June 9, 2025 • 44 mins
Today we start with the news of Marc Maron retiring his podcast, and a possible shake up at the New Media Show (two shows with 16+ years). So who will fill their space you?
Bri Leever is a community building strategist at Ember Consulting and host of the show "Dear Bri." I saw her present at a webinar put on by Hearbeat (my favorite community tool) and immediately joined her community (which lead to me asking her on the show).
Full show notes at schoolodposcasting.com/987
Mentioned in the Show:
Bri's Community of Community Builders
School of Podcasting Community
Takeaways:
- Marc Maron is hanging up his podcasting hat after 16 years, and that's a big deal.
- Having both free and paid communities can actually mess up your growth, who knew?
- If you want a thriving community, you gotta focus on what people actually want, duh!
- Starting a podcast with a small team is totally doable; you don't need a squad of 20.
- Don't be surprised if your free community outshines your paid one; it happens more than you'd think.
- People love talking about themselves, so just ask them questions and you'll be golden.
Mentioned in this episode:
You Have A Message That Needs to Be Heard
You have a message that needs to be shared. Discover the art of podcasting at the School of Podcasting. We teach you to shine a light on your stories, inspiring others one episode at a time. Let your voice be your legacy. Go to www.schoolofpodcasting.com/join
Live Appearances
I'd love to meet you in person, I'm currently coming to July 12th, 20025 Higher Ed Podcon, Chicago, Ill AUGUST 18-21, 2025 Podcast Movement, Dallas, TX. September 26-28, 2005, Empowered Podcasting Conference, Uptown Charlotte, NC For more information and links, click the link below. If you'd like for me to speak at an in-person or online event, go to schoolofpodcasting.com/contact
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
(00:00):
Today on episode number 987 ofthe school of Podcasting, we're going
to talk about Marc Maroncalling it quits. And did you know
that having a free communityalongside a paid one could actually
hinder your growth? Well,you're going to discover why this
strategy often fails and whatyou can do to ensure your community
(00:22):
thrives. Hit it, ladies.
The School of Podcasting withDave Jackson.
Podcasting since 2000, 2005.I'm your award winning hall of fame
podcast coach, Dave Jackson.Thanking you so much for tuning in.
If you're new to the show,this is where I help you plan, launch,
(00:44):
grow. And if you want tomonetize your show, my website is
school of podcasting.com usethe coupon code listener. That's
L I S T E N E R when you signup for either a monthly, quarterly
or yearly subscription. And ofcourse that comes with a 30 day money
(01:04):
back guarantee. And we'regoing to be talking about memberships
in just a second. But Irealize not everybody's interested.
And when I say membership, Imean a community. Now that could
be courses and things likethat, like I have at the School of
Podcasting. Or maybe you justwant to create a nice, safe place
for people to hang out. And Irealize you might be going up, not
(01:27):
for me, but I thought I wouldgive you just a quick little, little
snippet to nibble on. And thatis Mark Maron, who has been doing
the WTF podcast for 16 years.And the big wow thing that happened
with Mark is he had a sittingpresident Barack Obama on his podcast
(01:49):
who came into his garage. I'mgoing to say that again. He came
to Mark's garage and did hispodcast. Now the other thing I want
to point out about Mark showis he is a team of two. He had a
producer who also did some ofthe editing and then Mark did the
(02:12):
actual, you know, hosting andsuch. So if you're thinking of starting
a podcast and think, oh, Ican't compete with these people that
have a team of 18, well, theyhave a team of two. I think Joe Rogan
might be a team of three. Sokeep that in mind. And there are
many, many podcasters, myselfincluded, that are a team of one.
(02:36):
And so Mark is going to put itto bed sometime in the fall. I might
talk about this in the futureas well, but it's probably in the
fall because he has toprobably fill out some contracts
that he had with advertisers.But the other one is it's sounding
as if Rob Greenlee may havemoved on from doing the new media
(03:01):
show with Todd Cochran. We'llwait and see. But that's the show
that's been going on longerthan Marc Maron. And so the point
I wanted to make here is,number one, these are really popular
shows that did not have giantteams. They served kind of a niche
audience, and they providedinformation you can't get anyplace
(03:21):
else. I can't get ToddCochran's point of view and Rob Greenlee's
point of view anytime. I canget them separately because they're
both going to continue on. AndMarc Marin's first 20 episodes were
amazing, where he interviewedother comedians, and they were talking
very frankly and veryintimately about. About things like
(03:42):
joke stealing and, you know,treating each other poorly and things
like that. So I just say thatbecause who's going to be the next
Marc Maron? Who's going totake over that audience? It's not
like people are going to getin their car and go, well, I listen
to Mark, but, you know, he'snot doing his show anymore, so I
guess I'll just sit here insilence. No, someone is going to
(04:02):
take that spot. And as youlook at the clock, I just realized
back in April, I celebrated 20years of podcasting. Now I feel I
have another 20 years in me.But some people that have been doing
it for a while are going tohang up the microphone, and that
could be you that takes theirplace. That's just the thing I wanted
(04:27):
to point out, because theystarted. Mark started by. Well, he
recorded in his garage, butbefore he did that, he was on a radio
station that had been shutdown, and he was sneaking into the
radio station to record hisepisode. So just think about that.
Yes, there may be other peoplethat are doing similar shows to yours.
(04:50):
So find out maybe if there'ssomething that they're not talking
about that you could talkabout. And then also remember that
eventually some of thesepeople are going to quit, and that
audience is going to belooking for something, and that something
could be you.
(05:33):
Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
How long should I wait beforeI start a community? What should
I charge for? What do youthink about using Facebook as a tool
for your community? These areall things I discuss with Bre Lever
from emberconsulting co. Allright, well, joining me via squadcast,
(06:01):
I first met her. She was doinga webinar for Heartbeat, which is
a community tool that I usefor the school of podcasting. And
I liked her so much, I wentover and joined her Community over
at EmberConsulting co. Andwithin, like, three lessons, I was
like, oh, I have to have youon the show. So, Bri Lever, thank
(06:23):
you so much for coming on the show.
Oh, grateful to be here.Thanks for the kind words.
You have a strategy that I waslike, oh, we have to talk about that.
But before we get to that, ifI got this right, there's really
kind of two types ofcommunities. There's either the networking
one, where you want a bunch ofpeople to get together and just say
howdy and talk to each other.And then there's kind of what I'm
(06:44):
calling the transformationalcommunity, where you're helping people
get from point A to point B.Is that basically the only two? Are
there other types?
Yeah, a great question. So Ihave a model where I talk about community
pretty broadly because I comefrom actually that's. That's what
I call the. The paid side ofthe community spectrum. Then you
(07:06):
also have free communitiesthat are designed to support a business
and by supporting the productor service in some way, shape or
form. So I actually identifyfour types. But for talking about
paid communities, those arethe two that I focus in on. Education
centric communities, which wecall transformative communities,
(07:26):
and then connection centriccommunities, where the value of the
experience is coming from theconnections between your members
and those I call networkingcommunities. Yeah, you nailed it.
Well. And a free communitywould be a great resource for content.
So what are the other twotypes then?
Yeah, yep. So. So I basicallyjust have a matrix. And so the free
(07:49):
education centric communities,I call these nurturing communities.
And this is where thecommunity is designed to nurture
your customers either into adeeper relationship with the product
and the brand. This is where,like, the vast majority of SaaS product
communities land. So, like theHubSpot community, where they teach
you how to better use HubSpotto become a better inbound marketer.
(08:14):
Then on the other hand, youhave connection centric free communities.
I call these collaborativecommunities. This is really where
we had free Facebook groupskind of squatting for a long time
and kind of figuring out whatthey were and who they were for and
what their purpose was. Now wesee a lot of these collaborative
(08:37):
communities actually shiftingover into the paid model because
they've realized, man, it's alot of work and it's not always a
collaborative community isn'talways going to convert your people
to become customers like youthink it's going to. So there's a
lot of shifting in that typeof community. But it's Also, like,
(08:58):
oddly enough, some of myfavorite communities of all time
are collaborative communities.Like the LEGO Ideas community is
one of my favorites. It'swhere people submit CAD designs of
their LEGO sets that they wantto see LEGO produce in the future.
And all the members upvotewhat they want to see. So the value
(09:18):
of the experience for LEGO andfor the members comes from these
interactions and these votingmechanisms between members. And it's
tremendously valuable for thecompany because they've essentially
outsourced a section of theirproduct design simply to a free community.
Well, and you're not guessingwhat your community wants, they're
(09:40):
telling you totally.
Yes.
So it's not like, well, we'lltry this and see, you know, maybe
we'll get a focus group. No,you've already done the focus group.
Yeah.
When do you start a community?If somebody's just starting a podcast
and they're on episode four,is that the time to start a community
or is there a best time tostart a community or a worse time?
The answer is it reallydepends. I'll speak first to the
(10:02):
paid communities because andespecially who I tend to work with
as my clients and my members.So I work with coaches, consultants
and creators who are ready tocreate their one to many offer. Creators
are coaches and consultantsusually will get started serving
folks in a one on onecapacity. Creators are a little different.
(10:25):
They might actually like startout with a one to many offer and
might not start with that oneto one if you've positioned yourself
as more of that one to oneservice. My recommendation is usually
to focus on refining youroffer, refining your business, your
process for at least two yearsbefore you are ready to construct
(10:47):
a one to many offer of whichcommunity is one of your options.
And that's because it's a loteasier to iterate and evolve and
mess up and get better andlike grow in your own expertise when
you're working with people oneon one than it is to do it live in
(11:08):
front of your whole community.So we need some authority to be built
in the space first. Irecommend doing that before you take
the step to do it inside ofyour community.
I would think by doing thatfor two years you kind of know what
people are looking for.
Yes, yes.
And in theory then, because Ithink the biggest fear of anyone
(11:30):
that wants to start acommunity is you're going to go,
all right everybody, Here itis July 1, doors are open and it's
just nothing but tumbleweeds.
And you know, exactly.
Is anyone here, here, herejust echoes everywhere.
Totally. That's all of ourbiggest fears. And it's, it's super
valid. There's a lot of wayswe can address it. But one of the.
But the foundation of like,really understanding who you're serving,
(11:54):
the problems that they arefacing, how you, in a one on one
format, like, help themovercome that challenge. But then
when you turn to build acommunity, you're not just asking,
how do I help someone overcomethis challenge? It's how do I create
an environment where thepeople who are overcoming this challenge
(12:14):
can do it together? Which isjust a totally different layer of
skills on top of yourexpertise. And if you're trying to
overcome both of thoselearning curves, like understanding
your own expertise, expertiseand process and how to be an effective
community builder, that's alot to tackle all at the same time.
So I do recommend, like,making sure you feel either you have
(12:35):
like a decade of experience inthis expertise or you've been serving
your clients, you areintimately familiar with who they
are and that challenge thatyou're serving them in before you
dive into the community layer.
Yeah. Cause one of the thingsthat really caught my eye as I was
going through your courses isit was like really soon, like two
or three, like whatever lessonit was. And you're like, all right,
(12:58):
I challenge you to get, Ithink it was 10 people, if I remember
and call them on the phone orI guess get them on Zoom and not
for 15 minutes. It's got to beat least for this amount of time
and like, have a realconversation. And I was immediately,
I was like, oh, I like this.This is because a. Even myself, I
was kind of like, oh, that's.You know, I've done it in the past,
(13:22):
but I'm still, there's a.There's a part of me that's still
a little introverted. Andyou're always worried that, like,
what if I send out an emailand hey, I'd love to have a conversation,
and gosh, I think nobody'sgoing to listen to me. And then I
send this out and nobodyanswers. So now I know nobody will
listen to me. Like, how do youovercome that imposter syndrome?
And what's a good pitch for that?
(13:44):
Yeah, David. So real. I feltthat. I'm sure you kind of sensed
it in my video because Iremember putting that challenge together
after I was like, I do thatevery year in my business because
the challenges that my membersare facing are evolving. So even
if you've done, you did it atthe start of your business. When
I kicked off my business Iactually did a hundred phone calls
(14:05):
in 90 days and that is whatlaunched my business. So talk about
resistance and beinguncomfortable, that was it. That's
the crux of it. And I, I issuethat challenge really intentionally
because if you're not willing,ready and prepared to have those
one on one conversations withyour members, it's going to be a
(14:27):
pretty far jump for you to beready to facilitate a space where
you're gathering a group ofthem. So there's a couple like intentions
behind that challenge. But forpeople who feel a lot of resistance
to that, I would say a couplethings. One, people love talking
about themselves and frankly,I believe it's a gift. When you are
(14:48):
approaching someone withcuriosity and empathy, deep empathy
to learn from their situation,people also love, they love talking
about themselves and they lovetalking about their problems. So
to actually show up with thegift of being willing to attune to
and with curiosity, uncoverthe challenge that someone is facing,
(15:10):
I think is a gift to give topeople. And you always can offer
the gift and somebody candecide whether they want to take
it or not. I've always beenreally pleasantly surprised by these
conversations. Number one, howwilling people are to have them.
Number two, how grateful theyare to be heard. And then number
three, like what, what sparksfrom those conversations. And sometimes
(15:33):
it can be unexpected.Sometimes I'll get on a phone call
and I'll be like, you know, Ithought you were my ideal person,
but this is actually likeyou're kind of in a different space
or you're moving in adifferent direction, or this challenge
isn't actually your challenge.Sometimes we'll have those conversations
and I get like breakthroughsand new insights on how the issues
of community building areevolving and it changes the game
(15:57):
for my community or my offer.So there's a wealth of information
to be gained, but you do haveto summon the courage to take the
step to do it.
Can you think of one thatyou've set out? Here's the list of
people you're going to calland at the end of those calls you
went, well, the one thing Idefinitely learned from this was
blank. Can you think of an example?
(16:17):
Yeah, yeah. I had one call inparticular that comes to mind where
they were a community memberand they were familiar with my work
and a couple other strategistswork. And it was so helpful to hear
them reflect on thesimilarities and differences and
where they, they, they. Iheard them articulate why they felt
(16:38):
in alignment with my strategy.And it came down to like my kind
of fundamental method. Behindcommunity building and like, why
people are gathering in yourcommunity is because of the, the
value that you are providingthere, the value of the experience,
the environment, the types ofpeople you're gathering. And there's
(17:01):
some strategists who would saythat people are in your community
because you make them feel.Feel special and you treat them in
a way that they feelunderstood and they feel heard. And
while I think that'simportant, I don't think it's the
essence of why people keepcoming back to your community. So
to hear this member articulatethat and be like, to pull that out
(17:22):
and say, yes, I'm reallyaligned with that way of thinking
about community was reallyinsightful for me and it gave me
a clue for how to message newmembers too.
Yeah, anytime you can taketheir words and work it into your
marketing material, you areliterally like, that is their native
tongue. So definitely usethat. Well, the other favorite question
(17:46):
that you probably get all thetime is how do you know if you're
gonna do a paid membership?How do you know what to price it
at? Because, and I know it's apodcasting question and a community
question. So it's going tobegin with, it depends. But how do
you figure that out?
Yeah, yeah, it begins with itdepends. The first category we have
to consider is, again, what isyour community helping them do? And
(18:11):
if it's helping them makemoney in any way, shape or form,
we have certain wiggle room.If your community is more in the
landscape of entertainment orhobbyist or like even some like,
self help element, likecommunities can kind of fall into
(18:32):
this category. You, you are alittle bit more limited in what you
can charge people becausecategorically where they are, like
budgeting your communitymembership compared to other expenses
in their life is justdifferent than it's not a business
expense. It's not somethingthat's going to earn them money.
And so you have to positionthat investment differently and you
(18:53):
don't have as much wiggleroom, to be honest. There's some
general statistics. MightyNetworks came out with a report that
said generally for us to seegood engagement in communities, your
membership needs to be pricedwith at least $35 per month. I've
generally seen that anythingunder $35 a month is generally more
(19:14):
in the content category. Likeyou might subscribe and pay to be
a part of somebody's substackand get like access to this trove
of content. But once we're inthe community space, there's a different
level of commitment andparticipation. We are Inviting people
to participate as members, notto consume as viewers. And so that's
(19:38):
really important that that isreflected in the pricing that we
capture up front. Because ifyour pricing is too low, it doesn't
trigger people to make thatconscious decision that, like, oh,
okay, this is like enough ofan investment that this isn't just
like a, you know, I'm signingup to watch these videos. I'm signing
up because it's. It's aninvestment and I'm going to participate
(20:01):
here. And are you going deeperwith fewer or are you going wider
with more? So depending on themodel, the pricing structures can
look quite different.
Yeah. One of the things thatalways makes me scratch my head is,
you know, onboarding is kindof a challenge because we always,
(20:22):
no matter what you're doing,it always feels like you're feeding
these new people with a firehose. But the other thing is I'll
have. Because I kind of reachout and make sure you're set up,
and then I'll wait a week andjust want to make sure everything's
fine. And there are times whenI'll have somebody who is giving
me money and just ghosting me.Is that a common thing or it's just
(20:43):
one of those things that makesme scratch my head. I'm like, well,
maybe they signed up and lifehappened. I don't know. But are there
strategies to avoid that?
Yeah, totally. So there's areality of, like, what we call lurkers
in your community. And lurkersis like, I say that not in a negative
way. Lurker is even, like,could be even more active than what
(21:03):
you're saying, which is like,they never even log in and they never
even show up. And there'salways a reality of that in communities.
So don't beat yourself up toomuch. The structure of the community,
like, and how. What percentageof your members might be lurking
or not participating orcompletely checked out, that varies
(21:24):
greatly. And this is like,where it ties into your pricing because
you might be, in an effort tobe inclusive and make your community
accessible to a lot of people,you might actually be pricing yourself
in a way that is not servingyour members from getting engaged
and participating in a waythat's going to elevate the entire
(21:46):
space. So there's a couplemethods for activating your members,
and they all have to do withthat onboarding experience. So when
a member joins your communityand gets active in their first 30
days, their odds dramaticallyincrease of them sticking around
in your community and, andbeing there long term. So what we
(22:07):
want to look at is how you areactivating your members. I also like
to, for members who like, joinand don't participate or don't log
in, like, I actually like tokind of push the edge with those
members and approach it moreproactively and say whether it's
like, hey, I haven't seen you,you know, participate. Depending
(22:28):
on the community platform thatyou're building in, you might be
able to automate some of this.Generally how I address it in the
onboarding emails is somewherearound email number three. I like
to say, hey, you've justcompletely wasted your money here
unless you participate. Thevalue of this experience, however
(22:51):
valuable this space is goingto be to your business, is entirely
dependent on you and whetheror not you show up here. So if you
joined and you've realizedlike you don't actually have capacity
for this, which is a realthing that happens or life happened,
that's totally fine, you'rewelcome. Like you, you can cancel
(23:11):
your subscription and rejoinwhen it's the right time for you.
I find the, the heaviness andweight of a lack of participation
in my community is moredetrimental than being able to prompt
someone to really considereven after joining, is this actually
what I want? And if the answeris no, I think we're all better off
(23:32):
having that person leaveearlier rather than sticking around.
And kind of, it feels likethere's a weight that comes with
a lack of participation in communities.
Yeah, it's weird because I'vetalked to some people and they're
like, oh, that's the best.They're paying you for nothing. And
that just to me I'm like,yeah, but I like to earn my money.
(23:53):
And I did have one guy say,look, consider that a retainer. I
love the fact that I can askyou a question and I'm not going
to go through your courses. Ijust know that I can ask you a question
and get an answer within 24hours and that's what I'm paying
you for. I'm like, okay, aslong as I'm aware of that.
There you go. Yeah, that'sreally good. That's really good insight.
Yeah. And you know, if thiswas just like a one off course where
(24:17):
like someone pays you, whetheror not they go through it is like
no skin off your back doesn'treally have an impact. That's fine.
In community, it's differentbecause whether or not someone decides
to show up impacts not onlytheir experience and the value that
they get, it now impactseveryone else in the community. Because
(24:41):
where, if they had shown up,we would have gained from their generosity
and their insight and theirfeedback. And now with them not showing
up, like, the community isworse off. So I'd rather, like, be
really clear and prompt peopleif it's not the right time or not
the right fit, and if they'renot able to show up in the participation
(25:03):
that is expected and requiredthat they move on. That's just my
posture towards it.
Well, yeah, for me, it'squality over quantity.
Yeah.
Well, we haven't brought upthe F word yet. Of course. That is
our good friend Facebook.There are, you know, I. I have a
(25:25):
love hate relationship withFacebook A. Because they kicked me
out of my own group once. AndI interviewed Paul G. A couple months
ago. He had 84,000 people in aFacebook group. And they went, nope,
not anymore. And I was like,what? And he's like, yeah. Did you
appeal? Yep. Nope. So I have.I am not a huge fan of using Facebook
for a group. Is that justbecause I've heard one too many horror
(25:49):
stories or is that somethingthat you like? Well, if you want
to go free, it's okay. Or.What are your overall thoughts of
Facebook?
Yeah, personally, I detest it.I have a really hard time showing
up myself. You're not alone.That has happened to a lot of community
builders, and it's. Several ofmy clients have come to me to migrate
(26:09):
their communities because ofthe risk of running your community
on a platform that you do notown, and you do not own the relationship
with your member. That's areally scary, risky place. So a lot
of people, it's kind of likethe difference between an email strategy
and a social media strategy.With a social media strategy, you
(26:33):
are going to where, quote,everyone already is, and you are
nurturing. You're gatheringfollowers, you're building an audience,
and you're nurturing arelationship, but you ultimately
don't have any control overthat relationship. If the platform
changed tomorrow, you'd haveno, no, say, an email list. You,
like, quote, own that email.When someone has subscribed to you,
(26:53):
you own that relationship. Andeven if your email service provider
went. Even if mailchimp wentunder tomorrow, you could still take
your email list to a differenttool. So community building is in
this similar phase where,like, kind of prior to up to five
years ago, we didn't reallyhave many options of where to gather
our communities. So Facebookwas the default. My general recommendation,
(27:18):
even for free communities,which my recommendation for free
communities does not come byvery often, but even when it does,
is that you and your communityare better served in a home where
people feel safe and where youcan re habituate the behaviors of
(27:39):
your members to behave andinteract online in a way that is
going to be meaningful andvaluable to each other. And I believe
ultimately what we've thebehaviors and norms that we've been
habituated in in Facebook donot lead us to build community in
a way that's meaningful andvaluable. I like to say good marketing
(28:02):
goes to where people are, butgood community builds where people
feel safe. So I can definitelylike see some use cases for where
it might make sense to build acommunity in a Facebook group. But
by and large, and especiallyfor my clients when we're building
paid communities, there's justbetter technology, to be honest.
(28:23):
Yeah. Do you have. I knowyou're using Heartbeat for yours,
but I know there's Circle andthere's School and with a K because
you know, they're cool. Do youhave any preference?
Yeah, I have a lot of thoughtson this and I do have a whole section
of like comparison communityplatform comparison articles. So
(28:43):
once we've decided, kind ofthe first question is should we build
in like a social network wherequote, everyone already is. They
probably already have a loginto that space or should we build
like our own space? And thoseare usually built in what we call
all in one communityplatforms. So your events, conversation
and content is all in onecentral location usually requires
(29:04):
people to create a new login.So there's some friction there. Within
the all in one communityplatform space. There's the two that
I build in most commonly areCircle and Heartbeat. And but I have
kind of a quiver of platformsthat I keep my eye on and Honeycomb
is another one that's like amobile first experience. School is
another one. Actually did acomparison video between School and
(29:26):
Circle where I like reallyragged on School. But I've, I've
come around to see a couplelike use cases where I really think
that they are a great optionand then the another one that pops
up really commonly but that Ijust sadly can't get behind is called
Mighty Networks. They've beenaround longer than any other community
platforms, but unfortunatelytheir user experience just has not.
(29:50):
They just have not nailed it.And it's really hard to understand
where to find what you'relooking for in there. So that's like
the skinny on the platforms.But Circle and Heartbeat are my,
my main two that I build.
Yeah, I'm a big Heartbeat fanand I too, I love the people at Mighty
Networks. I've talked to Themover there, they're great people.
I just.
Lovely.
It always seems just ever soslightly clunky. And I'm like, so
(30:15):
close. But, you know, yourmileage may differ. But for me, I
was like, that's why I went toHeartbeat. The other thing, obviously,
we want our community tointeract with each other, but the
last time I checked, somepeople are creepy. So how do you.
How do you handle, you know,when people step out of line?
(30:38):
Oh, that's a good question.That didn't go where I thought it
was going. Yeah. So there's acouple ways to. To address this.
Like, it's always good to havekind of foundational community guidelines,
terms of code of conduct,terms of service, having the basic
boundaries in place for peopleto understand. This is what this
(31:00):
community is for. This is whatyou can expect here. These are the
behaviors that areinappropriate and not allowed here.
So generally. And this isagain, another benefit to moving
into a space like an all inone community platform, and how it
can even be a benefit tocreate your community in a space
where people are not familiarwith that technology. Because all
(31:24):
of the creepy behaviors ofFacebook and social media that we've
normalized, you get like areset. Like, you get. You get to,
like, teach people how to talkto each other. There in again, ways
that are meaningful andvaluable. So generally what I've
found is, like, this is apretty common problem for people
building on major platformslike Facebook. But once we move into
(31:48):
a platform like an all in onecommunity platform, it's pretty common
for people to be like, whoa,this feels totally different. We
have way fewer issues. Wedon't have to monitor our members
with the vigilance that weused to. So having some of those
foundational practices inplace are great. The technology can
(32:10):
also impact this. And then theculture that you create in your community
greatly contributes to this.So your members will pick up on what's
appropriate, what's notappropriate, and when you are actively
and intentionally shapingthis, it will continue to go in the
right direction. It's when youare not paying attention and you're
(32:32):
allowing behaviors to snowballor to accumulate in your community
in a way that is negativelyimpacting the culture that we have
to do some course correction.I definitely have some podcast episodes
on that because it's a big topic.
Yeah, you can. I'll have linksto Dear Bri out in the show notes.
(32:52):
But I'm an old teacher and Iwould tell my students, I'd put a
big clock on the wall, 15minutes. I'm like, we Are coming
back from break in 15 minutes.If you come back in 17, I'm not getting
you caught up and I will getyou involved in the next exercise.
And inevitably, somebody wouldwalk in and go, okay, get me caught
up. And I'm like, no, you'regoing to sit there like, you can
(33:13):
watch. But. And then when,when we went on break again and I
put the 15 minute clock on,nobody was late. So sometimes you've
got to, you know, sacrificesomebody just to like, no, I'm not
kidding. Those are the terms,and this is how we operate. And I.
Yeah.
So if you're going to put aboundary or rule up in your community,
you best be prepared to standbehind it because your members will
(33:37):
test it. And if you fail tostand behind it, like, they'll know
that you were lying andthey'll know that you didn't mean
business. So, yeah, it'sreally important to substitute teacher.
They're like, all right, let's test.
Totally. That time will comeand you gotta be ready to enforce
it.
Yeah. Well, what are some ofthe mistakes you see or the most
common mistakes you see peoplemaking when it comes to building
(33:59):
a community or starting a community?
Yeah. Number one is we fallfor a freemium model. So people like
the idea of a free tastercommunity that leads to the paid
community that's bigger andbetter and brighter. And the reality
(34:20):
of that model is that thenature of community is really full.
It's really kind ofoverwhelming. And so when your free
community is working reallywell, it's like, this is awesome.
Everybody's so helpful. I'mgetting all my questions answered.
Why would I pay for, like,better conversate? Like, so there's
(34:43):
like, better conversation orlike, somebody's asking the same
questions, but they're gettingbetter answers Inside the paid community,
like, it's just people arelike, huh? Or your paid. Your free
community is not going well.And people are like, well, if it's
not, if it's not great here,why would I pay to get something
that's seemingly better? SoI've seen paid communities that are
(35:04):
thriving that launch a freecommunity, and it's like a total
dud. Or they have a paidcommunity and the paid community
is, like, struggling, buttheir free community is thriving.
So I say pick one, don't doboth, because you will, make no mistake,
be building two communities.If you have a free one and a paid
one, you've now built not justone, but two communities. So pick
(35:26):
one. There are plenty of waysthat you can offer people what I
call the cheese plate. So we,we give them a, a pre designated
amount of cheese to samplebefore dinner. We don't give them
all access buffet to the, thecheese and charcuterie boards so
that they can stuff themselveson cheese before the paid dinner.
(35:49):
Right.
So there's a lot of ways youcan do that. That's the first one.
The second one is if, ifyou're launching a paid community,
don't test it with a freecommunity. So, and people do this
because they're afraid andthey're afraid that their community
isn't going to have the rightproduct market fit. They're afraid
that people aren't going toshow up and so they, they offer it
(36:11):
for free. But if you arelooking to build and if the model
of community that you'reinterested in, if your community
needs to support your businessin a paid format, the most important
test you need to run first isare people willing to pay to be a
part of this experience? So Isee a lot of community builders kind
(36:31):
of testing for years with amodel that isn't aligned with their
ultimate purpose. And I thinkit, it causes them to waste a lot
of time and set a poorprecedent for members when eventually
they want to be paid. But nowthey've set this like precedent of
it being free. So those arelike two big ones. But then I see
(36:53):
a lot more that kind of tieinto the model of the community.
We touched on the four typesof communities and I actually have
a free masterclass that goesinto a lot of depth on how each type
of community is positioned tosupport your business. But also the
challenges that come up comewith it too. And it's really important
(37:15):
that you know ahead of timewhat you're signing up for because
there's no one right model foryour business. It's just a matter
of what strengths you want tosign up for and what challenges you're
ready to overcome as well.
Is there any way, is it just acase or like, hey, I'm starting a
community and if we can get Xamount of people to sign up, I'm
(37:37):
going to do it and if not, Iwill refund everybody's money? Is,
is that how you do it or isthere a better way to kind of like,
you know, test drive it or atleast because you're trying to figure
out if you have proof ofconcept and if, if, because I know
you can say, oh, we have awaiting list which is free. And so
you get 200 people on yourwaiting list and you're like, all
(37:59):
right, here it is sign up andyou get three people. So is that
the strategy? Just like, makepeople pay up front and if, if we
get enough, we'll do it and ifnot, I'll give everybody their money
back. Is that really the onlystrategy or is there another one?
Yeah, there's, there's acouple different methods here. And
you, you named a really goodone because it is, it does feel kind
(38:20):
of like a conundrum. You'relike, how do we sell something that
doesn't exist yet? Like,literally, like we're selling them
and promising them on thiscommunity, but we don't know if we're
going to have a community yet.So one of the, one of the methods
you can use, which I, and Ilove this advice, it comes from Mortiza,
the founder of Heartbeat. Weactually did an episode on this for
Dear Bri, and Heartbeat hasadded a wait list feature that makes
(38:44):
this really easy for you todo. So in Heartbeat, you can set
up a wait list where forpeople to join the waitlist, they
can contribute a small amountor the full amount, and then you
list, like, on this launchdate, they, they'll be charged either
the remaining amount orwhatever. They can just come into
the community. I love thismethod for launching a community
(39:05):
because it protects you as thebuilder. It gives you a little bit
of Runway. And when you'retransparent in your communication
with those members who arewaiting, like, you'd be surprised
with how long people arewilling to wait even after contributing,
like, monetary investment.Kickstarter is like a great example
(39:26):
of this. So I do love thatmethod. Another way that you can
test and get a sense for ifpeople are going to join without
the wait list or the paid waitlist. If you're not building in Heartbeat,
that can be kind of a clunkyprocess to like, capture payment
before the doors open. So myfavorite way to test a community
(39:50):
is to create an event series.And it's almost like a micro mini
community program experience.And I have some, like, recommendations
on how to structure it basedon the model of community that you're
intending to build. The reasonI recommend an event series is one,
(40:11):
the feedback loop is superquick. They either show up or they
don't, and you know it rightaway. Two, when they're on the call,
you get that feedback you'reseeing, like, is this tracking? Are
people resonating? Whatquestions are they asking? So that
synchronous experience issuper helpful when it comes to getting
(40:32):
some of that, that data andthat research. And the third element
of this, that's really helpfulis when it's, when it's an event
series and not just a one timeevent. You find out, are people willing
to come back? Are they willingto show up again? Because it's a
different. In a community,you're asking people to come back
(40:54):
time and time and time again.You're not just showing them, you're
not just asking them to showup again once. So rather than like,
you can always test it likepaid singular Workshop. And that's
fine. But what we need to knowis are people willing to come back
a second, a third time? So tokeep your test really short and really
(41:14):
powerful and effective, doinglike a two or three event series
that's paid, if you anticipatelaunching a paid community is another
great way to get a sense forwhat the market's going to do with
your offer.
Excellent. You're amazing. Ifthis is why I'm glad I had you on
the show, I'm like, okay, I'mgoing to take lots of now I'm going
(41:35):
to transcribe this. There's alot of stuff I'm like, ooh, that's
good, I got to use that. Ooh,that's good, I got to use that. So
her website is Ember. That'sEEM B E R Consulting. Co, not com
Co. You don't need the M, justco. And Bri is spelled B R I Lever.
Thank you so much for comingon the show.
Yeah, thanks so much forhaving me, Dave.
(42:00):
Schoolofpodcasting.com 987 iswhere you can find everything, including
links to her website. Andcheck out her podcast, Dear Bri,
if you want more tips.
(43:47):
Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
I probably don't say thisenough, but I really do. Thank you
for checking out the show. Igot a lot of great feedback with
Thomas Umstad Jr. And reallythe last couple episodes I've had
people emailing me going, hey,that was a, that was a really good
episode. So I appreciate that.And if you ever have any ideas of
(44:09):
something that you would liketo talk about on the show, I am always
all ears. And again, thank youso much for listening and for telling
your friends. I'm Dave Jacksonfrom the school of podcasting. I
help podcasters. That's what Ido. And I can't wait to see what
we do together. When you goover to schoolofpodcasting.com join
(44:30):
and use the coupon codelistener until next week. That's
going to do it. Take care. Godbless. Class is dismissed.
Today on episode number 987 ofthe school of Podcasting, we're going
to talk about Marc Maroncalling it quits. And did you know
that having a free communityalongside a paid one could actually
hinder your growth? Well,you're going to discover why this
strategy often fails and whatyou can do to ensure your community
(00:22):
thrives. Hit it, ladies.
The School of Podcasting withDave Jackson.
Podcasting since 2000, 2005.I'm your award winning hall of fame
podcast coach, Dave Jackson.Thanking you so much for tuning in.
If you're new to the show,this is where I help you plan, launch,
(00:44):
grow. And if you want tomonetize your show, my website is
school of podcasting.com usethe coupon code listener. That's
L I S T E N E R when you signup for either a monthly, quarterly
or yearly subscription. And ofcourse that comes with a 30 day money
(01:04):
back guarantee. And we'regoing to be talking about memberships
in just a second. But Irealize not everybody's interested.
And when I say membership, Imean a community. Now that could
be courses and things likethat, like I have at the School of
Podcasting. Or maybe you justwant to create a nice, safe place
for people to hang out. And Irealize you might be going up, not
(01:27):
for me, but I thought I wouldgive you just a quick little, little
snippet to nibble on. And thatis Mark Maron, who has been doing
the WTF podcast for 16 years.And the big wow thing that happened
with Mark is he had a sittingpresident Barack Obama on his podcast
(01:49):
who came into his garage. I'mgoing to say that again. He came
to Mark's garage and did hispodcast. Now the other thing I want
to point out about Mark showis he is a team of two. He had a
producer who also did some ofthe editing and then Mark did the
(02:12):
actual, you know, hosting andsuch. So if you're thinking of starting
a podcast and think, oh, Ican't compete with these people that
have a team of 18, well, theyhave a team of two. I think Joe Rogan
might be a team of three. Sokeep that in mind. And there are
many, many podcasters, myselfincluded, that are a team of one.
(02:36):
And so Mark is going to put itto bed sometime in the fall. I might
talk about this in the futureas well, but it's probably in the
fall because he has toprobably fill out some contracts
that he had with advertisers.But the other one is it's sounding
as if Rob Greenlee may havemoved on from doing the new media
(03:01):
show with Todd Cochran. We'llwait and see. But that's the show
that's been going on longerthan Marc Maron. And so the point
I wanted to make here is,number one, these are really popular
shows that did not have giantteams. They served kind of a niche
audience, and they providedinformation you can't get anyplace
(03:21):
else. I can't get ToddCochran's point of view and Rob Greenlee's
point of view anytime. I canget them separately because they're
both going to continue on. AndMarc Marin's first 20 episodes were
amazing, where he interviewedother comedians, and they were talking
very frankly and veryintimately about. About things like
(03:42):
joke stealing and, you know,treating each other poorly and things
like that. So I just say thatbecause who's going to be the next
Marc Maron? Who's going totake over that audience? It's not
like people are going to getin their car and go, well, I listen
to Mark, but, you know, he'snot doing his show anymore, so I
guess I'll just sit here insilence. No, someone is going to
(04:02):
take that spot. And as youlook at the clock, I just realized
back in April, I celebrated 20years of podcasting. Now I feel I
have another 20 years in me.But some people that have been doing
it for a while are going tohang up the microphone, and that
could be you that takes theirplace. That's just the thing I wanted
(04:27):
to point out, because theystarted. Mark started by. Well, he
recorded in his garage, butbefore he did that, he was on a radio
station that had been shutdown, and he was sneaking into the
radio station to record hisepisode. So just think about that.
Yes, there may be other peoplethat are doing similar shows to yours.
(04:50):
So find out maybe if there'ssomething that they're not talking
about that you could talkabout. And then also remember that
eventually some of thesepeople are going to quit, and that
audience is going to belooking for something, and that something
could be you.
(05:33):
Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
How long should I wait beforeI start a community? What should
I charge for? What do youthink about using Facebook as a tool
for your community? These areall things I discuss with Bre Lever
from emberconsulting co. Allright, well, joining me via squadcast,
(06:01):
I first met her. She was doinga webinar for Heartbeat, which is
a community tool that I usefor the school of podcasting. And
I liked her so much, I wentover and joined her Community over
at EmberConsulting co. Andwithin, like, three lessons, I was
like, oh, I have to have youon the show. So, Bri Lever, thank
(06:23):
you so much for coming on the show.
Oh, grateful to be here.Thanks for the kind words.
You have a strategy that I waslike, oh, we have to talk about that.
But before we get to that, ifI got this right, there's really
kind of two types ofcommunities. There's either the networking
one, where you want a bunch ofpeople to get together and just say
howdy and talk to each other.And then there's kind of what I'm
(06:44):
calling the transformationalcommunity, where you're helping people
get from point A to point B.Is that basically the only two? Are
there other types?
Yeah, a great question. So Ihave a model where I talk about community
pretty broadly because I comefrom actually that's. That's what
I call the. The paid side ofthe community spectrum. Then you
(07:06):
also have free communitiesthat are designed to support a business
and by supporting the productor service in some way, shape or
form. So I actually identifyfour types. But for talking about
paid communities, those arethe two that I focus in on. Education
centric communities, which wecall transformative communities,
(07:26):
and then connection centriccommunities, where the value of the
experience is coming from theconnections between your members
and those I call networkingcommunities. Yeah, you nailed it.
Well. And a free communitywould be a great resource for content.
So what are the other twotypes then?
Yeah, yep. So. So I basicallyjust have a matrix. And so the free
(07:49):
education centric communities,I call these nurturing communities.
And this is where thecommunity is designed to nurture
your customers either into adeeper relationship with the product
and the brand. This is where,like, the vast majority of SaaS product
communities land. So, like theHubSpot community, where they teach
you how to better use HubSpotto become a better inbound marketer.
(08:14):
Then on the other hand, youhave connection centric free communities.
I call these collaborativecommunities. This is really where
we had free Facebook groupskind of squatting for a long time
and kind of figuring out whatthey were and who they were for and
what their purpose was. Now wesee a lot of these collaborative
(08:37):
communities actually shiftingover into the paid model because
they've realized, man, it's alot of work and it's not always a
collaborative community isn'talways going to convert your people
to become customers like youthink it's going to. So there's a
lot of shifting in that typeof community. But it's Also, like,
(08:58):
oddly enough, some of myfavorite communities of all time
are collaborative communities.Like the LEGO Ideas community is
one of my favorites. It'swhere people submit CAD designs of
their LEGO sets that they wantto see LEGO produce in the future.
And all the members upvotewhat they want to see. So the value
(09:18):
of the experience for LEGO andfor the members comes from these
interactions and these votingmechanisms between members. And it's
tremendously valuable for thecompany because they've essentially
outsourced a section of theirproduct design simply to a free community.
Well, and you're not guessingwhat your community wants, they're
(09:40):
telling you totally.
Yes.
So it's not like, well, we'lltry this and see, you know, maybe
we'll get a focus group. No,you've already done the focus group.
Yeah.
When do you start a community?If somebody's just starting a podcast
and they're on episode four,is that the time to start a community
or is there a best time tostart a community or a worse time?
The answer is it reallydepends. I'll speak first to the
(10:02):
paid communities because andespecially who I tend to work with
as my clients and my members.So I work with coaches, consultants
and creators who are ready tocreate their one to many offer. Creators
are coaches and consultantsusually will get started serving
folks in a one on onecapacity. Creators are a little different.
(10:25):
They might actually like startout with a one to many offer and
might not start with that oneto one if you've positioned yourself
as more of that one to oneservice. My recommendation is usually
to focus on refining youroffer, refining your business, your
process for at least two yearsbefore you are ready to construct
(10:47):
a one to many offer of whichcommunity is one of your options.
And that's because it's a loteasier to iterate and evolve and
mess up and get better andlike grow in your own expertise when
you're working with people oneon one than it is to do it live in
(11:08):
front of your whole community.So we need some authority to be built
in the space first. Irecommend doing that before you take
the step to do it inside ofyour community.
I would think by doing thatfor two years you kind of know what
people are looking for.
Yes, yes.
And in theory then, because Ithink the biggest fear of anyone
(11:30):
that wants to start acommunity is you're going to go,
all right everybody, Here itis July 1, doors are open and it's
just nothing but tumbleweeds.
And you know, exactly.
Is anyone here, here, herejust echoes everywhere.
Totally. That's all of ourbiggest fears. And it's, it's super
valid. There's a lot of wayswe can address it. But one of the.
But the foundation of like,really understanding who you're serving,
(11:54):
the problems that they arefacing, how you, in a one on one
format, like, help themovercome that challenge. But then
when you turn to build acommunity, you're not just asking,
how do I help someone overcomethis challenge? It's how do I create
an environment where thepeople who are overcoming this challenge
(12:14):
can do it together? Which isjust a totally different layer of
skills on top of yourexpertise. And if you're trying to
overcome both of thoselearning curves, like understanding
your own expertise, expertiseand process and how to be an effective
community builder, that's alot to tackle all at the same time.
So I do recommend, like,making sure you feel either you have
(12:35):
like a decade of experience inthis expertise or you've been serving
your clients, you areintimately familiar with who they
are and that challenge thatyou're serving them in before you
dive into the community layer.
Yeah. Cause one of the thingsthat really caught my eye as I was
going through your courses isit was like really soon, like two
or three, like whatever lessonit was. And you're like, all right,
(12:58):
I challenge you to get, Ithink it was 10 people, if I remember
and call them on the phone orI guess get them on Zoom and not
for 15 minutes. It's got to beat least for this amount of time
and like, have a realconversation. And I was immediately,
I was like, oh, I like this.This is because a. Even myself, I
was kind of like, oh, that's.You know, I've done it in the past,
(13:22):
but I'm still, there's a.There's a part of me that's still
a little introverted. Andyou're always worried that, like,
what if I send out an emailand hey, I'd love to have a conversation,
and gosh, I think nobody'sgoing to listen to me. And then I
send this out and nobodyanswers. So now I know nobody will
listen to me. Like, how do youovercome that imposter syndrome?
And what's a good pitch for that?
(13:44):
Yeah, David. So real. I feltthat. I'm sure you kind of sensed
it in my video because Iremember putting that challenge together
after I was like, I do thatevery year in my business because
the challenges that my membersare facing are evolving. So even
if you've done, you did it atthe start of your business. When
I kicked off my business Iactually did a hundred phone calls
(14:05):
in 90 days and that is whatlaunched my business. So talk about
resistance and beinguncomfortable, that was it. That's
the crux of it. And I, I issuethat challenge really intentionally
because if you're not willing,ready and prepared to have those
one on one conversations withyour members, it's going to be a
(14:27):
pretty far jump for you to beready to facilitate a space where
you're gathering a group ofthem. So there's a couple like intentions
behind that challenge. But forpeople who feel a lot of resistance
to that, I would say a couplethings. One, people love talking
about themselves and frankly,I believe it's a gift. When you are
(14:48):
approaching someone withcuriosity and empathy, deep empathy
to learn from their situation,people also love, they love talking
about themselves and they lovetalking about their problems. So
to actually show up with thegift of being willing to attune to
and with curiosity, uncoverthe challenge that someone is facing,
(15:10):
I think is a gift to give topeople. And you always can offer
the gift and somebody candecide whether they want to take
it or not. I've always beenreally pleasantly surprised by these
conversations. Number one, howwilling people are to have them.
Number two, how grateful theyare to be heard. And then number
three, like what, what sparksfrom those conversations. And sometimes
(15:33):
it can be unexpected.Sometimes I'll get on a phone call
and I'll be like, you know, Ithought you were my ideal person,
but this is actually likeyou're kind of in a different space
or you're moving in adifferent direction, or this challenge
isn't actually your challenge.Sometimes we'll have those conversations
and I get like breakthroughsand new insights on how the issues
of community building areevolving and it changes the game
(15:57):
for my community or my offer.So there's a wealth of information
to be gained, but you do haveto summon the courage to take the
step to do it.
Can you think of one thatyou've set out? Here's the list of
people you're going to calland at the end of those calls you
went, well, the one thing Idefinitely learned from this was
blank. Can you think of an example?
(16:17):
Yeah, yeah. I had one call inparticular that comes to mind where
they were a community memberand they were familiar with my work
and a couple other strategistswork. And it was so helpful to hear
them reflect on thesimilarities and differences and
where they, they, they. Iheard them articulate why they felt
(16:38):
in alignment with my strategy.And it came down to like my kind
of fundamental method. Behindcommunity building and like, why
people are gathering in yourcommunity is because of the, the
value that you are providingthere, the value of the experience,
the environment, the types ofpeople you're gathering. And there's
(17:01):
some strategists who would saythat people are in your community
because you make them feel.Feel special and you treat them in
a way that they feelunderstood and they feel heard. And
while I think that'simportant, I don't think it's the
essence of why people keepcoming back to your community. So
to hear this member articulatethat and be like, to pull that out
(17:22):
and say, yes, I'm reallyaligned with that way of thinking
about community was reallyinsightful for me and it gave me
a clue for how to message newmembers too.
Yeah, anytime you can taketheir words and work it into your
marketing material, you areliterally like, that is their native
tongue. So definitely usethat. Well, the other favorite question
(17:46):
that you probably get all thetime is how do you know if you're
gonna do a paid membership?How do you know what to price it
at? Because, and I know it's apodcasting question and a community
question. So it's going tobegin with, it depends. But how do
you figure that out?
Yeah, yeah, it begins with itdepends. The first category we have
to consider is, again, what isyour community helping them do? And
(18:11):
if it's helping them makemoney in any way, shape or form,
we have certain wiggle room.If your community is more in the
landscape of entertainment orhobbyist or like even some like,
self help element, likecommunities can kind of fall into
(18:32):
this category. You, you are alittle bit more limited in what you
can charge people becausecategorically where they are, like
budgeting your communitymembership compared to other expenses
in their life is justdifferent than it's not a business
expense. It's not somethingthat's going to earn them money.
And so you have to positionthat investment differently and you
(18:53):
don't have as much wiggleroom, to be honest. There's some
general statistics. MightyNetworks came out with a report that
said generally for us to seegood engagement in communities, your
membership needs to be pricedwith at least $35 per month. I've
generally seen that anythingunder $35 a month is generally more
(19:14):
in the content category. Likeyou might subscribe and pay to be
a part of somebody's substackand get like access to this trove
of content. But once we're inthe community space, there's a different
level of commitment andparticipation. We are Inviting people
to participate as members, notto consume as viewers. And so that's
(19:38):
really important that that isreflected in the pricing that we
capture up front. Because ifyour pricing is too low, it doesn't
trigger people to make thatconscious decision that, like, oh,
okay, this is like enough ofan investment that this isn't just
like a, you know, I'm signingup to watch these videos. I'm signing
up because it's. It's aninvestment and I'm going to participate
(20:01):
here. And are you going deeperwith fewer or are you going wider
with more? So depending on themodel, the pricing structures can
look quite different.
Yeah. One of the things thatalways makes me scratch my head is,
you know, onboarding is kindof a challenge because we always,
(20:22):
no matter what you're doing,it always feels like you're feeding
these new people with a firehose. But the other thing is I'll
have. Because I kind of reachout and make sure you're set up,
and then I'll wait a week andjust want to make sure everything's
fine. And there are times whenI'll have somebody who is giving
me money and just ghosting me.Is that a common thing or it's just
(20:43):
one of those things that makesme scratch my head. I'm like, well,
maybe they signed up and lifehappened. I don't know. But are there
strategies to avoid that?
Yeah, totally. So there's areality of, like, what we call lurkers
in your community. And lurkersis like, I say that not in a negative
way. Lurker is even, like,could be even more active than what
(21:03):
you're saying, which is like,they never even log in and they never
even show up. And there'salways a reality of that in communities.
So don't beat yourself up toomuch. The structure of the community,
like, and how. What percentageof your members might be lurking
or not participating orcompletely checked out, that varies
(21:24):
greatly. And this is like,where it ties into your pricing because
you might be, in an effort tobe inclusive and make your community
accessible to a lot of people,you might actually be pricing yourself
in a way that is not servingyour members from getting engaged
and participating in a waythat's going to elevate the entire
(21:46):
space. So there's a couplemethods for activating your members,
and they all have to do withthat onboarding experience. So when
a member joins your communityand gets active in their first 30
days, their odds dramaticallyincrease of them sticking around
in your community and, andbeing there long term. So what we
(22:07):
want to look at is how you areactivating your members. I also like
to, for members who like, joinand don't participate or don't log
in, like, I actually like tokind of push the edge with those
members and approach it moreproactively and say whether it's
like, hey, I haven't seen you,you know, participate. Depending
(22:28):
on the community platform thatyou're building in, you might be
able to automate some of this.Generally how I address it in the
onboarding emails is somewherearound email number three. I like
to say, hey, you've justcompletely wasted your money here
unless you participate. Thevalue of this experience, however
(22:51):
valuable this space is goingto be to your business, is entirely
dependent on you and whetheror not you show up here. So if you
joined and you've realizedlike you don't actually have capacity
for this, which is a realthing that happens or life happened,
that's totally fine, you'rewelcome. Like you, you can cancel
(23:11):
your subscription and rejoinwhen it's the right time for you.
I find the, the heaviness andweight of a lack of participation
in my community is moredetrimental than being able to prompt
someone to really considereven after joining, is this actually
what I want? And if the answeris no, I think we're all better off
(23:32):
having that person leaveearlier rather than sticking around.
And kind of, it feels likethere's a weight that comes with
a lack of participation in communities.
Yeah, it's weird because I'vetalked to some people and they're
like, oh, that's the best.They're paying you for nothing. And
that just to me I'm like,yeah, but I like to earn my money.
(23:53):
And I did have one guy say,look, consider that a retainer. I
love the fact that I can askyou a question and I'm not going
to go through your courses. Ijust know that I can ask you a question
and get an answer within 24hours and that's what I'm paying
you for. I'm like, okay, aslong as I'm aware of that.
There you go. Yeah, that'sreally good. That's really good insight.
Yeah. And you know, if thiswas just like a one off course where
(24:17):
like someone pays you, whetheror not they go through it is like
no skin off your back doesn'treally have an impact. That's fine.
In community, it's differentbecause whether or not someone decides
to show up impacts not onlytheir experience and the value that
they get, it now impactseveryone else in the community. Because
(24:41):
where, if they had shown up,we would have gained from their generosity
and their insight and theirfeedback. And now with them not showing
up, like, the community isworse off. So I'd rather, like, be
really clear and prompt peopleif it's not the right time or not
the right fit, and if they'renot able to show up in the participation
(25:03):
that is expected and requiredthat they move on. That's just my
posture towards it.
Well, yeah, for me, it'squality over quantity.
Yeah.
Well, we haven't brought upthe F word yet. Of course. That is
our good friend Facebook.There are, you know, I. I have a
(25:25):
love hate relationship withFacebook A. Because they kicked me
out of my own group once. AndI interviewed Paul G. A couple months
ago. He had 84,000 people in aFacebook group. And they went, nope,
not anymore. And I was like,what? And he's like, yeah. Did you
appeal? Yep. Nope. So I have.I am not a huge fan of using Facebook
for a group. Is that justbecause I've heard one too many horror
(25:49):
stories or is that somethingthat you like? Well, if you want
to go free, it's okay. Or.What are your overall thoughts of
Facebook?
Yeah, personally, I detest it.I have a really hard time showing
up myself. You're not alone.That has happened to a lot of community
builders, and it's. Several ofmy clients have come to me to migrate
(26:09):
their communities because ofthe risk of running your community
on a platform that you do notown, and you do not own the relationship
with your member. That's areally scary, risky place. So a lot
of people, it's kind of likethe difference between an email strategy
and a social media strategy.With a social media strategy, you
(26:33):
are going to where, quote,everyone already is, and you are
nurturing. You're gatheringfollowers, you're building an audience,
and you're nurturing arelationship, but you ultimately
don't have any control overthat relationship. If the platform
changed tomorrow, you'd haveno, no, say, an email list. You,
like, quote, own that email.When someone has subscribed to you,
(26:53):
you own that relationship. Andeven if your email service provider
went. Even if mailchimp wentunder tomorrow, you could still take
your email list to a differenttool. So community building is in
this similar phase where,like, kind of prior to up to five
years ago, we didn't reallyhave many options of where to gather
our communities. So Facebookwas the default. My general recommendation,
(27:18):
even for free communities,which my recommendation for free
communities does not come byvery often, but even when it does,
is that you and your communityare better served in a home where
people feel safe and where youcan re habituate the behaviors of
(27:39):
your members to behave andinteract online in a way that is
going to be meaningful andvaluable to each other. And I believe
ultimately what we've thebehaviors and norms that we've been
habituated in in Facebook donot lead us to build community in
a way that's meaningful andvaluable. I like to say good marketing
(28:02):
goes to where people are, butgood community builds where people
feel safe. So I can definitelylike see some use cases for where
it might make sense to build acommunity in a Facebook group. But
by and large, and especiallyfor my clients when we're building
paid communities, there's justbetter technology, to be honest.
(28:23):
Yeah. Do you have. I knowyou're using Heartbeat for yours,
but I know there's Circle andthere's School and with a K because
you know, they're cool. Do youhave any preference?
Yeah, I have a lot of thoughtson this and I do have a whole section
of like comparison communityplatform comparison articles. So
(28:43):
once we've decided, kind ofthe first question is should we build
in like a social network wherequote, everyone already is. They
probably already have a loginto that space or should we build
like our own space? And thoseare usually built in what we call
all in one communityplatforms. So your events, conversation
and content is all in onecentral location usually requires
(29:04):
people to create a new login.So there's some friction there. Within
the all in one communityplatform space. There's the two that
I build in most commonly areCircle and Heartbeat. And but I have
kind of a quiver of platformsthat I keep my eye on and Honeycomb
is another one that's like amobile first experience. School is
another one. Actually did acomparison video between School and
(29:26):
Circle where I like reallyragged on School. But I've, I've
come around to see a couplelike use cases where I really think
that they are a great optionand then the another one that pops
up really commonly but that Ijust sadly can't get behind is called
Mighty Networks. They've beenaround longer than any other community
platforms, but unfortunatelytheir user experience just has not.
(29:50):
They just have not nailed it.And it's really hard to understand
where to find what you'relooking for in there. So that's like
the skinny on the platforms.But Circle and Heartbeat are my,
my main two that I build.
Yeah, I'm a big Heartbeat fanand I too, I love the people at Mighty
Networks. I've talked to Themover there, they're great people.
I just.
Lovely.
It always seems just ever soslightly clunky. And I'm like, so
(30:15):
close. But, you know, yourmileage may differ. But for me, I
was like, that's why I went toHeartbeat. The other thing, obviously,
we want our community tointeract with each other, but the
last time I checked, somepeople are creepy. So how do you.
How do you handle, you know,when people step out of line?
(30:38):
Oh, that's a good question.That didn't go where I thought it
was going. Yeah. So there's acouple ways to. To address this.
Like, it's always good to havekind of foundational community guidelines,
terms of code of conduct,terms of service, having the basic
boundaries in place for peopleto understand. This is what this
(31:00):
community is for. This is whatyou can expect here. These are the
behaviors that areinappropriate and not allowed here.
So generally. And this isagain, another benefit to moving
into a space like an all inone community platform, and how it
can even be a benefit tocreate your community in a space
where people are not familiarwith that technology. Because all
(31:24):
of the creepy behaviors ofFacebook and social media that we've
normalized, you get like areset. Like, you get. You get to,
like, teach people how to talkto each other. There in again, ways
that are meaningful andvaluable. So generally what I've
found is, like, this is apretty common problem for people
building on major platformslike Facebook. But once we move into
(31:48):
a platform like an all in onecommunity platform, it's pretty common
for people to be like, whoa,this feels totally different. We
have way fewer issues. Wedon't have to monitor our members
with the vigilance that weused to. So having some of those
foundational practices inplace are great. The technology can
(32:10):
also impact this. And then theculture that you create in your community
greatly contributes to this.So your members will pick up on what's
appropriate, what's notappropriate, and when you are actively
and intentionally shapingthis, it will continue to go in the
right direction. It's when youare not paying attention and you're
(32:32):
allowing behaviors to snowballor to accumulate in your community
in a way that is negativelyimpacting the culture that we have
to do some course correction.I definitely have some podcast episodes
on that because it's a big topic.
Yeah, you can. I'll have linksto Dear Bri out in the show notes.
(32:52):
But I'm an old teacher and Iwould tell my students, I'd put a
big clock on the wall, 15minutes. I'm like, we Are coming
back from break in 15 minutes.If you come back in 17, I'm not getting
you caught up and I will getyou involved in the next exercise.
And inevitably, somebody wouldwalk in and go, okay, get me caught
up. And I'm like, no, you'regoing to sit there like, you can
(33:13):
watch. But. And then when,when we went on break again and I
put the 15 minute clock on,nobody was late. So sometimes you've
got to, you know, sacrificesomebody just to like, no, I'm not
kidding. Those are the terms,and this is how we operate. And I.
Yeah.
So if you're going to put aboundary or rule up in your community,
you best be prepared to standbehind it because your members will
(33:37):
test it. And if you fail tostand behind it, like, they'll know
that you were lying andthey'll know that you didn't mean
business. So, yeah, it'sreally important to substitute teacher.
They're like, all right, let's test.
Totally. That time will comeand you gotta be ready to enforce
it.
Yeah. Well, what are some ofthe mistakes you see or the most
common mistakes you see peoplemaking when it comes to building
(33:59):
a community or starting a community?
Yeah. Number one is we fallfor a freemium model. So people like
the idea of a free tastercommunity that leads to the paid
community that's bigger andbetter and brighter. And the reality
(34:20):
of that model is that thenature of community is really full.
It's really kind ofoverwhelming. And so when your free
community is working reallywell, it's like, this is awesome.
Everybody's so helpful. I'mgetting all my questions answered.
Why would I pay for, like,better conversate? Like, so there's
(34:43):
like, better conversation orlike, somebody's asking the same
questions, but they're gettingbetter answers Inside the paid community,
like, it's just people arelike, huh? Or your paid. Your free
community is not going well.And people are like, well, if it's
not, if it's not great here,why would I pay to get something
that's seemingly better? SoI've seen paid communities that are
(35:04):
thriving that launch a freecommunity, and it's like a total
dud. Or they have a paidcommunity and the paid community
is, like, struggling, buttheir free community is thriving.
So I say pick one, don't doboth, because you will, make no mistake,
be building two communities.If you have a free one and a paid
one, you've now built not justone, but two communities. So pick
(35:26):
one. There are plenty of waysthat you can offer people what I
call the cheese plate. So we,we give them a, a pre designated
amount of cheese to samplebefore dinner. We don't give them
all access buffet to the, thecheese and charcuterie boards so
that they can stuff themselveson cheese before the paid dinner.
(35:49):
Right.
So there's a lot of ways youcan do that. That's the first one.
The second one is if, ifyou're launching a paid community,
don't test it with a freecommunity. So, and people do this
because they're afraid andthey're afraid that their community
isn't going to have the rightproduct market fit. They're afraid
that people aren't going toshow up and so they, they offer it
(36:11):
for free. But if you arelooking to build and if the model
of community that you'reinterested in, if your community
needs to support your businessin a paid format, the most important
test you need to run first isare people willing to pay to be a
part of this experience? So Isee a lot of community builders kind
(36:31):
of testing for years with amodel that isn't aligned with their
ultimate purpose. And I thinkit, it causes them to waste a lot
of time and set a poorprecedent for members when eventually
they want to be paid. But nowthey've set this like precedent of
it being free. So those arelike two big ones. But then I see
(36:53):
a lot more that kind of tieinto the model of the community.
We touched on the four typesof communities and I actually have
a free masterclass that goesinto a lot of depth on how each type
of community is positioned tosupport your business. But also the
challenges that come up comewith it too. And it's really important
(37:15):
that you know ahead of timewhat you're signing up for because
there's no one right model foryour business. It's just a matter
of what strengths you want tosign up for and what challenges you're
ready to overcome as well.
Is there any way, is it just acase or like, hey, I'm starting a
community and if we can get Xamount of people to sign up, I'm
(37:37):
going to do it and if not, Iwill refund everybody's money? Is,
is that how you do it or isthere a better way to kind of like,
you know, test drive it or atleast because you're trying to figure
out if you have proof ofconcept and if, if, because I know
you can say, oh, we have awaiting list which is free. And so
you get 200 people on yourwaiting list and you're like, all
(37:59):
right, here it is sign up andyou get three people. So is that
the strategy? Just like, makepeople pay up front and if, if we
get enough, we'll do it and ifnot, I'll give everybody their money
back. Is that really the onlystrategy or is there another one?
Yeah, there's, there's acouple different methods here. And
you, you named a really goodone because it is, it does feel kind
(38:20):
of like a conundrum. You'relike, how do we sell something that
doesn't exist yet? Like,literally, like we're selling them
and promising them on thiscommunity, but we don't know if we're
going to have a community yet.So one of the, one of the methods
you can use, which I, and Ilove this advice, it comes from Mortiza,
the founder of Heartbeat. Weactually did an episode on this for
Dear Bri, and Heartbeat hasadded a wait list feature that makes
(38:44):
this really easy for you todo. So in Heartbeat, you can set
up a wait list where forpeople to join the waitlist, they
can contribute a small amountor the full amount, and then you
list, like, on this launchdate, they, they'll be charged either
the remaining amount orwhatever. They can just come into
the community. I love thismethod for launching a community
(39:05):
because it protects you as thebuilder. It gives you a little bit
of Runway. And when you'retransparent in your communication
with those members who arewaiting, like, you'd be surprised
with how long people arewilling to wait even after contributing,
like, monetary investment.Kickstarter is like a great example
(39:26):
of this. So I do love thatmethod. Another way that you can
test and get a sense for ifpeople are going to join without
the wait list or the paid waitlist. If you're not building in Heartbeat,
that can be kind of a clunkyprocess to like, capture payment
before the doors open. So myfavorite way to test a community
(39:50):
is to create an event series.And it's almost like a micro mini
community program experience.And I have some, like, recommendations
on how to structure it basedon the model of community that you're
intending to build. The reasonI recommend an event series is one,
(40:11):
the feedback loop is superquick. They either show up or they
don't, and you know it rightaway. Two, when they're on the call,
you get that feedback you'reseeing, like, is this tracking? Are
people resonating? Whatquestions are they asking? So that
synchronous experience issuper helpful when it comes to getting
(40:32):
some of that, that data andthat research. And the third element
of this, that's really helpfulis when it's, when it's an event
series and not just a one timeevent. You find out, are people willing
to come back? Are they willingto show up again? Because it's a
different. In a community,you're asking people to come back
(40:54):
time and time and time again.You're not just showing them, you're
not just asking them to showup again once. So rather than like,
you can always test it likepaid singular Workshop. And that's
fine. But what we need to knowis are people willing to come back
a second, a third time? So tokeep your test really short and really
(41:14):
powerful and effective, doinglike a two or three event series
that's paid, if you anticipatelaunching a paid community is another
great way to get a sense forwhat the market's going to do with
your offer.
Excellent. You're amazing. Ifthis is why I'm glad I had you on
the show, I'm like, okay, I'mgoing to take lots of now I'm going
(41:35):
to transcribe this. There's alot of stuff I'm like, ooh, that's
good, I got to use that. Ooh,that's good, I got to use that. So
her website is Ember. That'sEEM B E R Consulting. Co, not com
Co. You don't need the M, justco. And Bri is spelled B R I Lever.
Thank you so much for comingon the show.
Yeah, thanks so much forhaving me, Dave.
(42:00):
Schoolofpodcasting.com 987 iswhere you can find everything, including
links to her website. Andcheck out her podcast, Dear Bri,
if you want more tips.
(43:47):
Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
I probably don't say thisenough, but I really do. Thank you
for checking out the show. Igot a lot of great feedback with
Thomas Umstad Jr. And reallythe last couple episodes I've had
people emailing me going, hey,that was a, that was a really good
episode. So I appreciate that.And if you ever have any ideas of
(44:09):
something that you would liketo talk about on the show, I am always
all ears. And again, thank youso much for listening and for telling
your friends. I'm Dave Jacksonfrom the school of podcasting. I
help podcasters. That's what Ido. And I can't wait to see what
we do together. When you goover to schoolofpodcasting.com join
(44:30):
and use the coupon codelistener until next week. That's
going to do it. Take care. Godbless. Class is dismissed.
Popular Podcasts
Cold Case Files: Miami
Joyce Sapp, 76; Bryan Herrera, 16; and Laurance Webb, 32—three Miami residents whose lives were stolen in brutal, unsolved homicides. Cold Case Files: Miami follows award‑winning radio host and City of Miami Police reserve officer Enrique Santos as he partners with the department’s Cold Case Homicide Unit, determined family members, and the advocates who spend their lives fighting for justice for the victims who can no longer fight for themselves.
24/7 News: The Latest
The latest news in 4 minutes updated every hour, every day.
Crime Junkie
Does hearing about a true crime case always leave you scouring the internet for the truth behind the story? Dive into your next mystery with Crime Junkie. Every Monday, join your host Ashley Flowers as she unravels all the details of infamous and underreported true crime cases with her best friend Brit Prawat. From cold cases to missing persons and heroes in our community who seek justice, Crime Junkie is your destination for theories and stories you won’t hear anywhere else. Whether you're a seasoned true crime enthusiast or new to the genre, you'll find yourself on the edge of your seat awaiting a new episode every Monday. If you can never get enough true crime... Congratulations, you’ve found your people. Follow to join a community of Crime Junkies! Crime Junkie is presented by audiochuck Media Company.