You know you need a community that is ready to buy or buy into what you have to offer. But how do you do this? What are the essential elements of cultivating a thriving community?
Join me for this fun conversation with my friend Christa Hutchins as we chat about our philosophy of community building, plus how to grow a community that will buy or buy in.
If you are a regular listener to my podcast or the Just One Simple Thing Podcast, you know that we’ve both been talking about creating a community instead of an audience or a platform.
We’ve talked about the value of focusing on community over platform or audience; the benefits of community, receiving from your community, and we’ve shared some conversations with others who have built communities on various platforms.
And today, we want to share with you HOW to cultivate your community.
If you’re looking for a little more help building a thriving community, be sure to check out cultivatecourse.com to get on the waitlist for our course (opening on Black Friday) that will teach you how to authentically create a community ready to buy or buy in.
We’ve been through some of the struggles of building a business:
- Preparing for months to launch a course, program, or book… and feeling embarrassed by the number of sales.
- Attempting to follow a content plan you got from an expert… only to find it falls flat with your people.
- Staring at the screen wondering what on earth to post today that might actually get a reaction.
- Buying the latest course to learn how to create Reels or navigate TikTok… but all the music and dancing had me spinning in circles without making real connections
We both believed we had to reach a lot of people in order to make a difference or earn an income.
But after 6+ years in the online space, we have come to recognize 2 truths:
- You don’t need a huge audience to make an impact.
- When your focus is on growing an audience, it can be incredibly draining and it can keep you from doing the work you’re meant to do.
The solution is really quite simple: Focus on cultivating a community rather than building an audience or platform.
Through our work in our own businesses and as we’ve supported dozens of clients over the past several years, we’ve discovered a philosophy that forms the foundation of strong communities.
The Cultivate Your Community Philosophy:
- Community is built one person at a time
- As Christians, we value people over profits
- A thriving community provides value to all members, not just the founder or leader
- It’s okay to charge for the time invested & value you bring to your community
- When you have invested in your community, they are excited to pay you to help solve their problems
- It’s better to grow deep roots before trying to grow wide
Applying this philosophy is similar to growing a healthy garden. So we want to share with you what we have termed The Cultivate Method – it’s the 4 elements necessary to growing a thriving community.
How to Cultivate a Community–The Cultivate Method:
Soil: The content you create that connects with your community … content that gives them a reason to be part of what you are doing because it is focused on what they need and want, not necessarily on what you want to teach.
Sunlight: The conversations you have with your community (and that they have with one another) … conversation that help them develop deep relationship with you and the other members of your community
Water: That’s you showing up with consistency to keep things growing. With a plan based on the interests in your community, you can be consistent without burning out.
Fertilizer: That’s the collaborations you create with others. You can develop partnerships naturally that are good for you, your partners, and your audience … a triple win!
If you do these 4 things, you can build a thriving community that wants to be connected to you and is willing to pay for the products and services you create.
For us, cultivating a community has meant:
- Relief from chasing likes and followers and instead having real, meaningful engagement (which has actually grown our numbers, too)
- Customers and students who rave about our programs and services
- Increased opportunities for growth through speaking engagements, podcast guesting, and other collaborations
- Meeting in real life with our clients and students
- Having FUN with our business instead of feeling discouraged and drained
And we want the same thriving community for you, too.
Of course, you can take what you’ve learned from our podcasts and the other resources we’ve shared, but if you want step-by-step instructions, templates, tools, and scripts, we’ve created the Cultivate Your Community course.
The course will be available over Black Friday (Nov. 26) and we can’t wait to get it into your hands. Head over to cultivatecourse.com and if you are listening before Nov. 26, 2021, you’ll be able to join the wait list to get a reminder when it is open.
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