Why the Right Peer Mix Changes the Conversation

Why Women Building Expert-Led Firms Need a More Relevant Peer Circle

On June 10, we hosted 29 women at Verity Women’s Club for our VIBE CEO Firm Builders lunch.

The group was made up of women building professional services businesses (including consulting, advisory, coaching, training and other expert-led businesses). Some were solopreneurs. Some were founders. Some were growing small firms. Some were very happy building a strong, vibrant practice and wanted to do that with more clarity and intention.

And some were at a different place.

They were tired of doing so much of it alone. They were working long hours, carrying a lot, and starting to ask bigger questions about what the next version of their business could look like.

That is what made the conversation so good.

Everyone in the room understood what it means to build a business around your own expertise or group of experts.

Over the years, I have worked with more than 2,000 CEOs and executives, who were thinking about or chose to build their own consulting, advisory, or professional services practice.

What they all had in common was the learning that building your own business is always harder than people expect.

You may have deep experience. You may have a strong reputation. You may have done business development before. But it feels very different when you no longer have a big corporate brand behind you.

All of a sudden, you are the brand.

You are selling your judgment, your credibility, your point of view, your experience, and your ability to help someone solve a real problem.

That can feel personal.

And then there is everything else that comes with running the business. Serving clients, finding clients, following up, staying visible, figuring out what you actually want to be known for, managing the money, making decisions, and trying to keep some kind of life and energy intact while doing it.

That was a big part of the conversation at our lunch event.

It was not just, “How do I grow?”

It was more like:

What do I actually want this business to become?

Do I want a practice, a firm, or something in between?

How do I get better clients without feeling like I am constantly selling?

How do I stop doing everything myself?

How do I grow in a way that still feels good for my life and achieve my revenue goals?

These are not generic business questions. They are Firm Builder questions.

And that is why the right mix of peers matters so much.

I have facilitated six different peer groups across four organizations, and one of the biggest things I have learned is that the quality of the conversation and the ideas and insights generated depends so much on who is in the room.

When the group is too broad, people spend a lot of time explaining their context.

But when people are facing similar kinds of decisions, the conversation goes deeper much faster.

People feel understood. They hear themselves in someone else’s story. They get practical ideas. They ask better questions. They realize they are not the only one carrying these challenges.

That is what we saw on June 10.

There was a real openness in the room. Women were honest about what they had built, what was working, what felt hard, and what they were ready to grow beyond.

And that is really the heart of what we are building at VIBE CEO.

We do not believe women business owners need another general networking group.

They need the right peer mix. Women who understand their kind of business, their stage of growth, and the real decisions they are carrying.

That is why VIBE CEO is being built around five distinct peer circles: Firm Builders, CEO Table, Brand Builders, The Engine Room, and Frontier Ventures.

Each circle is designed around a different kind of founder or CEO experience. A woman building a consulting firm has different conversations than a woman scaling a product brand. A CEO running an operationally complex company is carrying different decisions than a tech founder navigating innovation, capital, or AI. An established CEO needs a different kind of table than someone building an expert-led practice.

The point is not to separate women. It is to make the conversations more useful.

For Firm Builders, that means women who are building businesses around their expertise and asking important questions about growth, visibility, thought leaderships, business development, leverage, purpose, and sustainability.

The lunch reminded me that women are hungry for deeper conversations. Not just connection for the sake of connection, but the kind of conversation that helps you see your business more clearly and decide what needs to happen next.

Because when the peer mix is right, the conversation is deeply relevant.

And when the conversation is rel

evant, the next move you need to take becomes much clearer.