Why is hot seating good

And by that, I mean produce profit. I needed money, honey — to support my family, run my household, and build my business. I knew it was time to ramp up my efforts. My business was successful, but it was time to take it to another level. Around that time, I started hearing about mastermind groups. And now, when I look back, I recognize that joining a mastermind group profoundly changed my business for the better, especially because of one specific exercise these groups do. Because earlier this month, we began doing something similar inside one of our communities at Rainmaker Digital.

Everywhere I looked, I saw mentions of them. But every mastermind group I found met in person, either early in the morning or later in the evening. And those were both times of the day when I had to be on Mom Duty. And yet, I was convinced that a mastermind group was what I needed. I knew I would benefit from the experience and viewpoints of other business owners, and it would help me position my business where it needed to be.

I applied, was accepted, and prepared myself for our first meeting. I was a little nervous going into the first meeting. Was it going to be like a confessional? More like group therapy? Would I feel comfortable talking to these strangers about my business? The group would listen and contribute ideas to help the person in the hot seat. The real value will come from taking my turn in the hot seat. When I look back on my mastermind meetings, I got as much or more from listening to other business owners talk about their triumphs and tragedies as I did when I shared my own.

Last month, we began offering Authority Business Coaching calls inside our private site for advanced content marketing training. The main challenge our first guest brought to the session was a need to improve cash flow in his business.

The session reinforced my ideas about what needs to happen, but it also gave me a sense of direction and more clarity. As a member, I think it is a highly appealing format for a show. In the end, we hit that minimum—we did two hot seats over the course of the two days. I would have liked to see us manage three, or even four, over the two days, but timing for the hot seats and the other components of the plenaries precluded that in the end.

We looked through our attendee roster and looked for some likely candidates, and then we e-mailed them. Below is slightly redacted version of our e-mail. Hope you are well. We are, as you might imagine, deep in the final throes of planning for the symposium.

Members of the group then have the opportunity to ask clarifying questions, as needed, and provide rapid-fire advice, tips, etc. Because it is so valuable, we would really like to be able to do this at the symposium. In addition to preventing crickets, finding a pre-volunteer and we did identify one hot-seat volunteer before the symposium, and the second Collaborative Coachee was someone who volunteered at the symposium also allowed us to stack the deck a bit.

We were able to go into the first hot seat with an attendee likely to heed the instructions regarding brevity, not being defensive in response to suggestions, etc. We used stools on the main stage for the Collaborative Coaching—one for the coachee and one for one of us i. We thought having one of us sitting alongside the coachee would not only make sense given our facilitator duties but would also help mitigate any stress the coachee might feel sitting in front of a room, as the center of attention.

The coachee and the facilitator each had a mic. We also had a couple of mics and mic-runners on the floor to get to attendees who had suggestions for the coachee. As the facilitators, we explained how the format working, focusing on the ground rules for those providing feedback: Ask clarifying questions of the coachee after she finishes laying out her issue or challenge only if really necessary. Otherwise, focus on suggestions. Be brief. After attendees had provided their suggestions and before the coachee was given the opportunity to say anything in closing, we offered our own thoughts and suggestions around the issue or challenge presented, which may involve summarizing or reiterating some of the earlier suggestions.

We were recording all the plenary sessions, including the Collaborative Coaching. We provided the video recording of their hot seat to the volunteers. That was a value-add for them, as they could review not only the feedback they received but also to listen to and see themselves explaining the issue or challenge and think about how they might improve their communication on that front. Collaborative Coaching has been valuable in my own professional development where I participated as a learner as well as in learning events we at Tagoras have hosted and organized.