Transcript
I am passionate about the fact that community-building is a critical tool for entrepreneurs to build business. I’ve basically built all of my businesses around communities so I don’t even really know another way. So whatever. I can import to your business model and please take what you can and use it in a way that suits your business. But basically I see that all businesses need a customer. And, one way to find those customers is to build a community. A community is basically your audience. That might sound obvious, but some businesses aren’t working on building a community at all. So I don’t, I know it’s not too obvious, but to have that consumer, to have that customer, to have that client, we need a group of people that are fired up about who we are and what we are doing and what our business is bringing into the world. And so having a community is really make or break and I feel like no matter what the business model is, you can look at how to build community. Having a community is important because that’s where you’re going to find the people that want what you are serving up.
So delving into the example of Facebook groups, which I’m going to just stick to that because that can apply to all businesses and that’s what I’m best at. What does your perfect avatar your customer want? What are they looking for? Who are they, what would attract them? What is the expertise or skills or services or products that you are bringing to the table and how do those intersect? And the intersection between who they are, what they want and what you’ve got should probably be the name of your Facebook group. And I tell people to, when naming a Facebook group to keep it general enough that anybody browsing through would be immediately grabbed and know what it was about without needing to know your name, unless you’re a famous global celebrity. I’m a huge fan of building the people, asking them what they need and then delivering it to them. It’s kind of a no fail business model.
How social media has really changed the way we build community is that it’s enhanced it. So I am still passionate about thinking about real life connection and if that applies to your business model, that is also really important. If you do have a physical location. Obviously I want to bring bodies into your space. Let’s actually touch on that. So for brick and mortar businesses, what you really need to do is think about how to bring bodies in the door. And social media can be so powerful as a tool to help bring the bodies in the door. My favorite recommendation to a business is looking at a venting as a verb. So you need to start a venting, whether you think you need to or not. You do need to. And if you don’t think your business is event related, then get other businesses to partner with you and to throw events in your place. Because if you’re trying to get bodies in your door, which you should be, the best way to do that is to get them in for any reason. It might be tangentially related.
So for example, there was a new men’s barber shop that opened up near here. It was like a high end barber shop for men. And they do like fancy mustaches and beard trends. And their audience is men. They can think outside the box. And what they did is partner with a male specific cancer society that targets prostate cancer and other male specific cancers and does fundraising. So they partnered with the cancer foundation from then and through a mustache themed parties. So you know, you gotta think of who’s my target audience and what other organizations and what other businesses have the same target audience. So we can partner in that. So if you are, for example, a new baby goods store, you’ve got goods that are for nursing and newborn babies. Then of course you want to go and look for midwives and doulas. And maybe also, you know, what does a mom like to do when she’s breastfeeding and probably have a cupcake. You can think outside the box. I want people to think of every human that follows them and every person on their mailing list as an actual human being because they really are. And then flip that around and picture it in real life.
