Which Business Community should you choose?
I’m always looking for ways to grow as a leader. One of the most effective methods is to learn from your peers, sharing both the successes and the mistakes along the way.
My situation
I founded Divante — an eCommerce Technology Company building eCommerce Software for industry leaders in Europe, Asia, and North America — over a decade ago. As the company has grown, I’ve come to realize that I need to grow with it.
By joining business communities, I was looking for some inspiration on how I could adapt and change, as well as looking for some new contacts that could help me do business in foreign markets.
What are the best reasons for joining a Business Community?
Sometimes, the only people who can help you with the challenges you face are those who have already been there and understand your issues. Here are some reasons you might consider joining a Business Community.
- It can feel quite lonely at the top. Your family is not so interested in your business challenges or you don’t want to bother them. And there are issues that you simply can’t discuss with your team members. You need someone you can talk to who understands, is an impartial observer and is keen to help.
- You would like to develop your skills but you are no longer interested in formal education as you don’t need another diploma. You are interested in the first-hand experience of people who’ve been through it.
- You would like to engage in new things and you are looking for trusted people who will advise you and/or share their experiences with you.
- You would like to grow outside your bubble, meeting people from different countries, cultures, and industries who can broaden your perspective.
- As an entrepreneur, you perhaps travel a lot and it’s harder to make new friends and establish meaningful relationships.
3 leading Business Communities
I try to be methodological and data-driven in most things I do; so I joined three different international organizations to compare which works the best for me.
Argonauts
The Argonauts support leaders globally in balancing personal fulfillment, professional success, and flourishing relationships.
The Argonauts community aligns purpose-driven innovators, executives, and entrepreneurs around the world.
In The Argonauts Trust Circles, they facilitate meaningful interactions in highly curated, small groups of like-minded peers seeking to unlock their leadership potential. A Trust Circle is a team of 8 globally-diverse peers who follow a digitally facilitated process with a measurable outcome.
Argonauts usually invest between 2 and 8 hours every month into the community. Participation in events or partner programs is voluntary and on-demand.
Entrepreneurs’ Organization
Gain access to the world’s top experts. Grow beyond your personal limits. Make breakthroughs as you redefine and realize your goals in life and in business.
Entrepreneurs’ Organization is a high-quality support network of 14,000+ like-minded leaders across 61 countries. EO has been helping entrepreneurs achieve transformational growth since 1987
They help entrepreneurs achieve their full potential through the power of life-enhancing connections, shared experiences, and collaborative learning.
Young Presidents Organization
A global leadership community of chief executives driven by the shared belief that the world needs better leaders.
The Organization was started in 1950. There are 29,000 global members in 130+ countries. The YPO offer is directed not only to business leaders but also to their family members. For example, there are meetings and forums for spouses.
A quick comparison of the leading communities
Each of these communities is quite similar on the face of it, and you will often find that business leaders are members of more than one of them at the same time, which is perfectly okay. To explain the subtle and significant differences between them, I’ve drawn up this comparison.
The key benefits of each Business Community
High-quality members
The process of accepting new members is very selective. I don’t want to spoil it for you but you will encounter multiple interviews, requests for business KPIs and documents, as well as references. It can easily take months to successfully apply. It’s a very good idea to start from someone from your network who is a member already and can help kick-starting things.
Because the process is so selective, you will meet ONLY people who are
- ethical
- proven to have success in business
- open to learning and motivated to help others.
It’s the selective onboarding process that allows users to feel comfortable sharing challenges and asking for help once they join the community.
Onboarding is a learning experience itself
You need to be trained to become a member, so there is always an official onboarding process in place. I must admit that the Argonauts kick ass here. These guys started in Germany, as far as I know, and you will feel like in a well-engineered German car. Everything is process-driven, pre-designed, and executed precisely. It is certainly the best onboarding process.
Forum / Trust Circle
You may have heard of Mastermind Groups but I feel that a Forum is a much better structure. It is the idea of creating a safe space for around 8 people who can then have deep, moderated conversations every month.
People who attend Forum can’t be connected on a family or business level, so they are totally independent. During every Forum, they are able to share their challenges (business, personal, and family) and ask other forum members to share their experiences. There are no judgments, no advising, and a full NDA is in place.
As you meet with your peers every month, you learn a lot from sharing such experiences and the trust you have towards the group is particularly important when you struggle with some deep issues.
With EO and YPO, you can join local or regional Forums and attend physical meetings. The Argonauts have a very interesting digital-only Forum called a Trust Circle. The Circle is always professionally moderated (which is great) and allows you to have a Forum with people from different places. This is especially inspiring and I absolutely love it. I also find it to be the most productive format.
Self-reflection
During the Forum Training, they train members in self-reflection and you start practicing this before every Forum. Tracking your mood, emotions, and the things that are troubling you allows you to learn a lot about yourself and what really matters to you. I think Argonauts are very good at this; the whole onboarding process takes 12 weeks and teaches you a lot about yourself :)
You can start on your own from the Johari Window Concept.
Networking app/capabilities
Every business community has its own networking tool, which is very useful when you need relevant information from people who really know what they are talking about.
95% of EO/YPO members, from all over the world, are more than happy to respond to any request for help. YPO has a huge advantage here as there are so many members in the YPO network.
EO has a really great mobile app and I’ve met 20+ members of EO in person by simply firing up the app before boarding a plane. In every major city, you will find some interesting people happy to have lunch and talk about business.
Remember that the chance of doing direct business is almost 0%. It’s not considered good manners to try to sell anything to other members. However, you can really help each other in so many ways. I must admit that I have sold some projects just by accident. I met someone, we had a great chat and, a couple of weeks later, he or she called me and asked for help.
In these cases, I think it’s a clear win-win as both parties build trust and friendship first. And the projects I sold to such people were not driven by a profit motive; in every case, my feeling was that I was happy to help someone in the community and just cover our costs as a business.
Education/Training/Webinars
EO and YPO especially are very good at organizing some cool educational events. There are amazing physical meetings in different places but there are also very productive webinars with the best business schools and leading thought leaders. It would be very hard to organize events like this on your own. This is the connected power of all the members and their networks. I’ve been amazed by the great educational activities that these communities offer.
For example, during the COVID outbreak, I took part in a closed webinar with the author of the ‘Black Swan’ book who told us a lot about risk management and explained that COVID is not a black swan phenomenon :)
Which Business Community should you choose?
Each community has some additional benefits but I believe that the ones I discussed here are the ones of most value, at least they are for me.
I think that all of the communities are great but I won’t sit on the fence. In my opinion:
- Entrepreneurs’ Organization is great for founders who would like to grow together with their business, generally people who are young and ambitious.
- Young Presidents Organization is great for all leaders (not only founders) who are interested in broadening their perspectives.
- The Argonauts is great for all leaders (again, not only founders) for whom a more global perspective is important. It is also the most appropriate for those who are looking for productive ways of self-development.
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