Nearbound Daily #555: The Back-A$$ward Way To Do Community

April 4, 2024

minutes

Ella Richmond

The wrong way to do community

“There’s a time and place for everything. The main purpose of a community is to establish relationships, not sales.” —Judd Borakove (Chief Growth and Community Officer of GTM Partners)

The wrong way to sell in communities:

❌ Spam your product in channels

❌ Cold DM people in the community

❌ Ask for value instead of creating value

The right way to sell in communities:

✅ Build real relationships

✅ Create more value than you take

✅ Focus on the ideas that unite the community, not your product

Recently, I’ve been seeing a lot of great tips on LinkedIn from Jessie Shipman (CEO at Fluincy) on how to lean into your communities the right way.

Keep reading to learn from someone who has been to the places you’re trying to go.

TACTICS

Provide value before asking for anything

Communities exist to unite like-minded individuals.

But over time, as like-minded individuals connect, share ideas, and create value for each other, the community becomes more than a meeting place. It also becomes a wellspring of value creation—a place where people decide to partner, form new business ideas, and create content.

So, how do you become a part of a community like this?

Here are Jessie’s 5 tips to leverage communities (plus our nearbound spin on why they matter!).

Recognize that you’re not inherently special.

When you join a community, you’re one more member; that’s right, one out of hundreds or even thousands.

Instead of showing up, thinking everyone’s going to be excited you’re there, just watch and listen—understand how the community works and how the most engaged participants interact—then participate.

Be an orchestrator.

Since you’re one out of thousands in the community, you have to make yourself stand out.

Listen, answer questions, schedule 1:1s, attend community events, and if you’d like to take it a step further, organize events

You’re investing in relationships that can potentially help with intel, influence, or intros in the future.

Put in the work.

Think about your relationships in life—every single one of them you work to maintain.

The same is true for professional relationships. You have to invest in the communities and relationships you’re a part of if you want the benefits.

But remember, you don’t have to make this your full-time job. Just commit to one conversation a week to start!

Automate what you can.

Make it easier to manage all of your Slack channels by setting up keyword notifications. Choose words that revolve around your expertise, and make sure you’re always delivering value on those topics.

You want it so that when people have a problem in an area surrounding your expertise, they automatically think of you.

Nothing is free.

Anything you’re asking for, be prepared to reciprocate for someone else.

Just like you, people in your community have busy lives, and while they’re willing to share, never take that for granted.

Bonus from the nearbound book: leverage the nearbound community content pyramid.

If you want to create content inside your community to prove your expertise and to create a social network effect, you have to consider these types of content:

Pillar content: These are podcasts, long-form articles, analyses of published reports from which you can get smaller bits of content later to draw and maintain attention. This will help you spark conversations.

Window content or micro-content: This is like a sneak peek of your pillar content. It can be clips from a podcast, quotes from an article, or newsletter blurbs. This can help you maximize reach and attention.

Events: These are experiences that not only join communities but also drive commitment from you and your partner to show up and deliver value on a specific topic and day. This will help you get real-time feedback, deliver value, and empower people to reach their promised land. Your partner’s influence is transformed into outcomes.

A key tip from Jared Fuller:

You can build these expert communities, or you can join them...but whatever you do, don’t ignore them.

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Nearbound Summit 2023 Recordings—The future of GTM is Nearbound. Watch the recordings to hear how B2B leaders across departments unite with Nearbound strategies and tactics. Listen here.

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