We still see a great deal of confusion about how to best get men into small groups to capture momentum after an event.  

 

Imagine you own a car dealership. You spend a small fortune on radio, television, and newspaper advertising to attract customers to your showroom. Suppose a potential customer responds and walks into your showroom. After looking around he says, "I really like that red car."  

 

Your salesman responds, "Well that's great! Let me get your name and contact information, and we'll have someone get in touch with you next week."  

 

That would be crazy, right? You would go out of business if you didn't close the deal when the customer was ready to buy. Yet, that's often what happens at the end of men's events. 

 

By the end of your event, your men are primed. Two-thirds will be ready to take "the next step." They are most likely to "buy" into a small group at that very moment. So if you collect their information, and tell them that someone will contact them about getting into the small group for follow-up, that's just like letting a "ready to buy" customer walk out of your car dealership. 

 

The secret to small group success is to form the men into groups before the event concludes. 

 

How? It's simple. We've done over 1200 men's seminars. On average, 67% of all the men who have attended one of our seminars have gone into a six-week follow-up discussion group.

 

Here's how we do it. First, you will need to select a 4 to 8 week follow-up material in advance and have copies available at your event (see several Man in the Mirror examples at http://bookstore.maninthemirror.org/category_s/6.htm).  

 

Near the conclusion of the event, here's the script for what to say to your men: 

 

"In just a moment, we're going to give you an opportunity to become part of a short term follow up discussion group to unpack, discuss, and apply the ideas presented today. When I give you the go ahead in a minute, I want you to get into groups of five or six men and do the following:
 

• "First, write down everyone else's contact information -- name, phone number, and e-mail.
• Second, pick a mutually convenient location and time to meet for an hour once a week for the next six weeks.
• Third, pick someone to be your discussion leader (you can recruit these leaders in advance, but it's not essential).
• Fourth, set your first meeting.
• Fifth, each of you take about one minute to briefly describe where you are today on your spiritual pilgrimage" (a great icebreaker).

"I know some of you just can't be in a small group right now. Maybe you are already in a small group, or your other time commitments just won't to allow it. Yet I know that you would not want to deprive the other men of this opportunity, so perhaps you could use these few minutes as an extra break time. Okay, men, go ahead now and form yourself into groups of five or six men." 

 

You don't have to micromanage the process. Men are smart, and can follow these simple instructions. Best of all, two thirds of the men are eager to go into the small groups.  

 

Why use the approach? Because it works! Don't make the mistake of expending all that time and energy to create momentum with an event and then not capture the momentum.