Masterminds vs Group Programs – The real difference

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What’s the difference between a Mastermind program and a group program or a membership program?

My name is Liz Scully. I’m a business strategist. I work exclusively with clients in Mastermind groups and I train people how to run amazing groups.

This is a question I am asked a lot. And it’s a subtle answer.

Because some Mastermind groups are a bit like a group program and some group programs are a little bit like Mastermind groups.

But let me try and break it down for you. Then you can judge the one that you’re looking at.

When I say group programs, let’s move those down to things like membership programs.

Membership programs are very popular at the moment.

You pay $100 a month or $200 a month, you get access to training courses, and you get a community of people. There are probably a lot of people in the program, maybe a couple of hundred. And you get a regular Q&A with the coach who’s set it up. That might be monthly, it might be weekly, it might be quarterly.

But there’s this feeling of a lot going on. You can work through a library of things. You can interact with all sorts of people. It might be a Facebook group, it might be in Mighty Networks. And they are wonderful things.

If it was a party, it’d be a cocktail party.

An event that you go to regularly where you see the same people. But it’s quite a lot of people, it’s not a lot of individual attention.

In a Mastermind group, you have the same people that are with you day-in day-out for the length of the program.

That’s part of what’s fabulous about Masterminds: people are there with you for a long time.

My programs are a year-long and many of my clients stay with me year after year after year. In my Masterminds, you also have access to the other programs that I’ve created. So there’s the recorded content. There’s the regular Q&A’s. There are all of those MasterClasses. I can see how it’s confusing.

But if a group program is like a cocktail party, like a cheese and wine,

your Mastermind group is like that Sex and the City Sunday brunch

with people that you know every week who’ll lovingly call you on your bullshit, who’ll be there to cheer you on when you do something fantastic, even if it is simple as press publish on a blog you’ve been talking about for ages.

This is your home team. These are your people.

You can be in a Mastermind group and in a membership program – they’re not incompatible.

There’s a tendency for membership programs, group programs with many people in them to call themselves Masterminds. As you know, if you were following me for a while, this habit of calling things that are not Masterminds Masterminds is extremely annoying.

Because a real Mastermind is a small number of people and they look after each other. You can be part of a Mastermind of 20 people but as long as your group is 4 to 6 people and you’re getting that individual attention as well as being part of a group.

To sum it up:

A Mastermind is a high-end, wonderful, really personal bespoke product.

A membership group is probably lower-end with many more people in it.

There’s a place for both. You can be in both at the same time. But they are not the same. Sunday brunch vs a one-off event that you go to now and again.

If you have more questions about Masterminds, group programs or about anything in your business, then click the link below and get on the list to come to our next Q&A session. I’d love to see you there and I’m sure I can help with your question.

Next live call is May 9, 2023 - 1pm Eastern / 6pm UK.
Come along to ask your questions about launches, strategies for marketing, Masterminds or whatever you're stuck on in your business.

Add your email below and I'll send you the zoom info for the calls. See you there!

Or come say hello on Instagram here.  I microblog daily.