Your First 10 Members: Building Without an Audience

To say that I am excited about this session would be an understatement. Not only I, and I just, I gotta, I gotta show you guys this. I just went and made myself some tea. I got my notepad. How many other people have their notepad, their hot tea or favorite beverage that they are ready for? Like, okay, I now know how I'm gonna be running my network. I now, I, I now think I've got like, I know I'm gonna have some resources. I know I'm gonna have this 14 day challenge. I got this people magic GPT to be my co host and help me out. But man, how am I gonna get to that 50th member or that hundredth member? And I know some of you are there because you were just in the last session which was like seven minutes ago. Well, I, I could not be again more excited to bring Daryl on for this last session of our last day because we are going to talk about growth and growth marketing. And Darrel has not only done growth marketing for one creator, one software platform, but a lot, what is the technical term? A lot. A very large number of people. And you know, he's, he's my guru, he's, he's the one that I'm learning from. And as we are finding just, you know, over multiple conversations around where the world is going, what was before, how did creators and courses and even communities and memberships grow in the past and how are they going to grow going forward in this new world of AI of people magic? The person that I'm looking to and the person who is already on board helping creators across mighty networks is Daryl. And so not to, you know, normally Daryl, I like to, you know, under promise and over deliver was a, that was, that was a pretty good hype.

I'm going to step up the plate here.

I know. I kind of feel like you do. I feel like you do. So with that I'm going to go off screen, I'm going to drink my tea, I'm going to probably go back into the chat at some point, but only after I take a ton of notes. And with that, Darrel, you've got the floor.

Awesome. Well, I'm really looking forward to being with you all today. I started my journey doing this kind of work connecting to people online in 2004. So I've been doing this now for over 20 years of figuring out what it looks like to connect to people online. So it's been a long time coming. This is the kind of teaching that I was really hungry for. When I was considering starting my first communities early on. So when I sat down to build this presentation today, it's like great you went through the technicals of how to get things set up. Tom's session and Gina session is so great. Mighty is the tool that you should be using, FYI. And Gina is offering the best deal possible to get started building your community. But like, okay, now what? Like yesterday we were inspired with people like Seth Godin, Melissa Urban, Tiffany, etc. And so now what? Now how do I get started? And so we're going to talk today about your first 10 members and I'm going to turn the entire marketing, like the traditional marketing on its head today. So I've got a few slides that we can talk through and I'm going to kind of talk through my theory of your first 10 members and why I think it's the way to go if you're getting started in community. So we'll do that. I'm also going to save a little bit of time at the end if you have questions. So if you have questions for me, I'm going to just kind of like breeze through our presentation here. I say breeze through. We've got 25 slides to go through, but I'm going to save time at the end to actually get on some questions. I think we'll have some space at the end for that as well. So let's get started. So get my slides up here. All right, here they are. Let me know when you can see them. I'd love just in the chat to let me know that you can see the slides here and that you're paying attention today. So what we're going to talk about today is your first, your first 10 members building without an audience. Again, Gina did a really great job introing me, but I want to just talk about myself for a little bit. So you got to get a little bit more specific context first. I'm completely self taught. I didn't go to school for marketing. I don't have a fancy mba. I know that there's anything wrong with that, but I just want to let you know, like, anybody can do this. Like I am an anybody and I have just taught myself over time. And so I'm going to teach you a lot of what I know. Like I am so self taught. Like this is where I'm from. I'm from a trailer house on a sand hill in the middle of rural Michigan. Like I don't have a degree in marketing. I don't have a degree in business. Really really self taught and I really started from nothing to teach myself all of this. And so I want to kind of let you in on what I know also. I've been building communities for more than 15 years. For the first five years of doing this, I was trying to do this on my own and I started to really love to help other people build communities as well. So I've worked with professional athletes and New York Times best selling authors and top YouTubers and podcasters, et cetera. I've also worked with companies like ConvertKit or now Kit, Mighty Samcart, etc. In helping with growth as well. So on top of that, I've helped over 100 plus founders launch and grow their communities. And I think we tried to tally the number up not long ago and it's well over $50 million of revenue made from the communities that we've either launched or helped launch. Not only that, I am the co founder and owner of a community with 20,000 members that launched just two years ago. So not only do I help this as a consultant, I actually do this myself as well. So that's a little bit about me. So you know that I know a little bit of what I'm talking about as we get in today. So here's our agenda today. I want to talk a little bit about why traditional marketing has it wrong. I want to talk about the megaphone effect. Who here was here for Seth's session yesterday? And if you haven't watched it yet, you need to go back and watch the replay. The way that Seth kind of talked about this yesterday, really, I actually changed like four or five slides in my presentation yesterday because of it. So if you haven't watched Seth's session, go back and watch the replay of it. So we're gonna talk about the megaphone effect. I'm gonna walk you through specifics. I'm not just gonna tell you that you should get your first 10 members. I'm walking you through kind of step by step what I would do to get your first 10 members as well. And then at the end we are going to do a Q and A. So let's talk about it. You can you have questions about it. Happy to answer some questions. So you all ready to get rocking and rolling? Get into this today. All right. The traditional marketing approach. So how many of you have heard of a funnel before? This is like a term that is talked about all the time inside of marketing. And this is what the traditional marketing often talks about. You've got to build a funnel. You got to Build a funnel. You got to move people through a funnel. And it just is so impersonal and, and I think it's completely wrong. So this is what the traditional marketing funnel looks like. Right at the top of the funnel you try to get a bunch of visitors, maybe a thousand visitors. At the middle, you try to convert them into email subscribers. Then at the bottom, hopefully you're getting people to buy or become members. And this is the traditional funnel. But I want to do a little bit something different today. So why this is broken is like this requires a large audience. So I mean, getting a thousand people to visit a webpage or a landing page. At the top of the funnel, you have to have a lot of people. You have to have maybe tens of thousands of followers or thousands of followers to be able to get them there. Or if you don't have a large audience, it demands a huge budget. So you've got to pay for Facebook ads or pay for partnerships or all kinds of different things. And it just can demand a huge budget. It also focuses on quantity over quality. So hey, let's just get a bunch of people to this page and hope that they care about what I'm talking about, hope that they find what I'm doing interesting. So it focuses on quantity over quality. Fourth is it has a higher likelihood of program failure. So oftentimes, like we are making guesses, we're making assumptions about a program like that, okay, I think if I spend my money here or if I think I do this thing here, people are going to show up. And then if people show up, I hope that they're going to convert to a subscriber. Then if they convert to a subscriber, I hope they turn into a member, right? And so it's like there's a, there's a high likelihood of program failure because there's three fail points. Will people actually come to the top? Will people turn into a subscriber? Will that subscriber turn into a member? And there's lots of points of failure. So you could have failure at the top of funnel, you could have failure at the mid funnel, you could have failure at the bottom of the funnel on a conversion. So fifth is it has high drop off rates. Like if you're getting a 10% conversion rate from stage to stage in your funnel, you'd be crushing it. And oftentimes it's much, much lower than that. So it means that we've got to find tons of people to get to that bottom number of 10 members. And that's a lot of people. So number six is just unsustainable hustle. Like, unless you've got like all of this huge team or all this things going on, it's just an unsustainable approach to building your. How many of you have felt this before when you've heard this idea of a funnel? You're like, well, yeah, but how am I going to get people there? What's going on? I want to actually build a community. And this is what I love so much about my talk with Melissa urban yesterday is Whole30, which is now a global brand that has global impact. Started with just a few people and so really excited to talk about the flip here. So I want to flip this funnel on its head a little bit and talk about how you can do this from the bottom up. And this is a huge thing that the folks at Mighty and I actually really believe as well, is that you can start from the bottom up and build a foundation of community that's going to be sustainable for you for the long haul. So who's into that idea of not having a huge audience, not having a huge marketing budget, not having multiple points of failure and getting into a more sustainable way to start your community? And I guarantee anybody in this room can start with this process today. So let's flip the old funnel on its head. All right, What I want you to do to think about today is like, we want to find your 10 founding members for your community. So if we can find the top of the funnel, we just turn this thing on its head, say, great, let's start with 10 founding members. And by the way, I know a lot of people think, cool, well, I got to get those people in for free. Like, that is not the goal at all. We are looking to find 10 founding members who are willing to pay for the transformation that you are going to offer in your community. And this is exactly what Melissa Urban talked about yesterday. And again, why I love my conversation with her is she had a transformation for herself, right? She was an addict coming out of recovery, wanting to focus on her health. And so she tried this 30 day protocol that ended up becoming whole 30. Great. That transformation worked for herself. And then she found like 10 people at her gym who wanted to do this too. And those are the founding members of this community. Now that has gone into the true believers and then notice our story. If you go back and watch her story, she said, I started doing this more and more and it was like people were telling their neighbors and their parents and their friends and it was. It was like impossible. To not talk about the transformation that people were going through in that middle of funnel. So we don't have to go from a thousand clicks on a website to get a hundred subscribers to then get 10 members. We want to start with 10 members and introduce them into a transformation. Those 10 people, once they experience a transformation that I know that you can bring to them, they won't be able to stop talking about it. And we'll find our hundred true believers. And at the bottom of the funnel, that will continue to kind of maximize itself all the way through to a thousand members. And that is a different approach. Right? You might notice this. Me, I've got knuckle tattoos. I'm a little bit of a contrarian. Like, I don't want to do things the way that's always been done. Because if everybody is doing it the same way, like, it's just not. We're kind of like in that herd mentality, like, why don't we think about doing this in a way that is people first, not marketing first. And flipping the funnel on its head is. This is not about marketing. This is about creating a connection with people. So who's with me and wanting to flip this old funnel on its head today? So I like this too. Ariel saying in the chat, I'm so glad my starting goal is 10 people. That is a great, great starting goal. So let's go on to our next slide here. So flip the funnel. So instead of it being a funnel and we're just like moving people through a funnel, let's turn the funnel into a megaphone. And this is what Seth said yesterday. You don't need a funnel. You need a megaphone. And moving your 10 people into community as the foundation of that funnel, it means that they won't be able to stop talking about it and flip the funnel and turn it into a megaphone. So we want to start with 10 quality members again, kind of like all the things that were wrong with the old traditional marketing approach. This will mean that we have quality over quantity, right? We're going to find our true believers right away. We're going to foster real transformation in people. We're going to be able to create deeper connection and connect people together throughout their transformation. And this is going to build sustainable growth. And by the way, I have a concept in my head that I talk about a lot of which is like, this is the kind of thing that happens, like, when you can actually foster real transformation in people. This thing starts to have a growth engine of its own. You oftentimes can't stop it from growing. It's like automatic growth. It just happens automatically because people just can't contain themselves from talking about it. And that's a much more sustainable way than spending money or building this huge audience in hopes that people will convert in a few future state. So here are the three keys to building a member led growth strategy instead of a marketing led growth strategy. First, it's like we want to find an identity. And so Seth said this yesterday. I thought it was so good. People like us do things like this. People like us do things like this and this often for people who are just getting started here. Oftentimes we're building communities around transformations that we've had ourselves. And I think that's really key. It's like we are inviting people into a transition or a transformation that we've experienced for ourselves. Second is mission, like, let's clear a path for transformation for these people. Not only that, like let's clear a path for them to do it together, which I think is the most valuable part. Like, yes, people can have transformation and transition on their own when they can do it in a group of people together. Just again, like Melissa said yesterday, the likelihood of success is much, much higher. And then third is opportunity. Make it easy for people to share the transformation. And really in this point, it's like, just don't get in their way. So these are the three keys to member led growth. So let's talk a little bit about what it looks like to find your first 10 members. How many of you know that that the secret to a lot of this stuff is that there's not a secret, Right? I think a lot of times I in the past have been guilty of this myself is I come to a session like this, I'm like, man, I hope that he's going to give me the secret here. I'm going to tell you today that the secret is not a secret. I'm just going to give you the exact steps to do what you probably already know what to do. Getting your first 10 members here. So the way to get your first 10 members is leveraging your personal network. I heard somebody, I saw somebody in the chat earlier say, well, I don't have a big network. I didn't say leverage your huge personal network. I said leverage your personal network. I know everybody here has the ability to find 10 people who would potentially want to participate in the community that they're building. Right? So why do we start here is again, I'm referencing this conversation with Melissa yesterday because it was so Good is like what is the foundation for community? It's trust. And so your personal network is, it's already warm. Like you have relationship with them. You're not going out to somebody who doesn't know who you are and proving yourself or trying to build a relationship. That relationship already exists. These are people who already trust you, right? And so this can be like when I say your network, I'm talking about your family members, I'm talking about your friends, I'm talking about your high school acquaintances, I'm talking about your college roommates, I'm talking about the people that you work with, I'm talking about your neighbors, I'm talking about the parents. Who's the parents who have kids at your kids school. I'm talking about your people at your church. I'm talking about the lady you see at the grocery store every single day. Like your personal network is much larger than men, much people many people give credit to, right? And so like thinking about the people in your personal network to begin the community, again, the network is already warm. You have relationship with them or acquaintance with them. These are people who trust you. And it's the fastest way to begin building a foundation, right? Notice I haven't said anything about starting an Instagram account. I haven't said anything about building an email list. I haven't said anything about building a business plan. I haven't said anything about all of these things that you might often hear are the first steps to building your business. Because it all starts with your community, with your network. And so I think this is a huge part, a huge part of this. And if, if you start getting into the point where you're thinking, well, I don't even know that I have 10 people who want to join this community. I Bet you have 10 people who believe in you and who would tell people that they know about the community that you're wanting to build here. And so I think this is key here is not only is it your personal network, it's your personal network of people who say, hey, you know what, I'm not interested in this particular community. However, I know somebody who might be. And it's like that one to one connection builds a spiderweb approach of personal connection and trust. Transfer back to building the foundation, the foundation of trust for your foundational community. So step to take here. I often call this the 10 person rule. My friend Nathan actually coined that phrase that I borrowed for him for now 15 years is the 10 person rule. It's just start with 10 people who might Benefit from your community. Just start there, right? So if you're, if you're thinking about this and this is resonating with you, I want you to take out a piece of paper or something on your desk right now. I just want you to start with 10 people, right? So find 10 names, just the first 10 names that come, that come to mind for you. And start with 10 people who might benefit from your community. And the second thing, I want you to send them a personal message explaining the vision of the community, explaining the transformation that they might have participating in the community. Explain the connection they're going to have with a small group of people at the beginning and then ask them for honest feedback and participation. This is like third is like the invite to the community. And again, Gene and I are going to talk about this here at the end of our session here. It's like, why not free? Why like the community, like have them participate? Part of the participation is paying to be a part of this community, right? So start with 10 people. You're probably not going to get all 10 people to say yes. So you're going to repeat this process over and over again as long as you need to until you have 10 people who are ready to join your community. Now I want to give a couple practical advice things that are not on slides here. Because a lot of people are like, man, I don't even have 10 friends. I don't know, like, you know, I've got complex family things, I got complex friends things. So here's ways that you can grow this number of 10 people. And every time I launch something new, I still do this 20 years into my career. So I'm in the process of launching a community of my own in March of this year. So here's what I do. I take out my phone, I open up the contact list, I go to my text messages and I start scrolling through the last people that I've text message and I'll go back three or four months. So, so who are the people that I'm in contact with on a regular basis? Right? So that's number one. Number two is then I go to the contacts. So I open up the contacts on my phone. I guarantee you have more than 10 contacts in your phone. Scroll through and think of names. Like, it's really hard to keep our entire network inside of our head. It's really easy to allow insecurity to say, I don't have 10 people who might be interested in this. But as I'm scrolling through, I'm like, oh my Gosh, Alyssa. I forgot about Alyssa. I think she would love this, right? Or, hey, I wonder if. I wonder if Allison knows anybody. And so you literally just scroll through the contacts on your phone. Okay, now, when you're done with your phone, I want you to open up your Facebook account, and I want you to look at your friends on Facebook, and I want you to scroll through every friend on Facebook and find names of people who might be interested. And this sounds tedious, but this is a way to refresh your mind on people who might be interested in joining your community. I then have a Twitter account. So then I go through people who are following me on Twitter, and I have a LinkedIn account, and I go through my LinkedIn connections. And you think I'm being facetious here. I literally did this yesterday when I was thinking about my community. I went through every contact. Gina says she does this on email as well. I. I went through every contact and just thought, who might be interested in joining my community. And I'm just looking for names that pop up and are interesting, Right? So I know there's nobody in this room that doesn't have 10 contacts, that doesn't have 10 Facebook friends, doesn't have 10 LinkedIn connections. You have people in your network. You may not just be thinking about it. And if you don't have a large audience, this is where we begin. We begin in this personal network. So pro tip here. So that's number one, is identifying those 10 people. Start with 10, message those 10, and then go 10 again after that, and again after that until you have to keep going. I had a. I had a person that I was consulting doing this. It was like, six or seven years ago. They literally added 1200 people this way to their community without spending a single dollar. Was three girls who were founding a community together. And through the network of those three girls, they had over 1200 people who joined their community just doing this. They didn't spend a single dollar. They didn't create a single Instagram account. They didn't have to buy Facebook ads. They didn't have to create blog posts or reels or TikToks or whatever else. It was just the network effect, and it was huge. So, number two, send them a personal message. I see a lot of people make mistakes here as well. What I think people will do here is they'll want to take the slightly easier route here and say, okay, I'm just gonna go to Facebook and I'm just gonna message everybody publicly. False. Do not do that. What I want you to do is that's why this word personal is here. When you are sending this message to people, send them a one to one message. Okay, so send them a text message one to one. Send them an email one to one. Send them Facebook message. One to one. Send a personal message explaining the vision for the community. And don't overthink this message. It can be as simple as, hey friend, I'm starting a community about X. I thought you might be interested. Do you want to learn more? Send. Great. When they reply now step three, Step three is ask for honest feedback. So after they reply, we come into step three and asking for the honest feedback is this. Hey, it's going to cost $29 a month to be a part of this community and this is what it's going to look like. Would you like to join? Okay. And this is the invitation. Step three is that invitation. Okay. So does that make sense? Identify the people and again, go through all of those platforms, go through your phone, go through your email, identify people, send them a personal message and then ask them, invite them to join. I guarantee if you just do the diligence of this work, there is no way that you won't have 10 members in your community by the time it is over. Okay, now the power of referrals. So once people are in your community and they're experiencing the transformation, Matt. Members will naturally share. If they experience real transformation, they won't be able to not talk about it. They will have to talk about it. Think about Melissa yesterday when she was talking about Whole 30. It's once people went through that program together in the protocol together, they felt so good. Right? I'm in the process of going through a protocol with some people right now. And I sent screenshots of my progress to people yesterday. I woke up and I was so happy. I have so much energy. I was so excited. I was sending screenshots. It was like impossible not to talk about the protocol that I was going through. Right? So if people experience transformation inside of your group, they experience connection to one another, they will naturally want to share. And that's where the network effect comes in, is at some point people will be wanting to talk about your community all on their own. And since those founding members have been paying money from day one, now all of a sudden you have the money to begin building a marketing program on the backside of this to accelerate your growth. So here's why this works. Number one, it's personal, right? If we're building community, it's about people, it's about Connection. So we're inviting people directly and we're doing that through our own network and referrals. And it shows thoughtfulness, it shows care. It's an invitation. Second is small wins lead to big growth. That's what I was talking about before. 10 people paying you 20, $30, $40 a month to be a part of your community. Do the math on that. We're talking 200, 300, 400, $500 a month that begin building a foundation for a real business that has the ability to grow and scale at that point. And then relationships and connection build loyalty. Communities grow through trust, not marketing. Right. So communities don't always grow because we're the best marketers. They may, but that's a flash in the pan. We all know those kind of marketers that are really good at marketing. As soon as you get what they bought, it wasn't what was promised. Right? We want to start with trust. Trust is best done through relationship. Now once you've got that foundation in, you've got your 10 founding members again, you are making money. And you can now then go into accelerating your growth through the existing members and the revenue that you have in the more traditional sense. Right? So now you have 10 members. Those 10 members can go tell their friends about it. Right. And to build that middle of funnel. And so here you can choose a growth channel. Like once you start having money to begin investing because the community is working, you can choose a growth channel. You can decide to go the more traditional route. This is exactly the path that I have taken is, hey, I don't need to start with a huge Facebook budget. I don't need to start with a huge audience. I can start with those 10 members. Once there's progress going, then I know these 10 people are having transformation. Where do I go find more people? Where do I like this? And you can go through a more traditional strategy. So key takeaways, start with your network, let people talk, create momentum that way. Focus on relationships, not on marketing. Create a member led culture and then small wings wins. Get into big growth again. Let's identify your 10 people here. Do the personal outreach, facilitate that early engagement and then prepare for the momentum that's going to come and the growth is going to happen there. So super practical. I want to open up a little bit of time for Q and A. And so what we'll do is, what we'll do is if you have a question, go over to the chat, drop it in there. I'm going to pull these slides down here in a minute. And I'm happy to talk through questions over the next little bit that you might have from. From this. So, yeah, let's do that. And I'm going to stop sharing my screen here, and we'll get into the chat. So how many of you feel like that's something that you could be doing? Hi, Gina.

I came to. I came to. To. To help.

I like it.

I came to help. To. To read some of the questions that we've been getting, and also I think some of the points that you made. I'd love to, like, double click. I was gonna say double click, and I was like, oh, my God, I need to find another way of saying double click. Because if somebody is not teasing me in the chat about saying double click, is it really a chat? But let's double click on it? So. So sort of zooming out. You know, it is just so easy for people to say, but I don't know anybody. Or my. We saw. I saw. I saw one. My. My friends and family, like, my niche is so specific that I don't know anybody in this world. And therefore, it's almost like it's easier to ask people on the Internet to join something than it is to. To talk to our existing network. And I think you said this, but I'd love for you to put kind of a little bit more color and a finer point on it, which is it's not necessarily about the people you know, it's about the people they know.

Exactly right. Exactly right. That's that spiderweb effect that I'm talking about. Here is my. My friend. The first community he started, it was specifically about selling on ebay. And this was years and years ago when ebay was like, a real thing. And the first person to join his community was his mom. His mom didn't care at all about selling on ebay. But you know what his mom did? His mom shared to, like, I think it was like, 20 or 30 people that she referred into the community of, like, hey, my son's doing this cool thing about selling on ebay. Like, are you interested in joining? And it was like she became a referral machine. Right? And so it's like, I think sometimes a couple things happen here. One is it is exposing. It is exposing to say, like, hey, I'm going to invite people to join my community. Because there are two real answers that could happen here, Gina. The answer can be, oh, that sounds awesome. I want to do that. Or the answer could be no. And I think oftentimes we're so connected. Care so deeply about what we're doing in these types of communities that the idea of hearing that no feels so deep and so personal. And so we'd rather invite a stranger because that stranger doesn't mean as much to us as the people in our network. But the reality is, like, if somebody is a no in your personal network, they may be a yes for, but I know somebody else. And that is something that doesn't happen to a stranger on the Internet. Right. A stranger on the Internet who you don't know isn't going to be like, hey, person, I don't know. Hey, you know what? I actually know somebody who might want this. I know somebody who can trust you.

This is huge. This is huge. So. So hopefully, like, give me.

Give it.

Give us a reaction in the chat, because this is such an important point. The person on the Internet is going to ghost you. Your friends or your family might give you perspective or an idea that you wouldn't otherwise have. I can actually speak to this because, you know, I've been. I've been operating in the wilderness for a long time. You know, when I started Mighty Networks, the idea that anybody would want to go anywhere other than a Facebook group was. Was real. You know, so I'd have friends look at me and say to me, how's it going? You know, how you do it? And. And it's like they felt sorry for me because I was working on something that they didn't believe in. So here's what I learned from that, though. Number one, I actually found that. Okay, like, that was invigorating to me because I had a couple of people in my life that I talked to that were like, oh, shoot, that's a really good idea. And. And I believe in you, and I believe in that, and there will be someone who says that and. And focus on them. You know, again, to stay alive, human beings had to focus on the negative. We had to focus on, like, the no or the bad thing or the thing we were afraid of because it kept us alive, and now it just gets in our way.

Yeah. And here's the other thing that's key about this network is no sometimes means not yet. Yeah, Right. And so in my community, so funny, this just happened a few weeks ago is a lot of what we do is, like, we connect on things like traditional cooking methods and things like that. And so a friend of mine was like, hey, aren't you doing that thing where you guys teach about making sourdough bread? Like, I've been really getting into sourdough. Bread lately. And they're like, yeah, like I want to join. They didn't join the first time I talked to them about it, but they remembered two years later that I had this community. And so the no might just be not yet. And then later on they'll come back as well.

I literally had this happen. So, you know, happy ending to my story. I literally have had two people in the last week who I have known for 15 plus years come to me and say, okay, I'm finally ready to start a mighty network. Yeah, this is a great question and, and one, you know, we spent a fair amount of time in the last session on. Because I feel so passionately about this. Sarah asks, how do you promise transformation when there may be Only less than 10 people in the beginning? And I just, I'm going to say this and then Daryl is going to basically say something even more amazing. A mastermind group, a small support group, a group of friends who are on a private, you know, a private community or private chat together. That is something people pay tens of thousands of dollars for. The idea that you're going to make that free or somehow that under 10 people is not valuable versus that is the most intimate and amazing that you will, will be able to make. That's, that's Darrell's point about the founding members. That's your founding members are going to get results in transformation because it's a tighter, smaller group that's going to actually help each other. And the whole point of growing the community larger is that you're just making more 10 person groups.

A hundred percent. I, I don't know Jarvis in the chat, but I want to be friends with Jarvis. So Jarvis, find me on LinkedIn. Let's be friends. Jarvis said a couple things in the chat that I think is really interesting here, but it's like the New York City Marathon started with four runners running together around the park, right? Like, that's a great reminder, you know, And Seth Godin said this, and this is stuck in my head for 10 years is all you're doing is you're trying to find somebody who will tap their foot to the beat of your song. And if you can find one, then you can find 10. And if you can find 10, you can find 100. And if you can find 100, you can find a thousand. And that's why the 10 is so key, right? And I think this is huge. Ebony also asked a question here. It's like, well, I'm currently going through the transformation that I want to be about. I want my community to be about. Should I wait? And my answer is absolutely not. Like the, the value isn't like you being an expert. The value isn't the content. The value is the connection in the midst of it. Right. And I think about like groups like the Slow AF Run Club. It's like, no, no, no, we're doing this together. Like, it's about the people together. It's about connection together. It's about the journey together. It's not about you being a guru. It's not about you being an expert. It's not about you being the sage at the top of the mountain who's got it all figured out. It's about opening up a space for people to do it together. That's the value in all of this.

Yeah.

And I know that like if you're in this room right now, like this is why you're here, right? Because you wanted to do this with a group of people today. And it's like in some level you feel the thing inside of you to like open up space for other people as well. So it's not about you being the expert. It's about you just having the courage to open up the space to invite people into it as well.

Well. And I want to just, I want to stop and I just want to recognize Alex who's like, wait a second, I'm overwhelmed right now. Here's the thing. This summit, this is just the beginning. This is why we are offering a year long plan. This is why we're introducing you to the tools for like the people magic GPT for you to come back to later. They're all here. The 14 day challenge is there so that you can parse the different things that we're talking about. So if anybody is like Alex and feeling a little overwhelmed or this is so much information. That's why there are replays. But if we don't share this information and we don't have these conversations with what's going to happen is what Sierra was just talking about. Like, you'll leave here with those myths, those, those fallacies that you're keeping that are preventing you from unlocking something that needs to exist in the world. I. I love this, this aging gracefully and aging in. In amazing ways that's mentioned in the chat because, because that I need that. My mom needs that, my sister needs that. Daryl and I both need that. And if it doesn't exist because you are afraid or you're staying in overwhelm or you're staying in, I have to be perfect, then you just never get out of that. And, and this has to exist in the world. And that also makes talking to people about it easier. Like for example, you can go to your contacts and your friends and family and say, oh my gosh, I'm super excited. I'm going to start this thing. So if you know anybody, I'm taking nominations. Do you hear the difference in I'm taking nominations or I'm taking recommendations. That's you getting to keep the power. That's you getting to keep the power. And that feeling of like the, this is a community that we are building, we're curating together. And so I want your nominations, I want your ideas. I'm not asking for you to necessarily join. And by the way, when you ask people to help you and you ask them for recommendations, guess what they sometimes say? Guess what they sometimes say? They say, know what I really want? That, that actually sounds great for me. Why, why are you not asking me about this little, little reverse psychology?

I like that. I love Daryl's comment. Not this Daryl, other Daryl stole the why he said my community is called do it together. And I love that we were just saying that. So it really is. So much of that is doing it together, together. So Daryl, I love that community name. Super, super awesome. But Gina, talk a little bit about and I'm going to set you up here a little bit.

Okay?

Okay. So they're doing it together. Let's talk about the community and the challenge that's starting on Monday. I think it's a whole reason that we've created this offer is not just that you have the tool to use to build this community, but also starting on Monday there's actually like a Mighty Network community helping you through the first 14 days of getting your community started. So talk about that challenge starting on Monday.

Yeah, so the challenge starting on Monday. So taking a step back, we are all about kicking 2025 off with the intention of offering anybody who wants to raise their hand and be a part of it the step by step path of going from zero to a million dollar community in 2025. Now are you going to get to a million dollars in 2025? It's possible. It's definitely possible with people Magic. It's definitely possible with Mighty where we have more 1 million dollar communities on our platform than any other platform. But it's also okay if you are just looking for a little bit more support, a little bit more scaffolding, a little bit more places and I think about as like, you know, like in, in bowling how you have like the, the bumpers and like, like if you're a kid learning how to bowl, you like, you don't, you don't fall into. What's the thing called on the side? What's the thing that it. Like you have those.

Gutter.

Yeah, like gutter. You don't have a gutter. You got like the bumpers. Think about this as bowling with some gutters. Oh, no, the opposite of gutters with bumpers. With some bumpers I'm tracking like, it's like I haven't had lunch yet. When we are done here, I am going to feed my face. So until then I'm going to keep my, my clumsy analogy. But the whole point of this offer is to make it easy for you to go from maybe to yes. And then when you go from maybe to yes to set up with the things that we know. After supporting hundreds of thousands of successful communities monetized through memberships and courses, challenges and events, and by the way, a lot of additional unsuccessful communities, we get to see the data on what works and what doesn't. And so setting you up with not only resources, like, like the people Magic GPT, like our community plan, like the ability to have additional custom fields to start to build out that foundation for you to bring on those first 10 members, those founding members, those next hundred members, and then your full community is so that you have everything you need to do it well. And as you've seen here over the course of yesterday and today, we have data that's counterintuitive, like don't go offer something for free or don't think that you can't offer results and transformation to someone if you only have a handful of people. It's called a mastermind, it's called group coaching, it's called support groups, it's called accountability. And so the 14 day challenge is there, it starts on Monday. And by the way, if you're like, oh my gosh, I'm ready to go. I got, I got things to do. There's plenty of prerecorded things, there's plenty of things with it people, Magic GPT that you, you can get started today, you can get started yesterday. But the challenge is there to offer other human beings, not, not fake people, real people on the same path with the same questions that you have, with the same places that they're getting stuck or in some cases people that are like one or we've seen it in the chat today, one or two steps ahead and they're like, no, no, you can do this. Yeah. Are you feeling over? That's okay. I, I've been there. And just focus on this one thing first. So I, I'll even give you one thing to focus on. If you are feeling overwhelmed, let me just offer. Tune everything else out and just focus in on what is a transition that I can help people navigate. And by the way, if you're in the transition, even better. Even better. As Jefferson Fisher was talking about this morning, people want to connect authentically with people who are on the same path. That's what they're paying for. That's what you are creating. You don't have to be afraid of charging. It is a way for you to find the people that are instantly going to find each other. And we're seeing this again in the chat. We will see this in the challenge. So very, very specifically and concretely. There will be a daily live event, a daily moment where you are going to get just one thing to do. So for 14 days in a row, you're going to take your new community plan, you're going to take the tools and the, and the videos and the podcasts and the, and the, and the PDFs, and you're going to be able to just take them step by step, day by day, alongside other people on the same path. And if you haven't connected the dots yet, what are we really doing with this challenge? We are modeling for you what you can go do with your members. There is a, There is a process here. It's, it's, it's a secret plan that's not secret. That is really what we are doing. This is a secret plan to show you what you can, what you can offer your members. So instead of sitting there and I know, you know, I just want to thank you for being here and being vulnerable and showing, sharing your hopes and dreams and fears and misconceptions that are in the chat as we speak. Because when you are in a community that is, that is step one, and then step two, step two is a community that's like, okay, now is the time to step forward. Now is the time to take that, that next step that you're probably a little afraid of or a lot afraid of, a challenge is there so that you don't stay stuck in 15 different ways of saying, but I really just want to offer this for free. Because if I work really hard, maybe somebody will pay me. Maybe somebody will recognize my hard work and pay me. That is not the point of this. And, and, and if you as a creator or you as a founder, or an entrepreneur think that the way to create a business is just working harder. And then somebody might notice this might not be the right path for you. Because the right way, the most effective way, it's not right. The way that you're going to win, the way that you're going to create impact and value for other people and help them get results and transformation in their lives is by being willing to get out of your own way and your own fears and move into a world that says, I am a host, I am hosting a party. And my goal is to bring people together who are hungry to meet each other, hungry to help each other on the same path, hungry to get results and transformation that no matter how hard we try, we're never going to get it on our own. We're never going to get it on our own. And so we're going to not just tell you how to do things, we're going to model how to do things. We're going to model what is possible. And by the way, that starts with the fact that we aren't doing the challenge for free. We're like, hey, it is a part of a $199 community plan. And I said this in the last session and I think that this is a. Yes. Stunt Access would like you to know. We all heard you typing, Darrell. Like, but it's okay. I, I, I appreciate, I'm taking notes.

I don't forget.

Yeah, yeah, we are, we're all there. This is a forgiving community. And so I, I just want to, I want to stress this. Our community plan is not something that we're offering for free at all. It's also not something we're discounting because it's new. We're discounting it because we know that it all, it has value. We've been charging $492 for the community plan for a long time. And we charge more money for plans that we know get you closer to creating a $1 million community faster. And we do so unapologetically because we know people pay attention to what they pay for. And if you're going to create this kind of business, you're going to want to pay attention.

Okay, a couple things I want to double click in here. That's why I was taking notes over here is a couple people asked this. So just to be abundantly clear, if you've already bought this 199 community plan, you get this 14 day challenge as a part of that package.

Yes.

So that's just making it abundantly clear. Let's say it clear. You get not only the first year of the software with Mighty, you've gotten the summit, you also get the 14 day challenge as a part of that. And that 14 day challenge starts on, on Monday. So sign up today, you can get into the community, but we start on Monday with all that daily content that you're talking about. So I just want to make that abundantly clear because some people were asking about it. One of the things I want to double click in here too is Quinnette says, I've attended like five webinars this month so far, and this is the one I finally aligned with my people and my platform. And I think that's the whole reason that we're doing this summit is so that you don't have to guess, like, what we believe, what we think about, how we go about it. Like, you get to see this for free right here, how we approach it, right? All the stuff that you and Tom talked about on the product side, how we think about the upside down approach of bringing in your first members. Like, you don't have to guess. Like, you can know that this is your people and you can be a part of the community again, modeling for you all how community and trust is built. So when I love that you found your people, hey, guess what? Me too. When I met Gina last year, I was like, hey, I'm in. Like, I'm, I'm in. This is exactly what I said.

The same thing. I think it was like kind of an instant. Like, oh, yeah, let's, let's go do this together because this is super fun. Like, like, all right. Yes, that's it. Hey, one other thing that I really want to stress along these same lines. And Darrell, I'm glad you, I'm glad, glad you brought it up. Which is the other thing to really remember and keep in mind is you are not just buying Mighty Networks today. You're not just deciding that your maybe is a yes today. You are also getting all the things that are coming now. Again, not all of it's going to be on the community plan, but for example, we just launched streaks which are going to bring your members back. Even those 10 members are going to come back more often if they're like, hey, when I have a streak, it means I can actually do nice things for other members. And what is you'll. By the way, anybody who's in the challenge will see your streaks. Nice way of driving that culture, driving that habit, driving that engagement. But we have a point of view at Mighty Networks. We have a reason. We exist. And the reason we exist is not to just help you make money. This is not a move your course into mrr. Like you can do that on mighty Networks. But we don't exist for that reason. We exist to create people magic. We exist because we believe that technology's role is to bring out and, and celebrate the very best of human beings. And that is more important now than ever before. And we look at, at our competition at Mighty Networks as your AI best friend. And our solution is how do we ensure that you're able to look amazing as you bring in those new members? Those 10 people have such a respect and admiration for the other people. We've all been to that party where like, we look around, we're like, oh, I'm pretty great. Like, the fact that I'm in this room right now, like this makes me feel fantastic. That is what we are trying to do with software because software can play that role, as Jane talked about as co hosts, not just to answer your questions, but to introduce the most relevant people to each other. Because relevant people create that sense of awe and wonder and, and yes, people magic. People magic. So we have a point of view. We are building towards a world where you don't have to think about whether or not your business is going to survive the world of AI or that if your course is going to become a commodity. And all of a sudden what's been, you know, something that you've spent a lot of time, energy and effort on, sales fall off a cliff. That is coming for a set of creators. We are building mighty networks to ensure that if you choose to invest in people magic, it's not coming for you. Instead, you're creating something that is sorely needed in the world, which is people being able to find people on the same path and then go on quest together. And that's different. That's different than selling a course. That's different than just following a checklist of the gurus. This is about creating something sustainable, durable, and, and absolutely amazing. And I would use a swear word, but again, I learned this morning from Jefferson Fisher. It does not help me, it only hurts me. So I'm just going to say absolutely amazing.

I like it. Well, Gina, what a good day today. Again, this plan is very, very, very compelling. So for $199, you get access to Mighty. For your first year, you get access to the challenge starting on Monday. To access that, there's a. There's a link pinned at the top of the chat. You can also just scroll Right below this video on the page and click into that should be really easy for you to find. But Gina, what were some of your highlights from today?

Well, clearly, clearly to like dial it back on swearing. But Kesha did point out that he said too much. So thank you, thank you for that good clarification. I, I also think that just the whole energy of Jefferson kicking off with just start like you don't have to be perfect, you don't have to have all the answers. You, in fact, when you start recording yourself, it's gonna suck. That was really powerful. Followed by, you know, the things that, that I absolutely love and are the reasons I do what I do, which is Tom's presentation and conversation about where things are going. And then I, I have to say so I've seen people magic profit. I've seen people magic GPT. I had something to do with some of the concepts that Jane took us through and watching Jane take us through them gave me goosebumps. Like I was like, this is my and, and I actually think that this is, this is one of the most fun things about community is when you see someone take things that you spent a lot of time by yourself on and run with them, make them into their own. Now again, we also have the benefit at Mighty Networks of other people being really inspired by our work as well. But you know what, it's okay because we are here to bring people magic to the world and we know if we pioneer it, there's going to be people who want to be a part of this train. But watching Jane present how to do this step by step, day by day, GPT prompt by GPT prompt was really inspiring to me. And then you just bring it home with I, I think just such a clearer way of saying some of the things that, you know, I have felt like I've said for a long time. And people either they don't believe me or they don't want to believe me, but when they do believe me, finally it works. So I was just really grateful for you bringing us home today because I think it's just so easy to lean back and say I don't have contacts in my phone, I don't know anybody. I, I, I have to go do all of these things that are probably not going to work in order to build a community or build a business. And because I'm going to do that, then it actually has that self fulfilling prophecy of oh, and then it didn't work. So it's just really hard and I can't do it. And I need somebody else to, like, fix it for me. You have everything that you want and need other than somebody literally being like, here you go. This already exists. The value you are creating is not your content. The value you are creating is not you being an expert. The value that you are creating is raising your hand and saying, I'm going to send that text message, going to have that conversation. I'm going to ask for nominations for my founding members. I'm going. I'm going to also, when I hear no, I'm going to stay curious. I'm going to see if I actually have something to learn from this. Not easy. And that's what you're getting paid for, because we. What you're getting paid for is to bring those people together and help somebody who is sitting out there right now. I'm seeing it in the chat right. Right now.

Like, I'm loving the chat right now.

Yeah. Like, what if. What if. What if I had just gotten afraid and stayed home? Although I am actually at my house. What if I just stayed home and said, you know what? I. I'm going to really. I'm gonna. I'm just gonna work harder and not do a summit. And, you know, maybe, maybe I'll. I'll post on social a little bit harder about people magic or how to create these businesses. You all wouldn't be here with me and with Daryl and the rest of the team to see how you can do this. And so this is. This is the beautiful thing. Darrell said it as a spider web. This is. This is the network effect. This is the network effect. This is when you raise your hand and you look through your contacts and you're like, I'm getting. I'm asking for nominations for my founding members. Because what I'm going to do with the first 10 folks, we are going to have a transformational experience. We are going to have a transformational experience.

We need to talk about Rick's comment right now. Have you seen this? Rick's comment?

What is it?

This is. No, I'm going to read this out loud. He says, this is no joke. I was in the last summit just months ago, starting from nothing. And I will make a living this year from my new network that came just following the steps and inspiration of Mighty Network.

That means so much to me because, look, I've spent a lot of time in the wilderness. There's been a lot of time where probably for some folks like you, you've had this idea. You've known you've wanted to do it. You. I There was a. There was a great point about a journaling community. And. And I've been there, and I've had people say no to me a lot. And here's what I know to be true. When you. When you get clear about the transition that you want to help people through, that is your source of energy. That is your source of energy to wake up the next day and send three more text messages. And those turn into that beautiful people magic that any of us can create.

So amazing. Rick, I need you to send me a message. Find me on social media somewhere. Send me a message. I want to hear your story.

Find you in mighty community. We'll. We'll hook you guys up. Not that I, like, be on social. Like, I'm on social.

We're all stories. So Brick, I just, like, I'm blown away. Like, this does not take years to develop. Like, Rick is literally making a living the community he started at the last summit. I can't wait to hear some of these names pop up at our next summit, say, hey, guess what I've done since last time? And I think that's. That's. That's really great. So, Rick, thanks for sharing that. That has made my complete day hearing that, because it is. He started from nothing, and now he's gotten his entire community. And I think this is the reality is, like, the only thing that you need. I saw questions earlier, like, well, do I need to do a formal launch or what's the protocol for a launch? Like, no, no, no, listen, like, everything you need, and Rick is. Rick is proof of that. Everything you need is just here. It's like you get a 199. Again, this is crazy. For, like, less than $200, you're getting access to the tool, which, by the way, if you watch Tom's session, the tool is pretty amazing. You get the tool to bring this all together, and then you also get the challenge and, like, the step by step, like, togetherness and group of how to do it. And Rick is proof of that. So you don't even have to take, like, us saying it. Like, Rick is proof of that. And I think that's really key. So for less than $200, you could be at a place a couple months down the road where you're making a living from a community that doesn't exist right now. And I think that's a pretty incredible offer to be able to take a bet on yourself. And by the way, it's not a huge bet to be able to take what you've learned at the summit. Take what you're going to learn inside of that challenge and then you have the tool to get started. So you don't need a huge launch strategy, you don't need a huge audience, you don't need a marketing budget. All you need to do is decide today that you're going to get started. And I can't wait to see more people have stories like Rick because of that.

I mean, how do you follow Rick? You don't. Is that you don't follow Rick? Actually, we want everybody to follow Rick. But. But maybe not in the talking part. Wow. I am, I am leaving this summit on such a high. And I know that this is only the beginning. Only the beginning. And so I, I want to thank again. Let me, let me go back. I want to thank you for being here. I want to thank you for watching this as a replay. I want to thank you for being a part of this. If you're only watching the recordings. I want to thank you for being in the chat and sharing and demonstrating what it means to be a part of a community of people in a transition, because that's what all of us are. It's helping go from zero to a million dollars. And, and even if a million dollars isn't your goal, just putting you on a path where that is possible. Just like Rick said, this is designed to help you do this step by step, day by day. And we have tested it. This is the easiest way to build a million dollar business. The easiest way to build a million dollar business. So I want to invite you to start with us. And with that, thank you for being a part of this summit. Thank you for being a part of these conversations, and thank you for being a part of creating people magic with us at Mighty Networks. I am truly grateful. And with that, have a great rest of your day. We'll see you soon.