Jason S. Bradshaw argues companies should build employee communities like ERGs and customer communities like car clubs and coding groups, then support them with resources and events without trying to control them. Local communities work differently than multinational ones.
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Welcome to another live edition of Talking Points with me, Jason S. Bradshaw. I'm so delighted that you're taking the time to either join me live or to catch up on the replay. Today I continue to go through the trends in the annual 2024 Trends for Business Breakthrough Success report and you can get your free copy of the report simply by going to jasonsbradshell.com forward slash trends. Now, today's trend trend number 12 is called community. And it's all about community. You see, as businesses we have two primary cohorts of communities that we need to nurture. The first is our employee communities. Now I say communities, the plural, because within your employee base you will have subsets of communities based on a whole range of different things. And it's important to recognize that first and foremost. It's also important to decide how you're going to nurture them. Now nurturing them doesn't mean you have to control them. It means how can you facilitate, how can you help them be effective parts of the greater whole? You see, many organizations let employee groups create communities or groups within their employ, within their company. Could be a LGBTI group, it could be an over 50s group. Women in management, women in leadership. The list of groups inside organizations can be endless. My view on this is that the organization needs to harness those communities, nurture those communities, and encourage those communities to continue to contribute in their unique ways to the overall organization as a whole. Now that could be through providing some funds, resources, mentorship. But remember, the community is a collection of individuals who share a common goal, common belief, and it's in addition to their day to day tasks. So you don't need to put a manager over the top of it and say this is how the community will work. Necessarily. Now if you've got a large organization that spans the globe, you will want to put some coordination into it. And however I stress that word coordination, coordination and nurture your employee communities so that they can get value out of those communities. They can feel like they belong within your organization and that those communities individually and collectively strengthen the organization. Now the same applies to our customer communities. If we think beyond the transaction, then we should be seeking to create, if they don't organically happen, communities of people interested in and loving our products so that they can come together in fun ways to talk about, to promote, to recommend, to enjoy the products and services that you offer and innovate. Both customers and employees, sorry, both customer and employee communities have the ability to innovate in ways that are unstructured. Sure but in ways that will absolutely help you and your team achieve some breakthroughs in your products and services. Now, customer communities are again, they can be quite organic or they can be something that you create. If I think about car ownership, there are people that are members of the Volkswagen Club has nothing to do day to day with Volkswagen. It's a group of people that love Volkswagens, that drive Volkswagens, usually aspire to own Volkswagens, and they created a club. Same with, say, Subaru, Toyota. Well, I think almost every car brand probably has their own sort of club, as does other, you know, other interests. There's coding communities, for example, there's how to build PC clubs. The list is endless. My goal or my encouragement to you with those sorts of communities, those organic communities, is not for the brand to come in and try and take it over. You don't want that. But what you, what I would encourage you to do is to help that organization. So whether it's providing some free tours of your factories or of your office facilities, if it's giving them tickets to some sort of event to help them get excited and encourage their members to participate, if it's, you know, an ad in their club newsletter or on their club website, there's ways for the brands to be part of the community without owning the community. And that's the real key here in this whole topic, in this whole trend of communities. Those organizations in 2024 that are going to harness communities to grow their brand, to build brand affinity, brand loyalty, brand recommendation, employee loyalty, are going to enhance those communities through support and participation, not through control. And if they don't already exist, well, then you'll look for ways to spark the, or the, the start of communities. And I say communities plural in every instance, because the Volkswagen Owners Club of Queensland here in Australia is different to the Volkswagen Owners Club of Queensland, Melbourne, but there's still both Volkswagen owner clubs that have their own communities. So if you're a multinational business, then that's something to take into consideration. If you're just, let's just say you're the local business, you're the local carpet cleaner, there's still ways for you to be part of the community and to embrace the community. School fates, weekend markets. How can you be part of that in a way that creates interest in your brand, gets people talking about your brand in positive ways, but is also seen as part of you participating in the communities in which you work and play? Community is absolutely essential. And I'd encourage you to consider how you can encourage and enhance them in 2024 if you're looking to achieve business breakthrough success. Now I have a number of places are still available, but they are limited. Remember, I only have 50 one on one clients at any one time. So there are less than 20 spots available right now. And so if you go to business breakthrough coaching.net you'll learn a little bit more about the 12 week accelerator course designed to help accelerate your growth and set you up for growth in 2024. You'll also get an application page where you get to apply to work with me. Now this is a really simple process. It's about three minutes work if you know your numbers and it's designed to help you. You see, when those applications come through and I look at them, if I don't believe that I have the abilities, the experience to help you and your business achieve breakthrough success in 2024, then I'm politely going to say I'm not the right fit for you. And where I can, I'll recommend you to someone that is potentially the right fit to you. But if we are the right fit, then the team will set up your onboarding call and get the process started. There's absolutely no cost involved for that, that application or for your initial onboarding call. So feel free to go to business breakthroughcoaching.net I look forward to seeing your application. Now, until next time we speak, I wish you success in whatever you're doing.
