Unleashing The Power Of Community: Insights And Strategies With Shannon Procise

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Hey there. Welcome to Feed you'd brand. I'm Tom Hazard along with my co host and better half, Tracy Hazard. And today we're going to talk about unleashing the power of community insights and strategies with Shannon Process. Tracy, I think there's no one better to introduce her than you, so would you do that, please?

Shannon has amazed me since the first day I met her. She is a powerhouse at getting people to show up to things and that is what we all really want here and in our communities. We want our communities to interact, be energized, engage, connect, do all of those wonderful things. So I'm so excited to have her here. She has the Business Acceleration Network which we're going to talk about today. And she is a connection spot specialist. She is highly regarded multifaceted business executive with legendary training and coaching services and event planning, marketing, public relations and networking skills all under her belt. She has done so many different things with so many amazing people. I'm not even going to list them right now because I'm sure they're going to come up. But she has spent a decade building an international conscious business community and that's what I really want you to tap into and hear today. She helps businesses grow to their full potential through knowledge sharing, marketing and cooperative strategies, including many of our own clients within the Potter Dies community who work with her, who do her special partnerships which we're going to talk about as well, her joint venture partnerships, power partners, as Shannon calls them. And so she's the co author of the bestseller Law of Business attraction, the Secret of Cooperative Success. And she has the Business Acceleration Network, which is pretty new within the last few months, right, Shannon Online community.

Yes. But we've been. Can you believe it's been 10 years?

I don't. A decade of doing this. I know Shannon's events are always so much fun and I mean, you fill the room, whether it was live or virtual, you fill them and it just has amazed me.

Thank you. Well, it's about partnering with people like you and finding those amazing people that you love to play with and collaborate with. And we get to work together.

Well, let's start with that, because I think that's something that people, they think I have an event and they'll just come and it doesn't work like that.

Right.

What are some of the keys to getting that going to. Getting an event that people will come to?

Oh, my goodness. So since we're talking about podcasts, we want to consider the podcast as an event just so that your listeners can go, okay, let's relate this. Each podcast is an event. There's definitely the key aspects of marketing, right. Getting out there could be, whether it be press releases or public speaking or networking, constantly letting people know where you're at. But when we talk about partnerships and collaborating, it's amazing how you can leverage event to get free press and to tap into other people's resources to be able to reach the masses together. So, for example, one of the things when we do our events or do something is we. What? I literally go, who do I want to play with? Right? Who do I love sharing their message with the world. Who's doing great work that I would, you know, I want to shout from the top of the rooftops if this is somebody you want to collaborate with. And I usually find a way of connecting with them and going, what are you up to? And how can we together use this event to showcase all of us? What can we create to really have you get, you know, create a win, win, win.

You know, I think that's so interesting because you come out of more of the publicity side of things and what you noticed. And if I'm not wrong about this, and I think I'm right about when this. How this came about, but I really want to hear about how this idea for the Business Acceleration Network, this is really where it's merged into, but it's come through many forms on the way. There really was this idea that there's a lot of publicity opportunity for relevant events that happen now that are timely and people don't get to tap into them enough. And that is something that's happening. And then there are other people who have communities and they're not running events or doing the things that they should be. So when we cooperate and leverage that publicity, we really create a much more dynamic event.

Yeah, it accelerates everything. It really, you know, collaboration is an accelerator.

Well, let's talk about how your community started, because I think a lot of our listeners out there are in that early stage. So tell us a little bit about how things got started a decade ago.

So how I got started was I had really had this need in my own life of navigating my business and not feeling alone. And so you've heard this thing. You are who you surround yourself with, right? And so I said, I want to start surrounding myself with people that are better than me, people that are more skilled than me, people that are, that have been there, done that, that can help me shortcut what I am doing. And so ended up doing my first event and asked, we know Bernie Dorman and another gentleman who's been on Oprah, Ernie Chu, saying, will you come and speak? And these are people that I really wanted to have in my community. And then I just started identifying again, who do I want to be with, who do I want to play with and how do I want to collaborate? And so really, that first event was kind of a test. It was like, okay, do I want to do this? Is this a viable idea? And when we did this first event, everybody left there feeling such deep connections and wanting more. It was like this huge. You know, the testimonials, it's like, you think we give testimonials about the food or all of the benefits that they may have got, but everybody really talked about the sense of feeling like they're part of a family and feeling like they're part of a community. So that was really the catalyst to going, okay, I want to play with people where we have a shared vision of helping each other.

So, Chen, I think there's many podcasters who, they've started their podcast initially because they want to be heard, and a lot of them want to build a community. Not all, but a lot do want to build a community. And I see that there's a good potential to segue from a podcast into a community, but people just really don't know where to start. The idea of, yeah, I'd love to have a membership community and be charging people, you know, a monthly membership fee.

And, or an event fee or.

Yeah, or if you're going to have just a one time event. No, but I do think events are one time events are certainly a part of this. But I do, I mean, we have some podcasters, we have one that just launched two weeks ago that already is starting a membership community from scratch and using the podcast to raise awareness of it and get people into it. But I think more people don't do that. They start with the podcast first and then aspire to have a community. And I don't think they really know where to begin. I mean, there's so many different things to consider. I wonder what you would recommend. You know, you're saying partnerships, cooperation is key, I get that. But where do they begin? I mean, what would you recommend?

That's such a good question. And I, and really, I'm going to talk about the elephant in the room. Some people don't want to build a community. So let me just talk about that real quick. And then. So it's okay to not want to build a community, but find a community that you can play in. Right? We don't have to go out and do the content and do all of those things, but find one that you can align with, that you can, that will feed you personally, professionally and business wise. So I love your guys's community as podcasters. It's like we have a podcast community, right? So find somewhere that works if you're just getting started. You know, I really tap into other communities that want to cooperate. So I've been a part of different incubators and accelerators in my area. We've been a part of CEO space. So I love tapping into other communities to see how can we play and where are gaps that we can share resources. Right. You speak at mine, I speak at yours, and then start looking at that. I also think communication is essential in community. A lot of people think that communication is. They get on my email list, that's a one way, that's called one to many. And so you know, and I know people have Facebook groups and things like that. I think really identifying a internal platform, that you have control of the emails, you have control of the content. Right. You don't have to worry about one day Facebook goes, oops, we're going to turn you off. Identifying that platform where people can play together and can connect together. So getting started ideally in other communities, seeing where you want to go, identifying what's your mission and vision, being clear on that and what is it that you want to offer and how do you want to play together? You may not want to. I mean, I think events are core to community connecting. Right. Like you guys bring your podcast community here and we get to watch you every week and we get to get questions answered. We feel really supported with all that you do for us. Right. So you want to also look internally of what's your time and what do you want to contribute, make you first and then start mapping that out. Did that answer that? Okay, tomorrow?

Yeah, that's great. I mean, I think it's a great point that even though many podcasters may think I want to have my own event or want to create my own Membership community, maybe that's a really big leap from where they are. And to start playing in other communities first, if they are not already, would be a really good first step. But I do think eventually people do. I hear it from a lot of podcasters is why I asked the question right. Is that they would like to have a membership community. It's one of the many things people mention when they talk about monetizing a podcast, one of the things they could do to monetize a podcast. But I don't think they all really understand what's involved. And I imagine you have to provide some sort of unique value proposition to get people to join your own community rather than one of the other many communities that already exists. Right.

I think that's the question that where you need to get at next, Tom, is like, so if you think you want to play like you've done enough to like explore, test it out and say, yeah, I think I really do want to have this on this membership community and I'd like to charge for this. What are some of those key ingredients that you really need to have like done and or have in place before you get started doing it or you get no one to show up? Like, you know, it's a failure point because you are missing things. When we started the podcast, one of the things that we noticed most was that other podcasters would just be like, I syndicated on Apple. I'm going to get listeners. And they didn't realize, oh no, I do have to have a marketing plan, I have to have a social media plan, I have to have an email plan, I have to have something to push it out there. What are those missing pieces that are going to make the community fail and they're not going to get the results that they want.

Yeah. So for me, when I first got started, I really did an architect and an Excel sheet or mind map of what are the different things that I'm going to offer and what I have seen that causes failures. Not being clear on what it is that you're going to offer. Having it again where it's just elearning and there's not. People want community to me is engagement. And a lot of times, much like you guys are doing, they want to be able to ask questions. They want accessibility, they want to be able to connect, they want to be able to network. So I see that as a foundational thing of community. And if you are missing that, that's where a lot of them fail. They're like, oh, I've got a community and it's just elearning, right? You guys have seen that. And then with that looking at what are the key things for success, you have to look at your onboarding, right? So you have to really spend time in. How do I make this so easy for them to understand? And if they get stuck, there's things that support them along the way and guide them through that. Onboarding is essential to success. They have to know how to navigate it. And right now we have younger people that can get in and they can just, you know, you can. They don't need to read the directions. But then we have older people, depending on your demographics, that they. They need a little bit of support. And so for us, we did both text and video, right? So we really combined in our onboarding a way that they can learn it all different ways. And so with that map we identified in ours, we have course curriculum, things they can learn on their own. That regular thing of E learning where they go, I want to learn about marketing or I want to learn about raising capital or whatever, those pieces you guys are going to be contributing, podcasts and things like that. But then we have a place where there's an ask and assist, and this is a place where at any time, nobody is left stuck for more than 24 hours, right? It's like they want that connection. So finding how you can put that in your community but support your lifestyle, again, you have to really look at. You don't want to be working on a Sunday, make sure that's there. So having those clear tools and systems to support that. The other thing that can cause failure is not involving other people as leaders. So we really want to. And that's where the partnership comes together. So in our community, we have an author's hub. We have a place with a pod, right? It's like when you have shared leadership that allows you to take a breather first off. And really it just enriches the. The community. So finding ways in your community to have that shared leadership, shared role, so it's not just dependent on one person. I could go on and on, but.

I figure out, no, that's so good. I'm really so glad you said that, because I think that's the real problem is that a lot of times the community is not really a community. I mean, you know what I'm talking about. It's like the person is running it. It's their ego, it's their thing, and they won't share any of it. And it's why it doesn't take off, because if they're not doing everything, then the community isn't nurturing itself.

It's so true. And that's where I think the word community. Sometimes I get a little frustrated because they use the word community. And I get in there and I'm like, this is not a community. This is a talking head telling me what to do.

And, you know, you call us a community and I kind of like, I'm sitting back here going, no, we're not a community. Like, I know we're not. That's why we joined yours, right? Like, that's why we're a part of yours. Because we didn't want to be a community. We want to be mentorship.

Right?

Like what we do here, whether it's on livestream or with our group of people, because we have a community of people. But to get them to ask questions, we just wanted to create access. But it is all about learning and referrals and sending them to the right people in the right places and getting them moving and keeping them from being stuck. But it is not a community in which they're interacting with each other. We don't actually do that here. And part of it is, it's just how far we are in the community building process. We haven't gotten to that stage yet for our own purposes. And part of it is that our client base is a little bit more of like, done for you. So they don't want to do any learning.

So they're on a mission. They're on a mission, right?

Like, they're on their own goals and they just don't want to have take the time for that interaction yet. So it's just we don't have quite the mix of people. We are growing it and we get. And as you can see here, because we have great attendees on Zoom right now that those. We have a lot. We have those people who are really so excited to learn from someone like you, Shannon. So we're seeing it grow and grow and grow. But when it gets to a certain stage, then we want to really hit that community build. That's why we've been partnering up with you. And I want to transition right now to what the Business Acceleration Network is doing. So let's talk about the network itself and also talk a little bit about what it's built on, because you mentioned that the tool that you build it on helps to facilitate things.

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. So what we're doing is we've identified the six Cs, our six pillars where we all businesses need, whether it Be capital or clarity or communication. And a big thing is celebration, a place where you can come and celebrate your success. We're considered, like a business accelerator, and we are reinventing entrepreneurship through community and collaboration. And I'm so blessed. I love that you brought up that platform because for years have been doing events and doing. We do zoom. We do all of these things to build community together. But I found an awesome platform Heartbeat, that has allowed me to really create something that works for our members and works for us, and I love that. For example, she mentioned Power Partners. We have our power partner hub where power partners can connect, we can do our E learning. It even has a matchup. And so you can go in as a member and go, I want to meet a new person every month or every week or every two weeks. And when you sign up on that, it's beautiful because it sends your bio and their bio, and it helps facilitate that introduction. So we're really. We have such a beautiful community of what we call collaborators and trailblazers where they are there. You know, when we get together for events, we call it love seats, and we put somebody in the love seat, and they share a goal or a challenge, and we just love on them.

It's not a hot seat. I love that. Fits a little more with the heartbeat, right? Yeah. Well, you know, I think, Shannon, that that's something that's very unique about you and the way your events run is what I always found is there's a lot of heart in there, and there's a lot. The people that you attract, I mean, they've become power partners of mine just naturally and are. I mean, I think. Juliet Clark.

Yeah.

Fran Asaro. I met Fran speaking at your event, and she was speaking at your event, but we met before because you do such a great job of getting the speakers together, and I think that's a really unique thing. You're not only collaborating with the audience, with your members, but you're collaborating with the other participants, the other partners. Tell a little bit about that process that you do with speakers at your events and that sort of power partner side of things.

Yeah, that gets into that shared leadership part. I think that magic happens. What I learned from doing hundreds of events is magic happens just by bringing people together. I don't have to know it all. I don't have to be the expert. And so before events, I love bringing the speakers, or even in our community, the leaders together, because I find that I learn a ton. First off, I mean, the ideas I would pay thousands to get, but the connections that they do and the support that they bring to each other. There's a lot of deals that happen, so I see those as essential for their success. Right. Because we don't know when we do events if the audience is going to buy. We don't know. Right. You hope that people will take action when you're inspiring. You hope when they get on your podcast, they're going to sign up for your list. Right. We hope that. However, when we bring the leaders together, it's like they find ways to work every single. Right. Tracy, you've done a number of events. It's like they find a way to work together.

Tom, you know, thinking about like that, it's like our very first clients in our business were other speakers at events, were other faculty members at CEO space. Like they were the first people who did business with us. As opposed to us putting a program out there and just selling it randomly, you know, via email marketing or any other things. They did business with us first, and that wouldn't have happened if we weren't networking with them at those events and getting to know them and solving problems and, you know, doing business with them as well.

Yeah. As I was listening to the two of you talk there, I was realizing the greatest value we have gotten out of any community that we've been a part of in business, whether that be CEO space or magnify your wealth event or, you know, I don't know, there's a whole bunch of them out there, and you've been attended more than I have. Tracy, when I look back at them, I can't look at any of those networks as doing specific things that for me, that accelerated my business, except for the connections of the other people through those events. That is the one thing that's been a constant value in all of them. And, you know, it's interesting because, I mean, I mentioned up front, and I'm not trying to drag us back there right now, but about people who want to have their own membership community, because I just hear it from people. They want to have their own for one reason or another, and they may be very good reasons. But putting yourself out there into other communities may very well. That exists may very well bring you greater returns than all the effort put into starting your own. And again, like you said, Tracy, how are you going to get anyone to show up? Right. You have to.

It's a whole other business to run it, run a community. Right.

That's it. It's a whole business in and of itself to do the sort of community and event side of it that sometimes we don't have the bandwidth for that and it's a lot easier to join another one and be a power partner in that other one. And I love that you use this term power partner, Shannon and I. And you have a complete training program on it or some kind of to masterclass or something.

You do.

So please tell us about that too. But describe the difference between you hear JV or affiliate, describe the difference between that and a power partner.

So a power partner is somebody where it's a relationship where you are working to understand what they do and they work to understand what you do. It's not just sending emails of market my stuff. It's like, let's meet and let me know what's going on and how can we promote it and share it together. They align with the core values. They're not just looking at the bottom line. They understand that when we come together, the gifts could be in a word of wisdom or oh my gosh, you missed this on your website, right? So it's beyond just a link and the bottom line. It's really those relationships of we have a shared vision of supporting each other and how can we do that? And you're somebody you can call on me, right? It's like you can call on me if you need help, if you want me to plug in. And so I actually partnered with Juliet Clark, who I love. She. We developed a power partnership mastery series because as we're bringing in power partners to band, we want to make sure that they understand cooperation and collaboration and how to create agreements and what's the difference. And many times people are not ready. That's the biggest thing. They're not ready to be a power partner. So we wanted to help them get their house in order, their business in order, so that they can be that ideal partner. Because if I'm going to share pot of ties, it's like it's much easier that you guys have given me marketing material and I, you know, I can go to your website like, you guys are ready. You're established and it's not good or bad. It's just we want people to be ready so that they can show up their best and learn how to discern who's a good fit and who's not. Because sometimes we think people are. It's my friend, it's somebody I want to work with. You do have to look at some other key things of what's going to work best.

Well, you know, I think that's key really, because our Power partners are a lot in common, right? Juliette Clark has been a power partner of ours for five years, I think, and she's actually. I mean, I met you before then, but she's actually why we connected up and did have done even more together. Fran Asaro, same thing. Like, as we get to these places where they have more clarity in what they do, it does become easier to partner up with that. And I think that is a key part of defining your position in the power partnership is like, how do I play and how do you play and how are we going to play together?

Absolutely. Yeah. And then you got to talk about the money. Like, what's the exchange? And sometimes it's not always money. Sometimes it's building lists, sometimes it's speaking at events. It can show up in many different ways. But you want to start with that heart stuff first and assess the marketing and really look at. Is this where you want to invest your energy? I have to tell you, Tracy, I spent a couple years really going, I'm going to do affiliate marketing. I'm going to align with affiliates, and I'm going to do all this stuff. And what I found was some of them were great, super excited, but I couldn't convert anything through a link. It was just. It wasn't working. And so the other part is making those personal introductions. It's really, you gotta have people that are willing to say, hey, like Tom. I'm like, hey, Tom, I've got this person about a podcast. You know what, interested in podcasts. So having a power partner that that's willing to meet and connect with people is also one of my core values.

I think we find the same thing, Tom. Look, we can put as many links as we want into our newsletters, and it will not convert as the same as us bringing you on here. I can introduce you in my newsletter and it's not going to happen, Shannon. But if I bring you on my show and I talk with you here and I talk with you in front of my community and you answer a bunch of questions in the second half hour of our program here, that's going to make all the difference.

It does make a difference, Tracy, for sure. Although that's no reason to stop trying. Sort of one of my cliches, right? I always am trying to engage much more in the affiliate link thing because I know some people that are just so hyper into.

That figures. I have a friend who's making.

Yes, they're doing incredibly well with it. I'm like, all right, I'm missing opportunities here. I got to engage on this. Right. So that's true. But you're right, Tracy. When I'm connecting somebody with Melanie Gorman, another partner type of person that we are sending a lot of people to, I send an email introduction right. Where I'm connecting people. I'm, you know, not necessarily having a specific event or meeting or something. I mean, we do some of those things, but I think there are many ways to do it. I think that the power partners, cooperating, collaborating, exposing each other to our own groups and connections is incredibly powerful. And those connections, I think, convert at a much higher rate.

They do, they do. And so before we go and before we end this interview stage and we get to our Q and A from our community, I want to ask Shannon, because you are an absolute marketing expert. You're the one who I know does the most dynamic job with marketing and publicity. What are some keys to really getting people to become aware who don't know you already? Right. And to become aware of your events, your podcast, the things that you're running, your communities.

So I love we. We. I mean, there's many ways of becoming aware, but I love syndication. And we include video. Video is so powerful for people to come aware. It gets all the senses and finding in your local area or on a national area, whatever it is, that's going to suit you and your podcaster. So you want a global reach with the story identifying. If you can tag into something that's happening in the news, that's really incredible if there's something that's hot and buzzing to. To tell that story. Also, if you're launching your podcast, if you've hit your 50th podcast, you know, a special guest on your podcast or something that you know is trending, those are all newsworthy items that can be told. And it's. It's all about telling the story. Right. I feel like, Tracy, people often say, well, it's only nonprofits or a certain type of thing. And I'm like, give me anybody, and I can find 50 stories. Can even be an educational piece, even educating people on something that you're an expert at at can pick up news and get articles and things like that.

Yeah, it's not saying, like, I have an event come to it, like, that's not enough. There has to be a story that surrounds it, is what I hear you saying. Yeah.

I want to share one thing. Our biggest press release that got picked up, the tagline, which is essential. It was 85 ways to improve your health in six hours or less. So that tagline, the 85 ways is we had 85 expo booths and it was a six hour show and it was incredible. So really it's that storytelling, it's the language and how you get it out there.

I love that. Well, the Business Acceleration Network, we've got all the links for that in the blog post for this episode, so you'll be able to connect up and find out more about what Shannon's offering. But just give everybody a little teaser on some of the things that are coming up in the next couple of months because you know they could be listening to this anytime. So it may not be relevant, but you've got some things coming up, so let them give them a sense of what it is.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. So every month we do our high performance networking event. And this is virtually anybody can come in. And what I love is we also have a unique proprietary app that when you come in, it gives you access to everybody you met in your breakout rooms and it strategically puts you in different breakout rooms. So we allow people to come a couple times, check it out, and then we hope you come into the community. For some of the other networking that we do, we're starting some live events in Florida. So, you know, that's exciting. We also have our Business Acceleration retreat that you can find out about on our website. And this is a three days on the beach. Really powerful. Diving into your business in a deeper way, getting clarity. And you actually leave here with a marketing blueprint for custom for your business and what you're working on.

Wonderful. Well, Shannon, we are so proud to have you a power partner in our business and we are so proud to be a part of the Business Acceleration Network as well. So thank you so much for joining us today. Tom, you have any last words?

Oh, just it's great to reconnect and get re engaged in our little connection and community and to, you know, introduce you to our other podcasters who are some here live with us on Zoom and others that are listening out streaming. So it's great to introduce you to them and help raise awareness of Business Acceleration Network. So thanks so much for joining us.

That's awesome. Well, I think you guys have a community. I know there's other ways. I'm so glad, Tracy, but I signed up to do a podcast, which I haven't done yet. And thank you for your patience.

We're always nudging you, Shannon.

I know, I know. And I'm so. I just want you to know that I don't see it as little. I see it as really such a powerful place for people like me to get everything I need. I have felt so supported by what you've built, and it's easy access, it's instant access. And there hasn't been a question I haven't asked you guys that. You didn't have a, you know, go here, go here. So I just applaud you for your community and all that you're doing with the Podcasters United. I mean, it's. Yeah, you guys are amazing. So thank you.

Thank you so much for being here. Shannon Procy's Business Acceleration Network. I'm Tracie Hazard and along with Tom Hazard, here on feed you'd brand. And we'll be back next week with another episode. And don't forget, you can join us live. Go to podcasters united.org check things out and you can join us live next week.

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