Ep 49: Turning Audiences into Engaged Communities: Online Community Building with Carrie Melissa Jones
EPISODE 49
transform your audience into an engaged community
Can you differentiate between building an audience and building a community? If you're curious to learn more and unlock the power of brand communities, you're in the right place.
Join me as I sit down with the phenomenal Carrie Melissa Jones, community expert and founder of the CMJ Group. Together, we dissect the magic and serendipity that goes into creating a strong community, a realm far beyond one-way communication.
Managing a brand community, especially for nonprofits, can be incredibly challenging. Limited resources and small teams often add to the struggle.
Carrie and I share practical strategies and insights to combat these hurdles. We discuss the power of entrusting vocal champions and experts to help run your community, creating a robust platform without bearing all the responsibility. By the end of our conversation, you'll be equipped with a trove of effective strategies to build and manage your community, irrespective of your organizational size.
But we don't stop there. We dive deep into the concept of reciprocity and donor engagement, emphasizing the potential of reciprocal relationships in adding value to both your organization and your community members.
We delve into the crucial role of symbols in creating a sense of belonging and alignment with your cause. As we wrap up, I remind listeners that the journey of building a community is filled with learning opportunities, even from failures. So, gear up, embrace the journey, and let's build powerful, impactful brand communities together.
“Building an audience is extremely important. Building a community also extremely important. They are not the same thing.”
About Carrie Melissa Jones
Carrie Melissa Jones is an entrepreneur, author, researcher, and advisor to community businesses. She has helped hundreds of organizations build thriving online communities that further their success—including Airbnb, Google, Microsoft, Project Management Institute, two U.S. presidential campaigns, and small businesses and non-profits worldwide. In addition, she is the co-author of the book Building Brand Communities with Charles Vogl and holds an M.A. in communication with a concentration in virtual communities.
carriemelissajones.com
Sign up for her Free workshop: How to Design Meaningful Community Experiences
Get Carrie Melissa Jones' book, Building Brand Communities
Links may be affiliate links which means I may earn a commission at no cost to you.
TRANSCRIPT:
Christina: 0:02
Welcome to the Purpose and Profit Club podcast for nonprofit leaders, mission driven creatives and social entrepreneurs. Get ready to stop dreaming and start doing. Here ideas become action. We prioritize purpose and profit. You ready, Let's go? Welcome, Carrie Melissa Jones, to the podcast. I am so excited to have you here. I've got your book right here because every time we're live I take it off my bookshelf. I love it. It's called Building Brand Communities. You're the CEO and founder of the CMJ group. Tell us a little bit about what you do and what you're working on.
Carrie: 0:40
Yeah, thank you so much for having me. I always love chatting with you, christina. Yeah, so the CMJ group is a consulting and training organization. We help all kinds of organizations, from the Fortune 500 to small businesses, nonprofits to create impactful communities. Typically those are online, and have been online over the last couple of years, but community principles apply regardless of the context, so we help all kinds of organizations make these investments really intelligently.
Christina: 1:11
Yeah, and what I love about what you do is you really cross over in the line of nonprofits for profits and really building a community. And that's one of these things that we say, like in my world. we say, oh, we want a community of supporters. It's like words we say And oftentimes I'm not sure even the people saying it really know what they mean behind it. And let's unpack for a minute. What is it? What is an online community? What is it? And maybe what is it What isn't it? And then we'll go into why it matters.
Carrie: 1:47
Yeah. So I like to contrast it, especially for those in marketing and outreach positions, as the difference between a community and an audience. So building an audience is extremely important, Building a community also extremely important. They are not the same thing. So building an audience is more about this one-way communication where you are a lot of times doing marketing efforts, emails, these kinds of things, social media postings. Community is about, instead of having it be your organization, kind of thinking about your organization on a stage and everyone's looking at you. Instead, we take all the chairs and we face them toward each other so that your different stakeholders whether those are your staff members, your board members, your donors they can meet one another and find ways to increase your impact in the world, because that's how we really unlock these truly transformational outcomes that we want to unlock in the world. So that's the major difference between those two. I think that's clarifying for people.
Christina: 2:53
That is especially for anyone who's in like comms or marketing. That's a really big distinction. So it's like, instead of talking at people, it really is the with. It's like a two-way conversation and dialogue. So I love that visual. That's really really helpful. Okay, Why does it matter, Like, why is it important? and why are so many people coming to me, coming to you and being like we need to build a community online? Or where is our community? Or our community is pretty quiet. That's another thing I'll hear. If we only kind of hear from the same people you know.
Carrie: 3:26
Yeah, Yeah, I mean there's a number of reasons why it's important. In the book we talked about there being seven really specific reasons why you would want to build a community. For this context, there's a couple of things. One is really increasing your impact, because there's only so much you can do as an organization to just be shouting into the void about what you do. And you don't need to be the one shouting into the void because actually, word of mouth and you know, natural advocacy these kinds of things are a lot more powerful in today's environment. There's a lot less trust from institutions to individuals, So it's a lot more powerful to build a community and have people interacting and collaborating around your brand versus just marketing messages out. They're both important.
Christina: 4:20
I love that. I think the example I always go back to is when, as a parent, when I was looking for like that very first daycare, it's like the first place you might go is Google. Yeah, but really the first place you might go is your neighbor who has a kid that's a few years older, and then you go to those Facebook parent groups And then what are you looking for? Like the ultimate the Holy Grail is another mother, another parent, another carrier of her, saying you got to go check this school out And in fact, the school that my daughter is at now we've kind of hopped around the school she's at now is the one that four parents were like this is, this is the one, and we were like, okay, getting on the wait list, this is one. And I think that speaks to like you know, there's a dozen other options out there that I found with good rankings on Google and had Facebook ads and had showed up and had a brand presence. But the cost of that word of mouth is like it's gold.
Carrie: 5:14
Yeah, yeah, and it's. It is nebulous when thinking about how to build it. There's no, there's no doubt about that. There's some like element of magic and serendipity to it. We can break that down into principles and how to start to actually enable that magic, but there is a lot of that that we cannot automate. Ai is not gonna be able to do for us, sorry.
Christina: 5:38
And all that. There's no robot caregiver that's gonna tell me that I'm gonna believe them in the same way as my friend Cindy who said you gotta check out the school Yeah.
Carrie: 5:48
No, not at all. And that's absolutely the position you wanna be in as a nonprofit, but also as a consultant, as a business owner. You wanna be in the position of like there's not competition, actually, because your customer is really only going to their friend who they trust, and that friend is like here's the organization you should donate to. So you're not even in a conversation in those cases with like here are the five others doing similar work. It's like no, my friend donates to this organization, she volunteers there, they volunteer there. I'm gonna start getting involved now too. And same thing as a consultant, i know I close deals when I'm not part of comparison and contrasting with other consultants. It's because, like a former client or a friend is like Carrie's the one you want And that's the situation you wanna be in as any kind of organization.
Christina: 6:38
That's what you wanna be in. That endorsement is everything. And it's as you were talking. I was like that's how we even pick doctors, like that's how we pick right, because you wish-.
Carrie: 6:46
I don't go to Google for that Or your insurance company.
Christina: 6:49
Have you ever seen that where they're like I've?
Carrie: 6:50
been in your zip code and find a stranger. And you're like.
Christina: 6:54
I know, and again I think about when I've been faced with that and maybe I need a specific kind of doctor, right, and I don't have a friend who's seen that kind of doctor. I again might take it to a Facebook group or an online forum, right, and say who here in this area of town has got a great doctor for this, right, or, and so all of those are examples of really community groups. And let me ask you this Does I think of a community group? cause I'm even using, like Facebook and as an example, or Slack or something things like that, like, are they in general online? What are some examples of a community group like that we could all go, oh yeah, that's that.
Carrie: 7:32
Yeah, i mean there's a really, really big brand communities out there that are probably the easiest kind of reference points because everybody would know that they exist. Like we were talking earlier before this recording about Harley Davidson, and they have a huge community, an international network of hundreds of chapters all over the world. When you buy a Harley Davidson motorcycle you are then inducted into a Harley owners group and you're part of a local community. But that was a part of a global kind of affiliation as well. So I mean that's a really obvious one. But also I mean Facebook groups great example, some better than others, yep, many better than others And there's a lot right now a huge surge in just generally like membership communities, like paid memberships, like a lot of coaches and entrepreneurs are starting these around, their programs You might have heard of like the company chief in the news It's like a women's, like they're having a bunch of PR She's right now. But there's a lot of these membership communities that are launching and so those might be familiar to folks as well.
Christina: 8:47
So I love the Harley Davidson example also because it's hilarious that we were talking about Harley Davidson like to the like. Huh what They're riding motorcycles, maybe, maybe, yeah, but as soon as you said that I was thinking about like somebody buys a Harley and is immediately part of this community and then also immediately feels like I above longing, like I belong here. Maybe they're getting like a welcome kit. I've been working with one of my clients on basically what happens when a new donor becomes a monthly donor. Like literally what happens, what is the plan of action next And it's huge And what they want that brand experience to be. And then I think the challenge there especially so this particular organization is under the $1 million mark in revenue a year When we see that we see small staff right, so we see people wearing multiple hats, and so the challenge that they're figuring out is okay, we can automate some welcome emails. We know we can do that. We can send them working on some designs to send them like a welcome package. Maybe we're going to send them some swag, but not too much swag. That's always a fine line with nonprofits. Yeah, like, why are you giving me this money and then sending me things Stickers and pins and buttons and things?
Carrie: 10:04
I didn't ask for right.
Christina: 10:06
Yes. And then the next layer is where I go, because I've already mentioned it a few times is, like this Facebook group or this Mighty Networks or this sort of insiders, like isn't there supposed to be a community manager managing this forum for all of the other monthly members to hang out? And then that question is usually met with the person feeling the ED or whoever's in charge of this initiative feeling so much overwhelmed. Because basically it would be like me saying hey, how about you start a TikTok today? Yeah, yeah. And then they're like fight, flight, freeze. I'm going to freeze and just table this whole idea and we're not going to do it at all. So my question to you is can we build a brand community that doesn't have that sort of ongoing maintenance of like a Facebook group or like this, like Lemmy or something that do? you know? what I mean Is that.
Carrie: 11:01
I do, i do And I can feel the overwhelm like as you're talking about it because I talk with that.
Christina: 11:06
I was stressing you out.
Carrie: 11:08
I talk with that client constantly And I'm like immediately, like I need to start tapping, like getting my breathing.
Christina: 11:14
Yes, yes, the lighter incense here, just because Yeah.
Carrie: 11:19
Because there's. So there's a lot of layers to that situation And I just have so many questions. When I hear about a situation like this, I think the number one question or concern that arises for me, especially like an ED kind of feeling, this is like Yeah, Why, well, not why? Why is never a powerful question starter, I've found. But what in what? is there a scenario in which you are not in control of all of this? Is there a scenario in which you are not going to have to be the ultimate accountability person for this? And if not, why do you think that? like, why are you setting up a hierarchical structure for something that is organically or just naturally not going to be hierarchical? Communities are not the best ones are not run hierarchically. So actually, like what? if you take a deep breath and thought I don't have to be the ultimate like accountable person here, I need to enable what is already like excitement initiative. People want to do more, they want to do more, And they wouldn't be donating monthly if that weren't the case, you know, And so that's what I would really dig into there.
Christina: 12:45
Okay, this was such a juicy answer. Oh, i didn't want to cut you off keep going, yeah.
Carrie: 12:50
But I mean like this is a challenge that we face, i think, as a culture right now is like we think, oh okay, well, i'm going to launch this community, well, now I'm in charge, now I'm responsible for all of it, now it's become a burden on me And the whole heart and core of community building is like you don't have to do this alone. You don't have to do it alone. You now have partners in this. You have people who trust you, who like, love you and your organization, and you can call on them. That's a huge relief And, I think, something we're not comfortable with.
Christina: 13:24
Yep, well, i think there's two things happening. So there's like relinquishing the control, right Yeah, and being willing to do that. And then also, yeah, this well, i'll perhaps shout out to Sarah Alibiri's podcast that was a few podcasts ago about revolutionizing board structure. So it's basically just oh right, i don't have to run this, i can actually bring on, and so we'll use this organization as an example. Like, say, you're at the under a million dollar mark, if you got to even half a million, you have vocal champions who have been championing you and supporting you along the way, who you can count on and who are experts in what you do. Like they know how to talk to somebody at the grocery store about your mission, like they know how to do that And they would likely as long as the same thing we're not putting them in like a full-time job staffing role. I think that's always. The distinction is bringing in a couple of people to help not only run the community, but it's like actually, what be a part of the community, right Yeah? You talk about that in the book, and that was one of the things that resonated with me was the idea of I think it was like the elders or something like that, the people who have been in the community the longest, and those are often the people we've all been in these communities before and I love them. They're the people who aren't the moderators of the community or the owners of the community. They know all the answers and I love them. Yeah, And it's like letting those people be letting those people help you. How about that?
Carrie: 14:53
Yeah, yeah, and giving them a role, because a lot of times. They've been supporting you for a long time, but and they would be happy to be asked to be more involved but they're not going to come up with that role. Very few people. This does happen sometimes, but they're like here's the thing I've noticed that you need to do. I'm going to do it for you. It does happen, but usually you need to create a little structure of a program and then let it go. Yes, especially for nonprofit, you can do that. There's like a lot of legal issues around doing things like that in for-profit organizations that don't exist for nonprofits, or the legal considerations are just different. So there's a lot of power in that structure.
Christina: 15:38
And I know one of the questions that we're not going to completely solve today And one of the things that you do in your programs is address this pain point, this problem, which is I have an online community but it's kind of quiet. No one's really participating, Like that's a common thing. Yeah, that you can hear.
Carrie: 15:54
Yeah, Especially what happens in every kind of community. I think one thing to keep in mind and one thing that we need realistic expectations about is that in any community, online or off, most of your participants, most of your, most of the people who are even in the community, like even members, are not going to do anything Yep, they're going to be lurking, they're going to be reading your newsletters, doing passive actions Yep, but actually, like, when we look at the numbers across the board, i've seen this in communities of millions and communities of 30. It's about 20% of our membership that's actively doing something and 80% is usually just fine, just kind of hanging out. And we're like reading the comments.
Christina: 16:46
We're hanging out. We're actually silent supporters. We're happy we're there right, yeah.
Carrie: 16:51
And we're just not yeah, and that's fine, and you shouldn't be building for them. You should be building for that 20%.
Christina: 16:58
Okay, let's, yeah, let's really underscore that, so that 80% that you don't even know are reading the comments or hanging out and are fine, and you're freaking out because they haven't posted anything in a while, or they haven't done anything in a while, or they. they're okay, so go back to what you just said. You should be thinking about that 20%.
Carrie: 17:19
Yeah, thinking about that 20%, because that 20% is providing value for that 20% plus the 80%. And there are plenty of people who join communities just because they want the affiliation with an organization. So like that 80% might be in there because they're like I wanna say that I'm a supporter of like for me, like I support a local radio station, but then there's like that 20% who are going to create the content They're going to share, like local bands and things like that, and I'm gonna discover things from them that I couldn't have otherwise discovered, even if I never do a single thing.
Christina: 17:57
Okay, you're giving me. That's such a good example and such a good distinction, because it's like we're members of our local museum high here. Yeah, no-transcript, i would argue. I'm pretty disengaged member. I might go once or twice a year and I'm happy to renew. That's it right. They should not be creating content or worrying about Christina's membership Like I'm, good Go to the people who are, those, those who are showing up on. Instagram who are showing up for member Fridays. for who, right, like, think about what? because actually those are the same people We talked about word of mouth in the beginning. I'm actually thinking my friend Christie, who does all of that. Then she posts about it and I'm like, ooh, gotta check out that exhibit. It's like she becomes this advocate ambassador for that brand, because that brand has also it's reciprocal, which we're gonna talk about here in a second. So am I getting it?
Carrie: 18:48
Yes, absolutely, and that's why, like there's so much talk about influencer marketing and things like that, that's not an area where I specialize, because I think anyone is an influencer, that's right. Everyone has influence in their own circles, sometimes larger than others. But, yeah, that's that 20% that's vocal, that feels comfortable advocating for you. We really wanna be building for them. So, like I was part of a I have a nonprofit partner who I work with and like they invited us together for they offer breathing circles for black women And but they invited all the donors, regardless of race, ethnicity, gender identity, any of that to come to a special circle just for us, and I was like this is very, very cool. Like you said, it's like a special, exclusive opportunity Not everyone's going to wanna participate in, but, like I certainly did, i had actually never experienced the thing that I was supporting myself And so, yeah, it was just a really cool way to get involved and see it firsthand.
Christina: 19:54
And that's a good example, too, of one that is more maybe like event or activation specific. that isn't like, once you join our monthly donor program, you're part of this online community and get some emails. It could be like, once you don't join our whatever program or whatever community, these are the things that you get invited to, or these are some of the activations you can expect. So I like that too.
Carrie: 20:19
Yeah, it doesn't have to be a Facebook group that has to be constantly maintained, because communities do need to be maintained. There's maintenance work in that and you can't entirely get rid of it. Like, the maintenance work is the work of community building, which I think we undervalue in our culture. But 100%. Yeah.
Christina: 20:39
Say more.
Carrie: 20:41
Maintenance work is. It's what keeps communities alive, and we see our culture moving away from valuing it, which means we're seeing fewer communities around us, like our neighborhoods are less connected, all of these things that we're seeing in the media about the loneliness epidemic. Because we are not taught to do and value maintenance work for our relationships, for our neighborhoods, for all of that, we just think someone else will take care of it, like capitalism will take care of it. Or like just We don't have to do the maintenance, we get to do the fun part, like the launch part or whatever. But then we hope somebody else is gonna do it And it's like no, this is the work And actually if we were to really deeply value it and take more joy in it, we would have a better world that we would live in. But these are all really big philosophical things. Yeah, no, all the time.
Christina: 21:41
That makes a lot of sense And it's also what I'm really hearing too is I think the marketer in me is seeing the community group as like all right, who's hosting the group, who's the moderator, who's checked? Because it is hierarchical in that way. But that is not the best way for a community to be built and to run and to be maintained right.
Carrie: 22:01
In this like Not in the long term.
Christina: 22:02
Yeah, Yeah, yeah. So that's a really good distinction. All right, let's dig into the idea of reciprocity. So, as I said kind of in the green room that I was thinking about this idea of reciprocity And it's funny you mentioned influencer marketing, because I have a workshop and I was working on the slides for that today And there's like a slide that's basically talking about well, there's two pieces. One is everyone's an influencer. Again, my friend Christy is an influencer, more than maybe the like ATL, whatever account that's telling me to go to the museum. I'm like, oh, Christy gets it, And so she is absolutely influencing and endorsing whatever event or happening or cool thing, And so everyone's an influencer. I totally agree. And I was thinking about this idea of reciprocity, which is, I think a lot of organizations may not be aware or maybe not. I don't wanna admit this, but a lot of times we're not thinking from the lens of like what, how is this a reciprocal relationship, Whether it's donor or client? but, like we're thinking I wanna get people into my community, I need people in my community, because more people in the community means more funding And it's like well, what is their experience of being in the community? Why should they be in the community? What is the value of it for them too, And really thinking about like the full circle of that.
Carrie: 23:24
Yeah, yeah, i mean I have a client I'm working with right now and she was mentioning to me within her organization she's kind of the advocate, she's one actually building the community, responsible for the tiny details and big decisions on the day to day. But she said in the organization, like people only ever wanna talk about what does the organization get out of it, they don't wanna talk about the other piece. And she said we're making all kinds of assumptions about what people want. And that's really scary to her because then, they're gonna launch and it's gonna just fall flat. So we're doing a bunch of research, but I told her we do need to start from what the organization gets out of it, because if the organization implodes, so does the community, unless the community is extremely strong but around for years and years and years. So in her case we need to talk about selfishly for the organization, what are our goals? And so for a nonprofit, that's like we need more donors, we need whatever that might be. be selfish about that. But then you take that and then put it in a little box and set it to the side for a little bit and you can come back to it. But you've got to then get into the mindset of who that 20% of people are and what progress do they want to make in their lives that they're There's a reason why they're donating to your organization. What is it bringing to them in their lives? Is it because they want to be part of a movement, part of a really big shift in how the world works? Because then, if we can identify what that is and usually we do this through like a series of surveys and member interviews to get it in people's own words then we can say, okay, if this is the kind of progress they want to make in their lives, these are the symbols that would symbolize that that progress is being made like, whether that's stickers or whatever else, it can be something really cheap. What's really important is that the person giving it to them matters to them and the organization giving it to them matters to them. So, yeah, what are the symbols? What kind of actions would they want to be taking? Who would they want to meet along that journey? And then we can start to figure out okay, now, what would be included as part of a community experience. And then we can come back to that little box That was like what are our goals? Me, me, me, me. We can say, yeah, yeah, bring the box over to this larger story of progress and say, okay, now, how are we gonna connect this larger story of progress to our little box of needs from an organizational standpoint? And there's always a way. there's always a way.
Christina: 26:17
I love that. Oh, that's such a good example As you were talking I was thinking about. So you were basically talking about the donors why, right, like what's their why? And I worked with an organization that is very large here in Atlanta a few years back and they gave me a bunch of swag And we have a very friendly relationship And so I was joking. I was like, well, this is going to my husband. This will go like. I'm not a swag person. I think there's like, ultimately, there's just a minimalist part of me that just, and what the program's person said to me was our volunteers lose it if they don't get a T-shirt, like they volunteer for the shirt, and I was like, oh, that's yes.
Carrie: 27:04
And here's I'm gonna land the plane. I swear, okay. Okay.
Christina: 27:07
You were saying they've had this huge day of service and probably if Atlanta based people and I'm talking about they have a huge, a couple of weeks like days of service throughout the year where it's a big deal And I think it becomes like kind of status but like an. I did that and people almost like the Harley Davidson, almost like I'm part of this club And I think getting the shirt with the year on it, the 2023 year of the volunteer day of service for the I plan, you know, whatever it was like that And that's what he meant He's like if we got rid of these shirts, i'd hear about it And I was like, oh, wow. And so that's a distinction of like the difference between their ideal person not being me right, not being like I want the thing and then the and I mean, of course, the person wants more than the shirt and is doing it for more than the shirt, but for them, that was part of them feeling seen as a community member of this organization. Yeah, did I just make sense?
Carrie: 28:03
Yes, and I would say they're not doing it for the shirt, they're doing it for the symbol, what the shirt symbolizes. They do.
Christina: 28:11
Okay, yes. The shirt symbolizes their alignment with that cause in that organization, yeah, and that they're part of, of course, people that also has their shirt. It's like this big, yeah, it's like this big Atlanta wide, hyper local event, right, and so for them it's also like this Atlanta pride thing, it's like this, so maybe that's the other piece that it symbolizes.
Carrie: 28:34
Yeah, it's, i was here. Here's a memento of this thing. Yeah, i did it. If I run into anybody else in town, yeah they know. Yeah.
Christina: 28:43
That's what there's. There's also a neighborhood club around here that's like a coworking space that I'm a member of, and whenever I wear the sweatshirt, the sweatshirt's really cool. It's like nicely designed People are like like somebody has stopped my husband in the sweatshirt. He's not a member before And they're like what's up? Like it is like you're one of us, right. Yeah, you're welcome to the club. Yeah, yeah.
Carrie: 29:04
And there's actually I was there's a number of people in the radio I've talked about radio earlier, Yeah And there's a number of people in the like local radio scene right now who are exploring these ideas, And radio stations notoriously give out like backpacks and socks and just like all kinds of stuff during their drives. And I'm just like I gave you my money. I don't want you to give it back to me in the form of socks. Yes, Yes, I wanted to go toward your people and programming and artists, And one of the things that one of these leaders was talking about was like we actually could spend much less money on all of these things, And one great example is the radio show Wait, Wait, Don't Tell Me. Yeah, And the thing that they give away when somebody wins their contest is a voicemail message with I forget the guy's name, but like he'll record a voicemail message for you which costs nothing to be made. But again, it's that symbol of like. If you know who this is, then you're in the know And I'm affiliated with this thing And I don't need a backpack and magnets And koozies and things. Yes, Yeah, Although I do love my jazz cat magnet that I got.
Christina: 30:25
I mean, I think that it's a good reminder to like really know your audience And if you don't know your audience, to survey them, to get on the phone with them to figure out what's important to them. If they're the Cristinas of the world, you don't want it. Or if they are like where is my t-shirt, I want it. You know, or my magnet or whatever, just to get a sense of them. And then one of the things I wanted to tie it back to, because you were talking about, like, spend the time on the 20% and any nonprofit listening to this will know this stat It's really interesting that that came up which is approximately 20% of your donors make up 80% of your revenue, your operating, yeah. So it's like it really is. Sometimes it feels like, well, we're throwing spaghetti at the wall. We're trying to contact everyone and ask for donations And it's like let me narrow in on that 20%, right, let me narrow in on what they need. And this is that same principle of thinking about when it comes to community building. Thinking about that 20%.
Carrie: 31:23
Yeah, yeah, totally, and not just the 20% of the 20%. so 4% are like crucial to you And those are really the ones that if you were hone in really specifically on them, you can have incredible results.
Christina: 31:40
So how do you if I'm thinking about my 20% and then I'm thinking about my super duper all-stars within that group to get my 4% housement? Yeah, yeah, i'm thinking of a different client and I'm like, yeah, they do have those people. It's like the people that show up for everything, or they replied every message, or they just love you.
Carrie: 32:01
Like those people, yeah, and you wanna know those people Like you don't wanna just, you know, put them in your transactional email flow and ignore them. You wanna say, hey, patty, like I noticed you've been doing XYZ thing, can we get on a call? I'd love to get to know you better, like you wanna spend that time with that person.
Christina: 32:22
And let's make the distinction that sometimes Patty maybe hasn't given the biggest gift, She hasn't made the biggest donation, And boy could she be such a valuable asset to like your organization's growth to your impact, Right. So don't discount her. You know, if she's not a major donor, don't discount her for that Cause she could be one of the people that she's an influencer.
Carrie: 32:46
No one's asked her yet.
Christina: 32:47
No one's asked her yet, and that's really what I teach in one of my programs is like. One of the slides today was like we don't need Kim Kardashian stop it, We don't need.
Carrie: 32:56
I love Oprah.
Christina: 32:57
We don't need Oprah to advocate for your organization. She's great, but actually I mean, let's get Gail too, but Like Not, you know that's. It's not that or nothing right, there's so many people that already exist in that 20% to start building a deeper relationship with.
Carrie: 33:18
Yeah, yeah, i mean. A personal example of mine with this is I run a community for community builders. Our highest lifetime value customers are the ones who spend the most with us are not necessarily the ones who are engaged in the community at all. In fact, a lot of the ones who spend a lot of money just go through the courses. They're not. They're not looking for a community around it. But there are those who have lower LTV and they've referred like 20 customers to me. So that's who I'm really looking at. That's who I'm really like I wanna know them. I want them in my like DMs. I wanna know their birthday. Yeah, yeah.
Christina: 33:57
I want to know all that. Oh, that's so smart. I love this conversation. Okay, last, i'm like I want it to keep going forever, but it's not going to. I'll let you know. We ask everyone on the podcast what is one thought that you like to think on purpose? It could be a guiding principle, a mantra, a belief, anything. Will you share that with us?
Carrie: 34:16
Yeah, there's one that I probably repeat to myself multiple times a day, which is from Adrienne Marie Brown, the author of Emergent Strategy, and she says never a failure, always a lesson. And I just repeat that to myself over and over and over again, from like sending out an email that I wish I hadn't worded in a certain way, to launching a program that has zero sales. It's never a failure. I'm always learning something. That's the opportunity we have, everything that we do.
Christina: 34:49
That is such a good one because I've been thinking a lot lately about the idea of like the difference between rejection and disappointment, And it's like allowing yourself to feel disappointed, allowing yourself to feel like you know what. I feel like that was a fail, but there's a lesson in there. I feel like that didn't go well. I wanted, but there's a lesson in there versus rejection, which can feel like a shame spiral and like optional, so I love that. I love the lesson. Yeah, yes.
Carrie: 35:16
And feel the feelings, because it does feel bad.
Christina: 35:19
Feel the feelings. Yeah, i think that in this work, we are all here because we wanna make literally our community, our world, something better, right, and yeah, it can like when things don't go how you want them to go or how you expected them to go. It's like, yeah, feel the disappointment, feel the feeling that's on that, and don't put your feeling on a shelf Like so many people do, like I used to. Yeah, have a day. Yeah, have a day, or however long it takes, but keep going, don't stop.
Carrie: 35:53
Yes, absolutely.
Christina: 35:55
I'm here for that. Yes, all right, tell us about you have a free training, right? Tell us about how people can find, you hang out with, you, learn all the things. Because way back when we met on the internet I was like ooh, what is? this community building. There was so much. It was like we were two cars driving on the same road but I couldn't quite. I was like this is interesting but I know nothing about it. And so I will say if people are in my world and they dig it, then this is a really good compliment to the work that I do, because this is not what I teach. But it's like, ooh, this is the missing part of people who have said I want to build a community online or a community of supporters, or you know all the things that we've been talking about, So tell us about your webinar.
Carrie: 36:38
Yeah, so you can contact me via all the social media, except I'm not really on Twitter these days, but you can find me on LinkedIn. I have a YouTube channel that I update by weekly and Instagram at Carrie Melissa Jones. And then, yeah, i do offer a free training. So if you want to just learn the foundations of community strategy which a lot of people don't have And, like you said, they'll use the word community but it's not really backed up by anything So if you want to learn the foundations of how to design meaningful community experiences whether that's a one-off event or a full Facebook group experience that you're designing you can grab that free workshop And I think you'll be able to link to that.
Christina: 37:23
Yeah, we'll link to it. We'll also link to your YouTube, because you've got some good videos there. I think you've got a good one. That's like we talked about Facebook groups. I mentioned Slack, Mighty Networks, Like. There's so many too. Like there's another decision fatigue point and you break it down in one of the videos of like. All right, here's what you need to know.
Carrie: 37:41
Here are the differences.
Christina: 37:42
So if you feel like you want to make a move, there's a good one on options Yeah yeah, there's tech for days.
Carrie: 37:50
Yeah, so many tech decisions.
Christina: 37:54
And so many tech decisions To.
Carrie: 37:55
Brandsport.
Christina: 37:57
But I was just about to say that. But, like, when I need to make a tech decision, i ask like two people and then I choose. And so, when it comes to online community, just watch a video and then choose one. Choose one that you said.
Carrie: 38:08
Don't need a blog about it.
Christina: 38:10
Don't ask everybody. It just ends up being like too many different opinions.
Carrie: 38:14
Yeah, do not ask everybody what platform should I use, because you're going to get 50 opinions and none of them are going to be relevant to your people. That's right, yeah.
Christina: 38:23
Awesome. Anything else to add before we wrap up? This has been such a great conversation.
Carrie: 38:29
No, just thank you for having me and all my respect for everybody doing this work. Like we talked about, maintenance work is so, so crucial and important and undervalued, and just I want everybody that does it out there to know that all my respect goes to you and that what you're doing really deeply matters and has all kinds of ripple effects that you may never even know about, but I promise you that it matters.
Christina: 38:53
I mean, think about how many times you've advocated and talked about a community you're in or I know I have When that person the community leader doesn't know I'm out there talking about it, i'm like, ooh, you know, it's like, let that you don't always get to hear all of the silent supporters that are out there supporting your cause. So keep going, it's working. And even the biggest communities and maybe we'll end with this started with like one person in it, right, started with one person in it, two people in it, 10 people in it, and so it compounds and grows.
Carrie: 39:22
So yeah, yeah, i would argue those are some of the best communities when they started out, small and intentional, you know, grew over time versus went viral and then tried to figure everything out.
Christina: 39:33
Yeah, yeah, thank you so much. Thank you have a great day. If you ask me, everyone should have a coach, especially you. I wanna invite you to schedule a free discovery call with me. Go to splendidatlcom, forward, slash contact. You'll see my calendar there. Book a call with me. You'll learn about my smart growth method, where we can grow your business or organization sustainably, with ease and massive impact.