It always helps to get a fresh pair of eyes on your plans, business and products. A different perspective can stop you making mistakes, under or over valuing your offer, or give you new options to consider.

This weekend I had the pleasure of joining a group of people with varying degrees of internet marketing experience at the Crowne Plaza hotel near Heathrow Airport for a Mastermind Group Meeting.

The advantage of a mastermind meeting over a larger event is that you are more likely to have your own specific problems addressed by a group of internet marketers with a range of experience. A large event can be impersonal and often dominated by presentations given by people operating at a different level of business to you. In a mastermind meeting you are more likely to get information and advice relevant to where you are now.

One way you can achieve this is to have hot seat sessions, which is what we did last weekend. Each person takes a turn in the hot seat, presenting a specific challenge that they have in their business and the other members of the group offer their advice. This means you are exposed to different opinions and perspectives that can give you lots of ideas, perhaps a range of solutions, and the benefit of everyone’s experience. Sometimes even listening to someone else’s hot seat session can suggest strategies or resources that you otherwise would not have heard of.

You may think you are not in a position yet to offer any advice, but often people in a mastermind have expertise in different areas. One member of our group was making money in solo ads, but had no experience of PLR, and I found this was an area in which I could make a contribution.

Masterminds are also an opportunity to meet new people and start or grow friendships. Outside the meeting room you can also make connections over a meal or at the bar. Over time these can lead to joint ventures, gaining affiliates, accountability partners, or advisers.

Sometimes we spend so much time on our work that we can be too close to our own business. A mastermind group is an opportunity to see things from a different perspective. Most businesses have staff who chat, bounce ideas off each other and offer different perspectives. Internet marketing can leave us isolated, so interacting face-to-face with a group of like-minded individuals is usually a rare, but useful experience.

So a mastermind meeting is usually cheaper, more personal, and more relevant than a large event. If you are organised you can even keep these advantages after everyone has returned home. Although the meeting is over the participants are going to stay in touch through a Facebook group, and we plan to get together again sometime next year. If you’ve never attended a mastermind meeting and you get an opportunity to attend one I strongly suggest you get along to the venue and give it a try.