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Intraprenuership and the Magic Mastermind Team Formula

What to do to get a promotion:

Be an intraprenuer! Use the Magic Mastermind Team Formula.

Do you want to move up the ladder at work? Here’s how!
Become an Intraprenuer. Use the FindAMentor Intraprenuer success strategy here:

Start a good idea project within your company and see it through. Make it succeed. Be the champion of the cause. How do you do it? The best way to be an effective intraprenuer is by organizing and leading a mastermind group.

Use this ‘channeled from above’, Magic Mastermind Team Formula. One of my mentors shared it with me when I was 18 after he went into a trance like meditation and wrote notes, and I’ve seen it work powerfully many times in businesses I’ve worked in, owned and consulted too. I saved the note because I was so intrigued.

Intraprenuership and the Magic Mastermind Team Formula

Intraprenuership and the Magic Mastermind Team Formula


“4 wise men close and two distant, make up the nucleus of your mastermind. One of the four is two.”

I’ve witnessed teams of four to six make incredible things happen for businesses throughout my career. I’ve been part of some of those teams and any time I go into a business I look for the number of people in key teams. When I see teams of four to six people that work together really well together, I see success.

Jesus’ mastermind group was thirteen including him, but the mastermind who brought his message to the world in the form of gospels was 4.

Follow the magic mastermind team formula while you implement the 5 step intraprenuer success strategy.

1) Get a buy in from the management. If the management doesn’t buy in choose another project. Get buy in. People from management could very well be the 2 distant members of your mastermind team. Another option for a distant member might be a consultant, accountant or lawyer. Someone from the outside that can share a different and fresh perspective. Use your 2 distant members to run ideas by and get more perspective on your project progress as it evolves.
2) Assemble a 4 person team that have the right skills to assist you in the achievement. Be the leader. This is your nucleus team. They drive the project as a mastermind group. ‘One of the four is two’, means that one of the four members on the team will always see both sides of an equation and be able to show realistic pro’s and cons to any process being decided upon — sharing full perspective and all possible outcomes. Often this role is called a devil’s advocate.
3) Set a consistent meeting schedule for the team.

  • Do 4 things in the first meeting:
    i) Set the goals and timeframes.
    ii) Decide which team member is best to take on the different tasks and duties according to strengths. Assign tasks and duties to each team member. Give deadlines.
    iii) Decide on a consistent meeting schedule.
    iv) Decide the agenda of each meeting. Take minutes each meeting and start all meetings with last meeting minute review. In each meeting get reports from each member including progress on his/her tasks as well as their objectives going forward. Include compliments and challenges. Finish with round table — any other concerns or questions for discussion. Give each other feedback. In the round table discussion make sure most feedback is positive and encouraging. Follow the 4 to 1 rule when giving negative feedback — think of 4 positives to give the person you gave the negative too. Do the 4X positive reinforcements as a team and over time if needed.
  • Follow the specific agenda, as above in 3a, in each meeting.
  • Assign members of the team action items discussed in the meetings and ask for realistic deadlines. When the deadlines aren’t met, set another in the next meeting.
  • Send a copy of minutes to all members to confirm interpretation of decisions and things talked about. Adjust minutes if needed.

4) As the Champion, check in with each team member on a consistent basis using short one-on-one meetings.
5) Lead by example. Be a good leader. Do what you say you will. Keep your agreements, both spoken and unspoken, and renegotiate when you can’t.

Enjoy being an intraprenuer using the Magic Mastermind Formula and watch your career advance.

Learn the 4 steps to use your inner Higher Power

We all have two selves at least. Maybe we all have more. LOL. Many say we have a conscious mind and a sub conscious. Some say we have a higher self. Eckhart Tolle says we have a witness type self inside us that sees, hears and feels our thoughts and feelings separate from them actually.

We often will say to ourselves things like “That was a silly thing to do Mike” as if it’s a different person witnessing and commenting on what I, or we, did. I see that second witness self as a higher power. Something that helps us rise above our persona. Our persona is that person we put out there for the world to see. And many of us show different people depending on whom we are interacting with. That’s why I say we have many selves. We might have one for family, one for work people, one for church people, one for kids, one for friends, etc. But we all also have a higher self that gives us higher power. One that sees who we really are in all situations. One that can help us move through any situation with ease when we access it correctly.

The first step to getting in touch with our higher power is through awareness. It’s the beginning of the process that changes our life. Start your awareness by looking at what are you truly thinking and feeling and most important, intending. Be honest with what you’re seeing about who you are. Own it and feel it for a moment and then do the next step.

The second step to changing things is to rise above and see ourselves as a separate person. Move into that higher level of awareness. Be the separate higher person or higher awareness. Once there, sit for a moment in the NOW and in the awareness of these true thoughts, emotions and intentions you are witnessing.

If they are negative, own them as your struggling self that has desire to change. If they are positive feel some gratitude and build on your positive self. We have all been told about the power of positive thought, emotion and intention — it’s all true. Every great thinker and great achiever in the world will tell you to be positive, to think big, to dream, to set goals, to feel positive and to intend positive — to stay positive as you move through struggle and stick it out, even when its uncomfortable and negative.

To be dynamic and move through change with some ease, take the second step and separate from your negative thoughts and feelings as you notice them. Rise above and see them as a third self. Rise above with your higher self and say to yourself that you can change them and you are beginning to do it NOW.

The third step is preparation for when you are feeling negative. Build a positive self that you can refer to when you notice the negative. Start now and do it whenever you think of it. Get in touch with some positive aspect of yourself. Gratitude is often one of the easiest processes used in shifting negative to positive. What can you be grateful for right now? If you need a boost in gratitude, watch this 10 minute video by Louie Schwartzberg on Gratitude. It s the best one I’ve seen on the topic so far. (Watch Video)

Think about your strengths. What good things have people told you about you? Put those characteristics in your positive self. Think of your accomplishments. Think of your goals and dreams—put them in your positive self.
Create a safe cave inside yourself to keep this positive person you want to be in. Bring in light and create the self you want to be in that cave. See that person. Let this positive person inside you evolve and continue to build on it every time you feel grateful, get a compliment or achieve something. The Lemurians did it. They would go into a cave and act the person they wanted to be, no matter what was going on in the real world, outside the cave.
Step four is accessing the cave and this person the next time you are feeling negative. Practice whenever you think of it and develop the habit. Every time you feel negative, rise above the situation and look down on it. Then look into the cave and invoke the positive you to replace the negative you. The more you do it, the quicker the habit will develop. Start practicing now. Start building that positive self and the safe cave inside you now. Then practice bringing him or her out whenever you think of it. Practicing is what life is all about. We are all practicing. Doctors and lawyers say it and do it all the time.

Use your higher power to rise above into awareness and look down on your negative self, own it and embrace it, and then access the positive cave man or woman and be him or her. You can do it. We all can and it will make the world around us a better place.

Watch the FindAMentor people tune up video series to get a path to you higher self and follow it. Read the FindAMentor 12 Simple Tricks to Success blog post series. Do whatever it takes to get you back on your winning journey. Each one of us started our life here on Earth as a winner. Each one of us beat out millions of others to fertilize that egg inside our mothers. Each one of us is a one in a million winner. Get back in touch with your higher self and back on that winning journey. Join our FindAMentor Gold Club and get some life coaching from me in monthly webinars.

Enjoy the journey. Enjoy your higher self and higher power. Use it to be the person you want. Thanks for reading.

Mike Garska,
FindAMentor.com

How to Make Money with a Mentor Mastermind Program

Are you wondering how to get some return on investment from a corporate mentor program? Here are 4 Key measurable benefits of a mentor program that provide ROI you can measure, and if you add masterminding systems into the formula you can make more sales and create more happy customers:

  1. A good mentor program effects on-boarding so new employees stay longer. Measure how many, and how long employees stay. ie; 12 weeks, 6 months, 1 yr., 2 yrs. When measured you will see how this benefit translates into reduced hiring costs. How much does it cost you to hire an employee? How many did you hire last year for existing positions and for new positions?
  2. Training is enhanced with effective mentoring and employee’s learning curves increase so employees are more productive and happier. This is measured by measuring work performance. How do you measure and track your different groups work performance? Do you need a system? You can learn how to measure productivity on line or with a consultant. You can track things like sales, customer service call length and repeats, shipments per day, forms per day, etc. Measure it consistently to improve. Watch how your mentor program reduces things like customer service call times and repeat calls.
  3. Communication and information flow is expanded so employees are more informed, happier, satisfied and therefore more productive. You can track employee satisfaction with surveys and measure improvements. Some companies measure employee satisfaction once every five years, others more often and some never. Employee satisfaction translates into improved performance and employee retention — both measurable in dollars if you put in the systems to track employee hiring costs and productivity.
  4. Future leaders are identified thereby managing talent asset succession. Tacit knowledge (knowledge that cannot be written down) is transferred from the mature part of the workforce to the future leaders. We’ve found that young people love mentor programs. Old people resist them. They don’t know how to mentor, are worried about time requirements put on them and doubt the benefits.

Train your mentors and utilize them to identify the best future leaders. Those that are identified as the future leaders will develop a sense of loyalty and stick around longer. They will pass on the knowledge as well. Your culture becomes one of learning in collaboration and the sense of belonging is developed. This learning process moves throughout your work culture, so you build healthy workforce and add longevity to you business.

Leaders control the growth of your company. Mentor programs help them lead more effectively and communicate better with the team. Your leaders are responsible for growth. When they are given the tools to lead, and properly trained people to work with, your company grows.

When you add masterminding systems into your business learning environments you can improve sales and customer service dramatically. Assemble mastermind systems for your sales people and your customer service people. Have your sales teams and your customer service teams meet daily at the end of each day and talk about every call they made. The wins, the challenges, what he said, what she said, what worked, what didn’t, etc. Keep the meetings as short as you can but allow enough time for each person to share the important details of each call they made that day in round table discussion. The learning curves for each team member increases rapidly and they perform much better.

You might get some negative response to this idea at first, but after 2 or 3 months each member will see the value and realize the benefits. Sales people buck daily meetings but when they see sales increase they buy in. Your company sales will grow and your customer service will be the best in class. Customer retention will be better than ever. Customer acquisition is usually much more expensive than customer retention. Give them the best service and you will see them come back again and again and recommend you to their friends.

I was part of a young sales team where all the sales guys were under thirty. We met every day sharing every sales call with the team. There were 4 sales guys and a manager. He was under thirty too. All of our competitor’s sales teams averaged an age over 40. We kicked their buts after 2 years of meeting daily. We increased sales year over year by 30% while I was there in it was one of the toughest economies Alberta ever saw in the mid 1980’s.

I helped a paper company set up a masterminding system for a new customer service team. The company just opened in a new market and a customer survey told them the competitors had more knowledgeable customer service people. We set up a daily pow wow’s where the 4 team members, and their manager, met at the end of every day and discussed each important CS call. The learning curves of each Customer Service person increased rapidly, and effectively, so the next time the survey was done, the issue never showed up and the company achieved 1/3rd market share within 3 years of entering the market. Masterminding works really well to increase learning curves, engagement and accountability.

The ROI from an effective mentor mastermind program comes in the form of cost savings for people hiring and development, and is enhanced by increased customer service, resulting in customer loyalty and increased sales.
FindAMentor.com can help you with culture assessment and effective implementation. We can help you with training mentors and implementing mastermind systems. We offer the only ISO recognized mentor training available in the world at this time. ISO-17024 compliant. We can help you measure program effectiveness and employee satisfaction with our surveys.

If you think you might be interested in starting a mentor program on your own and want a free mentor program consultation, please go to the Contact Us page and fill out the form or go to the corporate MMP (Mentor Mastermind Program) section at FindAMentor.com for an affordable on line solution to book a demonstration with us.
Thank you for reading. Have a great day.

Mike Garska,
President. FindAMentor

MMP Don’ts

The 5 don’ts for a successful company mentor mastermind program (MMP).

Do you have a mentor program working in your business? Is it working as well as you wanted? If you’re thinking of implementing a mentor program there are some key things to avoid, to make sure you realize a ROI:

  1. If senior management doesn’t fully support the program, it will likely be discarded. Don’t bother starting it. Get buy in and participation from senior management first. There are some key benefits to starting a mentor program that management needs to be aware of in the beginning.

    Get at least one member of senior management to participate as a mentor. Get at least one member of senior management to be a part of the mastermind team that is responsible for implementing the program.

    The program champion or administrator must provide reports on how the program is providing ROI. Compare past retention rates to new ones year over year. Include retention rates on new hires. How many stay how long? Compare hiring costs yr. over yr. How many new hires? How many are replacement positions? How many are new positions? How much are you spending on training for employees yr. over yr.? (Include internal training soft costs — how much time are managers or other employees spending on training, and external programs) You can hire a consultant team to help you with measuring ROI for a mentor program. Follow suggestions in item 5 on this list.

  2. Don’t start without a system to implement and manage the program. If you leave the mentor program up to chance and just encourage it without providing clear guidance for the participants, it will likely fall by the wayside. Set up systems to match partners as well as guide and track mentor sessions. Either get an online system to do it for you and provide reports, or build a manual one tracked within a file system. Create your own reports for the management and the participants. Let people know what’s going on with the program. Track ROI.
  3. Don’t start without providing mentors with training. Mentors often don’t know how to mentor. Train them. Hire an external trainer or make some online courses available to them. FindAMentor.com offers ISO 17024 Certified Mentor Training.
  4. Don’t start if the company culture doesn’t support mentoring. You can do a culture assessment to see if the company is ready for a mentor program.

    Who are the senior management people that see value in the program? Will one or more of them participate? Do you have people capable of mentoring that see the benefit in mentoring? How many? When we’ve implemented mentor programs for companies, there haven’t always been enough mentors that are willing to participate or that see the value. Often it’s because they have no idea how to mentor someone. They want and need a format and structure guidelines to follow. Don’t make people mentor someone if they don’t want to.

    There have always been mentees willing to participate and who look forward to the program. People like to learn and increase their perceived value to the workplace. They often see having a mentor as a way to grow their value.

  5. Don’t start if you’re not willing to track results and effectiveness and make changes. Measure and adjust effectiveness of matches and sessions. Rate mentees progress and compare to other mentees in program. Use surveys and one-on–one inquiry sessions to see what participants think about making the program better. Do it over time. Give your program 2 years to evolve and make adjustments every six months and minimum once per year. Measure the things for tracking ROI in item 1.

See the 4 Key measurable benefits of a mentor program that provides ROI — tracking and measurement is required . Check other blog posts.

FindAMentor.com can help with culture assessment and effective implementation. We help you with mentor training. We can help you measure program effectiveness and employee satisfaction with our surveys. Fill out the form at FindAMentor MMP to get a free consultation to help you with your existing mentor program or to see if you’re ready for our mentor mastermind program now.

Thanks for reading. Have a wonderful day.

Mike Garska, President.
FindAMentor.com

Stocks Surge. Human Capital to Crash?

Stocks Surge

Stocks Surge. Human Capital to Crash?
For decades, the retirement of Baby Boomers has been discussed as a LOOMING ECONOMIC THREAT. The recent recession delayed the inevitable as billions in retirement savings vanished and forced many to stay in the workforce longer than anticipated. In a recent survey, the Transamerica Center for Retirement Studies (TCRS) found that retirement confidence has been recovering in step with the slow economic recovery over the past few years. In late 2016, 62% of Baby Boomers reported being confident that they will be able to fully retire with a comfortable lifestyle, which was up significantly from just 49% in their 2012 survey.

In the last few months, the Dow Jones Industrial Average has surged up from 18,000 and has been holding steady near 20,000. What impact will this dramatic post-electoral surge, if sustained at any level, have on retirement rates? Over 10,000 American workers are hitting the average retirement age of 65 every day and 9 MILLION are already past retirement age; many having postponed their retirement due to financial instability. US companies are inevitably facing retirement rates nearly twice as high as ever before. The question is WHEN, not IF companies will be forced to swallow this retirement backlog like a mouse moving through a snake. A chart of workforce makeup by age group illustrates the coming wave. In 1980, all Boomers were in the 16-34 age group; in 2000, they fell into the 36-54 group. By 2019, the Boomers will all be 55 and older with over half having already passed the Social Security retirement age of 65.

Stocks Surge Percentage Workforce by Age Group

The group of workforce participants now approaching or past retirement age, mostly Boomers, have been the lynchpin of organizational vitality since the ‘70s. They have already left an indelible mark on the US economy and have set leadership and cultural standards for US businesses. However, it may be how the mass exodus of this celebrated generation is orchestrated that will cement their legacy. Who will FILL THE VOID? And HOW?

Measured by unemployment rates alone the recession’s impact on the labor market was equal to the recession in the early ‘80s, but the influence it will have on organizations moving forward will be much more impactful. The participation rate of workers 16-54 has dropped 3% since 2000, while the labor force grew 12%. The increase in available jobs were filled entirely by workers 55 and older, as this age group increased 91% over the same period, compared to a decrease in the 16-54 group. With the unemployment rate for workers 25-54 approaching lows of 3%, companies will be forced to reach all the way down to the youngest of eligible workers to fill the gaps. Unfortunately, these are the same workers who, until recently, have been held out of the labor force at record rates, gaining little to no work experience. The net result is that those who will be sucked in to fill the void left by the MOST EXPERIENCED WORKFORCE in history will have the LEAST EXPERIENCE in history.

Stocks Surge Workforce by Age

Economist Theodore Schultz invented the term “human capital” in the 1960s to reflect the value of human capacities. He believed human capital was like any other type of capital; it could be invested in through education and training to increase workforce productivity. Today, the Association of Talent Development (ATD), the world’s largest association dedicated to those who develop talent in organizations, estimates that US companies invest over $150B in human capital annually. How will companies leverage the TRILLIONS OF DOLLARS in human capital investments poured into the exiting workforce? Companies prepared to transition their workforce will be able to swallow the mouse with ease and yield a net gain. For others, it will seem more like a snake trying to swallow a horse, rather than a mouse.

The good news is that it’s not yet too late to develop a strong transition plan, but with the recent changes in the economy, the time to act is now before all that knowledge, skills, and experience walk out the door, for good.
Per the TCRS report, the good news is only 26% of Baby Boomers plan to stop working immediately once they reach a certain age or attain a certain level of financial security. Instead, 39% plan to reduce hours or continue working in a different capacity. It would serve employers well to embrace this desire by finding new, meaningful ways for employees at or near retirement age to contribute to their organization. In fact, it will be a critical part of mitigating the LOSS OF HUMAN CAPITAL.

There is more good news, while the workforce expected to replace the retiring Baby Boomers will come with less experience than ever before, they also bring the strongest educational background. For the first time in American history, over one-third of the nation’s 25-29 year olds have completed at least a bachelor’s degree, according to an analysis by the Pew Research Center. In comparison, just 12 percent of people in that age group earned a bachelor’s degree 40 years ago. However, the mature soft skills and job related knowledge of the exiting Baby Boomer population will be severely missed.

Unlike Theodore Shultz’s theory that human capital is just like any other capital, knowledge, skills, and experience can be shared and passed down in varying capacities. At the very least, learning can be accelerated through proper knowledge-share practices. Many top companies have put systems and processes in place to ensure they can effectively operate somewhat independent of the people performing the job, but this doesn’t cover all aspects of what an experienced employee offers to an organization. There exists TACIT KNOWLEDGE within an organization that cannot be easily transferred through written means. The only way to transfer this type of knowledge is through human interaction, over time. The best of the best already have mechanisms in place to transfer this knowledge on a regular basis. Seventy percent of the Fortune 500 companies report having a structured mentoring program in place to transfer knowledge before it walks out the door for good. Also, many of the same companies offer would-be retirees alternative methods to sunset their careers in the form of reduced work schedules and transitioning some into full or part-time mentorship roles.

These Fortune 500 companies and many others have found that a structured mentorship program serves three primary functions related to the potentially disastrous prospect of knowledge, skills, and experience abruptly walking out the door:
1) It re-engages employees thinking about retirement by establishing a new sense of purpose. Both increasing productivity and preventing the loss of human capital investments.
2) It engages and accelerates the development of the younger workforce, thereby reducing the time to maximum productivity and overall turnover.
3) It sets a natural succession plan in place when workers finally decide to exit the workplace entirely.

We suggest a 3-step plan to make this happen:
1. Define the behavioral and cognitive requirements necessary to predict success in the job and screen candidates based on fits and gaps.
2. Interview based on an individual’s attitude, values, and commitment to excellence, rather than just knowledge, skills, and experience.
3. Engage your workforce, especially your seasoned workforce, in cascading knowledge through a structured mentoring program to develop a natural succession plan and preserve your human capital investments.

What will your minimal human capital investments in this 3-step plan yield? First, hiring practices based on behavioral, cognitive, and cultural fits for a job greatly increases the candidate’s likelihood of success. It’s undeniable that turnover due to retirement alone is expected to skyrocket in the very near future, therefore increasing your odds of bringing in the right talent will have a lasting positive impact on your organization and more importantly prevent the serious, negative consequences of continuing to invest in the wrong people. Second, the RIGHT TALENT can be accelerated through MENTORSHIP PROGRAMS, while the WRONG TALENT will walk out, be shown the door, or languish in a group of sub-par performers.

In many cases, you already have the knowledge, skills, and experience in your organization to succeed. Just don’t let your human capital investments evaporate as the economy rebounds.
Thank you for reading. If you found this information useful, please share it freely with your network.

For more information on putting together a successful mentor program read our articles, Don’t Waste Your Time with a Mentor Program and Don’t Bog Down the Mentors. As always, we are here to help.
About the Author:
Devin Lebrun, founder of Nuvivi, believes we are all born beautifully talented and exceptionally gifted. The path to massive success is simple. Recruit people into positions that leverage their innate abilities. Equip them with the necessary knowledge and skills. Match them with mentors who help them grow from past and present experiences. Watch their creativity and passion take your organization to new levels.
Nuvivi is partnered with FindAMentor and The Predictive Group to provide organizations with success tools. If you would like to get more out of your workforce, contact Devin at dlebrun@nuvivi.com or through LinkedIn for free consultation.

Socratic Mentoring. Do it.

The Socratic method of questioning is named after the Greek philosopher Socrates (469 BC–399 BC). Socratic questioning is a way to mentor or coach someone. It is used to invoke critical thinking. Socratic Mentoring involves a shared dialogue between mentor and mentee. The Mentor leads by posing thought-provoking questions. Mentees actively engage by asking questions of their own. The discussion goes back and forth. If you want to find a mentor online or anywhere, make Socratic Mentoring part of your criteria for selecting a mentor. If you want to be a mentor, learn the Socratic method.

“Socratic questioning is a systematic process for examining the ideas, questions, and answers that form the basis of human belief. It involves recognizing that all new understanding is linked to prior understanding, that thought itself is a continuous thread woven throughout lives rather than isolated sets of questions and answers.” (Copeland, M. (2005), p. 7-8)

The benefits of Socratic mentoring are that mentees learn to find answers to their questions inside themselves. The method allows for development of critical thinking habits and evolution of ideas and beliefs. Both the mentor and mentee learn in the process. Using a Socratic Method, we learn that people are individuals and we learn to respect differences without negative judgement. As a mentor we gain deeper understanding of our mentees and therefore may offer different guidance than we would without a questioning process. We learn about ourselves as well.

“The Socratic Method has evolved to include Socratic circles and Socratic seminars.” I call these groups Socratic Masterminds and they can be very effective in business. “Participants are encouraged to ‘paraphrase’ essential elements of another’s ideas before responding, either in support of, or in, disagreement. Members of the dialogue look each other in the ‘eyes’ and use each other names. This simple act of socialization reinforces appropriate behaviors and promotes team building.” (Socratic Seminars). The questioning process in a group environment increases learning curves for each member and they learn more, quicker. Each member in the group learns from each other’s success and failures so they can turn their personal Struggles into Opportunities into Success. SOS.
Use the Socratic Method to mentor and train the Millennials in your company and watch them grow and achieve for you. Make it part of your mentoring program. Include it in your mentoring definitions and make it part of your mentor training. Thanks for reading.

Mike Garska, President.
FindAMentor.com

Don’t make New Year’s resolutions!

Don’t make New Year’s resolutions!

If you are not 100% sure you are going to keep all of your new year’s resolutions and see them through to completion, don’t make them. Don’t build on unsuccessful habits.

When we achieve our goals our confidence and belief grows and we build on, and develop, success habits. When we don’t hit our target or get close to it, we build on unsuccessful thought and emotion habits.

Don't Make New Year Resolution
I want you to build the habit of winning and succeeding and achieving the things you want in your life. Make commitments to things that drive you. That you won’t give up on, no matter what. If you have that strong desire to make something happen for you in 2017, commit to it and “never, never, never, never — give in,” said Churchill. If you want to call it a resolution, do so. But only commit to goals that you are willing to do whatever it takes, to achieve them. To keep it simple try making only one key resolution this year. Commit to it.

Write it down. Tell someone else about it, but only the people you trust will support you. Report your progress to them consistently, until you achieve it. Tell a mentor or mastermind partner. You don’t have to tell anyone else, and sometimes when we tell the wrong people about our goals they discourage us and feed us doubt. Don’t let yourself build doubting Thomas habits. Don’t tell those people about your New Year’s resolution or any other goal.

It’s important to have a comrade when you are committing to any important goal. Someone you can send weekly progress reports to and discuss. Dr. Gail Matthews of Dominican University did a goal writing and commitment study. She noted when those people who wrote their goals down and reported weekly to a colleague that the, “positive effect of accountability was supported: those who sent weekly progress reports to their friend accomplished significantly more than those who had unwritten goals, wrote their goals, formulated action commitments or sent those action commitments to a friend.” In fact, those who didn’t write goals down achieved less than ½ of those who did. Which half of the population do you want to be in. Those who succeed or those who don’t. Both are habits. Choose your habits wisely. Use the tools we give you at FindAMentor.com to help you build success habits.

If you want to be in the crowd of achieving significantly more than others, write your goals down and report your progress weekly to a supportive friend, mentor, or mastermind partner. Develop this habit for all of your goals and you will be amazed at the outcome and yourself.

Have a great 2017. Go out make it an awesome year by developing some awesome success habits.

Thanks for reading.
Mike Garska, President, FindAMentor.com

Enjoy the 3 gifts of Christmas sharing!

Hi Everybody,
Merry Christmas and Happy Holidays from FindAMentor.

Enjoy the 3 gifts of Christmas sharing this holiday season with your family and all of your mentors — your family mentors, your friend mentors, your co-worker mentors.

Thank you for being a part of the EPIC Mentor Network at FindAMentor.com. Thank you for being a mentor if you are one of our mentors. Thank you for being a mentee if you are one of our mentees. Thank you to our masterminding members. I hope all of you are enjoying the gift of sharing knowledge and experiences.

I want to take this opportunity to wish all of you a very Merry Christmas and to remind you to take advantage of the 3 gifts of Christmas.

Gift 1. The joy of giving. Enjoy it. Be present in it. It’s a gift in itself.

Gift 2. The joy of receiving and feeling gratitude. Don’t miss this wonderful opportunity to feel gratitude and share it often this season. Share your gratitude with your co-workers. Thank them for everything they’ve helped you with this past year. Take the time to think of at least one thing to thank your co-workers for this holiday season.
All of our co-workers can be utilized as a mentor in some way. Remember, with some people we can learn what to do and from some we learn what not to do. We can learn something from everyone. Be grateful. Be genuine. Thank someone you haven’t thanked before.
I think of all my family members as mentors in some aspects of life. Remember there is no one mentor we want to be exactly like. Learn to adopt the good characteristics that you like about your family and friends. Take the opportunity to share gratitude with them this holiday season for the good parts of them you learned from. Just do it. Thank them.

Gift 3. The joy of presence. It’s cool that presence can be a present. Sometimes all we have to give is our presence and the love we feel. There’s joy in giving love. Be extra present to everyone this season, especially the people you love dearly.

Ask questions genuinely, listen closely and let the internal chatter go for a moment and try to invoke some empathy. Feel them. They’ll appreciate it and you will experience the gift of listening and hearing. When you give the gift of authentic presence and empathy, you get bonus gifts of experiencing listening, hearing and learning.

Cheers. Have a wonderful holiday season.
Mike Garska and the team at FindAMentor.com

Masterminding and Mentoring in a 5 Step Process

Masterminding: “When two or more minds come together a third invisible intangible force is created likened to a third mind.”… Napoleon Hill. “The Master Key to Riches”

Mentoring is a form of masterminding. 2 minds coming together for the common purpose of unleashing intelligence. There are other forms of masterminding opportunities within a company, that when guided effectively, can take your company to a new level of experiential knowledge. Think of each team in your company as a mastermind team and guide them more effectively. A sales team is a mastermind. An accounting team is a mastermind. A production team is a mastermind. Etc.

One of the most exiting mastermind teams I was on was a sales mastermind group. We were a young group of 5 all under 30 years old, working in a very competitive equipment rental industry, in a recession economy, where the other company’s teams were much more mature and experienced. Our mastermind team increased sales 30% year over year for 3 years in a row, while the competitors sales were decreasing.

How did we do it? We met daily. Most sales teams meet weekly. Our advantage in the recessive economy was the daily mastermind sessions. We had the common goal of increasing sales as individuals and as a team and we were all driven to be the best. At the end of each day, after completing our outside sales calls, the team of 4 sales reps met with the sales manager. We did a round table discussion. Each member of the team discussed each and every sales call they made. For each call they shared what went good, what went bad, what the customer said, what the sales person said. We discussed what could have been done different when it applied. We learned from each other’s mistakes and from each other’s wins. The quality of each person’s sales calls increased dramatically in a short period of time.

Learning curves increase naturally and dramatically in a masterminding environment.

Masterminding and Mentoring in a 5 step process to 4X Learning

Masterminding and Mentoring in a 5 step process to 4X Learning

When I started consulting, one of my client’s customer surveys told them that their weakness in comparison to the competitor was lack of industry knowledge with customer service people. They were a strong competitor new to the market. The competition had been in the market for 20 years. My customer was here for 12 months and grabbing market share, but they wanted more and wanted it quicker. Customer service was the key.

We set up a system for masterminding with the customer service team and set a goal for one-call customer service. There were 4 members on the CS team and a manager. At the end of each day, the outside sales team came in to the office and monitored the customer service phones while they completed their paper work, etc. This freed up the CS team for a mastermind session each day.

The CS manager came out of his office at 4 PM, and the CS team, working in a square cubical system, all stood up at their desks and went through their CS calls for the day. They discussed the challenges, the solutions and wins they came up with for customers. Each team member learned from the others and the knowledge for each team member grew daily and they learned from 4 people’s experience rather than just their own. It 4X their knowledge growth each day.

Why does this masterminding system work so well?

The reason well organized and structured mastermind teams work so well to achieve objectives is simple and it’s been proven in a study done by Gail Matthews of Dominican University at the turn of the century. Matthews put people into 3 groups and recorded their progress on achieving goals.

The 1st group set goals in their mind but never wrote them down. The 2nd group set goals and wrote them down. The 3rd group set goals, wrote them down and set up a system to report their progress to someone on a scheduled and consistent basis.

The group who wrote goals down achieved significantly more than those who did not. The group who wrote goals down and kept themselves accountable to someone else, achieved yet another level of progress unmatched by all the groups. The lesson here is write goals down and keep yourself accountable to others for progress on those goals. The following mastermind system assures your people are writing their goals down and keeping themselves accountable.

How do you implement and use an effective mastermind system?

  1. Set and write down the goals for the team and have each member of the team write down their individual goals. Get each member to write and share; 3 things they want to do better at. 3 challenges they are having. 3 things they are committed to doing that will help them achieve what they want or get through their challenges.
  2. Schedule a consistent time for meetings. Daily, bi-daily, weekly, monthly. What makes sense for your team? With some teams, daily is too much depending on the objectives and desired goal time frame. If you want quick results, meet daily. Don’t waste time. Keep to the agenda.
  3. Set a standard and group round table discussion agenda. What experiences do you want each team member to share? How do you want them to share it? What is the discussion format? Make an effective agenda and stay on track.
  4. Take minutes. Minutes are like writing goals down and they keep people accountable and clear on what they have committed to. Share the minutes with each participant. Begin each meeting with reviewing key items in last meetings minutes and get progress reports when it makes sense.
  5. Keep the meetings going. Don’t stop doing them. Make them part of the company culture. Adjust time frames when it makes sense.

What’s the best size of mastermind group? When I first learned the mastermind principle, one of my mentors shared what he called, a channeled message about ideal mastermind group structure. It was; “Four wise men close and two distant make up the nucleus of your mastermind. One of the four is two.” This was very intriguing to me, so I have been watching and analyzing mastermind teams for 30+ years. I have found that the most powerful and effective teams are 4 to 6 members. Jesus’ mastermind team was 13 so there is obviously room for adjustment here.

‘One of the four is two’ means to me that it’s best to have someone who can play devil’s advocate in the group — seeing both the positive and negative consequences of each idea. An effective mastermind group includes a participant that can explain two sides of any story.

‘Two wise men distant’ can mean having two members of the mastermind group that are not always present at the meetings but hear about the agenda and offer input through one of the four close members. A general manager might be one of the two distant members of a company mastermind team. Maybe an HR person or an outside consultant or mentor. There are many options. Just do it. Set up masterminding teams in your business and guide them. It will 4X your results. Good luck.

Thanks for reading and have a great day.

Mike Garska.
President, FindAMentor.com

8 Steps to Begin a Business

This 8 step guide to starting a business will give you direction so you can you can start your business with confidence. I’m Mike Garska, the president of FindAmentor.com and I started my first business in a very creative way with no money in the bank. At the end of this 8 step guide you can read my story about starting my first business. I started my own cell phone businesses with no money and from the trunk of my car and grew it to 3 stores and 3 million in sales. For over 15 years I’ve coached many family businesses on growing or selling their business, or buying more businesses. I coach and facilitate effective communication flow and team building in family businesses. With this guide I want you to feel confident that you are following the right steps to starting your business.

An 8 step guide to starting a business.

  1. Decide what the right business for you is. Ask yourself many questions. If you are going to go into business for yourself and want to succeed, you will have to commit to the long haul and doing whatever it takes — going the extra mile often. If you are going to commit this deep it is best if there is a passion inside you and /or super high interest in serving through this type of business. Businesses succeed because they serve better than the competition and work through their struggles. It takes work and work is easier and fun if you love what you do and are committed to a purpose. Read our blog about 7 Steps to Find you Passion and Purpose.
  2. Decide when a good time to start is. If you are working now, and want to start something part time, do allot of research before you leave your job and begin. You may want to get some experience in the business you want to open by working for someone else in the same type of business before you begin yourself. How much money you have will be a determinant in deciding when to start.

    Do you have money to buy an existing business? Buying an existing business, after doing proper due diligence, is typically much easier. (due diligence means looking very closely at the business you are buying before making an offer and actually buying the business. If you do not have experience buying a business, hire an accountant and a lawyer and talk to some mentors before you commit to anything. Learn the due diligence process and do it before buying any business.

    When you buy a business you typically get the experienced team that took the business to a decent level of success to date. They are succeeding and if you have a deep passion for the industry and genuine curiosity to learn more, combined with the desire to serve better, you can typically increase profits. You will need to be a good leader and continue to develop leadership skills so you can become one of the best leaders. The best leaders commit to life-long learning.

    If you are starting a business with little or no money —research before you begin. If you are working take time in the evenings to research, research, and research and quit your job when you are very confident your income will be replaced quickly and before you spend all your savings.

  3. Do market research and industry research. If you don’t have experience in the field, you will need to be committed to learning through struggle and research. Know your competition. Learn about the suppliers and the customers. If a business is really competitive, that’s usually a sign that it’s a good business and some people are making money and doing well. Don’t be afraid of competition. Do it better. When there’s very little competition it might be a sign that the business idea is weak but not always.

    If you have a new business idea, maybe the timing is right. Research before you make a decision on a new business idea where there is little competition. Make sure the market is big enough and viable. Ask how difficult it will be to access and reach your market. Ask yourself, and answer honestly: how much customer education do you have to do to sell your product? Is it feasible? Don’t just rely in your opinions or your friends. Do some actual research. Is there enough of a market? Can you get to market with a price that people will pay? Can you get through the business building phase without running out of money resources?

    Ask and find out: What size of business succeeds in this industry? Is it common for people to grow from nothing into a big company in this industry? What is the average EBITDA (Earnings Before Interest, Taxes, Depreciation, and Amortization) in the industry and what size of companies reach the top EBITDA? What is the employee to profit ratio? What is the percent of wages to revenue standard? What is the standard cost of customer acquisition and cost of customer retention?

  4. Commit. Be willing to go the long haul. Always focusing on turning struggle into opportunity into success. After researching, ask yourself if you are willing to do whatever it takes to succeed, to go the long haul, not give up and learn whatever it takes to make this venture work for you? Think long and hard before making this decision. Don’t start your business without a full commitment that you will do whatever it takes for as long as it takes and through whatever struggle comes up. 80% of small businesses fail because the owner either didn’t do enough research before he or she started or because they weren’t able or willing to go the long haul in all the ways necessary for success.

    Remember the vast majority of North Americans work for small businesses. Small business is the backbone of our economy. Many small business owners simply have bought themselves a job and struggle day to day to make ends meat. Many are okay with that because they want to be their own boss. The top 10 or 20% small business owners make allot of money and their business works for them rather than them working for their business. To get to this phase most worked long and hard for 10 years. The most successful small business people I’ve met really began to do well after the ten year mark and were thriving at the twenty year mark. Be willing to go the long haul. This is the norm. The exception are those that make it to the top quickly.

  5. Make 3 plans.
    1) Make a business plan.
    2) Make an operations plan.
    3) Make a cash flow projection plan.
    Research these on the internet to see what they look like or watch for future blogs posts from FAM.
  6. Find out the benefits for you of starting your business as a proprietorship, partnership (if you have a partner) or a limited company and start the business.

    Talk to an accountant and/or business consultant to find out the details of each type of venture and which one benefits you most at this point in time. Consequences of each differ from state to state, province to province and country to country. Typically a limited company has tax and liability advantages but costs more money up front to set up and more money every year to complete tax returns.

    Once you know which is best for you, start the business or buy the one you’ve done your due diligence on. If you are starting from scratch, maybe do it part time at first if funds are low and you have a current job. Set a deadline for yourself to quit your job and have your business support you. Before you actually quit your job, re-evaluate before the deadline you’ve given yourself and make sure it’s the right decision. Set another deadline if you have to and get some guidance from professionals. Your business will really succeed when it becomes your primary focus.

  7. Hire 3 professionals as you need them and can afford them. When I started my first business, one of my mentors told me to get 2 advisors. A really good accountant and a really good lawyer. I think a good business person has 3 primary advisors. I’ve added having a good business coach. When I started in business there weren’t many business coaches around. The scene has changed. There are many now. Instead of hiring a business coach to start, I used 4 mentors as I was building a business from the trunk of my car to 3 stores and 3 million in annual sales. All of them were successful business people and millionaires. Mentoring is a form of free coaching in my mind. Coaching is more intense and often we commit to a coaching process more because we pay for it. I did hire a business coach after about year 6.

    Shop around. Interview a couple or three professionals in each field before hiring them, and making them a part of your team.

    1) Having a great, or at least very good, accountant is most important. Don’t put this one off. Make sure you can afford this one. There are ways to reduce accounting fees by doing the books yourself — tracking and recording clearly all revenues and expenses, and simply having the accountant review them at year end to help you file taxes.

    Review your business model and 3 plans with the accountant when starting the business. Get feedback. Are the plans on paper viable? Have experts look at your numbers. Revamp plans a minimum of once a year and get outside opinions.

    2) When you have to sign contracts you will need a good lawyer to review them before you sign. Read anything you are signing fully yourself. Businesses need to sign leases, buy-sell agreements, supplier agreements, customer contracts or sale agreements, etc. Know the documents. Take the time. Reading them yourself before getting a lawyer’s advice can save money. If you are making up your own agreements have a lawyer review them.

    3) Hire a business coach and find some mentors. Don’t go it alone on business process. As your business builds, you will have to hire teams. The best leaders have the most successful businesses. Coaches help us become better leaders. Use one.

    If you can’t afford a coach, get many mentors. Make sure your mentors have different skill sets. A really successful business person has 3 skill sets. He or she is a good sales person. He or she is a good counter and accounting person. He or she is a good people person — leader. When a business person can do all 3 of these really well, they are really successful.

  8. Sell, Sell, Sell. If you aren’t willing to sell, don’t start or buy a business. Learn the best type of inexpensive marketing for your industry. If you have an online business, learn on-line marketing and sales. If you have a conventional business, learn the marketing and sales aspects of the successful competitors and sell, sell, sell. If you haven’t sold before, learn it and do it. There is no way around this part of growing a business. If you really don’t want to learn sales and can afford it, hire an experienced successful sales person or people. Even with a professional sales team, the owner has to sell at different times though, so learning how to do it is critical to ongoing growth and success.

    Good luck with your business. Good luck comes with hard work, perseverance, patience, persistence, purpose, passion, good communication and empathy — ability to question, listen and understand others.

Mike Garska,
FindAMentor


This is my story of starting a business with no money. I was fired from a job when I was 28. I had 10 years industrial business and industrial sales experience working with other companies in the rolls of Expeditor, Shipper Receiver, Purchaser, Inventory control, Inside Sales Person, Sales co-ordinator, Outside Sales Person, and Sales Manager. I knew how to sell and service Oilfield, Forestry, Mining, Petrochemical and Construction companies. I had a great base of contacts and past clients as well as a very good reputation for offering and servicing great products and services.

I didn’t have any money saved so I had to figure out how to start a business with zero funds. I approached one of my mentors, a business owner who sold and rented industrial construction equipment. He set me up as an independent dealer of his equipment lines an doffered a monthly guarantee.

I needed a car to get to clients offices. When I got fired, I had to give back my company car so I needed a new business vehicle to get around and work. I approached a vehicle leasing company that sold or leased every make and model of car. I told the General Manager that it was the same purchaser who bought trucks and cars for companies that bought the construction equipment and since I would be contacting these people to sell them equipment I could also sell them cars and trucks. I asked for a free car and in exchange for representing the leasing company. He didn’t agree to a free car but he agreed to lease me one at his cost. I went for it.

The next thing I needed was a cell phone. I wanted to be able to have quick contact with customers and I wouldn’t be home to receive calls. Cell phones were new to the world at that time. It was 1987. They were only available in a car mount and cost $3000.00 to buy and over $300 per month on average to operate. That was a big budget for someone starting a new business with no money but a better option than using a much less expensive paging system and pay phones.

I approached one of the two cell phone stores in town at the time and gave the General Manager the same spiel I gave the car leasing manager. It was the same purchaser who bought trucks, cars and construction equipment for companies that bought the cell phones and since I would be contacting these people to sell them equipment and vehicles I could also sell them cell phones. I asked for a free phone and phone line in exchange for representing the cell phone company.

He didn’t agree to free but he agreed to set me up as a dealer, sell me phones at wholesale and give me a free demo phone line. I agreed and they sold my personal phone to the car leasing company so it could be included in my lease payments. I now had equipment lines, vehicle lines and a cell phone line to sell to construction and oilfield companies. I was in business and could afford my monthly expense commitments with ease. They were under $500.00 per month and the Equipment Company guaranteed me $800.00 per month when I signed the agent agreement with them. My expenses were covered and I started selling.

Within a few months it was clear that the cell phone business offered the best opportunity. I had sold some vehicles and equipment as well as many phones, so the managers of those lines were happy with me. I decided to drop the equipment and vehicles, parted ways on good terms with the managers and owners, and began to focus on cell phones. Within nine years we had 3 stores, reaching 3 million a year in sales and often had 2 of the top 10 stores in the country.

I used creative thinking and negotiating to start my first business. Can you be creative? Can you hone your negotiation skills? I think so. Good luck in starting your business. Follow the 8 step guide above and be creative.

Mike Garska, President.
FindAMentor

Don’t Waste Your Time with a Mentor Program

In theory, leaders, managers, and employees largely agree on the importance of a having a mentor program. Corporate mentor programs are often named as one of the Top 5 reasons people choose an employer. This moves into the Top 3 when you whittle down the list to Gen Y, Gen Z, and High-Potentials. More and more companies are acknowledging the weight and importance of a mentor program, but the programs often fall short of expectations from all sides.

When the urgency is cranked up within an organization, which it almost always is, mentor programs often don’t garner much attention from executive leaders. Who can blame them? What’s the ROI on a mentoring program? Not very high in most cases, but why?

To answer this question, we must examine the reason most mentoring programs are setup in the first place and how they are most often implemented.

Top 5 Reasons Mentoring Programs are Established

  1. Recruiting – demonstrates to the outside world that the organization values its employees
  2. Retention – studies show that employees who are mentored stay on the job longer
  3. Engagement – employees who have confidants at work stay longer and work harder
  4. Knowledge Transfer – quicker onboarding and higher productivity
  5. Cultural Management – improved communication and alignment

Beyond recruiting, most organizations actualize very little of these desired benefits. Often it’s not from a lack of energy, desire, or time. In fact, mid-level managers frequently spend a disproportionate amount of time engaging in activities they define as “mentoring” compared to the benefit to the mentee, mentor, and organization. The single biggest reason why corporate mentor programs fail to live up to expectations is simple; LACK of STRUCTURE. Let’s visit the difference between a structured and unstructured mentoring program.

Unstructured Program:

  • No link to business objectives
  • Goals are nonspecific
  • Results are not tracked
  • Matching is based on proximity
  • Program is limited and exclusive
  • Meetings are infrequent and ad-hoc
  • Best practices are not followed

STRUCTURED Program:

  • Tied to business objectives
  • Success goals are established
  • Results are measured
  • Matching is based on individual and organizational needs
  • Management is aligned
  • Best practices are developed and shared
  • Support resources are available

After a short review of these differences, which type of program do you think is more beneficial to all parties? If you answered “STRUCTURED” as most people do, then why do most programs contain very little structure. The simple reason is time. Structuring a mentoring program takes time and with urgent and important activities tugging at employees and organizations all day long there is very little time to structure a program that truly yields the desired benefits. So why should your organization spend the time and energy to structure its mentoring program? Because, if not, you’re just WASTING TIME.

Devin Lebrun
FindaMentor.com