Hey family! This week brings you a special episode. Alex Hillman and I teamed up for a live podcast interview and Q&A as COVID-19 was starting to take a toll on business owners. This is a tough time for most of us. Some online entrepreneurs are seeing a decline in revenue while several industries have been shut down completely. What do we do when we're facing uncertainty, struggling to figure out our next move, and are trying to avoid thoughts of giving up completely? We pivot. We lean into our communities. We get resourceful. Alex is the founder of Indy Hall, a coworking community in Philadelphia, and the co-founder of Stacking the Bricks along with Amy Hoy. He joined me to dig into practical pivot strategies, tips for building online communities, and effective sales strategies for a down economy. Our live audience brought some great questions, so stick around after the interview for some more great advice about marketing during a pandemic, free vs. paid communities, and creating free content when your business is struggling. Episode Quotes "If we wait, there may be nothing... so let's be resourceful." "The difference between a group of people and a community is the direction that the support flows." "The value of the community gets bigger if the more people are in it and contributing." "The value of a community is the resiliency of your customers in their businesses." "Short term thinking is the thing that will kill a lot of businesses." Listen to Learn 04:45 - Getting to know Alex Hillman, Rapid 5 Questions 11:52 - Challenges small business owners are facing due to COVID-19 18:06 - Marketing and pivot strategies 26:40 - Product sales strategy in a down economy 31:30 - Community building and management essentials 40:07 - Community building during COVID-19 crisis 43:59 - Q&A on finding the right marketing tone 47:28 - Q&A on free content 53:02 - Q&A on free vs. paid communities 1:00:05 - Tools for online community building 1:06:02 - Practical advice for business owners Connect with Alex DangerouslyAwesome.com IndyHall.org StackingtheBricks.com Follow Alex on Twitter! Looking for the Transcript? Episode 124
Hey family! This week brings you a special episode. Alex Hillman and I teamed up for a live podcast interview and Q&A as COVID-19 was starting to take a toll on business owners.
This is a tough time for most of us. Some online entrepreneurs are seeing a decline in revenue while several industries have been shut down completely. What do we do when we're facing uncertainty, struggling to figure out our next move, and are trying to avoid thoughts of giving up completely?
We pivot. We lean into our communities. We get resourceful.
Alex is the founder of Indy Hall, a coworking community in Philadelphia, and the co-founder of Stacking the Bricks along with Amy Hoy. He joined me to dig into practical pivot strategies, tips for building online communities, and effective sales strategies for a down economy.
Our live audience brought some great questions, so stick around after the interview for some more great advice about marketing during a pandemic, free vs. paid communities, and creating free content when your business is struggling.
Episode Quotes
"If we wait, there may be nothing... so let's be resourceful."
"The difference between a group of people and a community is the direction that the support flows."
"The value of the community gets bigger if the more people are in it and contributing."
"The value of a community is the resiliency of your customers in their businesses."
"Short term thinking is the thing that will kill a lot of businesses."
Listen to Learn
04:45 - Getting to know Alex Hillman, Rapid 5 Questions
11:52 - Challenges small business owners are facing due to COVID-19
18:06 - Marketing and pivot strategies
26:40 - Product sales strategy in a down economy
31:30 - Community building and management essentials
40:07 - Community building during COVID-19 crisis
43:59 - Q&A on finding the right marketing tone
47:28 - Q&A on free content
53:02 - Q&A on free vs. paid communities
1:00:05 - Tools for online community building
1:06:02 - Practical advice for business owners
Connect with Alex
Looking for the Transcript?
Alex Hillman: I mean, the thing that I keep coming back to is there's never been a greater need to play the long game. I think business is always a long game. You can create short term immediate wins at the cost of future opportunities. Or you can invest on a regular basis and look for long term returns, that's harder. It requires a fair bit of work and infrastructure, but it also is the investment mindset that we talked about is building things now that continue creating value going forward. If you're not already doing it, you kind of have to now, if you have been doing it, my biggest piece of advice is do not stop doing it because of this. The hardest thing in managing crisis in a business is the intense feeling of needing to change the way you do everything.
Janelle Allen: Welcome to Level Up Your Course, where we pull back the curtain on what it takes to create learning that transforms lives. You will hear stories from business owners like you who share their success and their struggles. This is not where you come to hear passive income hints, friends. This is where you learn the truth about building a profitable learning platform. I am your host, Janelle Allen, and this is today's episode.
Hey family. So really quick. This was a live podcast that Alex and I did in Crowdcast to engage with the community right when the Coronavirus outbreak happened. And we gave some Q&A time towards the end of the episode; you're going to hear me bring questions up that were posed from the audience members. It was a great time and I am looking forward to doing more live podcasts. So if that's something that you want to be part of, if you want to be there with me live, just head over and make sure you're on my newsletter, head to janelleallen.com/newsletter, and you'll find out when the next one's happening. Alright, let's get into it.
Hey, everyone, I'm Janelle Allen. And this is Alex Hillman. Alex, I'll introduce you in a sec. But we have a couple minutes before we get started. But we just wanted to kind of come in here and go live a couple minutes early and say thank you for being here. For those of you who are in the room, feel free to pop in the chat where you're joining from. And also, we're going to give a little bit of a background on Crowdcast if you haven't used it before, but before that, I am in Chicago, again my name is Janelle Allen, and I am the founder of formerly Zen courses now janelleallen.com. I'm an instructional designer and I also do help course creators with marketing strategy. And Alex and I have been connected for a little while now, a few years. And so, I just wanted to have a podcast called Level Up Your Course and I wanted to have Alex on to talk about community. So that's just a little bit about me.
It looks like we have Dave from Boston, Alice, cool. So, before I get into introducing Alex, and while folks are still joining, if you are new to Crowdcast, they've got a couple cool features that I want to let you know about. So, a lot of you are already using the chat on the side of your screen, the right side of your screen. Down below our faces, right down there is a button where you should be able to ask a question, it literally says ask a question, and you can just pop in your questions there. The cool thing about that is it will create a queue so that we can make sure everyone's question gets answered. So, questions below our faces, and chat to the right. If you're just joining us, welcome. We are just getting started. Alex and I popped in early. I am Janelle Allen, and we are going to give folks another minute, 30 seconds to a minute to join. And then we're going to go ahead and get started. So, you haven't missed anything if you need to grab some water, do that. Folks in the chat are sharing where they're joining from. So please chime in there. It's like we got London. Yeah, a few people in London, Berlin, Amsterdam. Hey Peter, Jersey, in the house. Hey, Lisa. I was told by someone from Central Jersey that only people from Central Jersey know where Central Jersey is. That's what I've heard. We've got New Hampshire. Cool. All right. Well, we're gonna go ahead and get things started and kick off here. Again, I'm Janelle Allen. And my guest today is Alex Hillman. Alex, do you want to tell us a little bit about yourself?
AH: Sure. Well, hi, Janelle, it's super nice to see you, and it's been a couple of months since we hung out. It's good to be back together. I wish it was under maybe better and brighter circumstances. But here we are. Hi, everybody in the chat and everybody listening later. My name is Alex Hillman. I'm based in Philadelphia, Sunny Philadelphia. And it's actually quite sunny today. It's really, really nice. And I am not a tough person to introduce, and now I get the glory. I go, I do not get why Janelle passed this to me. So, I wear a bunch of different hats, but I split most of my time between two main businesses. One is a co-working community that I started in 2006, called Indy Hall, here in Philadelphia. As you might imagine, a co-working space in a time like right now is a little interesting. We can talk more about that if you like Janelle. And then the other business I co-founded with my friend, Amy Hoy, where we help people with creative skills, whether you're a designer, developer, writer, videographer and you sell those skills for time either as an employee or as a contractor or consultant, we help folks build their businesses beyond that time for money trade, by learning how to market and sell products, using a bunch of processes that we've developed. A lot of the same stuff we've used to build our businesses, we teach other folks. So that's the short intro. Believe it or not, but hopefully I think that’s context for today's conversation that I think is useful.
JA: So, for those of you who are just joining, welcome, you have not missed anything other than introductions. So, I have a podcast called Level Up Your Course. And Alex has been a guest on that show. And when everything started, you know, the time that we're in now, this alternate universe, he was one of the first people I thought of to have on the show again because of his advocacy and strength in community building. So today we're going to talk about two main things. We're going to talk about pivot strategies for small business owners. And then Alex is going to share his insights. I've got a few starter questions. And then, I'm going to share some things specifically because I work with people who create online courses. And we're also going to dig into community, community building, and the importance of community building, particularly for this time that we're in. So, I'm going to kick things off, but if you're just joining us, please introduce yourself in the chat. One more time, if you have a question, there is a button right below our faces, right below the video. This is asked a question and pop your question there. And that way, we'll have a nice queue so that we don't miss anybody. I'm not going to do all of the talking in this. We want this to be interactive. We want to hear from you. So please post your questions, and we will answer them. Alright, so Alex, welcome to the show, you have been here before. So, a treat this is a live podcast episode, I have to do the rapid five with you again. We have a tradition on the show called The Rapid Five, five quick questions to help listeners get to know you if they don't already. Alright, number one, what did you have for breakfast?
AH: I had a cup of coffee for breakfast. I took a shot of espresso. And then I got this like vanilla espresso thing. So, it was like a double shot, but a little extra wire to get me through the day right now.
JA: Number two. I know you're gonna like this one. What is the last rule that you broke?
AH: The last rule that I broke? That's really good. I think this is a tough one. Because I feel like I break rules all the time. They don't feel like rules anymore. I can see a norm that I broke. I think maybe the thing that is coming to mind, we made the decision to close Indy Hall due to the COVID virus before we were forced to. And a lot of co-working spaces out there tried to stay open or are still staying open in spite of those government mandates. And so, while that is rule-abiding, I think choosing to do it before the rule was in place was also breaking a rule; breaking the norm, which was a very tough but interesting decision.
JA: Yeah, definitely. Alright, fill in the blank. When I was a kid, I wanted to be a 'blank'.
AH: Paleontologist.
JA: Okay. Yeah. That's, that's a whole rabbit hole we could go down. We're gonna keep going. What is the last book that you read?
AH: The last book that I read is actually sitting right here in front of me. And it is called Rituals for Work by these nice folks. It's like a cool a graphic like thing. It's meant to be like all kinds of little facilitated things to do with a group. One of the things I've got my head in right now is figuring out ways to get people to interact with each other online besides just staring at a screen. And so, my friend Tony and I were chatting about a week ago, and he mentioned this book and I insta bought it for some really good ideas. It's not specifically written for online, but I love the way it's structured. It's given me lots of new sparks.
JA: Yeah, I’ll check it out. Last one, what three things are you most grateful for today?
AH: I'm very grateful for my health and the health of my family and loved ones. I am grateful that I have put the time over the last decade and change into building the resources and assets that I have. So that I can think clearly right now. While all these things are going on. And I am grateful for the internet. I've been thinking a lot about what it would be like to go through a time like this without the internet. Realizing like the internet is both the best place and the worst place right now. I think one of the things about this experience while going through is everything that was bad is really bad. And everything that was good is really good. Sort of the highlights in the definition are coming up. So, I'm going through an experience where I'm extremely grateful for the internet and its ability for us to come together.
JA: Yeah, definitely. It's funny, I was thinking about that as well. Like, what would this be like without the internet?
AH: Boring.
JA: Or calming, I found that it's harder to focus. So, I guess you know, segueing, I've found myself intentionally going online more, to the point where I've had to set really hard boundaries so that I can decompress because it was just too much. It was just too much information. So, let's talk about small business owners. That's what we're here to talk about pivot strategies, just with your ears to the ground in Philly. What is going on? What are you seeing small business owners struggle with on your end?
AH: I mean, the elephant in the room is money. You know, the people I feel the most for are brick and mortar businesses. Thin-margin brick and mortar businesses have this the hardest, I think. So, I think the big fear is that their income in some cases is literally turned off by a government mandate. Although it is interesting to watch the creative workarounds and all of the restaurants suddenly switching on delivery or takeout options. Being able to go to a really nice restaurant via takeout is a very strange experience. My dad and I were chatting the other day, and he's like, I just can't eat fine dining out of a styrofoam clamshell, and I'm like, dad, it's fine. So, I think that's real. The big thing right now, I spent some time today on the phone with a member of the Indy Hall community who is a tax accountant business adviser. He's a member as well as supports a bunch of our members. And the big thing is no one knows what the hell is going on. And there's this sort of undertone and overtone of the government --local, state and federal are providing something, but no one seems to know quite what it is no one seems to know quite how to access it. And the smaller the business, the more confusing it is, and the more likely it is, or at least it feels that we're going to be left out.
So, for instance, you know, I've been emailing with some folks at City Hall in the City Council office about this. And I was like, right now it's somewhere between misinformation and these information vacuums where because there's no certainty and there's no clear source of certainty. People are just like I gotta go fill out this form so that I can get whatever relief I might be eligible for. But at this point, I’ve filled out maybe the same form four different times, because every time I fill it out, thirty minutes later, I learn about some new piece of information or I think that I’ve filled that out incorrectly and that's never mind how organized I am as a business person to have the right documentation. So, it's like an operational nightmare to even understand what we might have in terms of a source of relief. So, you know, there's sort of two camps unfolding. One, are the people who are trying to understand or have the resources to unpack all of the sort of top-down infrastructure support, and the other one is this sort of grassroots thing, where individuals are coming together to support businesses that they care about. Last night, I tuned into a like a two-hour video, comedy, cabaret, I don't know what to call it, but I'm in support of a bunch of restaurants and venues throughout the city of Philadelphia that host live comedy and other shows and things like that.
So, there's the people that are getting creative with, you know, I think sort of an unspoken expectation that if we wait, there may be nothing. So, let's figure out what we can do. How can we be resourceful? And so I think the people who are used to being resourceful, the bootstrappers, the people that have always kind of scrapped by and figure, you know, looked at a problem and said, there's option A and option B, and they both suck. What’s hidden option C? The people that are looking at this through all of the chaos, stress, and distraction of you know finding that hidden option C, and it is hard when the world doesn't feel like it's coming apart at the seams and when it does, it's even harder. So the one thing that I keep thinking about is you know, we went through a crisis a few years ago with Indy hall where the short version of the story is we had to move, kind of unexpectedly losing our location and having to find a new location, redesign, all those things. And when we were going through that, I was able to pull out all the same tools in terms of being resourceful and still playing a long game while solving the immediate problem. But in that moment, I was the only one and granted I had the support of our community, but like in the world, no one else was really being impacted by the same or similar problem, to commiserate with or even to feel like am I am doing a good job at handling this, whereas right now, everyone is going through some version of this. And so, I'm also seeing a sense of a interesting sense of solidarity among business owners being like at least I'm not the only one who doesn't understand what's going on, nobody does. And that might not feel better. It might not sound like that feels better, but in a way, to know that I'm trying really hard to understand this and I don't get it and there's other people that are way smarter than me and way more connected to the right things and they don't understand, that makes me feel a little more comfortable in my uncertainty. But I think maybe that's the theme of all of it is like people are figuring out how to be comfortable in an uncontrollable sense of uncertainty. That's the guy that we're all dealing with as a business owner, that uncertainty has different layers of impact. And then the big question is like, what are you doing to get through the uncertainty?
JA: Yeah, which is a great place to pause. I want to talk about online business owners in a second. But I want to take a moment right now and say, if you're just joining us, welcome. Please share, you know what type of business you run and how this has impacted you if you feel inclined to share that. It doesn't have to be long. It can be short and sweet. And if you have a question, feel free to drop it in. There's a button that says ask a question right below the video. Just drop your question there and that way we will get to it.
So, we're just getting started chatting about pivot strategies for small business owners and the importance of community building. So, talking about online business owners because you and Amy run Stacking The bricks, which is product-based business owners, right? I work with business owners who have online businesses ,creating online courses. And there's a lot to take in. One of the things that I said to my audience recently is, I keep hearing this this thing about having more time and I'm not seeing it. For business owners it just feels like we just got something else dumped on us especially those with kids. I don't have children but especially people with kids. And for online business owners, you know, we were already functioning online and now many of us are just trying to understand the landscape pivot, if necessary. So I guess where I'm going with that is for people who do sell digital products, what are some sign things are slowing down, if business is slowing down, what are some things that we should be thinking about as product based business owners?
AH: Sure, and I'm happy to be candid, you know, we ran our quarter one launch of the course that Amy and I run, 3500. And it was not our worst launch of the last few years. But it certainly wasn't what we're used to for our quarter one launch. And on one hand, we're in a spot where we don't have other mouths to feed. It's just the two of us. And a handful of subcontractors here and there. But I think the easy signal to read is, Oh, my God, people are not spending money. And I think the reality is the window that launch happened was literally the week that it really hit the fan here in the US. And I know from everything that I know about how economies work is that some business freeze will happen due to panic, but that's very short term. And that businesses will keep spending money because businesses are designed to spend money. And so, the hard part is to think about is money not coming in doesn't mean money is going to stop coming in forever.
So, what clues can I look for about where money might still be being spent? And is there you know, is there any work I can be doing to invest in either adjusting my audience or is there a subset of the audience that I can see more clearly to who you know, are being impacted a bit less by that by these changes? The other thing that I've been thinking a lot about and Amy and I've been talking a bunch about it. I saw you say something similar to the effective like, how do you approach marketing? And I think this is a good opportunity to, in your head separate sales from marketing and saying sales could be harder right now, almost regardless of what industry you're in, how much harder is the variable. So while you can make some smart adjustments to what you sell, who you sell it to, and how you sell it, I think the big opportunity in terms of a pivot, and an actual strategic shift is to look at this as a window, to invest in your audience, in your future customers, and say, Who are the people that when money is flowing a bit more freely, are going to be my best customers who are the people that would be the first to come back and say, I couldn't spend this money three months ago, but I can now. And that means that in the next 30 to 90 days, I'd be investing heavily in those people and saying, hey, what can I do to help you out, no expectations, right? And a big part of the philosophy of Stacking the Bricks and 3500. And my own approach to business in general, is you earn the sale before you make the sale. Easiest way to do that is to help people in public. And so, to figure out where the where your customer, your future customer hangs out in public is talking about the frustrations and anxieties they're having now, might be the same frustrations and anxieties as the past just dialed up to 11. Or through the new context of the restrictions of the world that we're living in right now. Or the fear of, you know, of sickness or, you know, loss of life or worrying about loved ones. You have to understand the context has changed, the person hasn't changed. And so, I think the opportunity right now is to think about what can I do to invest in my audience and make it clear to them that like, there's no sales pitch at the end. This is just me helping you because I want you to succeed. I want you to be there in three months when there is money to spend, because that's good for both of us. And I think you can do that in a lot of ways that feel genuine. One of the things that I love about some of the marketing coming out right now. I mean, I could do without every single email being about some COVID related thing. What I think is smart though, and one of my teammates has been doing this really well. It's not so much in our marketing email, but in our internal communications, she gave herself the permission to just be herself and not try to put on a cheery everything is okay face, to still be strong and supportive, but also to be kind of real. I think the bar for polish and perfection has never been lower. Everyone's expectations have shifted to, “I don't know.” So, if there's a thing you've wanted to try to help your audience with but you were worried about it being imperfect, ship it now, because people are happy to have anything that actually helps with the things they're dealing with now. And if you don't know what the things are dealing with now are then there is a prerequisite step, which is, talk to them, figure out what those things are, whether that's going online doing the sales Safari style research that we do. I'm having lots of one on one conversations with people, not like customer interviews, but like, “Hey, how are you” conversations and let the real stuff come out and across, really just like five or six conversations with business owners, who I may be able to help but also may not. The patterns really do start to show up because everyone feels like what they're going through is so isolated, because this experience is so isolating, but being the person that shows them that they're not alone in what they're going through is kind of a power move right now. I think you can overdo it but I think it is something that people can and should consider as a valuable step into a conversation with your with your readers, subscribers, existing customers, former customers, those kinds of things.
JA: The steps haven't changed, right? Maybe the timing. So that nurture part of your marketing that nurturing period is longer now. But the essential steps of your marketing hasn't changed. The importance of showing up, and being human, and connecting with your audience on a human level has always been relevant. It's always been important, but now it's just so important. And if anything, like you said, the timeline maybe gets pushed up. I mean, this is a perfect example. So, I had been thinking about doing more live podcasts and, hey, let's make it happen. Let's make it a community thing. So, you and Amy, I was just kicking off a launch, I was actually just starting when everything blew up, and I just killed the launch. And so, my strategy was I'm not going to be sending people emails about my course. I'm gonna say if you want to know, click here, and you'll get those emails, but if you don't, this is one less email in your inbox. So that's how I pivoted my launch. And I have been connecting and touching base with clients. And you know, just when I hop on a call, how's your business going? How are things going? And you're right, it's a lot of uncertainty. I think that most people I've spoken to product sales. So, we're talking about online courses have slowed down. It really depends on the industry. I will say that one of my clients, he does a lot of high-end consulting, setting up product for people, and he's seeing his enterprise sales tighten. And instead people are going to buy his course because it's less expensive. So, we had worked together to create a value ladder so that he would have more options. And it was perfect timing. We kind of chatted about this yesterday, how now he has these down ladder options for people who are tightening their belt. So that's one thing that I feel is really important. I think Amy wrote about that, of the importance of when people start cutting back on expenses. Do you have some type of solution that's less expensive, but still gets them a win and solves a problem? Any thoughts on that?
AH: Yeah, I agree. And again, to be truthful, I think on the Indy Hall side of things, we have that down ladder pretty well established, and we're introducing some new products and services. We already have a pretty well established online community component to business. So, we're I think in a better position to make that shift. Lots of co-working spaces are really struggling just trying to bring an online co -working or online community thing online in the last couple of weeks, and if know anything about community building, you don't build a community in a couple of weeks, whether it's in person or online. And so, folks are really having a hard time with product sales. That's an area that the 3500 Stack in the Bricks business is actually pretty weak, something that we've known for a while and just have not had the bandwidth to address. So, kind of doing that on the fly. And one of the goals for the first half of this year was to introduce more stuff in the, you know, $100 to $300 price point because right now everything is either you know, a couple thousand dollars for the flagship course, or are $20 to $50 to maybe $100 mini courses. But there's lots of things that we can do to take components of what we taught, and not just take a smaller piece out of it. Because I think that is a quick fix, I just don't think it's a very good one. But if we take that component, and we wrap it in a new context. The example I was just giving before about now being a good time to be doing audience development in the truest sense of the term, not just the research side, but actually investing in your audience. And so, something that's been on our wish list for a little while is a mini course around identifying who among the people that you can serve or the best to serve. And giving people sort of a step by step checklist for what you could do to invest in them over a 30-day period, a 60-day period and 90-day period. So, we have the Year of Hustle at yearofhustle.com, sort of our flagship free course. This is a bit of a reinvention of that with some more concrete specific pieces that are driven by you know individual lessons or systems that we've developed within 3500. So, they're battle tested so now is not a time to invent anything new is take your battle tested things and make them better in the current context or wrap them in instructions that make sense in the current context. I think that's a smart use of time inventing something entirely new right now is much harder.
JA: Yeah, absolutely. So, I want to check in with the audience. We've got Dave, he says he has online info products books and courses. Maria, I apologize if I'm mispronouncing your name, multiplayer card game site, world of card game, she saw a bump or they saw a bump in traffic in which recent weeks. Peter, online productivity courses, sales slowed down planning to launch a new course/program in the next couple of weeks was with a focus on working from home. And Karen says film production and film classes. She had online curriculum and development and you're speeding up completion of that in person, obviously been closed. Cool. Dave says he has seen sales slow down. So, just giving a few more pivot strategies and talking around that. I had a call with, or an interview with Tara McMillan, today who does the What Works podcast and her site is explore whatworks.com. And she shared that her pivot to her business that she initiated, I think it's been a couple years now to move to a community model, is now super relevant. And you know, it just made me think about this idea of, well just reinforced the idea of community and that being a vehicle that can guide you through and sustain you through times like this. For solo business owners out there, and I'm really speaking for myself right now. I have a couple of people who help out. I have a wonderful virtual assistant, but a lot of this is me in the trenches. The idea of building something like a membership site, or an online community can feel overwhelming. And I know I can't be the only one who might think that. So if you are a small business owner, even a solo business owner, how can you provide community so that you build that relationship with your audience so you're able to serve them and deliver value and make it manageable so that you are not online all the time?
AH: Well, I think you nailed the biggest problems, that creating a community then creates a problem and how that problem becomes worse as the community succeeds, right? Because on one hand, you want a community with more people joining and things like that, but the more people join, the more overwhelming it is for you, the more responsibility, all these sorts of things. And so, the short answer is a design choice, as well as how you articulate the value in the offer. And a lot of times when solo business owners start an online community of some sort, they kind of build the community around themselves. And so, what it really ends up being is sort of group access to you, the individual expert, which in itself, is an offer, and not a bad one, but it has all the limitations that you're describing. And I would go so far as to say it's not really a community. And I that might sound like I'm splitting hairs, but one of the ways that I kind of draw the line between a group of people, which is a great thing also, and a community is the direction that the support flows. So, if everyone relies on you, the individual business owner for the support, then you've got a group coaching model, which is great, but also lacks the sort of scalability. And you being sort of always on demand, you're there to start the conversations, you're there to answer the questions like that expectation is something that I think for a lot of folks is the default. And so, unless you show them an alternative, that's where the expectation will continue. The alternative that I think is better, sustainable, and scalable, is one where the reason people are joining that community is for access to each other. And so, from the start building all of your interactions around people, sharing with each, other people helping each other. So, when somebody posts a question, it's not you jumping in to answer it, it's dealing with that sort of vacuum of quiet for a minute to be like, does anybody else have an answer? Or if you do, do an active play an active role, it's in suggesting to someone, hey, I think you know the answer to this. Remember when you were talking about XYZ, so it becomes more of a facilitator role. And it requires you to have a better sense of who is in the community. So, the front loaded work isn't drum up conversations. It's actually know what people are good at know what their unique perspective is, know what thing they're working on, or prompt some problems they've solved in the past. And then your job becomes sort of a duct connector. And the key, I think the most important thing is to do this early, because the longer you wait, the harder it is to undo that dependency on you. The centralized knowledge or activity starter, whatever it is, if you're the cruise director of this online community, then you have an unsustainable unscalable approach. If you google Alex Coleman, cruise director, you'll find a blog post that I wrote about this that I think covers this in more time than we have to talk today, but I think gives you some examples about this sort of better approach, which is all about getting to know people through human connection, human conversation, the one on one, and then thinking, how could I craft the environment? What prompts can I give so that people will step up on their own? It might require a little more hand holding. So, for instance, I know you work with the Egghead crew. The Egghead crew has been working over the last six twelve months, maybe longer now on building out their online learning community for the developers and programmers that use the Egghead training courses. And Will might be in the audience. I think he said he was going to be here has been doing an awesome job of noticing interesting things happening in the community, and then reaching out to a person one on one and saying, hey, that thing was awesome. Would you mind sharing that so other people in the community can see it too? Those are the kinds of activities that start setting a precedent start creating a cultural norm, where it's not Janell or Alex, whoever else that starts the conversations, when you're new members see people other than the operator, starting the conversations and helping people then they can see in their head, I could do that too. That's the goal, getting a member to say, I can contribute to that too, and not wait for you to say, go. Sometimes you need to see to that with some friendly coaxing, or even some light incentives and things like that. But that's the design pattern that is important. The value of the community increases, as every new person joins, because every new person who joins is both a consumer of the value of the community as well as a contributor of value to the community. No other asset based business works that way, or even a time based one right so if you think about it, in an agency you sell your time. And if you get to a point where you have more demand for time, you have to hire more people. And now your costs go up and see if they charge more. And you've got this sort of linear growth line, if you're selling physical products, you can negotiate your per unit cost by buying larger bulk, but at a certain point, costs can only go down so much. And so, as you sell more product, you have to buy more products. With a community as a business. The thing that people I think really miss out on the most often is that you're this unique math equation where the value of the community gets bigger the more people are in it and contributing. So, as a goal, I think people over index on participation and engagement? What is engagement? I have no idea. Engagement metric what really matters is are people giving to each other, are people willing and able to contribute in very small ways. If they are you are on the right side. And it'll build like a snowball rolling downhill.
JA: Yeah, for anyone listening who hasn't started in a community for your business, it can be tricky. You use the word seed. And I know when I first started a Facebook group, it was tricky and I realized that I had to seed the content, I had to seed posts, initially. It's almost like going to a party. You're gonna have some people who just pop in, the extroverts, they're dancing, they're talking to everybody. And then you're gonna have people who are lurking, standing on the wall, you're going to have people who are probably outside wondering if they should actually come in. It's just you have all of those dynamics that place and you're the host of the party. And so you kind of have to introduce, warm things up, get people talking a little bit but the magic does happen when you do get those initial people who are comfortable asking questions and then other people see them asking questions. And that's where the magic happens. So, before we start opening it up to questions, can you speak to someone listening that might be thinking, this sounds good. We're talking about community building. But why? Why do this? In a practical sense, Alex, what can building a community right now do? Let's start with online business and then talk about, you know, physical business or products?
AH: Well, I mean, I think the answer that I would give is true for both of them, which is resiliency. I think about for… Well, I'll back up a little bit. I don't think it's necessarily a great idea to build a community for a business. I think that building a community can create business opportunities. But I think that what I want to discourage is people saying, oh, I'll just wrap my product or service offering with a community. Because the trouble there is what you're doing is you kind of – remember I was just describing, like the reason people join should be each other? The thing they should have in common should be each other. If the thing they have in common is they use your product, I think it's tough to get to the deeper levels of connection and support. So it's not that it's impossible. I just think it's, it's harder and kind of distracting. What I would look at is, you know, who of the people that you already sell to or, or serve, who's already doing something, striving to improve in some way, trying to grow in some way, trying to learn in some way. And can you discover any patterns across what those people are doing and just simply create a space for you to facilitate them doing that together.
So like, every time somebody starts a community, one of the questions I get is like, what, what kind of activities should I have them do? And I'm like, I'm not in your community. Why are you asking me? What you should be doing is looking for what are the things they're already doing, but doing an isolation and looking for ways that doing them not in isolation, doing them out in the open and together would be better for them. Because, again, this kind of goes back to something I was saying at the beginning of our conversation is the value of the community is their success, because if they succeed, you succeed, and if those things aren't lined up in your business, then there's other things that need fixing, right. But I think the value of a community is the resiliency of your customers and their businesses so that they can stay successful and grow longer. And because your business serves them, you will have an opportunity to benefit from that. In addition to having sort of this direct line and channel to understanding what their problems are as they're evolving and things like that.
But you know, as much as we talk about business building is about service, community building is that but multiplied by 1000. If you're building a community to extract dollars out of people, I think you're gonna have a very, very hard time. If you're building a community to help people help each other, they're loyalty to each other will include some loyalty to you as well, which means that they're, as they, again, as they grow as they improve, that they're going to keep looking to you and going, Hey, you know, this was super helpful for me. Do you have other things that are helpful for me, which is exactly the kind of marketing and sales that you want. So I'd be thinking about, especially in the context of today, and the crisis that we're kind of dealing with globally and economically, think about community building, the why of building community should be the success of your customers because if they are successful, if they survive everything that's going on, then you've got a better chance of survival through that, that network effect. Yeah, I think that's, I think that's my, my biggest answer.
JA: Okay. So I want to come back and talk about tools to give people some practical places they can go if they're wondering, okay, what do I use to get started and all of that good stuff. But right now I want to answer some questions. So we've got a question from Peter. Peter says, How do I strike the right tone to launch a group course or program on focus, especially when working from home in the next couple of weeks? So Peter’s asking about the tone in his marketing, and I'm gonna, that's what I'm taking from that. Any insights, Alex?
AH: I mean, the first question that I would have is, is, are folks expecting this? I think the biggest thing I'm looking out for right now is the element of surprise, and how to avoid it at all costs. Right now, I think people -- It's not just their attention that's been really worn down. But I think, you know, everyday waking up and something new showing up that I didn't anticipate is just like, is brutal. So I think, you know, tone if you're used to selling with things like urgency and fear, this ain’t the time.
JA: Yeah, totally.
AH: I'd be thinking about how to really connect with the problem. You know, I know we often talk about, you know, writing in people's own words and empathizing, I think this requires even more thoughtfulness where it's, you know, we've all gotten really crappy emails that say, you know, in one sentence, we totally understand how hard it is and then they do absolutely nothing… If anything, they make it even harder. So like, if you are going to make things easier for them in some way, do the intellectual work for them, help them connect the dots and show them, show don't tell how you're going to soothe that pain for them. And then through all of that, I think you may want to consider, again how you're ramping up the, the communication about this. You want to build anticipation for a launch always. But I think doing it in a way that there are fewer to no surprises, you know, it's not a, I gave you 80% of the advice now, you know, you got to pay for 20% -- do not do those kinds of things right now. I think you’re gonna want to lead with generosity here and try to avoid anything that people might feel caught off guard by.
JA: Yeah, I will just add two quick things. And one is, you know, Peter, you definitely want to just be clear that you understand who you're talking to, which I know that you do, but go back to your audience now or avatar, whatever you want to call it, and think about what they might be going through right now. What, you know, what additional challenges are they experiencing so that that informs how you communicate with them? And also, like Alex said, you know, scarcity, fake scarcity or just the -- I know, Peter, I've worked with him. So I know he's not that type of person. But all of that is dead right now. And I'm so glad for it. I think it's forcing us to market in a more empathic way, which is how we should have been marketing to begin with, but just being transparent, you know, letting people know you, you have a product like Alex said, no surprises, be being upfront, offering flexibility as far as payment goes, just been super important that I've been telling all of my clients. So those are some ideas. Peter, hope that helps.
All right, let's see. Karen has a question. Karen says hate getting emails and doing webinars that have a sales pitch. Do you think offering free content only is appropriate right now? And when offer other options? How do you price a down-ladder option in an economic situation like we're in? Um, you know, I, I'll kick this one off. So I think that free content has a place before, during, and after all of this, right. So, you know, free content is -- but I don't think you have to offer free content only right now. I'm seeing, I'm getting a lot of emails and questions around, Is it okay to be selling right now? And my answer is yes. And this connects to Peter’s question. It's, it's Yes, just you know, having a very human tone and making sure you're upfront with people and giving them options. So, Karen, I don't think that you need to just have free content right now. What I would do is just, you can make your free content available. I'm not sure what kind of systems you have. But just let people know when you have, you know, you do have a paid offer. Be clear and transparent about that. If you have like, let's say you have sales funnels, you have a vehicle for people to opt into that, well, then that expectation is already set. What I've been doing with one of my own funnels is I added an email that just says, Hey, you know, you just got XYZ, I'm going to be telling you about my course coming up, you know, just giving them a heads up so that they're not surprised. And then as far as the down ladder, what, what I would do if you again, it depends on the systems that you have. But if you have an email campaign or sequence, maybe after those initial emails, being able to see or present the offer to people who didn't buy, present a down sell option. I'm also seeing clients who just have the option available for purchase on their website. They have like maybe three different offers so that people can choose the price point that works for them. So those are a couple of things. Alex, anything to add?
AH: Yeah. A couple of things come to mind. The first line in the question from, from you, Karen, says I hate getting emails and doing webinars that have a sales pitch. Whenever I read that, and I feel that also, most of that reaction is from people doing it poorly, because most people do it poorly. So the key here isn't to not do it. It's not do it poorly. And everything that Janelle said I think is right on the money in terms of what are the things that make a webinar or email with a sales pitch bad is when I feel like I was baited, just so that the person could yank the hook, right? And so when I'm thinking about emails that I'm writing or a webinar, we'll talk about email concretely, I was working with somebody recently who we evaluated a bunch of their evergreen emails, and I read them and they were, they were good. You know, they identified a problem that the reader would have and they, you know, tell a story or give an example, but they never really delivered a fix, right? And in a lot of ways, it ended up feeling like you hooked me with the pain. You took me on a little trip. And now the only way to conclude the story is to buy your thing. And I think that's what feels crappy. Right? That's the job of a sales page. But it's not the job of a marketing email. So what I think is worth doing is evaluating the emails that you're sending and going, If somebody reads this and doesn't buy, is this email still valuable to them? Right? Every == even if it is a sales email, that email can still deliver value, it can conclude that loop of pain, dream, and fix that that Amy and I teach and I think is part of the critical sales arc. You can conclude that in an email and, and from the perspective, think of it as from the perspective of they read that email, you've now earned the ability to make an offer. But if you, if you haven't delivered that fix, if you've left them thinking, Well, what am do I do now, right? And a lot of times with the example I was describing before with the person that I worked, I’m working with, he looked at it and he goes, I'm delivering a fix, and I go, how would they implement it? And he's like… and I go, that's the question, right? So don't, don't let them have to think about, you know, how do I translate the story I just told into a next action, give it to them on a silver platter, and make it so that they can go and implement the advice or figure out that process, how it applies to their business or their work, make it really easy for them to try it and go, holy crap, it works. That advice actually worked. And then they want whatever it is, that the offer might be, you know, whether they can earn a position to buy right now is a whole other category. But I think that piece right there is to over deliver the fix, in some cases, beyond what you're used to, in all of your emails, make those emails feel less salesy while still doing the critical job of being a sales email.
JA: Yeah, the key to pitching is for it to feel like a natural logical next step. You know, and that connects to what Alex was saying, you know, deliver that value, and then they go, huh. And then they come back. And it just, it just feels natural. So, Karen, I hope that that helps. Let us know if we missed anything.
All right, it looks like Evelyn shared her plans for starting a community. Thanks for sharing that, Evelyn. Be sure to take a look. And then we have another question. What, what are your thoughts on charging a fee to access the community? Pros, cons? So this is a great one. Free communities are great because we haven't talked about this, but that they sometimes require admin and the larger they get, the more admin they require. So kind of back to my question about overwhelm. So I'm gonna throw this one to you, Alex.
AH: Yeah, I think free communities and paid communities serve really different purposes. So I think about two different kinds of communities. And these are not opposing ends of a spectrum. They're actually concentric circles. So there's a community of interest. People are Interested in a topic or a problem area, or a theme or a genre or a character, like, like fantasy or gaming, things like -- communities of interest are all around us, most of the communities that were a part of our communities of interest, they are fairly casual. They are fairly transient. They can get very big, but you don't feel a very strong sense of connection to individuals, but you might feel a sense of connection to, you know, a shared set of values or things like that, or at least to the interest. Within those bigger communities, which I think are great for, to be, for, most of the communities we participate on online or those communities. They're big, they're free, anyone can come and go. They also require, as you pointed out, an incredible amount of work that needs to be distributed across multiple moderators usually, ideally, tools have decent moderation mechanisms built in. Those are those are valuable, but what I think about is is communities of practice. As a subset of those are the people who are really invested in whatever that thing is, and have a sense of self improvement or self growth that is attached to that topic or theme or interest or problem area. And that's where I think the opportunity to create a paid community really exists. If it's just access to other people with the same casual interest, there's not a lot of inherent value for that. There might be enough value that you could charge for like a one off event. Those are pretty easy to do, by comparison, but in terms of like a monthly or annual subscription access to a community, there's got to be more there than simply a shared interest and the element of practice, I think, is really kind of key. So that's, that's what I would be looking at is, is within a community of interest, where is the room to grow a community of practice? Or does one already exists that requires facilitation and structure and if there's facilitation and structure, which I'd put is a little bit different from moderation in some important ways, then that's another thing that I would charge for, or consider charging for as well.
JA: Follow up question, what about mastermind groups was just posted.
AH: So big old depends on mastermind groups. And I see the question is, you know, I keep hearing about high fee mastermind groups. So there are lots of people who create and charge lots of money for mastermind groups. That does not mean that people stay in those mastermind groups. The thing to be mindful of with, with mastermind groups in general is one step further beyond community of practice is now an extremely focused element of curation. Where if people are not participating in the practice, you throw them out, you don’t just kick them out, you stop taking their money. The high fee mastermind groups typically have that, there is a really high level of expectation, where if you're showing up, you're going to do the work. And part of the high fee value is that group is keeping you accountable to doing work, that work needs to be higher value as well. Right? So if you're a business owner, and you are among other business owners, and everyone's goal is to, you know, grow revenue in the next six months by 20%, the cost of that high fee mastermind group hopefully is some significant amount less than whatever 20% of revenue growth is. And that's how you can do the math in your head about what a high fee mastermind group should be. The trouble is, is a lot of them end up being fashion accessories, and people with money spending money to look a certain way among other people who look a certain way. It's basically an internet Country Club. And that's definitely me passing a bit of judgment. So I'll acknowledge that right now. But I think it answers the question is, is like, Are you in a position to create a internet Country Club, and if so, I don't like think that's a bad thing. Just be honest about what it is. Or at the other end of the spectrum, are you creating a high value, high business value, high career value community of practice, where the expectations of the participants, and the value they will get out of it are proportionally higher then I think it's a possibility. The thing I will say is, most folks don't start a high value mastermind group as their first thing, like that becomes -- like it's the tippy top of your product ladder. It's, you know, for the people that have already bought the stuff below. And they're like, I would just want guidance and support while implementing from other people who have the same worldview, who understand the same tools and are going to help keep on a little bit of social pressure and to be there to help when I get stuck, right. But all of that being possible requires a pretty intense amount of facilitation and curation. If that's not your expertise, that's going to be tough to deliver on. That's why I think it's a, it's a later stage offering than an early one.
JA: Yeah, so before we wrap up with a couple of comments on tools, you know, Paul Minors, you can – paulminors.com -- he is a great example of -- he has a community based around -- he calls it a mastermind, but it's a community based around a training. And it's really, it's access to, you know, it's access to everyone who's coming, who's serious about leveling up as a consultant. And so, you know, I think this is really about how are you going to show up for your people, right, so checking in with your audience. And if the thing that they need is just to be able to get access to you or other people, then you can launch something for free. The thing that -- if it becomes something more than that, I think that's what I'm hearing, if it becomes built around something -- or I've seen people use pricing as a way to filter out quote unquote tire kickers, which is a thing. If you do have something that includes a product and you want to make sure that people who come in are serious about taking action, that's where you start to see people adding those different -- adding price points on it to make sure we've got a good caliber of people in there. So, you know, it really, it really comes down to taking an initial step and seeing how you can show up and, and bringing your people together and building those relationships.
So, Alex, in the last couple of minutes that we have, are there any tools that you just love that facilitate online communities?
AH: Hmm, good question. The most honest answer is that I don’t like most of them. You know, a couple of tools that, I mean, I can talk about things that we use and are working well, but I'll say all of this with the caveat that the tool doesn't do the community building. the person does. You know, you and the folks who you gather so think of all these online tools as online gathering places. You know, historically the, the big things that we've advocated for are text based mediums. Things like slack and discord for chat are good, but also recognize that they require a high amount of energy and attention both from your members and from you. And so expect a smaller percentage of your community to really be active in them, especially if they're busy, fairly high performing people. I really love email lists, not like ConvertKit you know, one to many, but like a many to many. Google Groups was like, or an email listserv was the go to years gone by. The closest thing to a modern listserv I've seen is a pretty heavily modified installation of something like Discourse. Discourse is what it's called? Yeah, Discourse. Discourse, out of the box, is more like a forum but it can be set into mailing list mode. And the thing about that is it doesn't require people to login to an app, to check notifications, or even reply that interacts over email so you can reply in the message goes straight in from, from email, you don't even have to login. So I'm a big fan of tools like that. The new additions for online community building though, I would say are the video space, where right now we are hungrier than ever for seeing the faces of other human beings. So you know, we, we have historically used Zoom I see you in the chat, Sai, hi, nice to see you. Sai’s the founder of Crowdcast everybody. Super, super nice guy. So yes, I think you know, tools like Crowdcast for, for, for being able to broadcast. But what I'll say is, is the online community experience is one that is very, I hesitate to say young because it's not, it's been around for a while but developmentally it’s immature, and it's suddenly having to grow very quickly. So they have to mature very quickly. And so people are sort of like bending and breaking the rules of tools like Zoom. And Whereby, where you get, you know, sort of the Brady Bunch grid of attendees, when I think about tools like Crowdcast, Crowdcast is like the equivalent of hosting, you know, a meetup, like a talk based meetup, you know, or something like that, where there's something at the beginning, somebody at the front of the room sharing information that's valuable. Obviously, you're out here. But I don't also say it's not necessarily a community building experience, except for maybe this Q & A a part where we get to dialogue a bit more, where it really shifts into community building experience. Like I said, it's all about the member to member the participant to participant and so something where everyone else is on an equal playing field from us, the presenters, and Zooms great and Whereby’s great, they do that really, really well. And I'm seeing it being used and really interesting and creative ways. I was a part of a, like a two hour internet variety show that somebody hosted for their own birthday that included musical performances and games and activities and theme music and all -- like people are, out of necessity, really bending the rules and expectations of what are the things we would normally do sitting around a big, you know, couch or a bunch of chairs in a living room. And what happens if the internet or a little piece of the internet becomes our living room for a period of time is an interesting thought exercise to be going through right now.
And I'll share one more tool that I've been really impressed by is also very, very new with a tool called Tandem. The website is Tandem.chat. And it's a downloadable app, desktop only I think Windows and Mac and similar to you know, Zoom and things like that. You get a little tiled grid of participants. But what Tandem lets you do is it lets you set up rooms and without being in that room. You See who's in that room. And so like for Indy Hall, we have a coffee and tea break room, a lunch room, a quiet co working room, a breakout area and things like that. And so you can click and enter into one of the Tandem rooms. And so quiet co-working for instance with this like a norm that we've established where you go in that room, camera on microphone off. And so you get to see who else is quiet co working and you know, I actually have it open right now while we're doing this, there's a couple of other people that you know, have been, you know, busily cranking away on whatever they're working on. And it's, it's not a replacement for co working in person, but it is actually remarkably nice and oddly motivating to be around other people who are like busily brow furrowed looking at their computer. No one is making eye contact with the camera necessarily, at least not often, but it's more of like the ambient sense of other people around and Tandem’s been noticeably a nice part of my day. So we're still thinking of figuring out exactly where that fits into the Indy Hall community and, and what it takes to onboard folks into that people who want it, people who don't want it and why. But that's a new tool that as of a few weeks ago, I discovered and we've been really quite impressed by.
JA: Yeah, thank you for sharing those. So, any final thoughts? Before we wrap up, Alex?
AH: I mean, the thing that I keep coming back to is there's never been a greater need to play the long game. I think business is always a long game. You, you can create short term immediate wins at the cost of future opportunities. Or you can invest on a regular basis and look for long term returns. That's harder. It requires a fair bit of work and infrastructure, but it is also the investment mindset that we talked about is building things now that continue creating value going forward. Now is -- if you're not already doing it, you kind of have to now, if you have been doing it, my biggest piece of advice is do not stop doing it cecause of this. The hardest thing in managing crisis in a business is the intense feeling of needing to change the way you do everything. And that's the thing that's going to kill more businesses than -- well, I mean, right now the, you know, the, there are things that will kill lots of businesses. But other than the mandatory closures and things like that -- the short term thinking is the thing that will kill a lot of businesses, the businesses that are in short term pain, but thinking how do I make it so that when we are back to whatever the new normal is gonna be that I get to be here? How can I make sure that my, my customers and my community members are safe? Like my priority number one, besides the safety and health of my own family is the safety and health of my team because they are required to take care of the community and then the community itself. That is the, that is the hierarchy of needs and support. And if I, we do that right now, I can't predict what the future is going to be none of us can, but I have a better shot at there even being one to, to bring us together again, in the future. So, you know, it's hard this it's super, it's so much easier to say than do. It's absolutely the hardest part right now is looking at decisions going, Is this the -- is this the best long term investment that I can make, or can I make a slightly better one? And it's also basically impossible to do that in a vacuum. So don't try to make these decisions on your own. Find a couple of other business owners that you can talk to, talk to candidly about. Having that is so, so valuable right now.
JA: You know, I want to I want to wrap by saying I agree 100%. For anyone else that’s feeling overwhelmed, you know this, it's now more important than ever check in with your people, check in with your audience. Don't try to make these decisions alone. I mean, that was true before. But I have found there are times when I will just be stuck in my head and I'll be so overwhelmed trying to think of Okay, I think I should do this and, and then I take a breath. And I check in and just ask, like, just ask your audience, what do they need? Where are they struggling? And you'll find that it makes the decision making easier for you and allows you to kind of see how you can show up, how you can serve, how you can add value. So definitely take that step back. Check in with your people, find out what they need, what they want, and give yourself pause to create that pivot plan, right? Don't feel like you have to react so that you can just feel good about it when you do make that move.
So, thank you all for being here. This has been really fun. I'm going to try to do more of these. But Alex, thank you so much for coming to talk about community building. Thank you to everyone who took time out of their day to sit with us. Thank you to everyone who posted questions. And I think we're going to wrap there today.
AH: Sounds great. Thank you.
JA: All right. Take care.
All right, my friends. That is my time. Remember, before you can level up your course, you must first level up your mind. As always, thank you for hanging out with me for another great episode. I do not take it for granted. I am Janelle Allen, and this has been level up your course. Peace.