Live mastermind event excels LA small biz owners…where were you?

Just this past Wednesday, as many Angelenos were heading home after a long days work, a select group of smart-minded LA small business owners gathered for the monthly O.N.E. (OneCoach Networking Event), which was once again held at the inspiring entrepreneurial work space of BLANKSPACES, designed and owned by Jerome Chang.

The evening consisted of networking, a thought provoking presentation on how to communicate and market to each generation effectively, and then of course a powerful session of masterminding with 2 Los Angeles based small business owners - Jeannette Jones of ‘Purveyors of Time’ and Scott Stephenson of ‘WSI Interenet Marketing Strategies’.

What is masterminding?  Well…a mastermind group is simply an alliance of two or more individuals dedicating themselves to a specific goal.  In this case that goal involves the growth of your business.  How do you do it?  Well I’m glad you asked!

1. A pre-selected small business owner comes to the front of the room and takes the ‘Hot Seat’.

2. The small business owner then has 60 seconds to state who they are, what their business is, and what is the single greatest challenge in their business right now.

3. The other small business attendees then have 5 minutes to ask the ‘Hot Seat’ participant clarifying questions around what the challenge is.  It is extremely important that all parties involved get very specific around what the problem is, to best service the mastermind.

4. As the participants get ready to mastermind there is one last rule…the ‘Hot Seater’ cannot speak but to simply say ‘Thank You’, this will ensure a positive flow of energy in the activity.  Ready…Go…!  The group has 7 minutes to mastermind - throwing out ideas in a rapid fire pace, one after the other, and as the momentum accelerates not to worry, we have a transcriber in the room capturing all the brilliant ideas.  The energy in the room is electric as one idea spawns to a new one, and a new one until eventually you have 20 -30 business building tips wrapped around a single challenge.

The coolest thing is that anyone of the participants is bound to find a handful of those tips for use in their own business as everyone gets the transcribed session emailed to them the next day.  Very powerful stuff and extremely fun - if you havn’t witnessed a live mastermind session I highly encourage it.

Another crucial factor in growing any small business is understanding generational differences and how to market to them effectively…be sure and click below.

Understanding the generational differences of your prospects will enable you to be keenly aware of their needs and wants on a generational level.  For example, when choosing your marketing channels you’ll want to keep these simple points in mind;

Veterans (age 63+) •    Veterans are the generation most likely to read a sales letter or postcard, they will also be the ones to take their time reading through an entire email without skimming through it.

Boomers (age 44-62) •    They enjoy a team-based approach and are more prone to in-person or phone conversations, so a phone call, meeting or an event may be a good way to attract Boomers to your business.

Gen X (age 28-43)

•    They grew up playing video games, using p.c.’s and are used to having information at their fingertips, and as a result, they have a short attention span and prefer communication to be “short and sweet”: through email.

Nexters (age 9-27) nizoral •    They grew up being coddled by their parents, teachers, coaches and tutors. They are used to immediate feedback, therefore they communicate best on email, but also respond to text messages, instant messages and video & audio messaging. (btw- if it takes 2 minutes to download your message, they are not going to bother with it).

if you can do this…you can grow your revenues exponentially!