Mindshop celebrates 25 years of helping others

Mindshop started 25 years ago as a family-run business with a philosophy of helping others. Fast-forward to today and a thriving business builds on these foundations, now supporting a membership base of 1,000 business leaders and advisors across 10 countries.

Founder Dr Chris Mason’s early experiences as a CEO thrown in the deep-end of a floundering business with little support or guidance was the impetus for Mindshop’s creation. Chris set up a framework for business leaders of all ages, so his experiences would not be repeated. Along with wife Julie, a consulting group was launched and as time progressed, other advisors wanted to learn the tools and methodologies created, resulting in a licensing model leading to the creation of Mindshop.

Thinking back on those early days, Chris comments ‘At the time I was inspired by the launch of Anita Roddick’s Body Shop and her mantra of ‘helping others is what I do’ so I set out to simplify the complexity in business and assist people achieve success through Mindshop.’

Six core values of best practice, value to others, continuous improvement, community contribution, authenticity and fun are still at the heart of Mindshop’s ethos, embraced not only by the senior leadership team but also staff, clients and suppliers.

Long-standing members form the core of the community and embrace the ‘value to others’ spirit, taking an active role in Mindshop’s charitable trust – Mindshop Excellence, a no cost student workplace learning program for Year 10 students.

More broadly, community spirit thrives across online forums and at multiple face-to-face conferences and workshops run annually across three continents.

Now headed by Chris and Julie’s son James, with daughter Emily in the role of Education and Learning Manager, Mindshop has evolved to reflect the changing business landscape and needs of both independent consultants and professional service firms. A pivotal point in Mindshop’s history was moving to an online learning and development platform – Mindshop Online for the delivery of courses, coaching support and community forum.

Mindshop today – some key statistics

• 22,470 online coaching interactions in the last 12 months
• 2971 online forum posts a year
• 1088 members
• 180 annual training events
• 145 business tools
• 30 business diagnostics
• 20 online training courses
• 6.5 years average advisor member tenure
• 27% of advisor members involved for 10+ years

Looking to the future, James comments ‘I always believe that if you feel your education is finished, you’re finished, and this applies to Mindshop, we will always learn to find better ways of doing things to share with our members. The future is a very exciting place.’

For more information about joining Mindshop or to discuss your business advisory objectives contact a Mindshop regional manager here.