How to Get Your First 30 Community Members (Without a Big Audience)

The thing that we see at Mighty is people pay attention to what they pay for. So your members need a little bit of skin in the game in order to really, truly show up to engage. And that engagement leads to being able to achieve that best year ever. And so, if anything, we need to charge.

Here's where the rubber meets the road. I think there's a lot of people who are having light bulb moments earlier today about why community is the future for creators, why community is actually the easiest starting point, and why you should be thinking about building this. But all right, like, how do I even get started? And so I'm excited to welcome Toper and Christy to the stage right now, and they are going to walk you through the exact formula from going from zero members to 30 members, even if you don't have an audience, even if you don't have a newsletter, even if you don't have huge social media. And anybody can do this. And listen, we have seen many, many people go through this process and have success. And I don't care if you are 80 years old or 20 years old. I don't care if you're talking starting a community for quilting or for woodworking or whatever. It doesn't matter the niche that you're in, the transition you're having, people go through, what you're interested in, who you are. Everybody can use this exact process to go from zero to 30 numbers. Welcome, team. I'm excited to have you here.

Thank you. And we're so excited to talk on this topic. I think, Topra, you would agree this is one of our favorite things to speak on. And growing a community from the ground up can be easier than you're thinking it is. So I'm hoping we can take that inspiration that Darrell, you're saying is here inside of this room and turn it into some early action, because we do have some things that you can implement today, this afternoon, tomorrow, if you want to.

Amazing. All right, I'm going to leave the two of you to it, and I will see you all for the next session with Jane. So see you later.

Perfect. Amazing. Well, why don't we get into some slides, get rocking and rolling. We'll keep an eye out for questions that you have in the chat. We'll have some time at the end to address them. We also happen to know what frequently asked questions might be bubbling up to the surface as we talk about some of this. So Toper and I are so excited and to take the next hour to talk to you about your first 30 members and getting to your first 30 without actually building an audience. And we're going to break that down for you in today's session. Before we dive in, we wanted to cover a little bit about who we are and why we think we're the people who should be talking to you about growing your community to its first 30 members. To toper and I combined were trusted advisor to Mighty hosts from first time business owners to bestselling authors and top podcasters. Toper, you have worked with some really, really cool creators on the platform.

Yeah, I mean ranging from Jay Shetty to gary Vaynerchuk to Dr. Mark Hyman, but also other new ventures who are at the very beginning of their journey of just getting started. So you and I have seen a wide range of different kinds of communities at different business stages. It's pretty awesome.

Absolutely. And we're combining our 20 years of experience launching profitable online communities, but ones that also had courses or high ticket group coaching programs. We also bring experience from years before Mighty into our work with all of those hosts, whether they're first getting started or they've been at it for a little while. Combined we're responsible for $45 million in Mighty Host wins. So we'll talk a little bit to today about getting your first paying 30 members or your first 30 members if you are a host that doesn't charge. But we're really excited to bring all of that to the table. Alrighty. Here's what we're going to cover today. First up, we're going to touch on what makes a successful community. We want to make sure you have the right foundation or the mindset to start setting the right foundation before you start this process. Two, we're going to tackle why traditional marketing has it wrong. Toper is going to walk through what it typically looks like when you start to grow a business or a community business specifically and how we can tweak our thinking around that for faster action. 3. The megaphone effect. And number four, tactics. Real things that you can do starting today to start getting your first 30 minutes members. So let's talk a little bit about what makes a successful community. And what I'm going to share right now are the keys to building a thriving and engaged community. We've been talking over the last two days about people magic. We have at Mighty a nine part framework to help guide you to building a very successful community. Shortly, some of you will start to participate in the challenge that we're offering as the follow on to this summit. And and it is built around these nine Core principles, the same principles that Toper and I use regardless of the business stage of the host we're working with is at. And there are things you can start thinking about and nailing down today to make sure that you're really successful when you go out into the world and start talking to prospective members about joining your community. We're just going to bite off the first three pieces of that nine part framework and this is what they are. First up is your ideal member identifying who your community is for, getting really clear on the transition that they currently find themselves in. This is so you can create really compelling messaging to invite them in. They feel like you're taking the words right out of their mouth when you're describing your community and who it's for. Next up is defining the best year ever. What would it look like for them to go from where they are at today, not only to where they want to go, but in a 12 month container getting super specific about what those results and transformations look like for them? And third, bringing it all together with your big purpose. The big purpose. A little bit of a spoiler here. It just combines your ideal member plus your best year ever to give you that mission statement for for your network. It's better than an elevator pitch. It is directly connected to the people you serve and the results and transformations that you get them. So let's spend a little bit of time here before we get into the tactics ideal member I mentioned. It's a person who is in transition. Why a transition? Right? Why when we have problem marketing to identify the problem and provide the solution, do we focus on the transition? Well, a member of your community who currently finds themselves in transition is even more highly motivated to make a change to take you up on joining your community as one of your first 30 members. If you think about a transition like moving into retirement, moving to a new city, people are highly motivated. Let's take that example of moving to a new city to make friends, to go outside and take on new experiences. Maybe join an online community where there are people in New York seeking out connection and relationships in that city. If I'm not in transition, if I'm not moving cities, I'm going to be really comfortable, maybe sitting at home binging a TV show. I'm not likely to take you up on the compelling offer to join your community that feels focuses around a transition. A member wants to go from where they are today to that future state. So here's just a couple questions for you to knock around after today to help you identify who this person is, number one, who is going through a big change or challenge that I understand. Two, what problem is keeping them up at night? And number three, how can I help them move forward? And you're going to start pulling at the threads of uncovering a very, very specific ideal member if you can answer these questions specifically. The cool thing about the ideal member in transition is you don't have to be a full on expert yet. You just really need to understand that transition. And for some hosts, it's actually a transition that they went through in their life and, and maybe they are currently going through, but they have value to add to the member who finds themselves in the same place. All right, so that's number one ideal member. Up next is the best year ever. We've got a formula for this one too, and it's results plus memorable specifics. I've said this word specific a lot already. It's because we do need to drill down. The more specific you can get, the more compelling your messaging, your positioning. And we're going to show you how to make those invites to your first 30 members. They just sound so much better. And you'll get closer to a yes if you master the specificity here. So I mentioned the best year ever is going from where they are at today to where they are at 12 months into your their membership or being a member of your community. Here's a couple questions you can use to tease out what that best year ever looks like. Like, what can my members do a year from now that they can't do today? How will their daily life look different because of this community thinking? Specifically, is it that they wake up feeling differently that their children, their co workers, the people in their lives, their business? Something very specific is happening. They got their first 30 clients or they wake up to a tidy home. Like what does their life look like? Specifically number three, what transformations will make them say, this was the best year of my life? So the result that they're getting and the memorable specifics, like the way they wake up in the morning, build it out. Build it out super specifically. Okay, this all comes together in a big purpose. And here we're going to share just three examples of an ideal member and a best year ever packaged into this formula, which is the big purpose and the third part of the nine part framework. It's a very specific sentence and it reads like this. I or we bring together ideal member so that we can best year ever. And I want to show you this in action. Here's a couple examples. Number one, I bring together Gen Xers who want to shift to a plant based diet. There's the transition, right? They want to shift to a plant based diet. They've been thinking about it for a little while. Maybe they have tried to, you know, consult the Internet and find the next step. They've watched some videos, but they're not really sure how to do it. They need some support. Gen Xers is that human? Human in transition. So there's your ideal member so that we can experience abundant energy, mental clarity, physical strengths and free flowing joy. That's the specific best year ever. Next up, we bring together new parents on leave from their consulting careers so that we can alleviate stress of trying to do it alone, excel in our careers and thrive as parents. I like the third one because it's a fun one. I bring together experienced jugglers so that we can improve our craft, derive more satisfaction from our passion and land more gigs. So what we would like you to begin thinking about, what is this for your community, your ideal member? Really, really try to focus on that transition. What is the best year ever look like as they move through in your community towards achieving it? And what is the big purpose that comes out of that, this very specific formula. So with these foundations in mind, we are going to move forward with providing you some tactics. Before we do, we wanted to offer a quote from a close friend of Mighty Seth Godin, someone who's come onto these summits that we've hosted in the past who says people like us do stuff like this and that's really what we want. This work you're doing behind the scenes on your ideal member. Best year ever in big purpose. To feel like when you go out into the world and share your big purpose. I've said it already, but your prospective members should almost feel like you're taking the words out of their mouths and your community is making a statement that people like us, these ideal members, do stuff like this. So I mentioned this is just the first three parts of a nine part framework. There is more to building a thriving, engaged community. But these are kind of the three core principles that when you move through the other pieces of this framework, you're constantly coming back to, you're constantly improving upon and typically if something's not, you know, going the way you had hoped, it's because we have to go back to these three foundations. So just setting the stage there for a thriving and engaged community, Toper's going to take it away and guide us through the traditional marketing approach and then get into some tactics as well, for growing to 30 members.

Amazing. Thank you, Christy. Who here is intimidated by the concept of the traditional marketing approach of building an audience or running a webinar or running a summit or challenge and trying to get members that way? Yeah, exactly. So the, the, the thing about the traditional marketing approach, it is what I'd say like 90 to 99% of, of what business coaches and marketing gurus teach. But there is a better way. But first, let's start with why the traditional marketing funnel is broken and how we can perhaps try a different approach to get our first members. So we'll get to the next slide here. Awesome. So a traditional marketing funnel is all about quantity. It's a volume game. It's all about getting as many visitors, as many eyeballs as possible. And then a portion of that then becomes visitors to what, your landing page, for example, and then a portion of that then becomes actual members. And so the challenge is that there's a lot of different friction points which I'll speak to in the next slide and I'll walk through other kind of challenges that are with this funnel approach. But essentially you need a big audience in order to make this work. Right. You need as many people as possible. And also you need a big budget if you wanted to get in front of new people and run paid ads. And to be a little bit more specific around other kinds of funnels and why they're a challenge. For example, let's say you're running a masterclass or a webinar and the purpose of that webinar is to convert people over. You would have to run point people over to an opt in page and then a percentage of those people actually show up to the webinar and then a percentage of those people actually make it to the end of the webinar. And then a percentage of people actually go see the landing page of what you're actually trying to sell. And so there's a higher likelihood of failure with a lot of these approaches. And there's a lot of friction points where there tends to be drop off rates. Right. And so where you end up when taking this approach as an entrepreneur, as a creator, as a coach, is that you're in this nonstop grind and hustle of just trying to get more people through the door. But there is a better way. So what we can do is actually flip the funnel on its head. So I'll head to the next slide here. And what I mean by this is starting with 10 members. And from that 10 members going to 100 members. And from that 100 members going to a thousand members, true fans. And so what we want to do is actually turn our members into megaphones.

Right?

And just to quote Seth Godin again, you don't need a funnel, you need a megaphone. Right? So why start with 10 quality members? Right? The thing is, is that we want quality over quantity. We want to make sure that we're really focusing on a true ideal member in a transition. In a specific transition, we're really clear on their best year ever. We're really clear on the purpose of this community. And it's in that quality that we find our true believers. And we're able to also create a deeper sense of connection and intimacy which allows for future sustainable growth. And that's why it's so, so important to do the work that Christy had spoke to earlier in, in the deck of getting clear on your ideal member, getting clear on your best year ever. What does the 12 year journey look or 12 month journey look like? And getting super clear on the big purpose. So now it becomes a question of how, how do we find your first 30 members? I want to give everyone an opportunity to join me on a exercise of pulling up your phone and heading to your contact list. And if you head to your contact list, scroll all the way to the bottom and go ahead and drop the number that you see down there. So for example, I'm going to pull up my phone really quick here, go to my contact list. And I have 836 contacts. How many contacts do other people have here as well?

Looks like I have.

685. Yvonne.

204.

204. 493. 996. Wow. 1,226 by Christine. 6 hundred and one. Okay, amazing. So why am I asking you to look through your contacts? Well, we head to the next slide here. We're actually going to start with our personal network. And why do we start here? Well, it's because your network already knows, likes and trusts you. They're already warm. Right. And so it's the easiest and fastest way to build a strong foundation for your community. And so how do we reach out to our personal network? Here are the tactical steps to take. Step one is to identify 10 people who might benefit from your community. So out of the 2,987 people that Michelle has on her phone or the 2,225 people that Emily has on her phone, find 10 people that you feel really fit the mold of your ideal member. Right. And the second thing that we can do is then send them a personal message explaining your vision. And I'll go through some examples here in a second. And the third step is then to just ask for honest feedback or even asking for their participation. Hey, do you want to join? Does this sound exciting to you? And so the pro tip here is to be specific about how they'll benefit. So really speaking to that, best year ever. Right? And you can say something along the lines of, thought of you because XYZ thought of you because you're an entrepreneur. Thought of you because you love quilting. Thought of you because you're a part of the quilting community. Right. And so let's go through a couple examples in the next slide. Here's an email that Darrell had sent when he was starting his community around entrepreneurship. I'll read it out loud here, but I think that this is a great example of simplicity, but also making it very, very personal as well, while not making it super long. Right. So the subject line here is, I'd love for you to join me. The copy says, hey, Katie, I wanted to let you know that I'm starting a community for people who are wanting to start a side hustle. I thought you might be interested in joining because I know that you've been wanting to find a way to build a bridge between your job and owning a business. I'm inviting 10 people to start the community with me and would like for you to join. So just listen to how casual that is and how casual that opening is and how personal it feels as well. The second part says, everyone in this community is just getting started and will be focused on the first steps of building the type of side hustle that could turn into a successful business. So speaking to exactly what they're going to be doing together, which is awesome. And then the last part, third part of this email, it says the community is only $49 a month, and we will be meeting once a week to share resources and support for each other. I feel confident that. Confident that this community will be exactly what you need to finally start earning money from your side hustle. Is this something that you're interested in? If so, just hit reply and let me know. All the best, Darrel. So share the price. Made it feel really personal. Added a little sense of also exclusivity by mentioning the number of people that he's inviting into this community. So when you receive this as a potential member, there's this sense of, oh, he thought of me. That's really cool. And again, there was also him in the email speaking to what they were doing together, sharing resources, how they're going to support each other, and exactly how they'll be achieving the best year ever together. In the next slide, we have a text message, which is just a condensed version, but just wanted to share with you just how simple this can be and how we're not driving people to a landing page, we're not driving people to a super long sales letter. We're being very intentional and very simple about how we reach out to people. And so it says here, hey, Claire, I'm going to bring together a small community of 10 business owners and I immediately thought of you. We'll focus on how to grow our brick and mortar business for wider profit margins. The experience will be $79 a month and include weekly group coaching and resources. Is this something that you'd be interested in?

Yeah. And we're getting some questions in the chat too, like email, phone call, video. I say spread this message in whatever ways feel really organic, specifically the ways that you would traditionally reach out to that type of person. Do they need a little bit more detail? And email, has it been a while since you've chatted? Are you speaking to them often? I think any of those vehicles mentioned, email, phone call, video, we've got like, text message, are completely viable and you should leverage them to start building up this, like, list of first 10. And let's not have choosing the channel or how you reach out to them stand in the way of actually taking action. Pick the one that's easiest and might make the most sense for you and that person. Alrighty. So we've got our first 10 members. We've leveraged some of the strategies that Toper was speaking to. You've opened your contacts list and hopefully your mind is starting to open to the fact that you actually have more people in your personal network than you think. So even if you have a contact list of people who you feel like, well, they wouldn't be perfect for my offer or I don't think they're. They're the right set of people for me. Remember, it can be about getting feedback or it can be about directly inviting them. All lead to nailing down your first 10 members. We're not focusing on filling up a huge bulky bucket at the top of the funnel of 1000 just to end up with 10 members at the bottom. So remember too that you can access audiences you have elsewhere. So even if you have a couple people on, maybe have an Instagram for your business, but there's like 30 people that are always coming through with reactions or comments. That's a viable platform too. Although we're not going out in the traditional marketing sense and filling a funnel with paid leads or organic leads from social media, you still might be able to pick up a couple leads from your personal network on LinkedIn, on Instagram, wherever you you show up. So let's not discount those two. But you have a personal network. They're in your phone, they might be in your Instagram dms. You might have, you know, been connected with them on LinkedIn through a colleague. You have a personal network, regardless of what you're thinking. So then it becomes like, what's the next step? Finding your next 20 members. This is where the power of referrals come into play. And this is the process of turning your members into advocates. And if you're doing the math, this is going to get us to our first 30 members. Why referrals? Number one, members who naturally, sorry, members will naturally want to share when they experience transformation end results. So you invite them in. You're on that quest of achieving the best year ever over the course of 12 months. They're not only seeing transformation and results at month 12, that's starting week over week, especially using the Mighty Networks framework, they will want to talk to people about the experience that they're having. Right. When you love a restaurant, you had an incredible experience the first time you went there, you want to tell everybody about it. Number two, make it easy and rewarding for them to bring other people into the experience. And we're going to show you a couple examples of exactly how to do this. But remember, at the core, people want to tell other people about the things that they they love and enjoy. So what does this actually look like? How can you actually encourage referrals? Two things, direct ask, do you know someone who would love this? And providing incentives. I alluded to this. These could be things like free months, exclusive content, or a bonus or recognition inside of the actual community. Here's an example of how you could reach out to someone with an incentive and an ask to invite others into the community. So let's take a read here. The message says, hey Jane, I'm very glad you're a part of my community. It's been fun to have you part of our founding members. I'm curious if you might know anyone else who would be a good fit. If you do, would you let them know? I'm willing to give you one month free for everyone who you refer into the community. Thanks. It's simple. It's genuine. It's also direct. It offers a value exchange. And it assumes if somebody loves being part of the community and it's been equally as fun for that person, that they're going to want to make the invitation and bring others in. The math behind 30 members is also something to keep in mind. Your impact. There's a calculation behind it. There is a real impact on your revenue that you could bring in in order to improve upon the experience in order to improve upon the impact that you have. And we'd like just to spend a few minutes looking at a simple scenario for what it could look like as you start to bring in 30 members to a paid experience. So the average price on Mighty is $48 a month. That's what people are charging for their membership offers for their communities. On mighty, your first 30 members at $48, would be $1,440 per month. And when you look at that over the course of providing your members their best year ever, that shakes out to just over $17,000 a year. What impact do you think you could have? If this is how your math shakes out, how could you pour back into your community in your members and then start to grow your 30 members to 300 to 3,000, growing your impact all along the way? So, something to think about. It might be fun to take a pause here and talk a little bit about starting your community for the first time. Because Toper, something we also see is that people who are new and are just getting started know they want to charge for something, know they're going to launch something paid, but make the mistake of offering it free first. And this happens enough that I think it's important to talk about with this group. And ultimately, what do you think it comes down to? If I want to offer a paid community, and I'm feeling like in order to get this first group of 30, I really have to start by offering it for free. What's coming up there for our hosts?

Yeah, I think there's a fear of pricing what they're worth. I think there's a misconception of they're not offering a lot of enough value. But the thing that we see at Mighty is people pay attention to what they pay for. Right. So people, people, your members need a little bit of skin in the game in order to really, truly show up to engage. And that engagement leads to being able to achieve that best year ever. So it's. There's a relationship there between pricing and charging a price and the ability for your members to get the Results that are being promised. And so if anything, we need to charge.

Absolutely. And we see it all the time that it's very difficult to walk it back. Right. It's very difficult to walk it back from. You wanted to like you want to launch a paid offer, but you've started free. And what I mean by walking it back is start charging for something that you didn't initially charge for at first. How do you then go back to the founding members in your community and say, hey, I'm going to start charging for this? That is tricky. That is tricky. Even if you start charging at a price that you know won't be the final price or the optimal or ideal price, it's easy to increase prices. It's really difficult to start charging after you started free for the exact same or a very similar experience. But this is how some of the math could shake out for you in your community, especially if you start charging from the beginning if your offer is ultimately going to be paid. Alrighty. Here's a little bit about why this entire approach works. And the approach that we're speaking to of course is starting with your personal network and growing up to your first 10 members and using the power of referrals. Topra, do you want to walk us through this?

Yeah, totally. So it works because again, it's personal. Right. We're inviting people directly through or through referrals, which shows a sense of care and thoughtfulness. Right. And the second reason is that small wins lead to big growth. Right. A few engaged core members really create that sense of momentum and that self fulfilling prophecy of engagement. They're role modeling engagement beyond yourself as the host. And the third reason is that relationships build loyalty. Right. Communities grow through trust, not marketing.

Yeah. And I'm seeing a lot of things coming up in the chat here for people as well. I saw Angela say I didn't believe this, so like charging at first would be easier when I started, but it is true and that you, Angela, are charging now. So I'm seeing that is resonating with people. Who's feeling ready to send some personal messages. I would love just to see in the chat some reactions. Drop us a yes if you're feeling like this is a little bit more doable than you thought. Who's ready to throw the traditional marketing approach out the window? I'd love just to see some reactions. Tia says me in capital letters.

Shantae said yes. Awesome.

Communities grow through trust, not marketing. That's a really interesting one.

And again, we're, we're not necessarily Blasting our entire contact list or everyone that we know. We're being very intentional about who we're reaching out, where we feel that we can truly support someone and serve them. And we truly feel that they are the perfect fit of being that ideal member in our. In the transition that we're supporting.

Yeah. Having that personal detail to speak to as well. I thought of you because. Or I'm asking for your feedback on the community. I want to start because is really important. And that goes back to that intentionality.

And if you wanted to really warm up a relationship first before going in for the ask, because maybe you haven't connected to this person in a long time. I love using a framework called rca. So that's recognize, compliment, ask a question. So recognize something on their profile. Like, hey, I just saw that you had a dog. That's amazing. And maybe you're running a dog community, for example, which we do have a couple of those at Mighty, by the way, that are very successful and really cool niche. But yeah, recognize something that you see in their profile, maybe in their bio, maybe in their stories, something that they saw recently, like something. Comment on something and really do it from a place of truly recognizing it. And you can compliment. That's the C part of the RCA framework is then complementing it. And that's kind of your hook into the conversation. And from there you can ask a question. How are you doing? How has life been? How's your dog?

Are you still xyz?

Yeah, exactly. Exactly. But that can be a great way to kind of warm up the relationship before then going for the ask. If you feel that the request or the conversation or the initial message of, hey, will you join my community? Might be a little bit random. Right. So just kind of like get a sense for. Okay, I've stayed connected to this person. We're like, they're truly a friend or family and they know me and therefore I can, you know, state what I am asking for and what I'm building versus Okay, I haven't connected to this person in a long time. So I'll use the RCA framework to warm up the relationship and two or three messages and I can make the ask. So read the room a little bit.

Yeah. And I love to see how this is resonating with all of you. Christie, you say I emailed a select audience and had a link to a waitlist to join once the community doors are open. Felt great to see there's interest without asking to pay directly first. Just have that wait list. That's a great way to validate as well, to go out and test the waters. Vanessa says, I feel like I can do this now without being too pushy or salesy. And that is a word. Salesy. I don't know if according to the dictionary, but definitely according to the traditional marketing approach. Victoria, I saw that you said, like, making them a community together was a question you were asking as Topor was walking through that framework to kind of warm up the audience. Absolutely. I think you're cobbling together what that community can look like in terms of who were the first 10 people in the room who are like the next 20 in total of 30 TIA offers. You can ask the first group to be the founding members. Absolutely. We saw that in the email example, the invite that Darryl made to his audience. Like, I want you to be one of first 10 founding members. It can be really, really fun to have them shape what the offer continues to look like. You might learn things about your ideal member that you didn't understand as deeply before. And anybody who might be thinking, oh, but then there'd only be 10 people. Like, is that really compelling for people to come in? And Toper, to add to our list of, you know, start paid if you want it to be paid. I think the second thing would be work on your mindset around bringing in a few people first. Because the reality is, is that is an amazing benefit to any one of those people who might be the first 10 or the first 30. They're going to get more time with you. They're going to get more time with each other. They're going to be able to build deeper relationships, and it will become a very special space and a very special opportunity. Something that is actually a huge, huge positive and not at all, maybe a negative. Like the voice in the back of your head might be saying, oh, you know, I can only bring people into this community if it feels like it's 500 people and flourishing, it can be flourishing just at 10. And, you know, all fires begin with a single spark. However you want to think about it, it's. It's really important to have that mindset going into it as well. Alrighty. We'll have some time to answer some questions at the end, so. But let's land this plane. So here are the key takeaways. Number one, start with your network, right? Your personal network, the people in your contacts and your phone, the people who are maybe most active and speak to you directly on some social media channels. Number two, referrals can create momentum. Okay, that's the very next follow on step asking for referrals. Three, focus on members. I mentioned starting with a small group and how great it can be. Focus on them. Even better, focus on connecting them with each other and see what happens when you begin to be the host of a network where people magic is alive. Number four, create a member led culture. Allow the members to be voices inside of the community. Asking them, inviting them in in the ways that we've suggested, inviting them to make referrals and offer them bonuses in the way that we've suggested and starting to connect them to each other is going to create a really strong fabric and an amazing foundation. And then number five, just remember that small wins lead to big growth. Today is all about starting with the first 10 to 30 members. It's not about how to fill your funnel at the top with the first 1,000 set of eyeballs only to have two to people at the bottom with their eyes still open. Small wins and the steps you take today will lead to really, really big growth. We see it all the time, Tober. You know, we mentioned the people who we worked with who are making millions of dollars through their community offers. But we've also talked today and have worked with a lot of people who have started from the ground up.

Yeah, who all started with personal outreach, like Martinez for example on day one, like he shared his story, right. Wanted to do an offline race, created 40 medals and then those members recruited more members and it just became this really amazing community that it is today two years, three years later. Rick Lewis is another really great example. He actually came like he was an audience member of I think our second People Magic Summit creator Summit that happened six or seven months ago and he implemented all of the strategies that we talked about today. So like the personal outreach, the ideal member, the best year ever, the big purpose, building the foundation of your community. And within I believe 60 days he was able to have 30 members all paying 2k a year. So that's another kind of interesting approach is charging an annual rate right off the bat to get your initial members in and then you co create the year together. But all this to say that this, everything that we're talking about really leads to real results. You know, everything that we see on the screen here from people from Ashley who had 206 people join her free challenge as a lead into her community. And then we have Lisa who was able to onboard 50 new members into a paid 28 day challenge to Sarah who was able to speak to seven of members of her free community to really get that ideal Member research going to Sven, who's connecting with other hosts and understanding their perspectives and experiences through this experience. So there's a lot of really cool things that can happen when you implement these strategies. So what's the action plan? Just to recap, recap everything that we've talked about to put it into like a tactical step by step. Here's what you do is step one, do the work that Christy spoke to of getting clear on your ideal member in a transition. Reminder. Transition equals someone is in a very high pain point in their life and are seeking out a solution. So transitions are where we really want to focus on. Then you want to map out the best year ever. So come, you know, June 26, 2025 to June 26, 2026. In that 12 month period, what would they have achieved and who would they have become as a result of joining your membership? And then from there mapping out your big purpose and the six other pillars of our people, magic profits, the monthly themes with the calendar, member onboarding, your offer, your price, all of that stuff. Your second step is to go through your contact list. We have some really popular people in the chat with like over 3,000, 4,000 people in their contact list. So you definitely win the popularity contest. But you want to go through that and be very intentional about Your, your, your 10 people that you're going to outreach to. And this is what's different between, because I saw someone in the chat mention, is this approach similar to like a multi level marketing scheme or a pyramid scheme? And the difference between that and this approach is that with that approach you're, you're, you're the, the priority is revenue. The priorities like seeing people as numbers and just getting as many people to the door and reaching out to everyone versus what we're teaching here is one, being in service by, you know, making sure that you're building something that is super impactful. So getting through the nine pillars. But two, being very specific and personal and selective about who you reach out to. Number three, I want you to draft your personal outreach messages, right? And so use the RCA framework. Recognize, compliment, ask a question if you need to warm up the relationship more or if you already have a super warm relationship, you've spoken to this person in the last year, then you could just go straight and go into texting or voice messaging or emailing or calling to make that ask. So that's number four, which is facilitating that early outreach to those 10 people. And then number five is prepare for momentum. So what I mean by this is get the Network ready. Build the spaces, the navigation. You saw Tom and Jane's presentation earlier. Look how powerful a mighty network can be in terms of building it out and just how beautiful it can look like. So start to build and plant the seeds of your network by building the spaces, the polls, the questions, the engagement plan that you're going to have once people start getting inside to start building the the fruits of a very beautiful member experience. So much so that they start to recruit and ask their network and their community into your membership.

I love this and I hope what everyone can take away from this is these are steps that are easy for you to move towards. And I would say if you're feeling like you're getting in your own head, if any of those scripts are coming up a bit like I don't know who's going to say yes to this, like, let's just get started. Let's get started. And I loved the framework that Toper offered of like the rca. We're going to hang out with you for a little bit more, but we want to say thank you. We want to say thank you to everybody who's come and contributed your ideas in the chat, brought your thoughtful questions. This is more of a thank you also for being open to a different way in a different approach. An approach that puts people at the center, who puts your members at the center. And when we talk about things like flipping the funnel, I know it goes against a lot of what you hear out there in the world about funnels, about marketing, about audience creation. You know, we hear, you know, get your first 100 subs or sorry, 1000 subscribers, like first when you're operating in community to move towards that goal, you can start from 1 to 2 to 10 to 30. And I'm hoping that's what you're all walking away from this understanding that that's that's possible. Let me just stop my share and I'd love to just take a peek through the chat in the next five minutes or so and see if there's anything that Toper and I could offer some additional perspective on. And Toper, let me know if anything have also been catching your eye.

There's a really great question by Vanessa Ray. I'll read it out loud. Would you ever suggest starting with 10 members at a founding member cost that is slightly lower and use that as an incentive AKA their cost doesn't increase, then those people may be motivated to bring more people in. What are our thoughts on that?

That's a good one.

And then I can pass the Mic over to you that that is definitely a tactic for sure. Having a founding member rate that is slightly more affordable than what the public launch would be. So that's definitely a tactic. I also love exploring. Instead of discounting the price, what could be bonuses that you include, maybe there's like a bonus call or even a bonus space that the rest of the community doesn't get when it, when, when it's time for that public launch where they get maybe bonus polls and questions or bonus resources that are in there. The list can go on. So I think what I'm trying to say is try and skew a little bit more to how can I add more value instead of discount a price that way? Because again, people pay attention to what they pay for and the more that a price costs, the more engaged that they are. And the more engaged that they are, the more likely they will get the results of your membership. Kristi, anything to add to that?

I don't think so. I think you hit the nail on the head. It's important to remember that a special price can be an incentive, but there's also other incentives as well. So I'm a big fan of bonuses. You can also continue to do this as maybe you are inviting more members into your community. It's a great start scaling strategy as well. So you have your first 30 members, they're your founding members, they came in, maybe they got a particular price or a bonus. But the next time you kind of access your personal network, maybe it's growing. Once you ask people to make those referrals, there's a, another bonus, a different type of incentive for people to come into the community. So it can work as you scale up the number of members in your community as well.

Yeah.

Lori C. Has another really great question. This one has a lot of thumbs up emoji reaction. So it's a, a lot of people want to hear the answer to this one. How much community content, et cetera, should you have in place before inviting your first 10 members?

I think this one actually got some responses as well. And I think if I'm not wrong, one of the responses was you could actually start with a weekly call and that is like your initial, initial content. Um, there's a lot you can do in a mighty network to make members feel at home before you start putting a whole bunch of content in there. And I think Tober, you and I in our work with hosts, we're more open to understanding like what resonates rather than giving too, too much upfront and what you're not seeing everyone after those. Like three parts of the framework that we talked about are how you then add in a monthly theme, you add in a weekly calendar, and then you begin to leverage polls and question. So that is actually the content for anyone who will join us in the challenge. You'll kind of see us pull and tease out those other layers of the framework. So we would just start with a really strong monthly theme. What is the first month of the community going to be about? That kind of sets the stage for the focus. Then think about the things that you want to happen weekly. Do you want to gather everyone in a live setting, like a live group call? What could the topic related to the monthly theme be or like the intention for that call? How could it help members move through results and transformations in that container? Then how can you leverage a poll or a question each week? This is a native feature inside of Mighty that you can use and it happens to be one of the strongest levers that you can pull for instant engagement. That then evolves into member to member connections as they answer the question, as they see how others answered the question, suddenly you have comments happening and all we've done is offer them one opportunity to come together live. Each week we have a polling question that is all in the container of a monthly theme, which gives purpose. It can even give a little bit of urgency to bring people in. Going back to that initial ask Darrell's draft email. Hey Christie, I thought of you because of this reason I'm starting this community. It's going to be this price and in July when we kick things off, we're going to be talking about this. We're going to have once a week this call where we all come together to talk about it and we'll be reflecting. That's maybe like the polling question aspect on this topic as we move through the month. So that's kind of what comes to mind for me in terms of content. You can make the space and the network look beautiful with all of the options that, you know, Mighty provides, but then it's really just your first month of content and maybe you give them a preview into what month two and month three is going to be like, just what the monthly theme is, but you don't necessarily need to understand 100% of how you're going to deliver on that. I would love for you to keep some room as well to workshop. And workshopping here at Mighty is experimenting with different tactics. And Toper, I'm curious what you might add to that.

Yeah, don't Be afraid to build as you go. I think the, the cool thing about having a community is that it gives you a lot of grace and space to really co create and understand your members as you're building the membership. And so you have your core things that you do need to have down, like a good member onboarding, which is typically start here, how to make the most of your membership. Here's your first couple steps. You know, complete your welcome checklist, suggest you notifications, stuff like that. Then there's also the monthly theme and the weekly calendar and the polls and questions. But then outside of that, don't, don't get caught up in trying to fill in your membership with more content because the number one reason that members disengage or cancel a membership is that overwhelmed piece. So be fluid, but then have a little bit of structure and co create and gather feedback early. Like really speak to your members, really listen. And when you're doing your founding member launch, have systems in place where you, you know, once a quarter ask for feedback, whether that's a survey or a dedicated call. So that way you can continue to evolve the experience and get it to a place that feels somewhat final before going for your public launch.

Amazing. I'm just looking through the chat here, we can maybe tackle one more question. We have a, we have a question here about bringing over a Facebook group and how we might apply some of these strategies to bring people in a Facebook group over. I think the one thing I just want to impart is that make sure that the offer you're making to people in the Facebook group goes deeper than what is done in the Facebook group. Together we have people coming over from Facebook groups all the time and into mighty. And the best way to bring them over is with a compelling offer for something that allows those same members in that Facebook group to go deeper. I think you can keep the offer really genuine. You could even leverage messaging these people directly. You could also just kind of bite off the first 10 most highly engaged members in that Facebook group. Just try it on them first. See if you can, you know, build from those first 10 and potentially then refine like the offer, like the offer being what you're offering them in that initial message and then sort of take it to the entire Facebook group. We could talk about like migration strategies for bringing people over from Facebook, but that is a separate workshop. But if you're thinking of applying some of these strategies to your Facebook group, I think I would start there.

I'm laughing because we have migration conversations all the time. With hosts. And that is definitely like a three hour workshop on its own. But I think the thing to kind of take away is just understanding that you have to be okay with maybe not converting all of those people in the Facebook group over to a paid offer because people in that Facebook group may not be ideal paying members. And so there's a difference between ideal members and ideal paying members. And ideal paying members look a little bit different. And it's those people that we want to serve and so just want to leave people with that thought. Some really, like, cool, tactical ways is I've seen people change a Facebook banner with like the mighty, you know, like photos of the mighty network platform saying that we're moving, adding a sense of urgency of closing down the Facebook group, commenting on some of the posts inside the Facebook group that have a lot of engagement over the years and sharing that, hey, we've moved, because then it notifies everyone that has ever commented on that single post. So it's kind of a great way to trigger notifications and then also leaning into the overall message that, hey, Facebook has a lot of noise and it's, you know, unsafe in. In many ways. There's a lot of really polarizing messages on there. And we're moving to something that is a little bit more private and exclusive, where we get to really build this together away from all of the noise. So those are some tips.

Yeah. Not underestimating that you can build your own culture in a mighty network. That's not always possible in the same way on. On social media. And I see Jane in the chat in capitals. Shut down your Facebook group. Be open to shutting it down, bringing the people over into your actual community where you could just go deeper with them and create more people magic. It has been so fun to spend the last hour with you. We are going to move into a break before Jane is back here up on stage. Thank you, thank you. Thank you so much to everyone who came out, who listened not just to this session, but to other sessions as part of the creator summit. Toper and I just love hanging out with you guys and we hope to.

Hear more success stories like Martinez and Rick's. So definitely implement everything that we talked about and hope to see you thrive and get your first 30, then to your first hundred, then to your first thousand members. So thank you for having us and thank you so much for being here.

Bye, everyone.