hard way that if somebody's listening and they want to launch a mastermind, you can help them.

Avoid from, like, the sales and marketing side.

The biggest mistake that I see is there's a really common trend among coaches and consultants right now to talk about a framework and that it's this video and it's this thing, and it feels like an elevated group program. It is our natural desire to want to be in community with other people.

And I think people miss the mark of talking about, like, belonging and having just some, like, normalcy. Like, I miss having work colleagues, I miss co workers. And that can kind of be that experience.

And when people are selling the Mastermind, they sell that experience in such a vague way when it is truly like a tangible, visceral experience of like, this is what it's going to feel like to get on a call with the same people, you know, three times a month, or if you do four or twice for six months, you're going to know these people, you're going to know their kids, you're going to know their dogs. You're going to know like, you just got your braces off. And I noticed and I was like, oh, like, people can know these things about you.

And that is very comforting. In seasons of really high growth, which typically people want in a mastermind, from a facilitator kind of program perspective, less is more.

There are so many times that I want to do more with them. I want to have videos and do all these things and wine nights and all this stuff.

And truly, less is more as a facilitator, to step back as much as you can. When we had the retreat this weekend, originally I wasn't even supposed to stay on site.

And I ended up staying on site because I was like, well, I, like, don't want to miss out on things, but when we look in planning at it, I take a step back. So, like, I stayed with them this weekend, but, like, typically, like, I'll book a separate room, you know, give them space to do it.

Because the other side of it is you are there to guide and lead and facilitate. But this is not your mastermind.

And a lot of people think that they're like, oh, I'm hosting this and this is my mastermind and these are my girls to connect with. You want them to have jokes together. You want them to be like, have their own inside jokes.

It's kind of like I remember when I managed and I couldn't hang out with my friends anymore because they were now my employees or like all the massage therapists in front desk would go out drinking and they stopped inviting me because every time they invited me, I'd be like, I can't go. I'm management and we're not supposed to be like, drinking. It's the same kind of experience.

Obviously you're going to go out and have drinks, but, like, taking a step back, letting them have time to bond. You don't have to be in everything. You are going to feel fomo, but you also want. I say girls because our masterminds are typically all female.

But you want the girls to bond. You want the guys to bond. You want them to have those connections because that is also super valuable to the program.

I would also with like, facilitating, look for a natural born leader. Each one of our programs, it's a.

It's a lesser conversation that we have, but we always look for a really kind of strong leadership to guide the group because it's like, I'm facilitating and I'm coming in and we're doing it, but they need to have their own peer guide. And it's not always the person who makes the most money. A lot of people think it is.

It's just somebody who, like, they've come in, they really want to own it. They have a very camp counselor vibe. They're typically an older sibling or they've worked in ops. And that's when you're facilitating, too.

If you haven't found that person, you can always, you know, assign that or ask someone to step up. I remember the first group program I ran. One of the girls would run co working, and I didn't even know about it for the first month.

And she was someone who, when she grew, she also was a really strong leader in our mastermind. And so also it's that taking a step back, which can feel so hard.

When it's your program, I think that is so insightful. And that provides a lot of food for thought for people who are launching a mastermind and want to avoid some of these pitfalls.

Now let's switch to guesting, because, of course, hosting can be an amazing way to grow revenue for your business. But I think that being a guest in a mastermind is so powerful as well.

So how do you know if a mastermind is going to level up your business and be a good use of your time and investment?

I think everybody should be in a mastermind once in their business. And a lot of people are like, I'm not a group program girly, or I'm not a mastermind girly. It's an interesting mindset to learn.

The first mastermind I joined, I the first couple I was actually in, I was making the least amount of money. I was the smallest business owner.

And it gives you a really cool Runway to see how fast people can grow and being in those rooms and having those conversations that you wouldn't have been privy to, really utilizing the investment as well, and getting to know your mastermind people are going to be important. So when you're looking at investing one, it's okay to ask, who else is going to be in this room?

Why do you think I would be a good fit with this group and those types of things. I would also say that if you're someone who wants growth, it's that old.

I think it's an African proverb like, if you want to go fast, go by yourself, but if you want to go far, do it with other people. And entrepreneurship can be so lonely. So it's like, why not get in a room and be able to talk to people and, like, normalize Some of this stuff.

I love that.

I think the really the first time in my business where I realized that talking to other people in business is so critical was actually when I completely shut down my e commerce business and got back into corporate because I was working directly under the owner of the business. And I could see some of the things that one I could learn from them, but also some of the pitfalls that they were making.

And that brought so much clarity and insight into, you know, mistakes that I had made in my business. And it helped me come back even stronger when I launched my consulting company.

And I think that was really just the first time that I'm like, wow, being around other people who are doing this is so important.

One of the things that I talk a lot about on the podcast is, like, when you first get into business, you have to kind of put your walls up because like you mentioned, it's not so common that other people in your family or your network are entrepreneurs. And so you have to feel like, no, I've got this, I know best.

But then at a certain point, it's critical to your growth to start lowering that boundary that you've set and start accept other experts, advice and working with other people who now your network has grown and hopefully you're connecting with other business owners. But it's important to learn from their mistakes and what they're doing well as well.

So with that in mind, how do you get the most out of being a Mastermind participant? You're signed up now for your Mastermind. You're totally invested. You're ready. What can you do to make it absolutely the best use of your investment?

Such a good question I want to tack on to you talking about putting your walls up and then bringing them back down. Brene Brown Brown talks about this concept about having a safe space.

And I love the various men that I've dated and the seasons that I did as a business owner, they never understood business. Even the guy I'm dating right now doesn't fully understand it. He's like, cool. What's going on, cool.

But, like, having people who understand it and having that safe space, it does create a safety net beyond your coach because sometimes your coach isn't reachable.

But, you know, some of the people I've been in Masterminds with, I still have their number and I text them and I'm like, hey, like, do you want to hear about this? Or like, hey, like, I just need a vet.

To someone making the most of your investment, I would say are three key things One, making sure you can attend every call that you can. And also being inside of the community.

I think people underutilize slack and like, even just there's always this mindset of like, am I being overbearing? Am I a burden? Like, is it too much? And like, that is a piece of a woman. In business, you have to be a lot.

I get told a lot about how confident and sure I am of myself. And I always remind myself it's because, like, I was 24, starting a business, going to the bank and being like, yeah, we make 10 to $15,000 a month.

This is my business, this is not my dad's. The second thing I would say is get to know the people inside of the mastermind, your peers. And so I remember the first master mastermind I was in.

And I've done this with most of the masterminds I've been in and the masterminds I've done this versus the ones I haven't. I haven't felt as connected, set up coffee chats, say, hey, we're in the same mastermind. I'd love to get to know you. Coffee, wine, whatever.

That was so powerful for me because then I got time to know each person and start forming a relationship with each person. I would also say, don't join a mastermind your friends are in.

It's kind of scary as a business owner and there's been times where I've invested and I've had like my best friend inside of it and it's been so great. And like, I have my best friend. Get comfortable being around other people who you don't know. And if you want to, that's okay. Cool.

But just also make it very well known as women. We, we're just cliquish by nature. It's not a bad thing.

I think a lot of the negative connotation of having groups and having close relationships comes just, just from like the patriarchy and stuff. I could go into a whole explanation, read a bunch of books about it, hyper fixated on it.

But I think what a lot of people don't realize is getting in those new rooms. You never know who's connected to who.

And as a business owner, that's going to be the most powerful thing to get in a room where you don't know people and how comfortable can you get? But then how can you get connected with other people and who do they know?

I know it was one of my clients was looking at trademarking and I was like, oh, like, here's the trademark lawyer that he used or you today, you were like, hey, like, I want someone to look over this. And I'm like, oh, I know this person.

But I probably wouldn't have found the lawyer that now I use that I give everybody if I would have just kind of stayed in my circle and that it's very comforting to stay around people who know and love you. It's scary to also be vulnerable because at a Mastermind, you're like telling like, hey, my lunch isn't going well.

I'm having this client situation and we're doing these things. But it's also super expanding.

And then, you know, you get to meet more people, they will introduce you to people, more opportunities, all that fun stuff.

I think that's so important because every business goes through seasonality, difficult rough patches.

One of my clients right now, I'm working through a revenue recovery effort where eight different landing pages were essentially nuked by an algorithm change, a Google Update, and it happens.

And so being in community, like you said, and, you know, being vulnerable and sharing what's going on in your business and having other people, you know, share either that they've experienced it and how they've worked through it, or just get other eyes on that problem, I think it's so important.

It's important because it's a natural part of business and so you're not the only person who's, you know, got a launch that's not going as well as you hoped or, you know, something was working and now it's not. And getting all these eyes on your problem is so valuable.

Just like we discussed some things to avoid when hosting a mastermind, I'd love to know if there's any faux pas or things to avoid when participating in a mastermind.

Ooh, I would say, like, when participating, I'm trying to think of like, I'm like, I wasn't a girls girls until recently. I didn't have like the girlfriends I have now. And I have really good girlfriends.

And I have a girlfriend who was like, this is how you be a girls girl. I think one, there is a balance of giving and taking. So contributing and also taking and so being mindful of it.

If you're doing a lot of giving, also being asking for support as well, or on the other way, if you're asking for a lot of support, giving a lot of support, I would say, like, the biggest faux pas is you just come in and you're trying to like, connect with the coach because you couldn't pay for one on one or you just want to connect with that person and not being in it. I would say, like, in person, the biggest faux pas is not getting yourself out there more.

I was recently in Seattle because I had a client VIP day, and one of the things she said was she was like, I don't feel. I can. I can articulate what I could do. And I'm somebody. I've never met a stranger in my life. I am like your standard golden retriever.

If, like, the only black cat of me is like a black lab. If you ever met a black lab, they've never met a stranger as well.

And that was something too, where it's like, the more conversations you have, you can articulate what you're doing, and that's a really good place to practice. I would also just say when it comes to masterminds, to a lack of vulnerability, I think a lot of people get scared to share because it's like.

Like, you know, we have Reddit forums down, we have people, like, spreading other people's personal information. But there's also a really cool part of business ownership when you can be vulnerable and share.

My mastermind, actually, as the facilitator, I wasn't actively in one, but my mastermind girls, I was like, I went through a breakup, and then I lost my father, unfortunately. And I remember they all banded together and they bought me flowers. Was it. It wasn't anywhere in the SOP or, like, required of the contract.

And it's so interesting how you can feel so lonely and you can be going through a really rough patch, but these people can support you, but you can only get supported if you ask for it.

And so sometimes I think it's scary to put in, like, a Slack channel or Discord or Circle or wherever, to be like, hey, I'm struggling, or, hey, I'm having a bad day. I would say the other thing, too. That's not really a faux pas, but it's a mindset is both an.

And you could be having the greatest day in the world, celebrate it. And someone could be having their worst day.

You could be having their worst day, and someone could be having a great day and learning how to show up for those people and still show up for yourself. And a lot of people are just like, oh, I'll ignore it. I won't do it.

It's a really good mindset to have because life could be such a big spag and business can be going well and personal life could be harder, or your personal life, you know, vice versa. And that's where I think a lot of people just like shrink versus, you know, take up a lot of space.

Like really allow yourself to be seen in a way you haven't before.

I love that and I love how you took this concept of, you know, a faux pas and turned it into something positive and focus and less on, you know, shrinking down, like you said, and making yourself feel less and work on cultivating that community and just sharing what's going on in your business. I think that's really powerful.

Yeah, I would agree. I think, like, some of the hardest moments I had in business before I had people to share with, I probably would have walked away.

And sometimes it's nice for people. My friend Cass always says it's not that deep. And I always pair it with.

We just work in marketing and sometimes it's nice for someone to pull you out of, like your brain will hyper fixate on negative things because it's cool survival.

And if you can get pulled out of that or someone can say like, hey, I went through the same thing and this is what we did and this is what I've learned. It's so nice because on the other end too, you can be looking at that and see like a mistake and be like, oh, I'm not going to do that.

Yeah, I love that. Meghan, you are someone who's helped hundreds of entrepreneurs improve their sales processes. You are a coach. You have your own masterminds.

And I know all of that keeps you really busy. But I'm curious, what's next for you?

You know, this is like the question I feel like everybody asks. I am actually in 22 days going to Europe for six weeks. It is my first solo trip. It's my second time being out of the country.

First time I went to Canada, basically the extension of the US Next year we will be coming into year seven. So we're in year six right now.

We haven't updated my bio and God knows how long, which is funny, but I think for me it's continuing to facilitate this. I am local to Colorado Springs and I would really, really love to grow a bigger community of female entrepreneurs here. I feel like there's some.

But there's a really big hole of just coming together and people having tangible stuff, which I've also kind of learned. And obviously writing the book, the scale to 5k book. I recently saw a friend who was like, I think you need to publish Shop.

She's like, I think you need to do an advance. So that's going to be the majority of next year. And then Just continuing run my business, probably do some travel. I think I'm do Asia next year.

I'm in like I gave myself a two year deadline to travel as much as I wanted and then I was like, I'll come home and settle down. But I'm like for now, get all the stuff out.

I love that.

If somebody is listening to what you're sharing about Mastermind and interested either in participating in your Mastermind or following up with you, where's the best place for them to do that?

Instagram. Send me a quick little message, check all my requests.

And if you're someone who's like looking for a Mastermind mission, income is going to be your best bet. We're currently in a promotional period but we will also have it available next year.

It is just a really good beginner mastermind that we pair a lot of strategy and some of like the boring stuff about business that is really important for scaling and scaling so you're not working more and making more, just working less, making more. And then if you are kind of at a higher level, we do also have like a high level mastermind that we do some interviews and stuff for.

Amazing. The links for all of that will be in the description.

So if you're listening and any of that piqued your curiosity, it's right there for you after this episode. Megan, thank you so much for joining. I really enjoyed our conversation and I know every everyone listening got a lot out of it.

Thank you for having me.

Thank you for listening to this episode of the Growth Pod. I look forward to seeing you in the next one.