The Best Creators Understand THIS About Community

Like, look, we work together, right? And we both are creating communities in a very similar space. And I think that there's something that is so beautiful about becoming a creator that when you actually connect on a human level, it's like truly rising tide lifts all ships. And I think that with my community, at first, like, people are like, well, what if somebody else is also a brand marketer or somebody else is—

oh, you hear that all the time. Yeah.

And I'm like, your— I always say content is chicken and you are adding your own flavors and spices, right?

I like that.

And so you may be serving chicken marsala and the people who love chicken marsala are coming to you. Coming right on over. And I might be serving jerk chicken and the people who love that come to me. And that doesn't mean that we're competitive. We are just attracting people who want that flavors and spices. You know, those flavors and spices.

Yeah. And it, it also like when you see things like this exist in the topic, the niche, the market you want to create, it should be validation. You're like, okay, there is like there is a part of this that people want. Now I can provide my own flavor to it.

Exactly.

And, you know, we're thinking about this in terms of like also we have, we have like very similar communities, but they're at different price points, they're different numbers. They're at like different levels of where the type of member is at. I have a lot of beginners. It's not all beginners, but I'd say the majority of— I think we did a member poll and I think— now this was a smaller sample size. This is just on a live call, but I think 60% of the audience had less than 100 email subscribers. So like pretty pretty new with all this. And so like I know that now I can market based on that and I can create content based on that. Those are the type of people. And you know, it's, it is kind of, it is kind of tricky sometimes thinking about like, like how did you— I know we talked about this, but when you think about a community or you think about anything related to digital products, particularly that question of like what type of price is right and what kind of access people get. I think it's especially important.

It is. And I mean, this is— there's— it's art and science. There's no one way to do this. I wish there was a formula to follow. And you test and you iterate and you figure out what— we launched the community at one price point, and those were like the founding members. And then I raised it. And then I raised it and then realized maybe the first price point was the right price point, and that's okay too. You figure out how to recalibrate. And, and also number of members— like, I'm not going for scale. I'm, I'm keeping it small. Like, I kind of more have like a Jake Klaus approach to it, um, but he's like the NBA of creators and I'm like the high school.

Like, well, I don't know, I don't know about— I don't know about that. I don't think you're giving yourself enough credit, but I see what you're saying. Like, and to describe Jay's model a little bit with Creator Science, with the lab, I do find it really interesting. And we talked about this a lot when we were, when we were launching. He's so definitive.

200.

200. Like, that's it. And I think this is like, this is so interesting because it's not only, it's not that it's at 200, it's like, oh, well, you know, I'm going to do another launch and I'm going to add another 20 people. And it's just like, it's just 200. He'll only launch or he'll only open it up when, when enough people cancel.

Right.

And so it's an— I think he has like incredibly low churn for a membership community because if you cancel, you're out. You can't get back in.

It's a really interesting concept. But I mean, look, it works. I think a lot about with communities and even doing this in my fractional CMO role, people who are coming up on their, their churn, it's like really thinking about what value you're bringing to them.

Yeah.

And how do you get ahead of those churn moments to make sure that they understand, oh no, I have, because whenever that, that subscription renewal comes around, our human psychology is to come up with all the reasons why it's not. And so I always think about, okay, now's a good time to send a survey before they even know their subscription's coming up, like survey or launch a new feature or offer one-on-ones or something. They don't realize that I'm thinking that it's 20 days before their thing, but it's the same.

Yeah. New course, new challenges starting something of value.

But I think Jay has probably nailed that.

Yeah. And I think with the way that I think about it also in comparison to Jay and because I am going like for Hey Creator, I'm going for more scale. I want more members. But it's a lower price point. But I also think of it like I'm attentive to churn, but I want it to be like, I don't mind people churning just because they're not interested for a little bit. Now I would—

They can hop on and off the bus. Yeah.

I think of it like, yeah, a bus is a good example. I was thinking of it like a library. Like you come in and out of the library, you learn what you need to learn. And it's, it's a little, it's kind of, it's kind of like it's a low enough price point that you don't mind leaving, but it's also a low enough price point that you don't mind coming back.

Yeah.

For a little bit.

That's a great analogy. Mine's a little bit like a teacher's office hours because I spend an hour a day literally looking at people's— they'll send me their welcome emails, I'll copy edit it, right? Like, I am pretty hands-on.

That's great.

Why I'm keeping it smaller. But it just shows you because I think anyone from the outside would see our two communities and be like, aren't they super competitive? But then you lift under the hood and you're like, no, they're actually very different in how we're approaching them. And it's just a reminder that it's all about finding your flavor and spice of what you're going to serve.

Yeah, I really like that office. I mean, it's called office hours, but like the, the, the TA time where you're kind of like, hey, I'll, I'll, I'll look at this with you because I, I don't have enough time with a number of members. Like I go live for office hours, but it's a lot more in a like a larger, a larger group setting of people. You know, if it, if it makes sense for time and people send, send me something, then like I'll go for it. But like, that's another thing, like with a higher volume and with a lower price point, we're pretty good about like setting an expectation upon coming in. We're like, I actually have a, like, it's not a no DM policy, but it's a probably don't DM me this unless it's something like that you don't want the other rest of the group to hear about. But like, don't. Don't DM me a general question. Like, ask it in the group so that everyone can take care, can help. That's a great policy. Yeah, and also it helps, there's a lot of experts in the group as well.

That can answer the questions too.

Yeah, so someone was asking about like, hey, how do I better track conversions to my sales page and to my website to understand where my customers are coming from? That's not my sweet spot.

I was like, what was the answer?

I mean, as far as I was like, set up Google Analytics and they're like, well, then what? I was like, I don't know either. That's what— but then like, you know, Linda and Karen hopped in. It's like, oh, all you need to do is this and make sure that you have these attribution settings on. And I'm like, great, glad you're here.

Exactly. But that's the power of community. I always say that there's like capital C community that brands are like, I'm going to you know, talk to a group of people. Then there's lowercase community, which is actually what you're striving for, which is people talking to other people. And I had this kind of, it's like a maternal pride moment, I think, because you build something and then you see it. But I saw, I was watching the Slack one day and somebody created a Google Doc, all the people who are trying to sell consulting services so they could refer each other when they get inbound. If they're not the right person, they could refer somebody else from office hours, and I was like, oh, that's awesome. This— yeah, that's when I know community is actually happening, when I can be removed and there's still value happening.

Yeah. And that, that is— that's the gold standard for any of us.

Yeah.

We— I know for people who are often leading communities, especially in the more like modern creator sense, you kind of set yourself up, I think, necessarily at the beginning as the star of the show, and that's You're— they're watching your YouTube video, they're listening to your podcast, they're reading your newsletter, they're following you on social. They're like, they want to be around you. But it is like, it'll only be sustainable long-term for everyone, including, including you, including me, if people are talking to each other. It can't always rely on just like, you know, hey, how's it going? How's it going today? I'm, I'm ready, ready to push forward.

It goes back to the like, I only have so many tools in my toolbox that I can share. Once my toolbox is empty, I need somebody else to kind of also share what they've got cooking, and then I gotta go get some new tools.