There's a sandbox in the lobby, and farther back, there's a tiki bar with palm trees painted on the walls. The co-founders? Their titles are "First Lady" and "Orator."

Though you'll find this scene in an otherwise-typical business park office, this isn't your typical business — which makes perfect sense to the owners of InSights Group at 10355 Citation Dr., Suite 200, in Brighton.

Born through the efforts of Allan Curtis and Sandi Maki in January 2008, InSights began as a business mentorship organization — helping small businesses and entrepreneurs help one another through peer-to-peer counseling, coaching, consulting and small-business boot camps.

Maki credits "masterminding," a technique used by Ben Franklin, as an inspiration. That's where a peer group meets to discuss members' problems and collectively solve them. There are four such business groups currently involved with InSights.

While businesses may function in different ways and have different customers, there are many common problems all businesses must solve to become and remain successful.

"There's a lot to be learned from a hardware store owner by someone who sells insurance," Curtis said.

Maki said InSights seeks "to fill a business community need so you don't have to go it alone."

Another goal emerged later: teaching how to harness the power of social media for business success.

InSights' use of social media sprang from its own low-budget beginnings, she said. Since the two co-owners had no money for marketing their business, "We started using social media before it was cool," Maki said.

Through that experience, InSights learned "to help people understand social media for business," she added.

What's the most important thing they learned?

"You can't use new media in an old way," Curtis said.

"Old media interrupts you" through commercials and other intrusions, he said. "In social media, if you interrupt, I turn you off."

Added Maki, "We can coach you in how to say things and create conversation (through social media) without actually selling."

For example, you wouldn't likely do business with a party guest who spent all evening trying to sell you something. Using social media to do that same thing inevitably leads to failure.

"How can we socially interact with people without pushing ourselves on them? … Social media is a place where we can introduce ourselves without being sold something," Curtis explained. "Our house is our website. … I want you to like me enough to share me with your friends."

The partners agree that being shared by "friends" in social media — "making your sphere bigger," Maki calls it — is vital for business success in 2011 and beyond.

Maki said InSights will launch a new arm of the business in April, dedicated to helping private clients launch and market their businesses organically. This includes online and offline methods, "creating a road map to follow" that leads to success, Maki said.

"We can show you how to do this by doing it ourselves," she said.

Much like those palm trees at the tiki bar that Curtis painted.

"Life is too short to surround yourself with boring walls," he laughed.