The InFluency Story: Turning a Love for Language into a 35K+ Member Movement

Welcome, welcome, welcome. Everyone. Shout out to the chat over there. Everyone has been phenomenal for this entire day. Our zero to a million summit. Hello. Hello, everyone. Yep. Welcome back. Welcome back. If you can hear my voice, come on back. We have a phenomenal session waiting for you. If anyone doesn't know me, my name is DJ Iyer and I'm a community strategist here at Mighty I. I hope all of you are ready for this next session. Hope you all got your lunch ready for those west coasters. Hope you've all had your breakfast and you're ready for this amazing session. So get your notebooks ready or notes app, whatever you take notes on as we, as we keep this summit going. And shout out to everyone in the chat. See you all there. If we're ready to get it going. I'm ready. So we wanted to give a little intro to our next guest as they are the founder of Influency, a thriving global community helping English learners communicate with clarity and confidence. As a trained linguist and vocal coach, she specializes in accent training and fluency development, empowering students to express themselves authentically. Do you all hear the big purpose in this little intro? You can find her on YouTube at the accents Way with Hadar and her Influencing podcast as she helps thousands overcome language barriers and build meaningful connections with worldwide. Everyone watching. Everyone in the chat, please post your favorite emoji and give a warm welcome to Hadar Shemesh.

Hello, hello, hello. Hi, dj. Yay. Hello.

Hello.

Where are the emojis? I want to see those emojis.

They're all coming. They're all coming. Hello, Hadar. How are you?

I'm good. It was like, so nice to hear that beautiful intro that you gave. It's. It's, it's kind of like to reflect. Oh, yeah, that's. That's true.

Yeah, it's beautiful because it's true, right? It's all true. Thank you so much for being here. This has been a wonderful summit so far. This session is going to be just as wonderful and we're going to learn so much from you. All day, we've been basically talking about going from zero to your $1 million community in 2025. How can you start from where you are? A lot of people in chat been talking about, I. I don't know where to start. What do I do? We've talked about just Getting your first 10 members and how none of this has to feel overwhelming at all. So being that you have grown a very, very sizable community, feel free to let us know some More as you answer my first question. But I wanted to take things back to where you started, how you started your entire community and where your origins begin. So my first question and in the chat, feel free to get your questions ready as well because they're going to learn a lot from Hadar. But I wanted to ask you what inspired you to start the influency community? Like how did you attract your first members?

Okay, so actually I started back in 2018 before I even knew about Mighty because back then it was like, you know, I. What happened was that I was creating content regularly on YouTube and I was posting a video every week and I would get reactions and comments and people would interact but something was missing. It felt very one sided. And I started building my community. I had a newsletter and I had the YouTube community and, but it wasn't like I didn't know who those people were, right? Like I saw the username and I'm like, but, but they, they, they wrote this beautiful comment and I don't know if it's a he or she or who, where they're from or. And I felt like I needed something or a way for me to interact with people. I also recognized that when it comes to learning another language, I can put out all the content in the world. It's still going to be a lot of passive learning. But my vision was to build a global community of people from all around the world who connect together, interact and actually use English to, to connect and as a byproduct their English would improve. Ultimately the idea is to connect and to recognize the possibilities that people have by communicating confidently. So I started a Facebook group. I actually, I said okay, let's do a Facebook challenge or something like that. I learned about it somewhere. I was just starting out. I didn't have an online course. I didn't, I think I just started my first online course and I wanted to do a challenge and I did a five day pronunciation challenge or fluency challenge and I called it the fluency challenge and it was, it was magical. Like the first time people started joining and then more people joined and I think we had 2,000 members back then. It was like, wow, incredible. 2,000 members within a week. And I spent, I think it was like 20 hours a day, I kid you not, just watching videos because the whole idea was for people to post videos and interact and connect and I was just like watching videos and, and getting to know people and I realized the power that this thing has. Just like being a, you have an Internet connection and the Right platform. And there you have, like you, you have the ability to connect with so many people from around the world. They started making connections with each other. And after, after the challenge was over, I told them, listen, I'm not closing this group. It was supposed to be a pop up group. I'm like, I'm, I'm. Something's happening here. I don't know what it is, but I'm not letting go. And that's how I started my community. And because of that experience, every single course or program that I've created is founded on building a strong community. Because I think it's fundamental. As far as I'm concerned, your brand is only as strong as your community. You can have the best logos and the best branding and even the best content, but your community is really, really what matters. And this is why we've been focusing so much on building a strong community. And moving to Mighty actually was a big part of it because we wanted to provide a space that is, you know, because it's Facebook group and then the course platform and like in the email and that it really creates a holistic experience for them. And, and yeah, so that's how it started.

Yes. Oh, amazing. I pulled out taking my own notes on my end, but a few things I wanted to call out of what you just said. There's. You were running a course and we can speak about your background as well because I think that there's, there's so much in building a community that you wish you had had coming up in your own, in your own journey, your own life. And that's what you ended up building for yourself. But what you called out was that running a course, there was passive learning on social media. You can put out content all you want to. There's no guarantee that people are going to actually do it. Right. And there's power in having a community to, to where people can go through your course or your community and your journey together. And then you also got the other members to recognize the power of community. Like you said, your brand is only as strong as the people in your community. And going through challenges together, going through that transformation together, there's power in that. It keeps people accountable. Community will get you further where just watching them kind of content in the silo can't take you that far. And then members starting to connect with each other. I love that that's a whole through theme that we're going to have for this entire day. Just that everyone here knows someone that can benefit from the community that they want to Build and they might know someone that can benefit from that also. And that's how you get your first 10 members. So I see people in the chat resonating with all of this. This is phenomenal. So you, you did touch on how you built a community. And can you speak more about your background? Like, where did you get this idea from? Are you talking about how you're helping English speakers and non native English speakers learn pronunciation, intonation and things of that nature? Did you have that same upbringing where you were non native and then you wanted to learn the language yourself?

Yeah, so I'm, I'm a non native speaker and I moved to New York when I was 21 and I had a strong accent. I'm originally from Tel Aviv, Israel, and people would always ask me, oh, where are you from? And what an exotic accent or. And would start having conversation about, you know, my origin rather than, you know, what's, what matters here and now. And I was really annoyed by it. Now I honor it, I respect it. But when I was 21, I wasn't too immersed. I wanted to be perceived as an American. I moved to New York, I wanted to be an actress and I started acting. In my acting school, I studied speech and pronunciation and I really worked on my American pronunciation because that was the way for me to get jobs in the US or more opportunities to work. But when I did that, I also recognized the impact it had on my confidence in English because I always felt not good as my colleagues or not as good as right. Because I had to, like, it took me a little longer and it wasn't as intuitive as it was for them and I had to work harder than anyone else. And when I started working on my pronunciation, I realized, hey, like, it does something internally that goes beyond my accent. I moved back a few years later and I was kind of like, I couldn't figure out what I wanted to do and I was managing restaurants and I kind of like left acting dream because I couldn't make it work. When after I moved back home, I was actually in a theater group in New York and. But I couldn't stay for much longer and I was like, what can I do that is connected to what I love doing? And that could also bring in some more money because I was broke and I was like, oh, I learned this pronunciation and it was like accent and it was so great. Anyway, I ended up just posting a note on a bulletin board saying pronunciation classes. And I got my first student student. And that's how it started. I, I started teaching One on one. And I taught one on one for many years. I quit my other jobs. I started building a business and I worked. I had like a local business for many years until I realized, until I accidentally posted a YouTube video and it got a lot of traction. I was like, oh, there was this thing that was back in 20, 2012. And then I saw the, the, the potential of using the Internet and using the online sphere to do what I do, but do it not just for the people who are around me. So that's how it started.

Oh. Oh, phenomenal. So just thank you so much for that. I wanted to go back and talk about how you built a community for what you wish you had had. And everyone. There are people in this chat right now that you. Maybe they have an idea, maybe they're just formulating it, but they all have a community inside of them. And some of the easiest ways to think of the idea about what your community should be is what do you wish you had? How did you have your own transformation? And how can you help others have that same transformation? Like you called out how it made you feel more confident, made you feel more stronger at work and maybe more assimilated in the ways that you want it to be. That transformation is available for everyone. Whatever your idea is, I'm looking at you chat right now. You have the ability to make your community.

Yeah, listen, any transformation that you'd like to undergo or any goal that you'd like to reach or a business to build or whatnot, it gets really lonely when you're trying to do it on your own. And when you feel lonely then or you don't have inspiration, you don't have people around you that show you that it is possible. That's why we do it. And I want to talk a little bit about the importance of community. Community in terms of leading the way. Because we work, we have a strong community, a free community, but also our course community. And we always have leaders inside of the communities. And they're volunteers, they're hosts, they're hosting conversation groups, ambassadors depending on the program and they just show the others that it's possible. But they also facilitate opportunities for conversation. But beyond that, they it the role they play and they're non natives and native speakers and they're not teachers. And that's not the purpose. The purpose is to show them that they've been where, you know, when they were before and, and now they're hosting groups and now they're doing all those things that seem almost impossible. So it's it's kind of like it's. It's easy for me to say, hey, you should do this. And you know, I've been through that. And they're like, okay, but Hadar, you're like all the way up there. And I'm. But if they see their colleagues and if they see people who are, you know, who are just one year ahead of them or six months ahead of them, it's completely different. And I want to go back to what you said. Like, I can tell you, and I look at the data and I know that when they are engaged in the community, they get. They. They're more likely to get to the finish line.

Yes.

It's. It's almost as if they feel obligated, like they don't want the others to do it and they're not. Right. Like they don't want to fall behind. So I think it's also really critical not just for speaking, because people here might say, okay, but they don't need to practice speaking. Yeah, but apart from being in the community, it's really important that they feel a part of something so they're not left out to their own brain and own habits. And, you know, and I think also a community. And I saw that you guys just released streaks today. And on my team, we were celebrating it because. Because the habit building of being a part of the community, critical also for their success. So I think that needs to be acknowledged.

Yes, yes, 100%. You talked about what we call people magic people meeting each other inside of the community, being held accountable, wanting to feel like I have to finish the course because I would let others down. We're all in this together. That's a phenomenal aspect of mighty and something where mighty shines. And then, yes, building the community for yourself, seeing that there was network effects in there and as you get people in there and we've talked about it, you can use social media as the billboard, but you get people into the community and they go through this transformation together that takes them the longer way. So this is, this is great. And this is so, so many gems that you're dropping right now. I really wanted to touch on fostering that trust and connection, talking about leaders that you would appoint. You know, every community starts to have like a. A power member or whatever it may be someone that's always like, you know, trying to drive the conversation and push the community forward. And you can those folks to help you with the community because they shape the community as well as you, the members do. But how did you go about fostering that trust and connection, especially when you work with people from different cultures, different backgrounds, different proficiencies within English and their own current language. Can you give any tips about that for some of the community members here?

Absolutely. So one of the tools that we use to create connections and for us to, to see them and to recognize like who is aligned with our values and who shows up consistently is we do foster a lot of engagement, especially through video. So people post a lot of videos and I think there is like, you get people in a different way when you see them on video, especially if it's consistent and versus just post. That's one thing. Another thing. We don't beat around the bush. Like the question. Let's say we have a challenge in our paid community where, you know, I have my. Where beyond which I have a free community, a paid community and an online course, and all of them have communities. But for my membership and like, the main reason for why I moved to Mighty, I totally lost my train of thought. What was I saying?

Connection and building that trust and connection with your videos.

Yeah. And we offer video challenges. So we ask deep questions. Like, we ask questions that like you, you get to see them. So first of all, they were willing to show up and be vulnerable. And that is already that tells a lot about them. We see how they support other members. So engagement counts. We see that they're not just, you know, like, they're there to really offer opportunities for others. And inside my membership, we have a success path. And part of the success path growing. Like going up. The success path means that you're contributing more. So it starts from an avoider to an anxious speaker, to a brave speaker, to a challenger to an influencer. Now our host. And the milestones for them to go up. The success path is to engage in the community, ending like, and then performing as hosts or signing up to be hosts, which means to host a community or to create podcasts inside the community. So actually, like, engagement is key in their success and contribution. So we see their engagement and then usually they have to apply to be hosts and then we teach them and we support them, but they also get perks. Like we have check ins with them, they get special trainings, they get bonuses, like, you know, because it's a. And they do it to improve, right? They do it because it gives them a lot of value because they don't need to learn another lesson, another grammar lesson to own English. Right. They need to be leaders in English and to feel confident. So that's just a small part of how we did it. I have different models for each community.

But yeah, oh, this is so good. Because there's some folks in there that were asking about, I can open the doors to my community. How do they keep coming back? What do I do? And you gave them purpose and progress. So people pay for progress. We talk about that here at Mighty all the time. And giving them this progress will keep them returning as they see these, like, quantifiable results. These results that they can say, a week ago, I, I didn't know how to enunciate or intonate this specific word. Some of your videos I've seen around intonation, you talk around shadowing and those kinds of things. They didn't have that vocabulary about that transformation until they came to your community. And then also wanted to touch on how you, how you also said that the leaders do by example. And then you get others members to post. This is not about content. If anyone in there is, you know, understanding, like, well, I just have to post more videos. It's member videos that are getting them to engage. This is about them posting, oh, listen to my intonation and my pronunciation of this sentence or whatever the exercise may be, and getting them to engage and then getting others inside the community to like and comment and encourage them because that's what you can do with the community. You can't do that anywhere else on the Internet in terms of social media versus owning a community. And that's a phenomenal, phenomenal point. Love that you called it out.

And I just want to point out like, that you need to monitor it. You need, like, it's really important to create a safe community. So we're very, very strict on. You can't give feedback to other members if you're not a coach. Right. You don't comment on people's English or if they're not. Like, you have to be very, very respectful because it has to be a safe space. People, People really dare to show up and speak. I know it sounds like very obvious. Okay, you go into a conversation group. What's. What's the issue? No, it's a, it's an issue for many of my members who don't open their mouth at all. Like, if they open their mouth for the first time and even turn on the camera, because that's also critical for us. And someone might make a face or be impatient or say something about like, that's it, they're not going to do it again. They're not going to feel safe and they will probably leave. So. So we have to really instill the values that we have around what it means. And people quit if they don't like it. Right. Like people who are more like, give me, you know, I don't care about mindset. I just want to be corrected. That's not my community. I'm not. This is not what I do. What I do. Right. I want to create a safe space for people to thrive, not to get feedback. They have ChatGPT for that.

There you go. There you go. It's just as important to know who your community is for as much as it is to know who it is for, not for being that. People can come in and say, I want to learn this way. That's not what this community. We have a set structure, and you can go through the structure and this community will encourage you for all that. But if you're trying to, I don't know, get to the finish line or whatever they're trying to do, this might not be the community for you. So that's a great, great point. And then also creating that vulnerable space, that safe space when people come in, that's what community is all about. Right? You want to make sure that their onboarding is obviously a magical experience. You want to make sure that when they come into the community, they feel embraced and people are welcoming them. But you also want to set those clear boundaries that, hey, we want people to get the camera on. We want people to post. We want people to engage and have this engagement and retention that lasts for a lifetime. You have to, as a community host, especially here at Mighty, you have the tools to do so, but you have to make sure that you are setting those boundaries and setting those rules, clear rules and guidelines so that everyone knows this is a safe space to learn and to progress and to transform. Because a lot of times transformation can be very vulnerable. So great, great phenomen. Phenomenal point. And then that leads me to my next question around scaling the community. We're talking about going from zero to your first ten to your next thousand. How were there any challenges that you faced in scaling the community? And if so, can you give some pointers of how to, like, navigate these challenges?

Yes, there are a lot of. Have a lot to say trying to sort out what. What to say.

Yeah.

So there is. It's easier, obviously, to create a free community. And I think it's. It's fantastic to have it. It's been fundamental for my business. Obviously, it wasn't on Mighty because we started back in 2018 on Facebook, but it doesn't matter. Like It's a community. And like I do think that, that so not going into, into the, the platform discussion yet, but I, I think it, it has been, it's like the, the best funnel you can create because you can, you. So I had, this is how it worked for me. People engage with my content, then I bring them to my newsletter and usually like I would sign up people for my community through the newsletter even if it, when, when it. And then the community where it's, it's kind of like a much deeper, better way than just being on, on the email list. So I have both because for some people like they wouldn't want to have a community but I have both for the different people and I do want people who opt in for the community because that's the type of students that I want to have in, in the future. So like it's a, it's, it's a big part of, of helping me to get the right people if that makes sense. In terms of scaling the community, I think it, it's obviously easier to, to get people into my free community, but when it comes to working on my paid community which is, it's a, it's like a 30, it's like a $37 a month membership where they get a lot of coaching and support and lessons and, and it's a lot more structured in that sense where they do get a lot of, a lot of, a lot more value. That is not just the community. I think that there are a few things that we need to take into consideration. So you mentioned onboarding, right? If you don't have a good system to onboard them, they're going to quit after one month, right? They're going to try it out for one month and that's it. So if you don't know how to handle them with care and honestly like I'm still learning every single launch we do, we like, we change something, we learn about it. Like we look at the data, we try to improve and I've been doing this for four years already with my paid community. You know, like it's really, it's so delicate and you have to really, really be careful about it because people get scared really quickly. You know, they've made the decision to join but that doesn't guarantee that they're going to stay even if they're the perfect fit. So onboarding is huge. And then the second thing is making sure they stay. So monitoring the churn rate or the retention rate which also like for anyone this is something that we need to take into consideration. And I guess that is the big thing that drives us when, when it comes to scaling. Because to tell you the truth, I kept the community, the paid community, very, very small. And I deliberately did not launch it from a near. So once or twice a year, but that's it. Like open, like open registration until I figured out how to increase my retention rate and how to create the best onboarding experience. Like, I really did not want to bring in a thousand people because I can. If I, you know, if I promote it with it, like with the right offer and the pricing and the promotion, I can do it. But I didn't want to because I knew that I'm not going to be able to keep them. And only now, after three, four years of doing it, I feel like I found the right balance of everything that that allows me to scale. And now I'm more confident in bringing hundreds of people each time we launch because we have the infrastructure and the strategy to do that.

Got it, Got it. Okay. So many points. The knowing that the offer was good led you to opening up once you understood retention rate and all that stuff. And I do want to get back to that and also talk about monetization, which you just spoke about, because I think some folks here feel overwhelmed at pricing, you know, this transformation that they're offering to people. So we can definitely give some insights into that. And. But you had mentioned that social media probably brought people in the newsletter you were converting people in and then you made sure that their onboarding was this place that was fastest time to value. They saw whatever the offering was, they understood that, hey, this is where I need to be. This is where my people are, this is where my tribe is going back to Seth Godin earlier, but basically understanding that the knowing that their onboarding experience is super, super crucial to making sure that they stay inside the community. I want everyone to take that as a note. Really, really great point that Hadar brought up is that knowing that your onboarding, if it doesn't make sense to them, if they are worried or don't understand the value immediately as soon as they get in, or if they're not embraced by the community and that's where people get nervous, that's where people get scared or that's when people feel like this is just.

They avoid.

They just avoid.

Yeah. And then they realize that they have they paid for something that I haven't been using or even if it's a free community. Yeah.

Yes, exactly. Free, paid, whatever it may be. People don't come to just hang out and you don't want that in your community either. You want people to go through this transformation and they can use that as their place to meet their next best friend, their next mentor or mentee, whatever it may be. But you want to make sure that you're onboarding. You have to nail the onboarding experience, make sure it's as magical as possible and bringing people in. So love that. Great, great, great point. Going back to how you figured out for retention rate, can you speak, I know this is probably more subjective to each community as it is, but can you maybe give some tips around figuring out how retention rates started to scale and grow or any tips that some people use in their communities?

So first of all they have, you have to teach them how to build the habit of use being in your community, right? That is the first thing because it's like you have to the mindset and the, and just build a habit. So give them the training that they need to build a habit or incorporate it into the onboarding experience. That is, that's the first thing. And I think that another thing is, is really like the feeling that they are the fomo, right? Like feeling like they're missing out, feeling like there are all these things that they're not taking, they're not taking advantage of what's out there. So again, like this is something that I did got like in 2020, I created like an incredible membership for, for teachers. It was so good, but it was, it was a lot of content and it killed me. Like it. I did not sleep because I was creating content and I felt like I needed to do a lot for them to stay in the community which ended up, you know, not being the case. They weren't using it because it was too much. They got like overwhelmed. They felt behind and that's it. And I did scale back like I dialed it down and people still stayed right like, and people engaged more. So I. That's the big thing. Like you do not have to put in a lot of content. It's not necessarily good. Also one of the things. So again like it's multi layered and I think that like so not a lot of content. Make sure that they know how to engage in with the community so it's clear, right? Like it's accessible. Because if they have to work hard to figure out how to connect with people, then again they're going to stay behind, they're going to stay as lurkers for a long time and we want to move them from just like being the lurker and to the observer, to someone that engages. And whether it's the platform or, you know, the team or the hosts or someone like, is pushing them to take action, that needs to happen. Like, we need to get them from passive to active really quickly, because then they're more likely to take more action and participate more. You know, I work. I. I have a global audience. So for us, a big issue is always the time zones, because we do have live sessions with coaches and we have conversation groups. So that is also something that needs to be like. We have to be very sensitive to needs of people. And because sometimes they're like, oh, I don't have any live classes available at my time zone. I don't want to stay. So we have to explain the value of watching replays, of just interacting after. That's another thing. And this is something that we started incorporating since we switched to mydin, that has helped us increase our retention rate. And that is the monthly themes. I know that you guys talk about it because it moved from being repetitive content of, like, every month. It's the same now. Each lesson was incredible, and the content was fantastic. But for people who have been with us for six months or one year, we've had students that have been with us for three years. Sometimes they need something fresh, and you don't necessarily want to create something new every single month. So the themes really helped us in kind of like giving a new perspective to the content that we share every month. So that has. That along with, you know, other things that we changed, and including moving to the platform has helped us. Helped us increase the retention rate from. It was between 89% or 90% per month, and now it's like 92%. And that's like, you know, dozens of students every month. So it's. It's. It's pretty significant. And that's our goal, like 92 to 95% retention rate.

Got it, got it. Okay. All right. For anyone that is starting their community, some people just joined and signed up for our. For our offer that we have today. These are great, great points to call out, is that retention is not about content. Content not only became, you know, too much to consume for the members that you had, but also too much to create on your end also. Right?

Yeah.

That's not the game that we're in. We're not trying to do the whole content hamster wheel. We're trying to give them value. We're trying to give them that transformation. So, great, great, great call out. And then getting people from lurkers and observers to engagers. That's the key of doing that. And that can start from the. I hope everyone's connecting the dots, how we're talking about this, the welcome experience, the magical onboarding experience that they can have can lead with a introduction post to get them comfortable with posting inside the community and letting people comment, maybe directing them to comment on some other post that has already been there. That's how you slowly get not. And again to your point, it's very imperative as soon as they get in to not make them feel like the lurker. Make them feel like the engager as soon as they get in. Great, great points. Yeah, this is, this is phenomenal. I hope everyone's taking notes. I know that I am on my side. And then monthly themes we also talked about which we can circle back to also. But you did talk about how you figured out your monetization, that it was for your paid offering. And can you talk about how you decided 1 what to painful point. Yes. And this is a lot for a lot of people and we're trying to take the overwhelming feeling out of it.

Yeah, yeah. So listen, I have, I have a, my signature program that is not a membership. We do have like a strong community but it's three months a year, once or twice a year. Right. But it's for three months. That's my high ticket offer and I wanted to make my, my work and I wanted to make it possible for people to work with me for, for less. Not every like I have people from all around the world. I have a lot of free content. I have free community. I do offer a lot of free content even on Mighty for, for like there's a free section for people who just want to engage with my content and with each other. But so I, I even though we do invest a lot of, you know, I've been doing this for four years so it's very elaborate. I did not start like this. I want to tell you how I started my beyond membership by the way because I think it's going to inspire people. But, but, but yeah, I think when it comes to again I lost my train of thought. I don't know what's going on because I'm thinking about so many, many things. I'll remember it in a second.

There's a lot of things that we can talk about.

Yeah, I'll tell you, I'll tell you about Beyond. Oh the offer. So I wanted to, to do a low ticket offer and, and I figured and I haven't raised my prices only until recently but it was like I figured that 29 is a number that I can, I feel comfortable with and we do offer a lot of, of stuff for people. And what I wanted to say is we've been doing it for a long time so I can. But we didn't start this way. And, and that's what I do. And I do. We used to do an annual sign up so they get two months free. And, and now I do six months. And I noticed that people sign up quick. Like we have more people signing up for six months than the annual plan because it's an easier. Yes. And also. And once they're there for six months, to me I feel like it's going to be an easiest to continue for another six months then from nothing to one year. So that has also improved signup rates and the offer was better. So now it's $37 a month. But if you sign up for six months you get. It's 31. Which is still to me like I go for volume with this membership rather than, you know, like a higher price that for that I have my other program. But for beyond. It's really like my passion project. It's not even about, you know, it's, it's. This is not the main source of income for, for the company because we love it so much. So two things. One is because our community is a global community and we had two annual meetups, one in New York and one in Barcelona. I moved to Barcelona a year ago and after I moved I was like, let's do a community meetup. We had 100 people from my members from my community come to Barcelona for one day. And let me tell, okay, let me tell you this. It was unbelievable. The moment they all came, they hung out. They didn't leave each other for the full three days that they were there. We kept getting photos from this group and that group and we had a, a team of the Barcelona students who helped organize things outside of the event. I, I rented a place for a full day. It was unbelievable. And, and they were like best friends. And he said some of their most incredible relationship. Their closest friends are from the community and they saw them for the first time in our meetup. So it's like, what else do you need? You know, I was there, I was so overwhelmed. I needed to take a week off after because I just couldn't handle the whole, all the emotions.

That's.

But really like that's possible because these are not just like avatars that you see, see that buy your course and and that's it. Like, you know, it's such a strong sense of purpose for us as creators because I think that all of us, like impact is a huge part of why we do what we do. Right. And, and impact is not like sometimes, yeah, you can see the money coming in, but it's not enough. You want to see what your work means in the world and you, you get to see that even more with a community.

Yeah, yeah, 100%. You're not going to get that kind of communal, pun intended feeling from your members in a comment thread on social media. And you even call this out that like you can give away the free content all you want to, but inside the community, give them the offering that is worth your time, worth theirs, and enough that people can feel that there's value here. That's a great way of putting that for people that are wondering how to price their, their communities. So yeah, don't worry about the free offerings and free content. You can do all that outside of your community. Your community should be home based for those that are willing to pay attention to what they pay for and invest in themselves for the transformation that you're offering. I love that. That's a great, great call out.

And I think when it comes to offers, like, you don't always get it right. People get short. I think this is something that people are like, I don't know how much to charge and then they postpone the decision and then they don't do it. It's just like decide on a number and then change it. And that like I went up, I went down a little bit. I did all the things you're not supposed to do. I'm fine. I have a great community. It's profitable, right? Like sometimes you make mistakes, pricing mistakes, but it's like you'll, you'll learn what's the right offer for your audience once you put it out there, right? Like, you just see, you see people sign up people, you know, it's easier for you to get people to join. Great. Like that means that you, you, you nail the offer. Not maybe you can change it next time offer bonuses after, after a plan. But it's just, you just got to do it. And going back to how I started beyond, I, I, I had only my, I only had my signature program and my free community. And at the end of the program we just like the community was so strong in one of the programs and I was like, we can't. It was right at the beginning of COVID and people were so thirsty to Human connection. And I said like, I can't just close the membership because we. Or close the, the community because the course ends. So within one week I'm like, I'm going to open a membership. I'm going to. I opened a Facebook group. I created a plan, I outlined something. One week I took one of my students who was, she was like giving feedback a little bit because she, she became like a mentor. I was like, okay, I'm hiring you to manage, to coordinate this community and to manage this community. She's with me until this day. Her name is Yelena. She's like, she's, yeah, she's a part of the product team and customer success. And she was like, okay, what do we need to do? And within one week we, I think enrolled 60 people. And that was the beginning.

Wow. See it starts, it started with Yelena. Shout out to all the Yelenas in the world that you all in the chat will find as you open your community. And that's a great point that you add is that don't let perfection be the enemy of just getting started. Don't let you know I have to nail this price. Exactly. You can always change things, especially with mighty as well. You don't need to know how to code.

You.

You can change spaces as you want to. You can move things into different collections. Don't let perfection stop you from just getting started. That's the whole point of this entire summit and I hope everyone takes that away. Great, great point. I'm so appreciative and thank you so much for letting us know how beyond started because you can be as scrappy as possible. You did it in one week and you got your 60 members. Everyone here knows one person that is their future, Yelena. And then they can get their 10 members. So that's, that's phenomenal.

And I'm going to tell you one more thing because now I have a business with 10 full time employees. Most of them are from my community, just, just for everyone to understand. So like I've, I was able to scale. How did I scale with a team? How did I get the team from the community? Because when you see someone showing up and shining in the community, you're like, I, maybe they don't have the skills. I'll teach them what they need to know. But the values are there. They're good people. They know the place. They, they love people. I know sometimes they say, don't hire from the community. I call bs. I have a great, great, great, great team that I love and most of them are from, from my community.

Amazing. Yeah, that's the goal. That's what everyone should want here. That a testimony to your community. They ended up realizing the value and the offering and the transformation that you can give to other people. They saw the value and they joined the team. That's what you want from all of your members and that's a great, great call out. Jane in the chat also mentioned that you'll get ideas from your community. So it's not just, you know, get started, it's invite people to get feedback because you may start with, you know, ABC and then they give you def. And then they start figuring out more and more as you start to talk with your community, they start engaging and then that flag will start. So that's a great, great point and thank you. Jane in the chat. This is phenomenal. This is okay, we again, we have so many things that we can cover. I'm trying to think of like the most tangible tactical strategies that we can give to, to everyone in here that is just starting their community. Some of them start today, maybe even from the talk that we're having right now. Do you. Being that your community was about learning, it was about, you know, getting people to feel vulnerable, admitting that they don't know. And that's a tough thing in its own right. Do you have strategies about what helped keep your members engaged in their learning journey?

Yeah, okay, many. But first of all, we do have engage like we do have daily posts. Again I have a team that wasn't always the case but we have like it's, they get checklists at the beginning of the week with you know, what's their plan for today. There are a lot of like there are three, four conversation groups every single day that they can just come in. And again it's really easy with the events on Mighty and, and people can see it in their time zone. So we, we have conversation groups, we have, we do the emails, they have daily sprints. It's kind of like just come in and do the 10 minute drill. Like do something small in the community. They need to know one thing that will take them 10 minutes and then they're more likely to do it rather than just open the app and be like okay, what do I do now? So we're very focused on what they need to do every single day and we do it with a 10 minute. It's like a pronunciation sprint. It's like an exercise that they do but once they're there they're already okay in the groove of learning or Even if they just do that, they feel accomplished and then they're like, they say a lot of them just stay for the sprints because it's, it's, it, it's an easy, it's the low hanging fruit, right? Like it's an easy engagement that, that is clear. They know where it's at on the app and that's it. So I think that, and we do check ins after two weeks. So when we see that people don't engage or log in after two weeks, we send them an email, yell them an email with video ask. We're like, hey, what's going on? Do you need help? Here's like here's a calendly link if you want to schedule. We can help you out. Understand a lot of people are not tech savvy. It's their first online course that they've joined. So a lot of them just need to a little bit of hand holding and be like this, you're in the right place. So we do do that and I just hired a community manager who is, is really there just to engage, answer to comments, make sure that interview people join conversation groups just to hang out with the community and kind of like tell us what they need, what they don't need. We serve. They, we serve. They survey them every quarter and we make significant changes based on the surveys. So content changes, platform changes. So that is something else where they feel like they've been, that they're being heard. So that's something else that, that we do. And there's more like if they do think about canceling, there is a process. We get them on a call, we offer to give them, to guide them on how to do it. And again like it is a $37 membership. But it's really important for us that we capture the people who are a right fit, right that we don't lose them for the wrong reasons. So this is why it's really important for us to do it because I could, you know, I could get more people in but that's not the right way to do it.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. You, you had mentioned that, you know, you're not going for, you want quality members, you want people to be there. Yes, it's a volume play but that's, that's the testament going back to the offering and the transfer that you're, that you're giving everyone. But you did call out so many things and I hope everyone caught that daily post. These are super, super easy to do in mighty. You can schedule them, you can even have your Infinite question engine post them for you, our Mighty co host, our advanced technology on our, on our platform. You can utilize all that daily posts then the weekly check ins. You said that you did it every two weeks. That's super easy to do on Mighty as well but super imperative to make sure that people are on their journey doing what they're supposed to do. Not in the observer states but in the engaged state that they should be making sure that hey, is anything going on and that leads to you know, the understanding that they are not as tech savvy. Some people need hand holding. It's important to be patient with everyone. I think it's, I think it's imperative for us to almost like retrain our brain of how we currently use the Internet with social media it's like post and forget and like post and let the comments come and you get the notifications and the dings and then it's very self fulfilling versus you being the guide and taking people on this journey. You have to make sure that your whole group of people went through the trail and you didn't leave any person behind. You have to go back and get them and say hey, come on, come on forward. What can I do to help you? Rather than being. I think what we've been trained with social media is that you are the main character and the star. You're the Luke Skywalker. Rather than realizing in the community you're Yoda, you're Obi Wan Kenobi. I'm using all these references. Hopefully everyone gets this but you're the person taking them as the guide through their journey versus being the main character. Because the community is not about you, it's about the members. That's such a great, great point around surveying them as well. Checking in is. Can go such a long way. Maybe people didn't have the correct start that they wanted. They, they had the experience or maybe they were like busy at work or personal life. Whatever it may be, whatever your community offers. Sometimes people have that false start. You can always get them back. You can always reach out and say hey, personal message from a real person. How are you doing? How is this going? Is there anything I can help with? And that's a, that's a great, great call out. Which leads me back to what I wanted to talk about. Saw some people in the chat saying that. But monthly themes. Can you speak about maybe some of the monthly themes that you have implemented? Realizing that it's just not repeating content every month and just like how that has helped you in terms of engaging Your, your members.

So we offer content. We, we offer. Our program is a little bit like an English gym, right? Like they have classes and they have the topic and they need to. And they join whatever makes sense for them or whatever is available to them in their time zone. And we have different types of classes, like a lesson or a practice with a coach or, you know, we do add. We have acting classes and we have. Because like, I do what I want to what, what I love, right? Like, so acting classes and writing workshops and I come from a theater background, so we have to give space for that. And, and we used to do that. We actually used to do like just sessions that are practice and speaking with feedback, and that became a little repetitive, so we changed that. But what we also did is in addition to, to content related to all fluency pillars, grammar, vocabulary, speaking time, so on and so forth, we also decided to add a theme that is going to help them develop personally and professionally. So beyond the English content. Because again, like my, my platform or my courses are designed to help them create better opportunities through English, through connections, through, you know, giving themselves the best circumstances. And English is not just why they do it. It's not just about the language. So, you know, we did a productivity month and we did mindset and confidence and we did. We have leadership and we have business English. Right. Career development month. And in those months, we either connect the lesson to the theme so it kind of like gives it a different angle and it's more interesting for us as creators to create content. And we offer workshops so that they learn in English, but they benefit from, you know, whatever value this content has. I have guest speakers, so this is like, it's just like, interesting. It's something to look forward to. Oh, what's, what's, what do we have next month? How can I benefit from it? And if they don't want to engage with that, fine. They still have all the other content, but it's kind of like something in addition. And again, like I'm telling you that I got bored a little bit with what I had. And for me, that was inspiring. It inspired me to create more, to get out of my comfort zone and to do things a little differently. And I think we discovered, like, sometimes it was more work, especially at the beginning. Now we have a good process and we have the right team and like, it took some time, but it's also great to keep us engaged, right. Not just the community members. So that's why it was helpful for us.

Great, great points. Yeah, it's, it's like it took you to get started to recognize, okay, this type of process is going to take this much amount of work and then slowly you figured out the processes. But it all starts with starting, which is the theme that we want to get across to everybody in here and I hope talking about monthly themes, everyone can work backwards and see how it all leads to itself. You start with people, you know, if you have the community idea, you start the community and you start with the first member and that first member will get the next member and then it'll slowly start to go. But invite them to come into the community. Invite them to give you feedback because you will learn from them. Also, as you get people in, you want to make sure that their experience is the best that it can be in terms of onboarding. Make sure that it's magical. Make sure that they feel like they've met their, their people, their tribe, they're in the right place with all the members. Because whatever transformation you're offering, it can be vulnerable. It can be very, you know, just opening for a lot of people and it's tough to, especially for learners in your space or any other transformation that you're offering. You want to make sure that this is a safe space for all your people. As you make them comfortable, they will start posting. They will not be observers or lurkers, they will be engagers and posting inside there you learn from them and that can inform all of your daily posts, that can inform your weekly check ins, that can inform your monthly themes. So it's not just about content, it is about connection. You are building that people magic as we call it here at Mighty. And that is all with the community. You can't do that anywhere else. I know we only have a few minutes left, Hadar, but I wanted to thank you, thank you so much. Can you let us know how people can maybe interact with the content that you make on the free end and also potentially jump into your, your community. I saw some folks talking about potentially being part of the community for that you offer.

So you can, you can go to my website, hadar shemesh.com that's, that's the, that's how you find me or Hadar Accentsway on Instagram. And whenever we open up or we offer something within the, the community because we have our own app on Mighty. So we are in Mighty Pro and that's great. So I direct them to my, my private app. It's always like nice to say that, right? We have an app now so we do offer our free Content there as well, which is, you know, a great way to, to get people just in the door because, you know, they don't necessarily join a community the minute they meet me. So on Instagram, Hadar accentsway or on YouTube accent sway English with Hadar.

Amazing. Amazing. Tanisha just threw it inside the chat. For anyone that is interested in learning more, join the community and you can see what Hadar does for her members and take those ideas and use it for your own community. Some of them who have just opened their community as we have been speaking, looking in the chat inside there. Is there a last. You've given us so many gems, but is there a last gem that someone that was just starting out back when you started out in 2018, someone starting out today, 2025, January 22nd. How 20. Yeah, 22nd. How do we give them one last gem to push them and just take that first step?

Listen, if you think you're going to do it anyway at some point, just do it today because you're going to regret not doing it. Why waste the time? Every single day is, you know, like, you learn something, you improve and you get the people in. Right? Like, it's not. There are no wrong ways to do it. You can't make any mistakes here. You can always solve. There is no one right way, really. Like, do not waste your time. If you know in your, if you have a hunch about doing it and I guess that you're here because you do and there's something about the influence, the impact in the community that, that you kind of like gravitate towards, then just do it. Because, like, like you said, there is nothing. Like, there's, There are only great things that could happen. What's the worst thing that could happen? You know, you'll say, no, it's not for me. Go get a corporate job. I don't know, like, but. Or be a community manager for someone else. But I think it's. I think it's a great. It's an easy. It's easier than you think. So that is what I wanted to say. And dj, I wanted to tell you that you are such a great interviewer. How you move from one topic to another and lead to the next question. I was like answering a question then thinking, so good. So thank you for this great conversation.

It's very easy when you have a great interviewee. Is that the term? But you're phenomenal in all the wisdom. Yes, exactly. And you taught me, you taught me something today. So thank you. I really appreciate you being here. So many people in the chat are saying that they want to watch this recording again. They got so many tangible, actionable next steps. So thank you so much for sharing your wisdom, Hadar. Really, really appreciate it. And everyone go check her out and the links that we have shared inside the the chat. Thank you, Hadar, so much. Really, really appreciate this.

Thank you, pk. Thank you, team. Thank you so much, you guys.

Of course, of course. Absolutely.