If a coffee shop owner and a former minister can make money by leading groups then, perhaps, so can you and I.  In the following success stories see if there’s a method you’d like to try. With the right approach people are happy to pay you for the opportunity to hone a skill they already have or to re-invent themselves. Perhaps you can re-invent yourself and gain more financial security and independence as you build a side or main business, teaching others what you know.

Why Teach Groups Rather Than Individuals?

Remember what Willie answered when asked why he robs banks? “Because that’s where the money is.” Learning by yourself isn’t as much fun as when in an actively engaged group.

Shared enjoyment reinforces an individual’s belief that they like the class and themselves while in it, research shows. That’s why people usually learn faster in experiential group learning.  Plus they bond with each other, admire you (the leader) – and are more likely to recommend the class to others. That’s a faster path to profitability.

Choose the Group Teaching Approach That Works for You

What skill can you teach others so they can secure more work from current clients and/or get to new clients – or launch into a new profession? Here are six extremely different (and profitable) kinds of group training:

1. Enable others to jumpstart a specific kind of business you know inside out. After many years as the owner of a popular coffee shop, Jake was restless for a change.  He almost became a customer service trainer for retailers because he loved teaching others. Then he realized he could show others the most efficient way to launch a coffee café. After working with a curriculum instructor he designed a set of six weekend long courses so that even those with a full-time work could be sufficiently prepared before they left their job.

Then Jake contacted several columnists and bloggers who covered food or small business and suggested that his unfolding story of changing how he worked might interest their readers. With their coverage plus referral from his café customers he filled his first class.  Now his class is filled by word of mouth.

2. Offer experts a new tool to sell to their customers. Beyond fixing furnaces, when HVAC contractors (a huge market) get trained as a group  – to sell and install whole home air cleaners, they have a new reason to call on customers.  In an upscale market. They can target homeowners with respiratory problems and those who’ve sealed their homes for energy-savings.  When group training includes practice in how describe the service to clients, by phone and in person plus a promo kit: “Breath Healthy Air at Home” of advertising templates and tips sheets for consumers, graduates of the training are ready to jumpstart their outreach – and make more money sooner.

3. Teach others to lead groups, using your content.  Therapists and life coaches who are fans of former Methodist minister Susan Page’s book, Why Talking is Not Enough, rave about it to their clients.  Susan offered them a way to make money by leading groups in learning the principles in her book.  For a fee, Susan provided a training manual. Thus she created a new profit center for herself plus a way to sell more books and build her fan base through her cadre of trained group leaders.

Artists, Jane Pollak and Rebecca Shapiro lead groups on how to turn their creative bent into a business.

Tongue Fu! author Sam Horn takes a different tack.  She personally trains and certifies groups of people to teach her content.  

Even if you aren’t a published author you could create a book based on your expertise and launch a similar train-the-group leader practice.  Create an online social network or group blog through which the graduates can stay in touch, compare stories, help each other hone their practice, refer others to the training and contribute suggestions for improving your training.  Of course, your book will be sold as part of the training. And you’ll reward contributing individuals with free eBooks from partnering authors with complementary expertise and with recognition in the book and in your future training.

4. Offer an intensive, group learning through projects experience. Once you’ve attracted a sizeable base of happy graduates and become more well-known for your work, you might launch a more in-depth opportunity for a group to learn together, as Seth Godin just did with his  crowdsourced alternative MBA program. In creating your steps to launch yours, read his innovative and efficient way to attract and organize participants in this experiential, project-based program.

5. Host an open-to-the-public seminar or series of seminars, using free social media tools like MeetUp (to announce the meeting details), Paypal (for payments). Although MeetUp is mainly used for enthusiasts who share an interest, many, like Edith Yeung are charging for meetings. For the niche market you seek to serve (the more narrow the more lucrative) you might lead a seminar and/or host other experts or panels to speak to your group’s specific interest.  Alternatively, you might post your class on Biznik (as a member) or Teachstreet.

6. Generate recurring revenue by providing follow-up opportunities

To deepen the loyalty and expertise in those you teach consider offering an ongoing program of learning.  That might include telebriefings that are recorded for member download, an annual gathering for graduates, a group blog, and contests for best suggestions for improvements. 

Create a community. Include online crowdsourcing features that enable those you’ve trained to get to know each other, share and compare their knowledge – and to be rewarded for their best contributions (as voted by co-members).

Rewards could include recognition on the site and giving credit to them, during future group training and in the educational materials.  Plus you may bundle gift packages for these highest-performing participants.  Since there are other experts and companies that want to reach the kind of people you teach, ask them for contributions to that gift package. Such contributions might include books, tapes, other products, one hour of individual coaching, etc.

Also offer special training for those who make the most valuable contributions to improving what you teach and/or who attract and lead the most groups.  Following the 80/20 Pareto Principle, your top 20 percent probably generate the most profits for you and for themselves.  I’m inclined to think it is actually your top five percent. 

Yet taking extraordinary care of all the people you’ve trained is not only the right thing to do, you never know which group leader will suddenly gets an insight that dramatically improves your training or has a group member who introduces your approach to a whole new niche market or attracts a media story that inspires new people to seek your training.

Ponder this:  In your industry or profession, what special skill could you teach that enables people to:

• stand out in their profession (job protection)

• differentiate their work from that of the competition

• enter a new market?

Are you interested in translating your expertise into group training as a new way to earn a living or to create a new profit center?  

Will you “simply” train groups and possibly certify graduates? 

Will you offer them a manual or learning kit or ongoing in-person and online training?

Will you foster a community around the work as a way of improving your content and enabling people to learn from each other?

Are you already leading groups, using your content or others?  I’d love to hear about your experience. 

What methods you are using to attract, train, recruit and reward new group members? 

What do you offer for free and how do you charge?

I’d love to learn from you and to share what you’ve discovered.

Your hobby or work expertise or belief may be unusual, yet it’s likely that people near you share your interest. Or they may just want to have fun. How can you find those kindred spirits? By hosting an ever-better MeetUp.

Also consider start a MeetUp to create a profit center for yourself. Or to hone a skill or support a cause.

What’s a MeetUp? Let masterful Lee LeFever quickly show you.Imagine making money by making others happier. See a large one to get ideas.

• Perhaps, like Liz Ryan, you’ve built a successful online business out of serving clusters of local constituencies. Using MeetUp you can offer your people a new service. Face-to-face gatherings. Through your MeetUp, individuals can chat with people they’ve met online.

• They can meet regularly in some format that they collectively choose, with your leadership. Suggest formats such a mastermind or other kind of mutual support group, cross-consulting or speaker series.

• Forge an alliance of your local MeetUp chapters.  Get ideas from how other alliances work. Recruit and reward local organizers who host “our” gatherings.

• Let each “chapter” decide whether they want their MeetUps to be free or for-fee or a mix of both. Should your local leaders be paid or share in the revenue raised through a speaker series or set of seminars?

• Get input from your host leaders by arranging regular conference calls with them via a free service such as Skype or FreeConferenceCall. In true Me2We fashion you can facilitate their sharing of ideas for MeetUp formats and topics. Explore how these phone seminars and in-person meetings can complement the online offering that you, like Liz Ryan, offer your clients.

• Take a look at an online, for-profit model (in which I participate) that also supports face-to-face gatherings that are organized and hosted by members – biznik.

• Or start or join a MeetUp of your peers. I belong to the Bay Area Reporters and Journalists organized by Susan Kuchinskas.

Why explore these ideas?

Because, if your expertise or experience matches the interest of a distinct niche market, then the approach outlined in this post enables you to enlarge your circle of friends and/or make money in supporting others’ strong needs or interests.

From stay-at-home Mom to art teacher to designer of exquisite Ukrainian eggs to author of a book that lands her on The Today Show. That’s quite career ride.

Better still, it led Jane Pollak to her dream job.

Jane provides what’s probably the single most successful Me2We tool you’ll ever find. The mastermind group. She’s belonged to one for 16 years. Now, she organizes and leads them – and you can too. With more people working on their own, the desire for this kind of structured mutual support and camaraderie is growing fast.

Most meet in person, some online or via phone. (My group does all three.)

Does a mix of writing, coaching and/or speaking – and leading mastermind groups appeal to you? Want to learn exactly how to start a profitable mastermind coaching business – serving the niche profession or industry you know best and enjoy most? Dreaming of a lifestyle change? Seeking more independence?

How about a chance to mentor those in your kind of work and facilitate their mutual support so they can grow successful faster and have a balanced life– and enjoy the ride with them? Many people are now leading mastermind groups. Plus the market for them is growing. And, for starters, as Vocation Vacations and others have demonstrated, there’s a huge market of boomers who’re exploring new ways to work, play and live – with others – and want help finding their way.

Hear how in this interview.

… rather than restless to leave. Recruit a diverse conference planning committee with different perspectives on the attendees and brainstorm fresh ways to get people actively learning, collaborating and considering ways to follow-up later with what they learn at your meeting. Here are four rather obvious yet rarely-used ideas that cost little to implement.

1. Adopt varied meeting formats for learning and idea exchanges between attendees.

Two benefits: meetings are interesting and enable people with different temperaments, needs and interests to get to know each other better, learn in different ways and find others with common interests.

Plus bring in more experts from way outside the ostensible topic/industry/professional area of the meeting attendees to get a fresh perspective. What reporters, financial analysts, seasoned exhibitors research, cover and/or serve the kind of people at the meeting? They can offer fresh, perhaps even brash advice, forecasting and other insights.

Examples:

“Our Best Advice”

Invite a panel of three outside experts to offer their best three tips in seven minutes. Invite a popular leader in your organization to act as moderator, introducing the session and it’s format, invite attendees to write their questions as the panelists speak – for volunteers to pick up – and to ring the “seven minute bell.” After the panelists are finished with their fast, to-the-point advice, the MC will read the questions asked by attendees. As the attendees leave this 60-minutes session, they are given a handout with the written version of the panelists’ tips and their background.

“Meet the Experts”
Provide three 30-minute expert-led round table sessions in a ballroom.

At the end of each session, ring a bell to notify attendees to move to the next table. Attendees reserve their seats for each session via online early registration and/or upon arrival at the meeting. NSA chapters regularly offers a version of this popular format called Meet the Pros.

2. Create more memorable multi-sensory moments that reinforce the meeting’s “storyline.”

Storyboard more of the moments along the main paths and byways that attendees will walk, from the moment they enter the meeting space and between meetings. Involve more sensory cues and points of interest, from “Burma Shave-style sequential signage along hallways to localized “overheard” audio conversations.

3. Create digital audio and video recordings of meeting sessions + on-site interviews with experts.

Cover attendees, exhibitors and speakers. Assign staff and invite attendees to interview others – perhaps with a suggested list of questions – with audio recorders (I favor the tiny Olympus) and video (I dream of getting the Flip Video that Kara Swisher uses). Also invite attendees to blog the meeting. In the hallways and waiting and gathering areas, show this coverage. Post conference, offer as streaming downloads from your Web site, perhaps free to some (members, attendees or employees) and for-fee to others (non-members, non-attendees and the general public).

4. Provide year round follow-up for continuous learning and community-building.
Before the conference announce a contest and/or way that people can keep in learning and interacting with each other so that the conference/meeting is the launching event of for the “community” of attendees.

Build on the learning, sense of affiliation, peer-to-peer idea exchanges and other collaboration. More firms, associations and other organizations should consider adopting the features of an online social network or be at risk for losing their members’ (or employees, customers or other kind of meeting attendee) top-of-mind attention/loyalty.

I got this strange idea in eighth grade. To run for student body president is not a surprising decision for most outgoing, popular people. But I was neither. In fact I tended to daydream, read books that were not on the required list, and sit in the table at the far corner of the cafeteria with the only two friends I had, Denise and Janice. What unfolded within two months led me to discover the single best method to succeed (sometimes) in new endeavors. Perhaps more importantly, looking back, it enabled me to savor my life with some remarkable and remarkably diverse people who became my friends. Here’s what happened.

After graduating from college I returned to that school to visit the only teacher I really liked, Mrs. Dodge. She taught English like it tastes good. Even she did not recall my ever raising my hand to speak in class. Every school has a girl with the flawless hair style, perfect-in-front-of-adults manners, the tight clique of “in” friends and decent grades. In my school her name was Claire and she kept bumping into me in the hallway. At first I thought it was accidental but accidents don’t happen with such regularity. At least twice a day she knocked me aside, then gave me a tight, apologetic smile. I don’t know how I provoked her but she motivated me to sign up to run against her for student body president. Or rather she motivated my two friends to sign me up.

Talk about The Law of Unexpected Consequences.

My friend Denise’s sister was a sophomore at Harvard, a world away from Maplewood grade school in Portland, Oregon. Over Christmas vacation, she’s told us how she’d been invited to join a mastermind group that met regularly to support each other in their study goals and their plans for who they wanted to meet at school. Denise decided we should form a mastermind group to get me elected. We met everyday, right after school, reviewing a list of students. We brainstormed reasons why each one might want to vote, in their own interests for me or (more likely) against Claire.

We created cascades, a term we learned from Denise’s sister. It meant that we looked for students who were most likely to influence a cascade of other students. Those are the people that one of us approached first. So, while Claire (and her parents and friends) conducted a very public campaign with posters and parties, we worked quietly, one-by-one, under the water line of public attention at our small school. My narrow victory was a surprise to many including, frankly, the three of us. My victory speech, in front of the entire student body, was the first time I had voluntarily stood up to speak in front of more than two people, and that was to my five cousins at our family reunion.

At Janice’s suggestion, I thanked my opponent for her gracious manner in the campaign, alluding to the main trait she had not exhibited. “Look to their positive intent, especially when they appear to have none”, my behind-the-scenes campaign manager, Arne (aka my Dad) had advised in an early meeting of our kitchen (literally) cabinet.

That’s how I got my first taste of the power of what’s now called Collective Intelligence. With the right model for how we meet, we become more valuable together than apart.

I’ve often feeling like the odd duck among others in the jobs I’ve had, from reporter to corporate executive to government policy wonk to author/speaker. With each career shift, the most meaningful way I’ve created a tight-knit community of work allies and friends has been through starting a mastermind group of my peers, as you may want to do. Napoleon Hill was the first person to describe a “mastermind alliance” in his timeless book, Think and Grow Rich.

When a group commits to supporting each other by meeting regularly and abiding by mutually agreed upon Rules of Engagement, remarkable things happen. We tend to bring the best out in each other, as thousands have learned around the world through their mastermind groups. Individuals become tight-knit teams. We become happier and high-performing with and for each other.

In an increasingly transient world where more people spend more time alone, mastermind groups could be the best medicine.

If you think you’d like to form one, you might consider a group of your peers (in the same profession or industry or kind of work). I am in a five-year old group of my peers. We have all published books, worked outside the U.S. and speak for fee.

Or find others who share a top-of-mind business interest. When my friend opened her craft store she started a mastermind group of non-competing businesses that also sold locally.

Want to start one? For helpful guidance, turn to Jane Pollak, Karyn Greenstreet, Christine W. Zust, Evan Carmichael, Gayle Lantz and Susan Henderson.

Also you can learn faster and have more fun by creating what Chris Bailey calls a Learning Circle. Or, become an authentic and captivating presenter by joining one of Lee Glickstein’s Speaking Circles.

Thank you, Claire, for literally pushing me into discovering the power of mastermind groups. You changed my life.