Frequently Asked Questions

What is The Brain Trust's experience and background?


Since 1998, The Brain Trust, based in Atlanta, GA, has been providing a forum for you, the chief executive to find solutions to your problems, receive feedback on your ideas and develop your skills. The leadership of The Brain Trust has 70 years of combined experience as CEO of 7 corporations. Its membership has a combined 125+ years as CEO's of many corporations.

What is the key product or service of The Brain Trust?
The Brain Trust is an eleven year old organization of CEOs, company presidents, general managers and business owners who come together, during a monthly CEO Conference to provide insight and solutions to shared business hurdles through half day meetings.

Once a month, you can escape the isolation of being the top person at your company and share your problems, challenges and solutions confidentially with a group of chief executives....all with bright, experienced minds in our CEO Peer Group who are interested in helping each other learn and grow and make good decisions.

Get honest, real world, battle scarred information. Avoid making mistakes others have made by exposing yourself to the priceless insight that only peers can offer one another. There are no new problems in business .... just your version of the same problem that one of us has already faced. Learn how others have coped with the stress of being a CEO and magically and positively transformed their companies and their lives. Read more about why you should join The Brain Trust here.

What is a typical agenda for a Brain Trust meeting?
  • Lunch
  • Speaker - Great CEO's know that they need to learn and grow. The rapidly changing business environment we operate in today mandates that chief executives stay abreast of new developments, information and knowledge. At each meeting, you will benefit from the knowledge of speakers who are leading consultants and or authors in their fields of specialization.
  • Debrief from Speaker - Members of our CEO Conference discuss take-aways from the presentation, and state action steps they plan to take as a result of what they just learned.
  • Member Focus - One member gives a presentation to the CEO group for peer review.
  • Roundtable Discussion - Members are given the opportunity to throw out an issue for discussion and brain storming. Members can question each other on any topic: financing, competitive positioning, strategic planning, personnel moves, sales and marketing plans, coping with an uncooperative partner, motivating and rewarding key staff, balancing business versus personal issues, etc.

Read more about the Meeting Agenda of The Brain Trust CEO Conference here

What are the competitive advantages of The Brain Trust?
  1. Unbiased input: Members have no agenda attached to their advice. No one has an issue in protecting themselves. We're only there to offer our best advice and counseling to friends.

  2. Experience: The Wall Street Journal stated that the top two things that influence the success of CEO's are: 1) The CEO's experience, and 2) The experience of others that the CEO is able to obtain and learn from .... and this is what we are all about. CEO's sharing their experience with each other.

  3. Ideas and Feedback: Where is your next great idea going to come from? What do other people think of your ideas? Members of The Brain Trust come from different backgrounds and different industries. Thinking out of the box is what we do.

  4. Our Vision: The Brain Trust Vision is to provide a learning, growing, sharing environment that results in great businesses, great friendships and great lives for our members.

  5. Group Chair: While most chairs of CEO Peer Groups are consultants, the Chairman of The Brain Trust has been CEO of four corporations. The Brain Trust is not a forum to build a consulting practice. It's a forum for CEO's to learn from CEO's.

What kind of results will I obtain from being a member?
  1. Gain perspective by being able to discuss highly volatile, highly sensitive issues in total candor with highly experienced corporate leadership.

  2. Save time and money by avoiding mistakes others have made and solve many of your company's problems by hearing how other members solved the same problems.

  3. Learn from monthly presentations in our CEO Conference from authors, experts and world class business authorities who are widely experienced in business leadership coaching.

  4. Fine tune existing and new ideas by receiving a reality check as other members give you a variety of perspectives that can be refreshingly candid.

  5. It can make a real, measurable difference for you in your productivity, profitability and the level of your success.

Who are the members?
The value you receive as a member of The Brain Trust has a direct relationship to the quality of it's membership. Who you will be rubbing shoulders with should be extremely important to you as it is to each member. It's the responsibility of the leadership of The Brain Trust to invite high quality members. Read more about the key members here. You will learn detailed information about the membership and their companies in the process defined in the next question. Read more about the key members here.
What is the process of joining The Brain Trust?
The Chairman will come to your office and visit with you for about an hour. The purpose of this meeting is to get to know each other, answer your questions, share with you the back grounds of our members (we're only as good as the collective experience and wisdom of our members) and make a mutual decision if we are a good fit for each other. If so, he will nominate you to the group. If there are no conflicts of interest, you will be admitted into the group in the subsequent month.
What do I receive as a Member?
  1. Monthly half day meetings

  2. Lunch at each meeting

  3. Speakers

  4. Quarterly consulting meeting with the Chairman

  5. Access to him at any time by phone

Read more about Membership of The Brain Trust and what you will gain from it here
When and where does the group meet?
We meet on the same Thursday of every month at The Buckhead Club from 12:00-6:00 P.M.
What questions do I need to be asking myself?
  1. Do I have problems and issues to address?

  2. Would I like to increase my profitability?

  3. Being at the top of my organization can be a lonely place. What's missing for me?

  4. I am the single most valuable resource to my company. What am I doing now to develop myself into all I can possibly be as a CEO?

What are The Brain Trust Seminars?
As part of its ongoing mission to provide best practices and ideas with leaders and entrepreneurs, The Brain Trust also sponsors learning events and corporate executive coaching seminars. The Exit Planning Seminar was developed for owners and executives who are looking for a system to optimally exit their business while achieving maximum results. Interested in knowing more about the executive coaching seminar? Click Here
What is Brain Trust Exit Planning?
Brain Trust Exit Planning is a division of The Brain Trust. The organization and its partners assist clients in executing a proprietary Exit Planning service called the Business Owner Succession System or BOSSTM. Read more about The Brain Trust BOSS Exit Planning here.
What is Brain Trust Investment Capital?
The Braintrust recently launched a new division of the company to assist clients in raising capital for their business.
For more information, Click Here


Become a Member Now | What The Brain Trust Members Say

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"Developing an Exit Plan Now Can Double Your Company's Value When It Comes Time to Sell."
- by Tom Cramer, Founder of The Brain Trust