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Communities Are Built On Networks · Build With Becky: Smart Strategies To Grow Your Community-Driven Business

• 0:00
  These stages of community are built on networks.
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  If you don't have a big network, if you don't have a lot of people in your life that you know could join the community that you're building, then you don't have a community or you're really going to struggle
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  to get your first members in.
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  I always say, I always ask people that have a community idea, they're like, I want to build this thing.
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  And I ask, great, where's your, like, how many people are on the list that you think should join this thing?
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  And they might say like, oh, you know, well, I've started a wait list and there's some people on it, but like I, I want to know how many people you can write down their names and emails or Instagram
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  handles or telephone numbers and say like, these are the people that I think will join.
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  And to give you an idea, like, when we recently did this at Affinity, I had a list of roughly 30 people and about 10 joined from that list of the 30 that I was so positive would join.
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  And that's really typical.
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  It's the one on one stuff.
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  Like the beginning of building community is the hardest part.
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  I mean, of course it's hard long term, but, but it's the hardest part to get it going.
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  Because when you're building community, your community members want to know who else is joining, they want to know who else is in it, they want to know who they're going to be spending time with.
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  And if you can't answer that question, they're not going to say yes yet.
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  And so you need to find your early adopters.
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  And to find your early adopters, you need to recruit people that you already have a high trust with.
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  You already probably have community with them, like you would consider them, but part of your community already and you're just formalizing it.
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  And this is the thing that most people don't do or don't have and they start their community too early.
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  I'm currently working on a really exciting community launch with a founder as a founding partner and I'll share more about this soon.
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  But I was reflecting on, like, why did I, why did I say yes to this?
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  Compared to similar offers I've gotten in the past, like, hey, will you help me launch this thing with people that, you know, arguably have a similar vision or even a similar resume?
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  And this person, I, number one, of course I, I believe in the vision that he has, but also I really admire the network that he's built.
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  And because there's an existing network there and beyond like gross feeling networking, right?
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  Like real true community experiences.
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  Like he's curated dinners and like done things.
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  This is the other thing before you're building online membership, online community.
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  Like we need to be doing community things, being a villager in practice, connecting people, bringing them together already.
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  And if you haven't done these things yet, like that's a great place to start.
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  Because he's done that because he has this incredible network.
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  I'm like, yes, I believe in your vision.
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  Yes, I'm excited about being part of this community.
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  Cause that's also really important.
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  And yes, I'm interested, but it doesn't.
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  Even though like he has this amazing network, we're still having to do a lot of boots on the ground work where it's like, okay, how are we going to get our first X number of members?
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  Who are the ideal members for that?
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  We're.
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  When you're building community from the very beginning, you also need to care a lot about the culture you're creating and who you're inviting in.
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  You don't want to just let anybody join.
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  And this is a problem I see a lot of times with like really large creators that will launch a membership and then people join and they're like, oh, this is not the kind of vibe I was going for.
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  And so this is why I really like an invite only strategy for the beginning.
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  And if you have like a really huge audience creating some kind of wait list that has a good set of questions, like a survey within that, and then inviting a subset of that wait list based on what kind
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  of community you're actually trying to build.
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  And this is, you know, for high ticket membership experiences, masterminds, like cultures, everything, especially in smaller groups.
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  And so you really have to pay attention to who you're inviting in the room so that everybody wants to be in that room and keep showing up in that room.
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  And again like having your list of people, these are the people I know that should be a part of this so would really enjoy it, that will find value in it.
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  Not just like, who can I sell to?
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  But who is going to feel really fulfilled and get a lot out of this, not only enjoy being part of this culture, but also contribute to the culture they're building.
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  One of my clients, Annie, she has this, she's done a really incredible job being very public about her membership launch and her program launch before that and how she's bringing people together.
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  She's taking calls with people before the doors are even open, just to talk to them, tell them about it, talk to them about, you know, the pricing, what she's planning, get feedback and then find out if they're interested
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  in joining and being a part of it.
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  And she's making all of this also like very public on her Instagram.
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  And because of that she's going to fill this up and it's going to have this incredible network effect and the culture will be really tight because she's only inviting in the people that are a really great fit.
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  And I really admire that.
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  I think a lot of us get scared about sharing our goals or like the thing that we're building because we don't want it.
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  Like what if it fails?
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  We don't want to fail in public.
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  That's like the underlying fear or imposter syndrome sort of thing happening.
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  But sharing what we're building, especially from a community standpoint, is you, you start to talk about it, people understand it and they're like, oh actually like you need to know this person.
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  And then again, this is like networking, right?
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  Like, hey, you're building this thing.
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  These two people over here are doing similar stuff, like you guys needed to be talking to each other.
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  And communities are built on networks.
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  And so, you know, sharing what kind of community you're bringing together helps you draw in the right people from, from their networks and it creates this like network effect.
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  I think this is something we forget too as community builders who already have existing communities.
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  And there are a few people coming to mind, like community builders that do this really, really well, where they just keep showing up in public places, going to events, hosting dinners, hosting, you know, add on events at conferences.
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  And they talk about their community and they're really publicly promoting it, but they're drawing people in and creating sort of this like word of mouth growth on their end.
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  And they're, they're networking and, and through that networking, they're creating personal invitations to join and be a part of their community.
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  If you want your community grow to grow, you gotta talk about it and you gotta meet new people that are great fits to actually join.
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  And so I think we rely a lot on marketing funnels.
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  And sure, like those are great, really important to have, but we also need to keep showing up and keep networking to talk about how our communities are being built and how they should be a part of it.
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  And so yeah, it's just something, a little food for thought, something to think about.
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  How can you network more with the people that you want in your community?
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  And a lot of times we build communities because we fill a gap where like these are, these are the types of people I want to be with and I can't find them, they're not, they're not like showing up
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  anywhere already, but they probably are.
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  Like they're, they're going to some kind of event, some kind of conference, or they're following another person or they're somewhere even if they're in small little clusters of three or four people.
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  And so you just need to go to those places and find those people.
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  And that is, that's how we build it.
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  That's how we build it up.
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  That's how we build it in the beginning.
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  And a lot of times it's that like one to one stuff that doesn't scale that makes the biggest difference and also brings in the, the best culture fit ads to your community that really drive amazing experiences and culture
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  for the other members.
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  Community is a long game and I think this is the crux of it.
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  It's like you really have to put in the boots on the ground work to recruit, recruit, recruit in the beginning and also along, you know, as you build, as you go on, and if you can really nail that,
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  then it will really flourish.
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  And it's so worth it because if you build those strong foundations through your structure, through your member design, but also through the actual members you're bringing in in the beginning, then you have a really incredible product that stands
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  the test of time because the community is so sustainable long term that you're playing the long game.
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  So if you're playing the community game, if you're listening to my show week after week and you really want to grow your membership, you're serious about it, like you're playing the long game.
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  And so do some of this non scalable work to make it work for you long term.
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  Okay.
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  If you're listening on the day that I dropped this episode, it's actually my birthday, so I would love it.
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  If you want to give me a a birthday present, please follow subscribe to the show wherever you listen and leave a review.
• 8:22
  It means so much to me.
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  I love seeing these come through.
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  I read every single one and they help more people find the show, which is a really great gift.
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  So whether you're listening on my birthday or a few days later, if you could give me that gift, I would really appreciate it and you know, share it with a friend.
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  If you think that they need to hear this, if they're trying to build community and they're pushing a boulder up the hill, maybe they need to do some boots on the ground networking to get those people in.
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  Okay.
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  Until next time.
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  Keep building.