February 16, 2025 • 42 mins
You’ve built a solid business with content, consulting, or coaching. But what if the next big leap isn’t just about scaling your offers—it’s about scaling your impact through community?
In this episode, we’re diving into what it really takes to transform your business model into a thriving, community-driven ecosystem. Joining me is online community-building expert Bri Leever, who’s sharing:
✅ The key shifts needed to move from a product-based or digital course business to a community-centric model
✅ How to create a space where your audience isn’t just consuming content but actively engaging, collaborating, and contributing
✅ Why a well-designed community can become your most valuable asset—fueling content, deepening connections, and driving recurring revenue
If you’ve been thinking about launching an online community (or want to make sure yours is built for long-term success), this is the episode you can’t afford to miss.
🎧 Hit play now and start building a community-powered business the right way!
Resources
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If you're the best-kept secret in your industry, it's time to change that.
Because when you start showing up with clarity, confidence, and the right content—your ideal clients won't just notice you. They'll choose you.
Don’t miss your chance to get a free video brand assessment to start creating videos that actually work for your business.
Schedule your video brand assessment here >
Thanks for tuning in. If you found this episode helpful, share it with another expert entrepreneur who’s ready to stop blending in.
And I’ll see you next time—on The Standout Business Show.
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Bri Leever (00:05):
We are connected everywhere and we simultaneously
belong nowhere.
That is our online experiencetoday, and while the internet
and social media in particular,promised new connections, they
failed to create an adequatecontainer where those
(00:27):
connections lead to belonging,and I think social media
platforms had an amazingopportunity to create community
online, and instead they choseto get people to build audiences
.
You might have communalexperiences being facilitated on
social media, but really allit's done is trained us to
(00:50):
create and consume content.
Brad Powell (00:56):
Welcome to the Standout Business Show, where
it's all about making a biggerdifference by doing business
differently.
I'm Brad Powell, your standoutbusiness coach, and on our show
today we're asking the questionare you ready to build a
community-powered business?
Let's say you're doing prettywell.
You've been running yourbusiness on content and
(01:18):
consulting and coaching, but isnow the time to power your
business with community and whatdoes it really take to convert
your product-based, digital,course-based business model into
a community-centric businessmodel?
To help us explore all thistoday on the show we've got
(01:41):
online community building expert, bree Lever, who's going to
share how creating community canbecome a vibrant hub for ideas,
for your content, connectionsand recurring income for your
business.
So if you've been thinkingabout developing an online
community and want to make sureyour community is done right the
(02:01):
first time, stay tuned.
And with that let's start theshow.
You, as somebody who is aconsultant or a coach or have
some form of expert business,you are already doing lots of
things in your normal day-to-day, where you are sharing your
(02:23):
expertise and you are in yourzone of genius and you are
communicating, whether you're aguest on a podcast or you're
doing a presentation or you'resimply having a meeting with a
client or a prospect.
During those moments, you canbe documenting exactly what
you're doing, and all of thatmakes for great content.
(02:46):
So I encourage you all to joinme on February 26 at 12 pm
Eastern Time on the MakeCoaching your Marketing
Masterclass.
You can develop a very simplesystem for not creating content
(03:09):
but actually documenting themoments where you are absolutely
at your best and turning thatinto an archive that people can
go and explore and binge.
So join me.
This is a free masterclass.
It is February 26, 12 pmEastern Time.
Just go toawesomevideomakerscom, forward,
(03:30):
slash blueprint or you can finda link in the show notes and
I'll see you there.
And now back to the show.
All right, bree, welcome to theshow.
Bri Leever (03:44):
Yeah, thank you for having me, Brad.
That intro was spotless.
I'm going to steal that copy inthe transcript from my own
website I couldn't have put itbetter myself.
Brad Powell (03:56):
Go for it.
Go for it.
That's a yeah right, that'shigh praise, thank you.
Well, we aim to please here,and so we're talking about
community, and I know,especially now you know in the
world that we call the newnormal.
It seems like the sad partabout the Internet was that,
(04:17):
even though the big promise waswe're all going to get connected
, the actual result is thatwe've actually become way more
disconnected because of theamount of time everyone seems to
be spending online andeverybody seems to be sending.
Just staring into these littledevices, these phones that we
have, and, aside from, like, thepromise of social media and all
(04:40):
the stuff that you can do onthe various platforms there, it
still feels like a very lonelyexperience, and so I think, more
than ever I mean and there's,you know, lots of scientific
study talking about lonelinessas an epidemic like it's a big
deal.
I know for myself, like theolder you get, the harder it is
(05:03):
to maintain meaningfulfriendships with people, just
simply because of the way ourlives have been organized and
the way society functions and soon, like a lot of the things
that we used to do in terms ofgoing bowling, a bowling league
or going to church on Sunday.
I mean all these things aredeclining and so people, just on
(05:24):
a general human level, are kindof starving for community.
And then I'm going to take allthat and say, well, yeah, and by
the way, when you're running abusiness and you're a small
business, solo entrepreneur kindof individual, that too is a
super lonely proposition and asuper lonely way to be in the
(05:48):
world, like even for myself,like as a podcaster.
You know podcast.
This is one of the reasons thatI do this, that I get to
connect with people.
I mean you're calling in allthe way from Hawaii so we get to
meet and interact like this andit's and people can join us
live and it's community building.
It's all part of that.
So I want you to speak bigpicture around how you see and
(06:13):
why you see community buildingfor businesses like yours and
mine can be so critical and alsojust so valuable right now.
Bri Leever (06:21):
And also just so valuable right now.
So good.
I have a couple differentthoughts.
One I love the valueproposition of I needed more
meaningful friendships, so Istarted a podcast.
I think probably everypodcaster would relate to that
on a very deep level.
Yeah, it can be.
(06:42):
It can be like one of the mostisolating roles and experiences
is starting your own business,and the good news is it doesn't
have to be.
Another thing they failed tocreate an adequate container
where those connections lead tobelonging, and I think social
(07:18):
media platforms had an amazingopportunity to create community
online and instead they chose toget people to build audiences.
That's what we've done.
You might have communalexperiences being facilitated on
social media, but really allit's done is trained us to
create and consume content,which is not community building.
(07:41):
It's not the same.
There's elements that overlap,but it's not the same thing.
Brad Powell (07:45):
I just agree, like the idea that if only I grow
this big audience, theneverything good will happen.
And yet, you know, you seeindividuals, you know, quote
unquote, influencers out therewho have large followings and
not only do they not havegenuine community, they don't
(08:07):
actually have a business thatfunctions very well, because all
those followers aren't reallypaying that much attention and
or they're certainly not evenbuying things from them, you
know, and they have a lot oftrouble selling even the most
basic product.
Bri Leever (08:21):
Yes, yes, because, yeah, having a big audience
doesn't equate to the value thatyou're providing in a communal
environment especially.
I stand as kind of theanti-example of this.
Like, I have a very smallaudience because I have I'm a
community builder.
I'm getting better at theaudience thing.
I'm getting better at Iwouldn't say I'm getting better
(08:43):
at the audience thing.
I'm getting better at.
I wouldn't say I'm gettingbetter at the audience thing.
I'm getting better at becomingmore visible, at using my voice,
at attracting people whoresonate with my message and my
work.
Um, and sometimes that comes inthe form of audience building.
But I launched my own podcastlast year.
It's called Dear Bree and Brad.
(09:04):
I launched it to an email listof 600 people, like that's like
and I've been running a businessfor five years, like it's it's
like kind of embarrassing andthe and.
But I had a very robustcommunity strategy and I was I'm
very tapped in to probably adozen different communities for
(09:27):
community professionals andpeople who would be interested
in the work that I do.
And this podcast made it intothe top 5% globally and,
according to Listen Notes, youcan look it up if you want to
verify.
But I was just, I was shockedby that.
It was like kind of my ownpersonal case study and example
to see, like can I kind of takemy own medicine here and how
(09:55):
impactful can this community be?
Supports my business, whichwe're going to get to in a
second, but actually likeleveraging my presence in niche
communities over my presence onthese social media stages.
Brad Powell (10:12):
Yeah, well, it's really interesting.
I think where this reallyapplies and I'd love to get your
take on this is that and thiscomes from a previous guest of
mine, a woman by the name ofMichelle Warner she talks a lot
about relationship marketing andshe outlines this thing called
the marketing spectrum, and sothat on one end which is what
(10:32):
most people are pitching that weshould be doing it's all
traffic-based, high-volume-basedmarketing efforts, and that's
what most people are doing.
When content marketing andsocial media marketing, it's all
meant to reach the highestnumber of people.
But on the other end of thespectrum and this works really
well for anyone who's doing anykind of high value, high ticket
(10:56):
service what you need beforepeople come in the door and say,
okay, I want to hire you, isyou need to build relationship
with them so that there's alevel of trust where they're
able to say, yes, you seem likea good fit for me.
And if you're doing hightraffic, high volume stuff, that
just doesn't achieve that goal.
It doesn't solve that problem,and so a lot of the activity
(11:20):
that people are so busily doingonline right now isn't in
alignment with the service thatthey offer, and so what you just
described like launching apodcast to a small group 600
people on your email list.
Well, maybe that's exactly theright thing to do 100%.
Bri Leever (11:39):
Yeah, and it's.
It doesn't feel as good, right,like I'm like oh, I only have
six, I don't have like thethousands and thousands of likes
in the big audience and I think, if we can, but that we've I
have to pause and notice that Ihave been trained to value that.
That that has.
I have been trained to viewthat as success.
And there's other metrics ofsuccess that are more indicative
(12:01):
of the actual value I'mcreating for people than just my
follower count.
Brad Powell (12:09):
Yeah, yeah right, exactly.
Well, it's probably really nota very good metric of how you
evaluate your self-esteem.
I am my follow-up account, andif I don't have a follow-up
account, I'm not really worthvery much.
Bri Leever (12:27):
Recommended to no one one, right, okay.
Brad Powell (12:37):
So anyway, I want to dive in kind of more deeply
into the whole communitybuilding thing.
I know you have a thing for thefour types of communities which
is probably really goodinformation, because when people
think about community building,each person probably has their
own idea of what that looks like, and a lot of times what they
think what it looks like isprobably not what will serve
(12:57):
them the best.
So let's take a look at that.
Bri Leever (13:01):
Yeah, I'd love to.
So in a little bit here I'llshow a visual that will help
create some context for people.
But to start I just want tostart with the kind of two
differences that I look at.
And one is free versus paidSuper simple.
So free communities versus apaid community, and in a free
(13:23):
community the community isdesigned to support some sort of
end product or service.
Paid communities, on the otherhand, are the product you're
you're paying to either be inthe experience with others or to
have access to the other peoplewho are in that community.
(13:44):
Now, free communities workreally well for brands,
organizations that have like um,like sass companies are like,
especially for the freeeducation centric communities
which we're going to get to in asecond.
Free communities work reallywell and support business goals
(14:05):
in a myriad of different ways.
So I have a series calledcommunity dissection where I
dissected something like 40different communities and you'll
see, if you even like just takea glimpse.
There's so many different waysthat a community can be
structured to support a business, whether it's product, customer
service, customer support.
(14:27):
They're not my favoritecommunities, they feel more like
a help forum than anything else, but we'll throw them in there.
So there's a lot of differentways that a free community can
support your business.
Now for the creator, consultant, coach, coaching business.
They saw these free communitiesand they thought, hey, what if
(14:52):
a free community could supportmy paid services?
And so this is really where wesaw a lot of people create their
like free Facebook group.
This is like the age of freeFacebook groups.
Brad Powell (15:03):
Right.
Bri Leever (15:04):
And slowly they will .
Slowly and not so slowly, theyrealized like man, okay,
community is like actually a lotof work to do it well.
Man, okay, community is likeactually a lot of work to do it
well.
And we have to figure out howto monetize this in order for it
to be sustainable for ourbusiness.
Because the nature of community, if it's doing well, is that
(15:25):
it's very full and it requires alot of guidance.
And that's where we got intothis big conundrum of the
freemium model for theseconsulting and coaching and
creator communities, where theyhave a free layer and then a
paid layer.
And I'm happy to talk aboutwhat actually happens in the
(15:46):
freemium model.
Um, but the tldr is it doesn'twork like you think it's going
to.
So then we have our paidcommunities, and this is really
where I love to put our coaches,our consultants, these
communities where you havesomebody who is either guiding
you through an educationalexperience or creating the
(16:07):
container where the connectionscan happen.
So that's free versus paid.
But I want to pause there incase you have any reflections.
Brad Powell (16:16):
Yeah, well, it seems to me I mean you're
pointing to, I think one of thecommon pitfalls of people who
are doing any kind of communitybuilding wasn't yet where, in
fact, what they do is they opena Facebook group, which is
probably the simplest, one ofthe simplest forms, or wherever
they put it.
You know, maybe they they go in, they subscribe to one of these
(16:37):
platforms and they put it thereand it's still free, even
though you have to pay thesubscription to have it be there
.
And then what they find is thisnew treadmill that they're on,
because, first of all, they feelobligated, just like they do
for social media, that now Ihave to create a bunch of
content which is free content,and I need to populate my group
(16:58):
platform with all this content.
Plus, I also have to prodpeople, prompt them to say stuff
like to say it's Monday, youtell me what you're doing this
week, and it's Tuesday, let'sfind out what you did on Tuesday
, and things like that.
And this becomes more of anendless wheel of labor than the
(17:24):
normal content marketing.
That is just sort of thestandard basic part of content
marketing.
And and, of course, if youryour volume, like if you're the
typical person who has the 600person email list and a small
little podcast, and you've beenposting on LinkedIn and Facebook
regularly and and now you'vegot this, this content platform
(17:48):
of your own that you're alsotrying to work.
It's, it's overwhelming, and ifthere's only a few dozen people
in there probably not myadventure is going to go on.
People come in there and lookaround and say, well, there's
nothing going on here, so I'mnot going to bother, and they
leave, and so their profile onyour platform becomes ghostly,
you know, and anyway.
(18:09):
So there's the observationsthat I've seen on there, and so
the idea, especially for, as yousay, like coaches and
consultants or people who have abusiness of that kind, like
sort of the expert businessperson having a platform where
their work, their actual product, is what the platform is about,
(18:32):
and people are there to pay forand take part in that type of
program Am I getting that right?
Bri Leever (18:40):
Yes, yep, that's exactly it.
So it's really the paidcommunities are.
It's just a better positioningfor those types of communities,
and I'm really happy to say thatit's one of the like biggest
areas of relief.
When my clients come to me andthey're like they want to build
a community, they see this aslike integral to what they're
(19:03):
doing.
And even if it's a paidcommunity, they're like Brie, I
can't feed another contentengine Like I can't.
I'm already like feeding somany like content engines and
now I'm going to have likeanother place where I somehow
have to feed people like bettercontent and and like more con
more.
How can I can't even.
How can I do more?
And so my my like um word wordsof advice to my clients when
(19:29):
they come to me in that positionis we are going to move you
from content feeder tofacilitator.
So this is not about creatingmore.
People don't want more.
They're not going to pay formore, but they are going to pay
for better, clearer and morestructure to your content.
That's for theeducation-centric communities,
(19:51):
which is my next distinctionEducation-centric communities
versus connection-centriccommunities and really all it
means is education-centriccommunities have an intended,
(20:17):
guided educational journey fortheir members.
So a lot of like accelerators orcohort-based courses would fall
into this category and the paidones.
I call these transformativecommunities, because we're going
from point A to point B.
There's a very cleartransformation that's happening
and the community manager is,and the person leading it is the
(20:40):
guide.
Now, these communities are alsothe most apt and open to new
technology, because it's likeyou're going on a big road trip
and you're saying, hey, listen,we're going to go from New York
to LA and this is the vehicle weare riding in.
If you want to go to LA, you'regoing to get in this vehicle,
(21:04):
metaphorically for communitybuilding.
So people are much more apt totrust and experiment with new
technology.
On the other hand, we haveconnection centric communities
and these are where theinteractions between your
members are what is valuable andwhat people are paying for
(21:27):
inside of your community.
So they tend to be a lot morefluid.
They tend to be membershipbased and this is really where
we can leverage, frankly, a zerocontent strategy.
So I actually have a great casestudy of a client recently who
has been running like a.
She runs a December programevery year for the last year and
(21:49):
her members were begging herfor an annual membership, like
they just wanted to continuethis work.
And she was like, brie, I can'tdo it, like they're they're
begging me and I I can't docontent, I just I can't do it.
And I was like, okay, that'sfine.
This is a we're designing aconnection centric space.
You infusing this space withcontent is actually going to
(22:11):
cannibalize any energy that yourmembers have to contribute to
this space.
So, instead of a contentstrategy, let's create a
structure and a framework thatprompts, supports and rewards
your members for introducingchallenges and experiments
inside of the community.
And we launched it and she madeover a hundred K in one month
(22:37):
from and she just had everybodyin there for one year.
It was like they could onlyjoin in January.
And then they did it for a yearand zero content strategy.
Like, can you imagine streaming?
Brad Powell (22:49):
It does sound good.
That sounds.
That does sound that great.
I mean I I really hit the idea.
I mean it seems like it'salmost more of a mastermind kind
of environment where the valuecomes from who you're with and
the content if that's whatyou're going to refer to it it's
also coming from the people whoare in the group and the more
(23:11):
people and the kinds of peoplewho are in there are really
bringing the value to the effort.
When you're looking at thisfrom like this thing of learning
versus connection, those twopolarities, you know like I've
been in many, many differentkinds of communities.
One of the very best cohortbased things was when I started
(23:32):
this podcast.
I took Seth Godin's podcastfellowship and I loved it
because for two reasons.
One is it was only eight weeksand within eight weeks it was
like we're all launching ourpodcast and so it just made me
do it.
I've been thinking I should geta podcast going.
I've been doing live streamingI you know why don't I turn into
(23:52):
a real show and but I hadn'tactually done it yet and so I
dove into this program and bythe eight weeks, within the time
, probably by the sixth week Ihad launched this show.
That was how it how it came tobe.
But the other thing thathappened was while we were in
there every day, there was alittle like they'd all
pre-recorded this, but therewere like a five minute lesson
(24:15):
exercise to do.
So we had an assignment everysingle day for the eight weeks,
some one thing to do, and butthen part of the assignment was
put your work into the cohortand then go visit at least five
other people and give themfeedback on what they've been
doing.
So it turned into this hugeexchange from all the people in
(24:39):
the program and I was kind ofblown away by like there was a
ton of really creative folks andI would say practically
everyone finished and probablytwo thirds did it Like they
actually all launched their showwithin that time.
It was like hugely successfulcompared to, I think, what
happens with a lot of onlinecourses, where most people don't
(25:02):
ever actually get it done.
Bri Leever (25:04):
Yeah, yes, you can count on like five hands how
many courses you've paid for andnot finished, right?
So, brad, you just gave aperfect example and one of my
favorite examples of thetransformative community.
So this is a paid educationcentric community experience.
Seth Godin's and Akimbo's.
(25:25):
So Seth Godin kind of startedthese programs.
He's like the original.
I know he's like the marketingguy, but he is the original
community guy in my book.
He's like the original.
I know he's like the marketingguy, but he is the original
community guy in my book.
And um, I've done alt MBA withSeth Godin, I've done the
marketing seminar, so you'vedone the pot.
So this is great.
We have like a good, we havesuch a good testimonial.
They can swipe it from thisepisode.
But the transformativecommunities, um are, are, can be
(25:50):
such a powerful experience.
And oh, could you mind actuallypulling up the matrix real
quick and I'll just walk through.
Brad Powell (25:59):
Sure, why not?
Here we go?
Bri Leever (26:01):
So just to give people.
So if you're listening in audioI'll describe what we're
looking at.
It's just a graphic and you canget my like full, full talk
where I have like a full, freemasterclass on this that dives
into all of the strengths, allof the challenges with each type
of community.
But up at the top right we'relooking at education-centric
paid community experiences.
(26:21):
These are transformativecommunities where the communal
learning is the product.
At the top left we haveeducation-centric free
communities I call thesenurturing communities where the
communal learning supports theend product or service.
Some great examples of theseare the HubSpot community and
the Etsy community.
On the lower left we have free,connection centric communities.
(26:49):
This is really where all theFacebook groups lived, and while
they genuinely struggle tofigure their shit out, there's
actually some really really goodones happening and I call these
collaborative communities.
So this is where theconnections between your members
supports the product.
And one of my favorite onesthat I think everybody should
(27:09):
check out is called Lego Ideas.
It's the Lego community thatsupports their product
department.
Finally, we have, on the bottomright, paid connection-centric
communities.
These are what I call themnetworking communities, because
the connections between yourmembers is the product.
So this really kind of willhelp you get a sense for where,
(27:34):
if you're thinking aboutbuilding a community, you can
ask yourself am I, morenaturally, a teacher or a
connector?
Is my business?
Am I introducing a paidone-to-many option, or is this a
space that needs to support anend product or service?
And when you start there, youcan really start to get a
glimpse for where your communitywill start.
(27:56):
In this diagram and then, asyour community matures, a lot of
communities actually will checkoff multiple of these boxes
with different programs inside,but for starting out, I highly
recommend picking the one thatresonates the most with you and
supports your business.
Brad Powell (28:13):
When people are thinking like, well, where
should I fit into this matrix?
I actually think that mostbusinesses, when they're
approaching how they're runningand their marketing and all that
kind of effort they put way toomuch attention on I need to go
out and find new people, I needto go, look for somebody who's
never met me and bring them in.
If only I can do that enoughthen everything will be fine.
(28:36):
But they're neglecting theother work, which is that when
people have found you, there arereally valuable things to do to
have them stay with you for theduration, and if you can
succeed with that, then all therest becomes much easier.
I mean, talk about Seth Godin.
(28:56):
He's always talking about how,when you meet 10 people and
they're absolutely raving aboutwhat you do, you're done because
they're going to tell and bringall their friends, and so if
you're able to in this case whatwe're talking about is build a
community and you have a groupof people there who are
delighted with the process thenthat community is going to grow
(29:20):
quite naturally, because they'regoing to talk about it and
they're going to bring theirfriends and invite them, and
that community is a veryorganically going to start to
thrive.
And so this is the kind of thingthat, when I think about it,
how I think about it, and andthen for me, if all you're doing
is doing all of that and it'sfree, you're not, that doesn't
(29:46):
pay your rent and it doesn't,and it doesn't even if you're
just the guide like it's notvaluing the time that you're
there to be the host and thefacilitator of all this high
value activity.
So clearly, in my mind it's likewell, you want to have some
kind of model where there'srevenue involved, and, of course
, the dream of community is thatif it's recurring revenue, then
(30:08):
you're building a sustainable,resilient process.
So I guess the frame that Iwant you to look at is like as
people come to you, how do youguide them in that direction?
To give them like, when peoplego well, I don't know if I'm
ready for this or I might, youknow, it seems a little more
(30:28):
difficult than I can handle tomake the choices so that they
can in fact get a place wherethey've got this thing that's
organically growing and it'sthriving in terms of producing
revenue for their, for theircompany.
Bri Leever (30:47):
Yeah, so, um, I actually have a great resource
on community discovery that Ican pass along.
Uh, because I think one of thebiggest things that you need to
do before preparing to launch acommunity is to interview the
people around you and see, likeis there genuine interest?
Do you understand the narrativewell enough to be able to
(31:10):
create the container that'svaluable for people?
So that's a really big questionthat you need to do some
investigation of the peoplearound you.
I also prompt people in thattool to do some like mindset and
self-discovery work, becauseI've found that we usually end
up building the community thatwe feel like a gaping hole in
(31:35):
our souls for, and so it becomesreally personal, like if you
think launching a business ishard, like a community is like
even more.
Like a business is so personaland a community is like even
more so.
So we do a lot of.
I have a lot of promptingsaround like why are you creating
this community?
(31:56):
Cause I've found when youlaunch it like it's not, it's
not necessarily bad to to deriveyour motivation for your
community from the gap that yousee in the world, like that's a
very natural and normal thing.
Your community is never goingto be able to hold all of that
(32:23):
for you.
So there's a lot of likemindset, mind, body, work that
needs to happen as well toreally be aligned before you
launch, and I know my video isstruggling to keep up, but we'll
just keep going.
Um so so yeah, those are some ofthe questions, and I had
another thought on what you weresharing with the paid versus
(32:44):
free, and I just wanted to share.
It's a very sad reality of theespecially American capitalistic
society that we live in that wevalue things when we pay for
them, when we pay for them.
I wish we could value thingsmore when they're free.
(33:04):
But I found that in a lot ofways a free community can tend
to be a disservice to yourmembers because it doesn't
posture them in a way that theyare going to show up in a way
that's meaningful for them andtheir other members which in
other environments, like in acourse, right.
(33:24):
If somebody pays for your courseand then doesn't show up,
that's just a bummer for them,like they didn't get the
information, they didn't put itinto action.
It's like it doesn't affectanybody else's experience.
But in your community, whenpeople don't show up, not only
does it impact their experience.
It's now impacting everyone'sexperience.
So posturing our members sothat they have the best chance
(33:50):
of showing up and participatingin the community, so that it's a
valuable experience foreveryone, is really important to
consider.
And when you just default to afree community, you're not
always.
It doesn't mean just becauseyou get them to pay they're
gonna show up and engage.
Well, that's not what I'mtrying to say, but it does help
(34:10):
us and them take it moreseriously.
Brad Powell (34:14):
Yeah, I agree with that.
I think an issue that peoplehave is they're just thinking
well, if I'm just gettingstarted and there's really
nothing in there, how can Icharge money?
Yes and how will I get anybodyin the door if there's a fee and
they're looking at it going?
(34:34):
I don't know.
There's not much going on here,so why should I do that?
Like, how do I create, how dothey create the impression of
value for something that is in afairly beta stage?
Bri Leever (34:48):
Yes, this is a great question.
I get this all the time.
I want to do a follow-uppodcast episode to this question
, exactly.
So maybe I'll have you write aDear Bree anonymous letter for
me, brad.
I'll have you write a Dear Breeanonymous letter for me, brad,
but so I actually have a greatpodcast episode about this on
Dear Bree, lily.
Thank you, sorry, my dog's justbeing a little guard dog, and
(35:10):
in this episode I'm talking toMortaza Bambot, the founder of
Heartbeat, and there's a couplelike just creative tricks that
you can do in your launch thatmake it, uh, so much more.
You can be so much moreconfident in your launch.
And the quickest, easiest onethat I'll share is, when you're
(35:31):
going to launch, you um pre-selltickets to your community so
you can pick a date with areasonable runway for you to get
the word out, and this allowsyou to start collecting interest
, but not in the form of a freeemail wait list.
We're getting people's paymentssecured in the form of a
(35:53):
pre-sale ticket and then they'lljoin the community on said date
when it opens.
And it's usually great to alsocombine that launch with, like,
a big kickoff event, so you'rebringing everybody in at the
same time right, because if youhave, like, your launch month
and people are trickling in oneat a time, it's kind of like the
first person who shows up tothe party like an hour early and
(36:15):
they're like, oh God, no one'shere.
This was a terrible mistake.
Like that's the moment we wantto avoid.
So the really easy way to dothat is just like saying we're
all going to open the door andwalk through the door at the
same time.
Brad Powell (36:31):
Yeah, I like that.
It's a have a big party whereeverybody's invited and they all
show up at the same moment.
That sounds really good.
Bri Leever (36:40):
Much better than arriving an hour early
accidentally.
Brad Powell (36:44):
Well, as we've been talking about this actually, I
have more questions now than Ihad 20 minutes ago, and we could
talk about this for quite along time I just think that this
is a great topic and a greatthing for a lot of people to be
considering as a means by whichthat they can really, you know,
(37:08):
create a meaningful gatheringplace for the people that
they're serving, because,especially, you know, like, if
you're involved with workingwith people one on one, that's
cool.
I love working with peopleone-on-one, that's cool.
I love working with peopleone-on-one.
Bri Leever (37:28):
I have.
My favorite clients are myone-on-one clients.
They are the very best.
That's only because you don'thave a community yet, brad.
Brad Powell (37:31):
I'm just kidding, I'm just saying that anyone
who's listening who's myfavorite you know who you are.
You're absolute best and yetit's you know they don't.
They don't actually know eachother Like they don't, and they
don't they don't know what wouldbe so cool if they did know
(37:52):
each other.
And especially in the work thatI do, like people are making
video and the video is veryvisual and it gets out there,
and so you can easily imagine acommunity of people who are all
producing video where they'recheering one another on and or,
in a very positive way, givingpeople helpful information
(38:14):
around.
This was great, and we'd loveto hear you do that kind of
thing.
You know, because we know thatyou know more about that and
than anybody else, and that'swhat we'd love to hear you do.
That kind of thing, you know,because we know that you know
more about that and than anybodyelse, and that's what we'd love
to see more of.
And when people get that kindof feedback, it's just super
helpful.
It helps open them up and so,anyway, that kind of thing and
this is my business just oneexample of that kind of thing-
(38:36):
yeah, no, you hit on so manygood points.
Bri Leever (38:40):
Teaching people how to give good feedback is an art,
and it's something that theAkimbo organization and Seth
Godin nailed, and I think it'slike probably one of the main
reasons that they have been sosuccessful is because they
actually, in the onboardingprocess, took a very long time
and very deliberate approach toteaching people how to interact
(39:03):
and give good feedback to eachother.
And the other thing I'll addBrad, I kind of look at it two
ways.
So, way back when I firststarted my business, I was
describing my value propositionto a friend, actually from Alt
MBA, and she said oh, so there'sthree ways that you can make
money in a business.
You can find new customers, youcan engage your repeat
(39:25):
customers or you can increaseyour prices.
And she was like and you do thefirst two, you help you engage
repeat customers so that theyfind new customers for you.
I was like, oh my God, that'sbrilliant, so that's like for
you.
I was like, oh my God, that'sbrilliant, so that's like,
that's how the community thingworks, right.
(39:46):
Secondly, for people offeringone-on-one services, you hit a
point, usually after two orthree years, where, if you want
to keep growing and some peopledon't, but a lot of us do.
We got lifestyles to maintainand if that's you, you reach a
point where you're like, okay,well, to grow.
I either have to, because I'musually for a solopreneur like
(40:10):
scaling.
If they don't want to scaletheir business and become like
an agency, they can eitherincrease their prices and bring
on more high ticket clientsprices and bring on more high
ticket clients, or they canintroduce a one to many offer
and the community model is it'sit's an all the rage like one to
(40:30):
many offer right now.
For good reason, for very goodreason.
It's an incredibly powerful umlike container for your business
and income stream for yourbusiness and if we don't really
understand what it is we'regetting ourselves into, you can
very quickly overcommit yourself.
So that's where I like toprovide some guidance, and I'm
glad I've left you with morequestions than answers.
(40:52):
I think I'm doing my job right.
Brad Powell (40:54):
All right, well, bree, this has been a really
cool conversation.
Thanks so much for coming on.
If people want to connect withyou and learn more, what's the
best way for them to do that?
Bri Leever (41:06):
Yeah, the only social media you'll find me on
is LinkedIn, so that's a goodplace to connect.
I enjoy posting there.
My newsletter has like themonthly roundup twice a month.
Sometimes we'll go into once aweek when we're doing a Dear
Bree podcast season release andthe best way if you're like if
(41:28):
you're intrigued, you'recommunity curious, but you're
kind of hesitant or have ifyou're in the place with more
questions than answers at thispoint you've got to go binge.
Dear Bree season one it's 12episodes.
It'll speak to exactly whereyou're at and it's an advice
column for community conundrums,fiascos and drama.
So it's like wildlyentertaining too, because the
(41:49):
craziest shit happens incommunities.
Brad Powell (41:54):
All right, all right?
Well, that's great.
I'll make sure that links toall your stuff are in the show
notes and thanks again.
So much for coming on today.
Bri Leever (42:01):
Yeah, thanks, brad.
Thanks for having me.
Brad Powell (42:09):
For everyone listening at the end.
I just want to remind you thatif you'd like to go and get the
entire archive of the StandoutBusiness Show, just go to
standoutbusinessshow.
It's all there.
Just go to standoutbusinessshow.
(42:36):
It's all there, all the audio,all the video and all the extra
stuff that I put in there justfor listeners.
And we normally go live onTuesdays at 11 am Eastern Time.
So until the next time, so long.
We are connected everywhere and we simultaneously
belong nowhere.
That is our online experiencetoday, and while the internet
and social media in particular,promised new connections, they
failed to create an adequatecontainer where those
(00:27):
connections lead to belonging,and I think social media
platforms had an amazingopportunity to create community
online, and instead they choseto get people to build audiences
.
You might have communalexperiences being facilitated on
social media, but really allit's done is trained us to
(00:50):
create and consume content.
Brad Powell (00:56):
Welcome to the Standout Business Show, where
it's all about making a biggerdifference by doing business
differently.
I'm Brad Powell, your standoutbusiness coach, and on our show
today we're asking the questionare you ready to build a
community-powered business?
Let's say you're doing prettywell.
You've been running yourbusiness on content and
(01:18):
consulting and coaching, but isnow the time to power your
business with community and whatdoes it really take to convert
your product-based, digital,course-based business model into
a community-centric businessmodel?
To help us explore all thistoday on the show we've got
(01:41):
online community building expert, bree Lever, who's going to
share how creating community canbecome a vibrant hub for ideas,
for your content, connectionsand recurring income for your
business.
So if you've been thinkingabout developing an online
community and want to make sureyour community is done right the
(02:01):
first time, stay tuned.
And with that let's start theshow.
You, as somebody who is aconsultant or a coach or have
some form of expert business,you are already doing lots of
things in your normal day-to-day, where you are sharing your
(02:23):
expertise and you are in yourzone of genius and you are
communicating, whether you're aguest on a podcast or you're
doing a presentation or you'resimply having a meeting with a
client or a prospect.
During those moments, you canbe documenting exactly what
you're doing, and all of thatmakes for great content.
(02:46):
So I encourage you all to joinme on February 26 at 12 pm
Eastern Time on the MakeCoaching your Marketing
Masterclass.
You can develop a very simplesystem for not creating content
(03:09):
but actually documenting themoments where you are absolutely
at your best and turning thatinto an archive that people can
go and explore and binge.
So join me.
This is a free masterclass.
It is February 26, 12 pmEastern Time.
Just go toawesomevideomakerscom, forward,
(03:30):
slash blueprint or you can finda link in the show notes and
I'll see you there.
And now back to the show.
All right, bree, welcome to theshow.
Bri Leever (03:44):
Yeah, thank you for having me, Brad.
That intro was spotless.
I'm going to steal that copy inthe transcript from my own
website I couldn't have put itbetter myself.
Brad Powell (03:56):
Go for it.
Go for it.
That's a yeah right, that'shigh praise, thank you.
Well, we aim to please here,and so we're talking about
community, and I know,especially now you know in the
world that we call the newnormal.
It seems like the sad partabout the Internet was that,
(04:17):
even though the big promise waswe're all going to get connected
, the actual result is thatwe've actually become way more
disconnected because of theamount of time everyone seems to
be spending online andeverybody seems to be sending.
Just staring into these littledevices, these phones that we
have, and, aside from, like, thepromise of social media and all
(04:40):
the stuff that you can do onthe various platforms there, it
still feels like a very lonelyexperience, and so I think, more
than ever I mean and there's,you know, lots of scientific
study talking about lonelinessas an epidemic like it's a big
deal.
I know for myself, like theolder you get, the harder it is
(05:03):
to maintain meaningfulfriendships with people, just
simply because of the way ourlives have been organized and
the way society functions and soon, like a lot of the things
that we used to do in terms ofgoing bowling, a bowling league
or going to church on Sunday.
I mean all these things aredeclining and so people, just on
(05:24):
a general human level, are kindof starving for community.
And then I'm going to take allthat and say, well, yeah, and by
the way, when you're running abusiness and you're a small
business, solo entrepreneur kindof individual, that too is a
super lonely proposition and asuper lonely way to be in the
(05:48):
world, like even for myself,like as a podcaster.
You know podcast.
This is one of the reasons thatI do this, that I get to
connect with people.
I mean you're calling in allthe way from Hawaii so we get to
meet and interact like this andit's and people can join us
live and it's community building.
It's all part of that.
So I want you to speak bigpicture around how you see and
(06:13):
why you see community buildingfor businesses like yours and
mine can be so critical and alsojust so valuable right now.
Bri Leever (06:21):
And also just so valuable right now.
So good.
I have a couple differentthoughts.
One I love the valueproposition of I needed more
meaningful friendships, so Istarted a podcast.
I think probably everypodcaster would relate to that
on a very deep level.
Yeah, it can be.
(06:42):
It can be like one of the mostisolating roles and experiences
is starting your own business,and the good news is it doesn't
have to be.
Another thing they failed tocreate an adequate container
where those connections lead tobelonging, and I think social
(07:18):
media platforms had an amazingopportunity to create community
online and instead they chose toget people to build audiences.
That's what we've done.
You might have communalexperiences being facilitated on
social media, but really allit's done is trained us to
create and consume content,which is not community building.
(07:41):
It's not the same.
There's elements that overlap,but it's not the same thing.
Brad Powell (07:45):
I just agree, like the idea that if only I grow
this big audience, theneverything good will happen.
And yet, you know, you seeindividuals, you know, quote
unquote, influencers out therewho have large followings and
not only do they not havegenuine community, they don't
(08:07):
actually have a business thatfunctions very well, because all
those followers aren't reallypaying that much attention and
or they're certainly not evenbuying things from them, you
know, and they have a lot oftrouble selling even the most
basic product.
Bri Leever (08:21):
Yes, yes, because, yeah, having a big audience
doesn't equate to the value thatyou're providing in a communal
environment especially.
I stand as kind of theanti-example of this.
Like, I have a very smallaudience because I have I'm a
community builder.
I'm getting better at theaudience thing.
I'm getting better at Iwouldn't say I'm getting better
(08:43):
at the audience thing.
I'm getting better at.
I wouldn't say I'm gettingbetter at the audience thing.
I'm getting better at becomingmore visible, at using my voice,
at attracting people whoresonate with my message and my
work.
Um, and sometimes that comes inthe form of audience building.
But I launched my own podcastlast year.
It's called Dear Bree and Brad.
(09:04):
I launched it to an email listof 600 people, like that's like
and I've been running a businessfor five years, like it's it's
like kind of embarrassing andthe and.
But I had a very robustcommunity strategy and I was I'm
very tapped in to probably adozen different communities for
(09:27):
community professionals andpeople who would be interested
in the work that I do.
And this podcast made it intothe top 5% globally and,
according to Listen Notes, youcan look it up if you want to
verify.
But I was just, I was shockedby that.
It was like kind of my ownpersonal case study and example
to see, like can I kind of takemy own medicine here and how
(09:55):
impactful can this community be?
Supports my business, whichwe're going to get to in a
second, but actually likeleveraging my presence in niche
communities over my presence onthese social media stages.
Brad Powell (10:12):
Yeah, well, it's really interesting.
I think where this reallyapplies and I'd love to get your
take on this is that and thiscomes from a previous guest of
mine, a woman by the name ofMichelle Warner she talks a lot
about relationship marketing andshe outlines this thing called
the marketing spectrum, and sothat on one end which is what
(10:32):
most people are pitching that weshould be doing it's all
traffic-based, high-volume-basedmarketing efforts, and that's
what most people are doing.
When content marketing andsocial media marketing, it's all
meant to reach the highestnumber of people.
But on the other end of thespectrum and this works really
well for anyone who's doing anykind of high value, high ticket
(10:56):
service what you need beforepeople come in the door and say,
okay, I want to hire you, isyou need to build relationship
with them so that there's alevel of trust where they're
able to say, yes, you seem likea good fit for me.
And if you're doing hightraffic, high volume stuff, that
just doesn't achieve that goal.
It doesn't solve that problem,and so a lot of the activity
(11:20):
that people are so busily doingonline right now isn't in
alignment with the service thatthey offer, and so what you just
described like launching apodcast to a small group 600
people on your email list.
Well, maybe that's exactly theright thing to do 100%.
Bri Leever (11:39):
Yeah, and it's.
It doesn't feel as good, right,like I'm like oh, I only have
six, I don't have like thethousands and thousands of likes
in the big audience and I think, if we can, but that we've I
have to pause and notice that Ihave been trained to value that.
That that has.
I have been trained to viewthat as success.
And there's other metrics ofsuccess that are more indicative
(12:01):
of the actual value I'mcreating for people than just my
follower count.
Brad Powell (12:09):
Yeah, yeah right, exactly.
Well, it's probably really nota very good metric of how you
evaluate your self-esteem.
I am my follow-up account, andif I don't have a follow-up
account, I'm not really worthvery much.
Bri Leever (12:27):
Recommended to no one one, right, okay.
Brad Powell (12:37):
So anyway, I want to dive in kind of more deeply
into the whole communitybuilding thing.
I know you have a thing for thefour types of communities which
is probably really goodinformation, because when people
think about community building,each person probably has their
own idea of what that looks like, and a lot of times what they
think what it looks like isprobably not what will serve
(12:57):
them the best.
So let's take a look at that.
Bri Leever (13:01):
Yeah, I'd love to.
So in a little bit here I'llshow a visual that will help
create some context for people.
But to start I just want tostart with the kind of two
differences that I look at.
And one is free versus paidSuper simple.
So free communities versus apaid community, and in a free
(13:23):
community the community isdesigned to support some sort of
end product or service.
Paid communities, on the otherhand, are the product you're
you're paying to either be inthe experience with others or to
have access to the other peoplewho are in that community.
(13:44):
Now, free communities workreally well for brands,
organizations that have like um,like sass companies are like,
especially for the freeeducation centric communities
which we're going to get to in asecond.
Free communities work reallywell and support business goals
(14:05):
in a myriad of different ways.
So I have a series calledcommunity dissection where I
dissected something like 40different communities and you'll
see, if you even like just takea glimpse.
There's so many different waysthat a community can be
structured to support a business, whether it's product, customer
service, customer support.
(14:27):
They're not my favoritecommunities, they feel more like
a help forum than anything else, but we'll throw them in there.
So there's a lot of differentways that a free community can
support your business.
Now for the creator, consultant, coach, coaching business.
They saw these free communitiesand they thought, hey, what if
(14:52):
a free community could supportmy paid services?
And so this is really where wesaw a lot of people create their
like free Facebook group.
This is like the age of freeFacebook groups.
Brad Powell (15:03):
Right.
Bri Leever (15:04):
And slowly they will .
Slowly and not so slowly, theyrealized like man, okay,
community is like actually a lotof work to do it well.
Man, okay, community is likeactually a lot of work to do it
well.
And we have to figure out howto monetize this in order for it
to be sustainable for ourbusiness.
Because the nature of community, if it's doing well, is that
(15:25):
it's very full and it requires alot of guidance.
And that's where we got intothis big conundrum of the
freemium model for theseconsulting and coaching and
creator communities, where theyhave a free layer and then a
paid layer.
And I'm happy to talk aboutwhat actually happens in the
(15:46):
freemium model.
Um, but the tldr is it doesn'twork like you think it's going
to.
So then we have our paidcommunities, and this is really
where I love to put our coaches,our consultants, these
communities where you havesomebody who is either guiding
you through an educationalexperience or creating the
(16:07):
container where the connectionscan happen.
So that's free versus paid.
But I want to pause there incase you have any reflections.
Brad Powell (16:16):
Yeah, well, it seems to me I mean you're
pointing to, I think one of thecommon pitfalls of people who
are doing any kind of communitybuilding wasn't yet where, in
fact, what they do is they opena Facebook group, which is
probably the simplest, one ofthe simplest forms, or wherever
they put it.
You know, maybe they they go in, they subscribe to one of these
(16:37):
platforms and they put it thereand it's still free, even
though you have to pay thesubscription to have it be there
.
And then what they find is thisnew treadmill that they're on,
because, first of all, they feelobligated, just like they do
for social media, that now Ihave to create a bunch of
content which is free content,and I need to populate my group
(16:58):
platform with all this content.
Plus, I also have to prodpeople, prompt them to say stuff
like to say it's Monday, youtell me what you're doing this
week, and it's Tuesday, let'sfind out what you did on Tuesday
, and things like that.
And this becomes more of anendless wheel of labor than the
(17:24):
normal content marketing.
That is just sort of thestandard basic part of content
marketing.
And and, of course, if youryour volume, like if you're the
typical person who has the 600person email list and a small
little podcast, and you've beenposting on LinkedIn and Facebook
regularly and and now you'vegot this, this content platform
(17:48):
of your own that you're alsotrying to work.
It's, it's overwhelming, and ifthere's only a few dozen people
in there probably not myadventure is going to go on.
People come in there and lookaround and say, well, there's
nothing going on here, so I'mnot going to bother, and they
leave, and so their profile onyour platform becomes ghostly,
you know, and anyway.
(18:09):
So there's the observationsthat I've seen on there, and so
the idea, especially for, as yousay, like coaches and
consultants or people who have abusiness of that kind, like
sort of the expert businessperson having a platform where
their work, their actual product, is what the platform is about,
(18:32):
and people are there to pay forand take part in that type of
program Am I getting that right?
Bri Leever (18:40):
Yes, yep, that's exactly it.
So it's really the paidcommunities are.
It's just a better positioningfor those types of communities,
and I'm really happy to say thatit's one of the like biggest
areas of relief.
When my clients come to me andthey're like they want to build
a community, they see this aslike integral to what they're
(19:03):
doing.
And even if it's a paidcommunity, they're like Brie, I
can't feed another contentengine Like I can't.
I'm already like feeding somany like content engines and
now I'm going to have likeanother place where I somehow
have to feed people like bettercontent and and like more con
more.
How can I can't even.
How can I do more?
And so my my like um word wordsof advice to my clients when
(19:29):
they come to me in that positionis we are going to move you
from content feeder tofacilitator.
So this is not about creatingmore.
People don't want more.
They're not going to pay formore, but they are going to pay
for better, clearer and morestructure to your content.
That's for theeducation-centric communities,
(19:51):
which is my next distinctionEducation-centric communities
versus connection-centriccommunities and really all it
means is education-centriccommunities have an intended,
(20:17):
guided educational journey fortheir members.
So a lot of like accelerators orcohort-based courses would fall
into this category and the paidones.
I call these transformativecommunities, because we're going
from point A to point B.
There's a very cleartransformation that's happening
and the community manager is,and the person leading it is the
(20:40):
guide.
Now, these communities are alsothe most apt and open to new
technology, because it's likeyou're going on a big road trip
and you're saying, hey, listen,we're going to go from New York
to LA and this is the vehicle weare riding in.
If you want to go to LA, you'regoing to get in this vehicle,
(21:04):
metaphorically for communitybuilding.
So people are much more apt totrust and experiment with new
technology.
On the other hand, we haveconnection centric communities
and these are where theinteractions between your
members are what is valuable andwhat people are paying for
(21:27):
inside of your community.
So they tend to be a lot morefluid.
They tend to be membershipbased and this is really where
we can leverage, frankly, a zerocontent strategy.
So I actually have a great casestudy of a client recently who
has been running like a.
She runs a December programevery year for the last year and
(21:49):
her members were begging herfor an annual membership, like
they just wanted to continuethis work.
And she was like, brie, I can'tdo it, like they're they're
begging me and I I can't docontent, I just I can't do it.
And I was like, okay, that'sfine.
This is a we're designing aconnection centric space.
You infusing this space withcontent is actually going to
(22:11):
cannibalize any energy that yourmembers have to contribute to
this space.
So, instead of a contentstrategy, let's create a
structure and a framework thatprompts, supports and rewards
your members for introducingchallenges and experiments
inside of the community.
And we launched it and she madeover a hundred K in one month
(22:37):
from and she just had everybodyin there for one year.
It was like they could onlyjoin in January.
And then they did it for a yearand zero content strategy.
Like, can you imagine streaming?
Brad Powell (22:49):
It does sound good.
That sounds.
That does sound that great.
I mean I I really hit the idea.
I mean it seems like it'salmost more of a mastermind kind
of environment where the valuecomes from who you're with and
the content if that's whatyou're going to refer to it it's
also coming from the people whoare in the group and the more
(23:11):
people and the kinds of peoplewho are in there are really
bringing the value to the effort.
When you're looking at thisfrom like this thing of learning
versus connection, those twopolarities, you know like I've
been in many, many differentkinds of communities.
One of the very best cohortbased things was when I started
(23:32):
this podcast.
I took Seth Godin's podcastfellowship and I loved it
because for two reasons.
One is it was only eight weeksand within eight weeks it was
like we're all launching ourpodcast and so it just made me
do it.
I've been thinking I should geta podcast going.
I've been doing live streamingI you know why don't I turn into
(23:52):
a real show and but I hadn'tactually done it yet and so I
dove into this program and bythe eight weeks, within the time
, probably by the sixth week Ihad launched this show.
That was how it how it came tobe.
But the other thing thathappened was while we were in
there every day, there was alittle like they'd all
pre-recorded this, but therewere like a five minute lesson
(24:15):
exercise to do.
So we had an assignment everysingle day for the eight weeks,
some one thing to do, and butthen part of the assignment was
put your work into the cohortand then go visit at least five
other people and give themfeedback on what they've been
doing.
So it turned into this hugeexchange from all the people in
(24:39):
the program and I was kind ofblown away by like there was a
ton of really creative folks andI would say practically
everyone finished and probablytwo thirds did it Like they
actually all launched their showwithin that time.
It was like hugely successfulcompared to, I think, what
happens with a lot of onlinecourses, where most people don't
(25:02):
ever actually get it done.
Bri Leever (25:04):
Yeah, yes, you can count on like five hands how
many courses you've paid for andnot finished, right?
So, brad, you just gave aperfect example and one of my
favorite examples of thetransformative community.
So this is a paid educationcentric community experience.
Seth Godin's and Akimbo's.
(25:25):
So Seth Godin kind of startedthese programs.
He's like the original.
I know he's like the marketingguy, but he is the original
community guy in my book.
He's like the original.
I know he's like the marketingguy, but he is the original
community guy in my book.
And um, I've done alt MBA withSeth Godin, I've done the
marketing seminar, so you'vedone the pot.
So this is great.
We have like a good, we havesuch a good testimonial.
They can swipe it from thisepisode.
But the transformativecommunities, um are, are, can be
(25:50):
such a powerful experience.
And oh, could you mind actuallypulling up the matrix real
quick and I'll just walk through.
Brad Powell (25:59):
Sure, why not?
Here we go?
Bri Leever (26:01):
So just to give people.
So if you're listening in audioI'll describe what we're
looking at.
It's just a graphic and you canget my like full, full talk
where I have like a full, freemasterclass on this that dives
into all of the strengths, allof the challenges with each type
of community.
But up at the top right we'relooking at education-centric
paid community experiences.
(26:21):
These are transformativecommunities where the communal
learning is the product.
At the top left we haveeducation-centric free
communities I call thesenurturing communities where the
communal learning supports theend product or service.
Some great examples of theseare the HubSpot community and
the Etsy community.
On the lower left we have free,connection centric communities.
(26:49):
This is really where all theFacebook groups lived, and while
they genuinely struggle tofigure their shit out, there's
actually some really really goodones happening and I call these
collaborative communities.
So this is where theconnections between your members
supports the product.
And one of my favorite onesthat I think everybody should
(27:09):
check out is called Lego Ideas.
It's the Lego community thatsupports their product
department.
Finally, we have, on the bottomright, paid connection-centric
communities.
These are what I call themnetworking communities, because
the connections between yourmembers is the product.
So this really kind of willhelp you get a sense for where,
(27:34):
if you're thinking aboutbuilding a community, you can
ask yourself am I, morenaturally, a teacher or a
connector?
Is my business?
Am I introducing a paidone-to-many option, or is this a
space that needs to support anend product or service?
And when you start there, youcan really start to get a
glimpse for where your communitywill start.
(27:56):
In this diagram and then, asyour community matures, a lot of
communities actually will checkoff multiple of these boxes
with different programs inside,but for starting out, I highly
recommend picking the one thatresonates the most with you and
supports your business.
Brad Powell (28:13):
When people are thinking like, well, where
should I fit into this matrix?
I actually think that mostbusinesses, when they're
approaching how they're runningand their marketing and all that
kind of effort they put way toomuch attention on I need to go
out and find new people, I needto go, look for somebody who's
never met me and bring them in.
If only I can do that enoughthen everything will be fine.
(28:36):
But they're neglecting theother work, which is that when
people have found you, there arereally valuable things to do to
have them stay with you for theduration, and if you can
succeed with that, then all therest becomes much easier.
I mean, talk about Seth Godin.
(28:56):
He's always talking about how,when you meet 10 people and
they're absolutely raving aboutwhat you do, you're done because
they're going to tell and bringall their friends, and so if
you're able to in this case whatwe're talking about is build a
community and you have a groupof people there who are
delighted with the process thenthat community is going to grow
(29:20):
quite naturally, because they'regoing to talk about it and
they're going to bring theirfriends and invite them, and
that community is a veryorganically going to start to
thrive.
And so this is the kind of thingthat, when I think about it,
how I think about it, and andthen for me, if all you're doing
is doing all of that and it'sfree, you're not, that doesn't
(29:46):
pay your rent and it doesn't,and it doesn't even if you're
just the guide like it's notvaluing the time that you're
there to be the host and thefacilitator of all this high
value activity.
So clearly, in my mind it's likewell, you want to have some
kind of model where there'srevenue involved, and, of course
, the dream of community is thatif it's recurring revenue, then
(30:08):
you're building a sustainable,resilient process.
So I guess the frame that Iwant you to look at is like as
people come to you, how do youguide them in that direction?
To give them like, when peoplego well, I don't know if I'm
ready for this or I might, youknow, it seems a little more
(30:28):
difficult than I can handle tomake the choices so that they
can in fact get a place wherethey've got this thing that's
organically growing and it'sthriving in terms of producing
revenue for their, for theircompany.
Bri Leever (30:47):
Yeah, so, um, I actually have a great resource
on community discovery that Ican pass along.
Uh, because I think one of thebiggest things that you need to
do before preparing to launch acommunity is to interview the
people around you and see, likeis there genuine interest?
Do you understand the narrativewell enough to be able to
(31:10):
create the container that'svaluable for people?
So that's a really big questionthat you need to do some
investigation of the peoplearound you.
I also prompt people in thattool to do some like mindset and
self-discovery work, becauseI've found that we usually end
up building the community thatwe feel like a gaping hole in
(31:35):
our souls for, and so it becomesreally personal, like if you
think launching a business ishard, like a community is like
even more.
Like a business is so personaland a community is like even
more so.
So we do a lot of.
I have a lot of promptingsaround like why are you creating
this community?
(31:56):
Cause I've found when youlaunch it like it's not, it's
not necessarily bad to to deriveyour motivation for your
community from the gap that yousee in the world, like that's a
very natural and normal thing.
Your community is never goingto be able to hold all of that
(32:23):
for you.
So there's a lot of likemindset, mind, body, work that
needs to happen as well toreally be aligned before you
launch, and I know my video isstruggling to keep up, but we'll
just keep going.
Um so so yeah, those are some ofthe questions, and I had
another thought on what you weresharing with the paid versus
(32:44):
free, and I just wanted to share.
It's a very sad reality of theespecially American capitalistic
society that we live in that wevalue things when we pay for
them, when we pay for them.
I wish we could value thingsmore when they're free.
(33:04):
But I found that in a lot ofways a free community can tend
to be a disservice to yourmembers because it doesn't
posture them in a way that theyare going to show up in a way
that's meaningful for them andtheir other members which in
other environments, like in acourse, right.
(33:24):
If somebody pays for your courseand then doesn't show up,
that's just a bummer for them,like they didn't get the
information, they didn't put itinto action.
It's like it doesn't affectanybody else's experience.
But in your community, whenpeople don't show up, not only
does it impact their experience.
It's now impacting everyone'sexperience.
So posturing our members sothat they have the best chance
(33:50):
of showing up and participatingin the community, so that it's a
valuable experience foreveryone, is really important to
consider.
And when you just default to afree community, you're not
always.
It doesn't mean just becauseyou get them to pay they're
gonna show up and engage.
Well, that's not what I'mtrying to say, but it does help
(34:10):
us and them take it moreseriously.
Brad Powell (34:14):
Yeah, I agree with that.
I think an issue that peoplehave is they're just thinking
well, if I'm just gettingstarted and there's really
nothing in there, how can Icharge money?
Yes and how will I get anybodyin the door if there's a fee and
they're looking at it going?
(34:34):
I don't know.
There's not much going on here,so why should I do that?
Like, how do I create, how dothey create the impression of
value for something that is in afairly beta stage?
Bri Leever (34:48):
Yes, this is a great question.
I get this all the time.
I want to do a follow-uppodcast episode to this question
, exactly.
So maybe I'll have you write aDear Bree anonymous letter for
me, brad.
I'll have you write a Dear Breeanonymous letter for me, brad,
but so I actually have a greatpodcast episode about this on
Dear Bree, lily.
Thank you, sorry, my dog's justbeing a little guard dog, and
(35:10):
in this episode I'm talking toMortaza Bambot, the founder of
Heartbeat, and there's a couplelike just creative tricks that
you can do in your launch thatmake it, uh, so much more.
You can be so much moreconfident in your launch.
And the quickest, easiest onethat I'll share is, when you're
(35:31):
going to launch, you um pre-selltickets to your community so
you can pick a date with areasonable runway for you to get
the word out, and this allowsyou to start collecting interest
, but not in the form of a freeemail wait list.
We're getting people's paymentssecured in the form of a
(35:53):
pre-sale ticket and then they'lljoin the community on said date
when it opens.
And it's usually great to alsocombine that launch with, like,
a big kickoff event, so you'rebringing everybody in at the
same time right, because if youhave, like, your launch month
and people are trickling in oneat a time, it's kind of like the
first person who shows up tothe party like an hour early and
(36:15):
they're like, oh God, no one'shere.
This was a terrible mistake.
Like that's the moment we wantto avoid.
So the really easy way to dothat is just like saying we're
all going to open the door andwalk through the door at the
same time.
Brad Powell (36:31):
Yeah, I like that.
It's a have a big party whereeverybody's invited and they all
show up at the same moment.
That sounds really good.
Bri Leever (36:40):
Much better than arriving an hour early
accidentally.
Brad Powell (36:44):
Well, as we've been talking about this actually, I
have more questions now than Ihad 20 minutes ago, and we could
talk about this for quite along time I just think that this
is a great topic and a greatthing for a lot of people to be
considering as a means by whichthat they can really, you know,
(37:08):
create a meaningful gatheringplace for the people that
they're serving, because,especially, you know, like, if
you're involved with workingwith people one on one, that's
cool.
I love working with peopleone-on-one, that's cool.
I love working with peopleone-on-one.
Bri Leever (37:28):
I have.
My favorite clients are myone-on-one clients.
They are the very best.
That's only because you don'thave a community yet, brad.
Brad Powell (37:31):
I'm just kidding, I'm just saying that anyone
who's listening who's myfavorite you know who you are.
You're absolute best and yetit's you know they don't.
They don't actually know eachother Like they don't, and they
don't they don't know what wouldbe so cool if they did know
(37:52):
each other.
And especially in the work thatI do, like people are making
video and the video is veryvisual and it gets out there,
and so you can easily imagine acommunity of people who are all
producing video where they'recheering one another on and or,
in a very positive way, givingpeople helpful information
(38:14):
around.
This was great, and we'd loveto hear you do that kind of
thing.
You know, because we know thatyou know more about that and
than anybody else, and that'swhat we'd love to hear you do.
That kind of thing, you know,because we know that you know
more about that and than anybodyelse, and that's what we'd love
to see more of.
And when people get that kindof feedback, it's just super
helpful.
It helps open them up and so,anyway, that kind of thing and
this is my business just oneexample of that kind of thing-
(38:36):
yeah, no, you hit on so manygood points.
Bri Leever (38:40):
Teaching people how to give good feedback is an art,
and it's something that theAkimbo organization and Seth
Godin nailed, and I think it'slike probably one of the main
reasons that they have been sosuccessful is because they
actually, in the onboardingprocess, took a very long time
and very deliberate approach toteaching people how to interact
(39:03):
and give good feedback to eachother.
And the other thing I'll addBrad, I kind of look at it two
ways.
So, way back when I firststarted my business, I was
describing my value propositionto a friend, actually from Alt
MBA, and she said oh, so there'sthree ways that you can make
money in a business.
You can find new customers, youcan engage your repeat
(39:25):
customers or you can increaseyour prices.
And she was like and you do thefirst two, you help you engage
repeat customers so that theyfind new customers for you.
I was like, oh my God, that'sbrilliant, so that's like for
you.
I was like, oh my God, that'sbrilliant, so that's like,
that's how the community thingworks, right.
(39:46):
Secondly, for people offeringone-on-one services, you hit a
point, usually after two orthree years, where, if you want
to keep growing and some peopledon't, but a lot of us do.
We got lifestyles to maintainand if that's you, you reach a
point where you're like, okay,well, to grow.
I either have to, because I'musually for a solopreneur like
(40:10):
scaling.
If they don't want to scaletheir business and become like
an agency, they can eitherincrease their prices and bring
on more high ticket clientsprices and bring on more high
ticket clients, or they canintroduce a one to many offer
and the community model is it'sit's an all the rage like one to
(40:30):
many offer right now.
For good reason, for very goodreason.
It's an incredibly powerful umlike container for your business
and income stream for yourbusiness and if we don't really
understand what it is we'regetting ourselves into, you can
very quickly overcommit yourself.
So that's where I like toprovide some guidance, and I'm
glad I've left you with morequestions than answers.
(40:52):
I think I'm doing my job right.
Brad Powell (40:54):
All right, well, bree, this has been a really
cool conversation.
Thanks so much for coming on.
If people want to connect withyou and learn more, what's the
best way for them to do that?
Bri Leever (41:06):
Yeah, the only social media you'll find me on
is LinkedIn, so that's a goodplace to connect.
I enjoy posting there.
My newsletter has like themonthly roundup twice a month.
Sometimes we'll go into once aweek when we're doing a Dear
Bree podcast season release andthe best way if you're like if
(41:28):
you're intrigued, you'recommunity curious, but you're
kind of hesitant or have ifyou're in the place with more
questions than answers at thispoint you've got to go binge.
Dear Bree season one it's 12episodes.
It'll speak to exactly whereyou're at and it's an advice
column for community conundrums,fiascos and drama.
So it's like wildlyentertaining too, because the
(41:49):
craziest shit happens incommunities.
Brad Powell (41:54):
All right, all right?
Well, that's great.
I'll make sure that links toall your stuff are in the show
notes and thanks again.
So much for coming on today.
Bri Leever (42:01):
Yeah, thanks, brad.
Thanks for having me.
Brad Powell (42:09):
For everyone listening at the end.
I just want to remind you thatif you'd like to go and get the
entire archive of the StandoutBusiness Show, just go to
standoutbusinessshow.
It's all there.
Just go to standoutbusinessshow.
(42:36):
It's all there, all the audio,all the video and all the extra
stuff that I put in there justfor listeners.
And we normally go live onTuesdays at 11 am Eastern Time.
So until the next time, so long.
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