You want to put together a powerful group of people that can help one another become successful? We've got the answer for you today on this episode of the Inside BS Show. Hey now, I am Dave Lorenzo and I'm here with my dear friend and partner, Nicola Gellarmino. Nikki G, how are you today? Hi Dave, doing great.

You? I'm doing fantastic. We're talking about our favorite topic and here's the thing, Nicola, since we have been kind of doing our thing, traveling around, teaching people, how we built a successful group, I've gotten requests from not only people in ProVisors, the networking organization that we belong to, I've gotten requests from people who are Vistage chairs, they are the people who run Vistage coaching groups, peer advisory groups, and I've gotten requests from independent coaches who would like to build their own coaching groups and they've asked me to put together a program that will help them build a group of people that's interested in enabling the success of one another and I thought to myself, you know, this is exactly what you and I did, so maybe we can share with the folks who are listening, the folks who are watching, how you can build a peer organization, whether it's for networking purposes or for coaching purposes that will allow people to enable the success of one another. All right, so here are the elements of the mindset that you need to embody in order to be an effective leader.

First and foremost is clarity of purpose. We're going to talk about that. Then there's commitment and your dedication to the cause that you're leading.

There's confidence. How confident are you and how does your confidence come through to the members of your group? There's the culture of the group that you're creating. It's not the culture of the organization, but the culture of the group that you're creating.

And finally, your capability. What skills, what talent do you need in order to pull this off? As we go through each of these, we're going to cover three points for each of these mindset elements and first and foremost is clarity of purpose. So for us, when we were building our group in ProVisors and for the Vistage chairs who I help, the clarity of purpose is how quickly can we get to the desired number of people while maintaining the quality of membership, right? So for Vistage chairs, that's 18 members.

For ProVisors groups, the ProVisors threshold is 35. Nicola and I, our clarity of purpose was when we first started out, we wanted to be at 40 members in three months, no questions asked. We had a complete clarity of purpose.

So that meant creating a culture of growth. Everyone that we brought in had to be focused on helping our group grow quickly. The second thing we focused on was candidate time in role and candidate time in the market.

Why is the candidate time in position essential? Well, for us, it was about their network. It was about the people that they knew. So since we were focusing in ProVisors on growing a network of people that could help and support one another, the longer tenure they had in their position and the longer the tenure in their market, the more powerful their network was going to be.

That was our focus on candidate time in market. For Vistage chairs or for independent coaches, you got to take into consideration the compatibility of the folks in the room. If you have CEOs who are 10 years or more in a CEO role, they're going to have a very different mindset than people who are CEOs with 10 years or less.

So I would encourage you to give a great deal of thought to candidate time in role, candidate time in position as you're building these groups. The final element here, candidate network is the most important factor in determining fit. Now in ProVisors, the candidate network is everything.

So if we had two lawyers, if Nicola and I had two lawyers and we were deciding between them, the candidate who had the best network and could demonstrate that they had the best network was the candidate we were going to select. In Vistage, if you have a candidate and you are trying to decide if they're a good fit for your coaching group, don't just hope they can fog a mirror and then take their money. Your focus needs to be who else do they know? Who else are they connected to? Because your members are going to be your number one source of recruiting.

Talent knows talent. You're going to hear us say this over and over again. So if you're the only person recruiting for your Vistage group or you're a coach and you're the only person recruiting for your coaching group, it's going to be really hard for you to get up to speed and fill that group quickly.

If you pick great people who have great networks and then you ask each of them to bring an additional candidate with them when they come on board, you're going to be far better off. So candidate network is critical when it comes to building your community, whether it's a coaching community or a networking community. Nicola, your thoughts? So let me pick up on candidate network because it is very, very important.

So making sure that you are selecting individuals who have a powerful network allows you to, one, as Dave pointed out, make sure that they are helping you recruit other excellent professionals that are out there that will fit kind of what you've identified as the profile of who you are looking to build your organization with. But we are also using that a step beyond, which is thinking about how can we expand our group beyond the side limitations that we may have or that you may have? And making sure that you're recruiting individuals who also have powerful networks. Now you've brought in a candidate who has an entirely different network that could exponentially increase the value to the members who are part of that group by bringing all of those outside networks now into the interior circle of your group.

I love it. Great points. Thank you.

The second mindset element is commitment. And when we talk about commitment, we're talking about bringing a friend. That's what I alluded to in the last slide.

So in our group, in ProVisors Miami 3, bringing a friend was a price of entry. We asked everybody when we onboarded them to introduce us to a second person. We use the phrase talent knows talent all the time.

When I work with VISTA's shares, when I work with independent coaches who are building coaching groups, the first thing I say to them is it's great that you onboarded Joe Smith. Did Joe Smith give you the names of one or two other people who might be a good fit for your group? And then they look at me like a deer in the headlights and I say to them, everyone needs to bring a friend in order to get into your group. That is the price of entry.

The second criteria for measuring commitment was did the candidate accept within 48 hours? We have had bad experiences with people who didn't accept within the first 48 hours. They waited a week. They waited two weeks.

They were looking for their company to pay for it. So it took a little bit longer. If they're not motivated and committed enough to sign on the dotted line within 48 hours, you don't want them.

Don't be desperate. Just move on. And then loyalty is a critical focus.

So there's two different areas that I want to discuss loyalty here. So first and foremost, improvisers. Second group members are a mistake.

And if we had to do it all over again, Nicola and I probably would only take maybe one second group member and that's a person who's a group leader in another group because they get a second membership for free. And candidly, this person is the best we could find in the market to fill that particular role. Improvisers, second group members, their loyalty is always to their first group.

So it's a big problem when you take a second group member because they're never going to deliver as much value to your group as they do to the first. In coaching organizations, in Vistage, if you have somebody who's a member of Vistage and a member of EO or a member of Vistage and a member of a private coaching group program, their loyalty is always going to be divided. And if they can only be one place in a particular month and they have to choose between your group and the other group, that's a huge problem.

You want to know that they're not getting conflicting advice from these two different organizations. I've been a member of multiple coaching groups at the same time and I have a hard time deciding which advice I want to follow when there's a conflict. So I always have picked the group that I thought had the best interests, my best interests at heart.

I would never admit someone to my coaching organization if they were a member of an identical peer advisory group. So Vistage and EO, let's say, probably not going to be a good fit. Vistage and strategic coach, probably not going to be a good fit.

Vistage and a private coach's group coaching model or mastermind model, unless the mastermind was in a very dedicated specific area like marketing, I would let that person go. I wouldn't focus on them. Nicole, your thoughts about commitment? Let me pick up on this point of loyalty.

I think it's really important. So we did ask in speaking with candidates when we were building out a provisors group, what other organizations are you involved in? A lot of people have different organizations they're involved in, but we were really focused on what type of conflicts might this create for them in terms of time and in terms of what they would bring to our organization. So we did really think about that on the front end so that when we brought people in, that we knew they would be good members, or at least we had a really good sense that they would be a good member because they would be more inclined to bring their loyalty and commitment to our organization and prioritize that over some of the other commitments that they may have.

Yeah, it's a problem if I call you with a referral that could be worth, you know, $100,000 and I can't get you on the phone because you're busy running the White Elephant Bazaar at the Chamber of Commerce. That's a huge problem, right? So if that's the case, then I wouldn't have taken you in my networking organization. If I'm in a Vistage group, I don't want somebody arguing with me that they got conflicting advice from their EO forum when, you know, they're supposed to be dedicated to helping create, you know, value for the Vistage group members.

So really, I can't stress this enough. You need to dig in to find out what they're a part of, and you should have enough candidates where you can fill your group without having to take someone that may have other commitments elsewhere that could conflict with your Vistage group. All right, so in terms of confidence, this is about your confidence and the confidence that people have in the group.

First and foremost, people want to be with a winner. So you need to be unabashed in giving your personal narrative, sharing your personal story, and talking about your personal history. Do not be shy about promoting your success.

If you're a Provisors group leader, I want to know why I should join your group. I want to know why you think you're the best person in the organization for me. If you're a Vistage chair, you're a retired CEO.

You're a CEO who's had a successful exit from their business. You're a CEO who's been successful in other areas. Tell all your candidates about your success and don't be shy about it because they want to follow a winner.

To your members, you're the institution. So to Provisors, Nicola and I are Provisors. To your group members in Vistage, you as the Vistage chair are Vistage.

They don't care about what's going on in California. They don't care about what's going on on the website that's being pushed out by corporate. They care what you say.

They care about your opinion. So don't be shy in sharing your opinion. Don't be shy in giving them advice.

Don't be shy in making connections so that you can help them with their networking. To them, you are the institution. And for God's sake, be decisive.

Live by the phrase, often wrong but never in doubt. People love to follow people who are decisive. There are thousands of knuckleheads out there with hundreds of thousands of followers and people follow them because they're confident and they're decisive.

You are actually competent. You know what you're doing. So have an opinion, stick to your opinion, lesson until you're proven wrong.

And then when you're proven wrong, pivot and move on quickly. Be confident, often wrong, never in doubt. I love the phrase, it works, follow it.

Nicola, your thoughts. This is true, especially when you are recruiting for a larger organization. You become the face of that organization to the individuals who are members in your group.

They're signing up because they're signing up to follow you as the leader and the mission that you've laid out for them. So it is really important that you are instilling confidence in them that, hey, I'm building something great and here's my track record of what I've done before that shows you that I can do this and I want your support in doing it. And that's how you're going to track really the right quality of candidates to come in, especially in those early stages when you're really just getting started out and you need to get a few people to sign up in order to then promote the group to a larger audience.

I love it. Thank you for your thoughts there. That's great.

Now, culture. This is about the ongoing propagation of the group. It's about the feeling that people get when they're a part of the group.

It's about the experience they have as a member of the group. We like to ask ourselves all the time, I ask myself every day, what did I do to help the group grow today? When I have coaching groups and I run my own coaching groups, I think to myself, how did I add value to the members of this group today? How did I add value to the members of this group the last time we met? And how am I going to add value to the members of this group when we meet in the future? If you're in a networking group, who did I reach out to today to add value to that member's experience? Did I do something today to make sure at least three of my members felt like they're the most important person in the group, at least the most important person to me? People follow leaders. So you need to be known as the group that produces the most leaders in the organization.

A great example of this is my Vistage group in New York. I'm a member of a trusted advisor group. The group leader, Mark Taylor, is a phenomenal leader in Vistage.

He's a master chair and he's produced, I want to say like six or seven other Vistage chairs. In our group, in our provisors group in Miami, we're only a year old and we've got myself. I'm a group leader.

Nicola is a group leader of the lawyers group and we have five other people who are currently being considered for group leader roles. My legacy is tied to how many group leaders come out of my group. So I encourage people to develop and grow.

Member experience is everything. You've heard me say it a number of times. We want to make sure every one of our members feels like they're the most important person to us, the most important person in the group.

And we do that by exercising empathy, by connecting with them and making sure they understand how valuable they are to us. Nicola, pick it up. Member experience is critical.

Without your members, you don't exist. You don't exist as an organization. You don't exist as a business because you should be treating this as a business.

It is very important, especially after you've brought in all of those great candidates, that you're really focused on their experience. Remember, it's your reputation when you put yourself out there and ask these people to sign on to the organization and to support you in your mission. So you have a responsibility to make sure that those members are having a great experience in the organization.

And a great way to do that is by making sure you're reaching out to them. And you can use the other people who are part of your leadership or your executive committee, if you have one, to help you with those efforts. Obviously, there's only so much time where you have to be able to reach out to your members.

So if you do have a large member base, engage those around you and make sure that you are promoting that outreach to all of your members to ensure that they're having a great experience. And then that will also lead to retention of those members in your organization. I love it.

Great thoughts. Thank you. Now we're up to capability.

So this is just plain and simple, a checklist for you to think about for yourself. Can you invest the time? Are you capable of investing the time to provide a great experience for your members? If you're billing by the hour, if this is just a part-time gig for you, you're probably not going to be able to invest the time. So Vistage chairs, if Vistage is your number one business and you want to build five groups and make half a million bucks a year, then I think you can do it.

And you can do it relatively quickly. If this is a part-time gig for you and you're only going to build one group, it might take you a year or two to get that group to the maximum number of people. So go all in and invest the time and do it the right way.

In provisors, if you're billing by the hour, it's going to be tough for you to recruit. There's never going to be enough hours in the day. There's never going to be enough time for you to dedicate to this.

Second point, are you fun and entertaining? People want to have fun. You cannot be analytical. You cannot be a librarian.

You cannot be a school mom and lead a coaching group. You can't be a school mom and lead a provisors group. You got to be fun.

You got to be entertaining. The final point, what's your differentiating factor? What's going to make you different from all the other coaching organizations out there? What's going to make you different from all the other networking organizations out there? You have to have a key differentiating factor. You have to be different, figure out what it is, share it with the people when you're recruiting them.

That will make all the difference in the world. Nicola, tell us what you think. I think you just brought us back to a point we started with, which is, again, you're running this like a business.

You need to be able to differentiate your group, both externally with respect to other organizations that your candidates may be joining over your organization, as well as internally. If you're part of a large organization, be thinking about, how can I differentiate this group, the group that I'm going to lead within this organization, from some of the other groups that are also part of the organization? It sets you apart and it provides a unique value proposition for your group. I love it.

Unique value proposition. That's where we're going to leave it for today, folks. My name is Dave Lorenzo.

This is the Inside BS Show. I'm here with the best partner on the planet, Nikki G, Nicola Gelarmino. If you liked what you saw today, you like what you heard, listen and watch another show.

We'll see you right back here again tomorrow. Until then, here's hoping you make a great living and live a great life.