One question to answer them all
I've been building communities for years. I thought I knew the answer to any community question someone could ask.
- Platform selection? ✅
- Engagement strategies? ✅
- Growth hacks? ✅
But what if someone came to me and said, "What’s one thing I should keep in mind? One north star for building a good community?"
Sure, I could give them specific tips like a new engagement strategy they can try or audit their community platform design. But could I leave them with ONE thing that could help them make progress on any future problem?
Well, 4 years 6 months and 15 days after my first Community Manager job (today), i’ve found it.
I recently read a piece of advice from a community pro that made me rethink every community strategy i thought i had honed. It's the golden rule that answers ALL community struggles.
Here it is:
“Focus on people in a difficult transition.”
I know what you're thinking. "That's it? That's the big secret?"
Yes. And in this lesson I’m going to show you how honing in on this one thing can help answer all the questions you’ll come across when you’re community building.
(BTW, I found this gem in this course from Gina Bianchini, founder of Mighty Networks.)
Don’t miss out! Get this and other community building lessons in your inbox to read them at leisure.
Focus on people in a difficult transition
You’ve probably heard the traditional ‘niche’ down advice. It goes something like this -
You should get specific with who you want to serve. The more specific you can get, the more likely you are to truly help those people, the more successful your business will be. Niches have riches.
That’s good advice but it’s not useful enough. It’s barely step 1. What happens after you’ve nailed down your niche?
Focus on people in a difficult transition is the answer.
Because—even within a niche—the people who join paid communities, buy online courses, and participate in challenges have ONE thing in common.
They’re in a transition. Often a difficult transition.
They need support, accountability, and motivation from others on the same path. They are hungry for solutions. They are ready to engage.
Most importantly, it makes your job 10x easier if you help people who are self-motivated.
Once you start thinking like this, you will find solution to all your community problems. Let me show you how.
Pesky community problems and how to solve them
“Am I helping a small niche of people going through a difficult transition?”
This is the stone that you can keep going back to to sharpen your knife. No matter what stage you’re in or what problems you’re struggling with.
Let me give you an example of my friend who’s building a community of no-code consultants, all the common doubts he may face and how honing on this one question can solve it.
On getting started
Q. I want to build a community for no-code consultants. What should i put on the landing page?
No-code consultants - that’s a wonderful niche. ✅
What transition are they going through? Paint me a picture. Do they want to go from having 1 client to finding their next 10 clients? Do they want to raise their prices and find better clients? Do they want to get their first client? Do they want to expand their skillsets to offer more?
If you really figure out who you’re serving, you can get those people to self-select themselves without really trying to convince them of anything. Just offer them support, accountability and motivation from others on the same path.
Q. i’ve got my landing page. How do i find the “seed” members?
It is a noble cause to be helping a small group of people go through a difficult transition.
That’s why, you have all the permission to shout about it on your socials, in other communities you’re a part of or even personally reach out to your loose connections.
“I’m starting a group for <your niche> who are trying to <go from here> to <there>. We’ll help each other through <>. Know anyone who should join?”
You shouldn’t have to convince anyone of anything. In fact, don’t even try to. The seed members need to be excited about finally having a support network to help them with that tough transition.
Q. I’ve got my first 10 members. But what should i do with them in the community?
People going through a difficult transition usually don’t know anyone else who’s going through the same thing. So, if you’ve put 10 such people in a room together, that’s a service in itself! You’ve given them a little peer network that they can exchange notes with.
Your job is to facilitate this knowledge exchange. Start with just one regular virtual meetup or one Slack channel dedicated to this knowledge exchange.
Your goal is to get the first 10 members tell you that they have been craving for these types of interactions.
On engagement
Q. I’ve started the community but no one is chatting there. How do i make it alive?
Every community is dead by default. So you need to ask yourself:
- Are you helping your small niche of people going through the difficult transition?
- How will chatting in your group help them in the transition?
Don’t try to build engagement for engagement’s sake. Start by creating one space in your community where you promise them a tangible value of posting.
“post your cold outreach note here and get feedback on it” or “join this one hour co-working call where you schedule your LinkedIn posts for the next week”.
Remember you might need to do things that don’t scale for a long time.
Q. I’m hosting live events in my community but people aren’t attending. How can i increase the attendance rate?
All the programs, live events and workshops you do should be a solution to at least one of the core challenges that your members face while they are in the middle of this transition.
- So first, ask yourself “How will attending your events help your niche of people through the transition?”
- Then, confirm your hypothesis through feedback from the attendees. Don’t build a pie in the sky. After every event, ask them if they feel the event helped them through the transition. Best if you can get them to fill an anonymous survey so that you can get the brutally honest truth.
Q. I want to paywall my community but I’m afraid people are going to leave.
Are you helping people in your niche go through a difficult transition?
Hone in on this. How difficult is the transition? Is it causing them pain? Can you put that pain in numbers? Are you actually helping them? Do you have existing members who can vouch for this?
Before you paywall a free community, you should have answers for these questions.
And by the same logic, you have to be okay with loosing a good fraction of your existing members because they don’t feel the pain as much. In fact, that’s a good thing because now you have a group that’s more motivated to engage.
On growth
Q. How to market my community on social media or other groups?
Your community can become your marketing engine if you can answer ‘yes’ to this one question:
Are you helping a small niche of people going through a difficult transition in your community?
The people who you’re trying to reach are already talking in your space. So you can just reshare snippets of these conversation and it’ll become a lighthouse for potential new members.
Simply talk about the conversations that are already happening, events you’re organising, questions members are asking and the wins members are sharing.
Q. I want to increase referrals from my members.
The only way to increase word of mouth is to make the solution that actually helps people win. Because everyone likes talking about their wins when they are going through a difficult transition.
If you’re already doing it, then ask people for referrals when you’ve given them a win. Make it really easy for them to refer others. Just ask them for their friend’s email and send a referral to that friend yourself.
Word of mouth is effective when it happens naturally. In fact, you can’t help talking about something that truly helps you solve a pain. So don’t waste time on “gamifying” your referral problem. Focus on the pain of transition.
Q. I’ve got a high churn rate amongst my members. How do i solve it?
First, you need to find out why people are churning. There are 3 possible reasons:
- You’ve helped them solve the problem so they no longer need your community
- They no longer face the problem, and thereby no longer need your community
- Your community is not effective at helping them in the difficult transition
The first 2 types are churned members are “graduates” of your community. You can celebrate them.
You only need to solve for the 3rd scenario. This is where surveys can help. Run them not just after someone has churned but during their entire lifecycle too. Collect feedback after all the moments that matter - after an event, after their first week, a week before their renewal date etc.
The best way to get honest feedback in these surveys is if they are anonymous.
Remember, your job is not to convince anyone to make the difficult transition. Your job is to make people successful if they are going a difficult transition. Whenever you’re lost, hone in on this one question to find a way forward.
“Am I helping a small niche of people going through a difficult transition?”
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