Create a Community Worth Staying For - Sara Alepin

00:00 Hey everybody, welcome to create a community worth staying for. Build a thriving membership with lasting impact. Let's get into it. So we're going to be talking about all of the things here. We are going to be going through a bit briefly because I do over deliver and I also know that it is going to be I don't want to run long so but first of all, who am I and why should you listen to me i am Sarah Allophon. I'm the founder and CEO of District Bliss we are a community of introverted and extroverted business owners, of course, sick of that stodgy style of networking and business growth and who are really ready to break free from that so we can scale with ease. 

00:43 We do that through networking, socials and opportunities, educational content like workshops and boot camps, and then round tables where you can meet with like minded entrepreneurs who are excited to support you, offer feedback and can help you answer your questions to save you time, energy and effort. Among a million other things like a resource vault, all kinds of stuff so we have a ton of stuff packed into our membership that is high value and I'm going to talk to you a little bit about why. And this is a little bit about who I am here. 

01:17 I'm excited to meet you all. So building a membership is hard work it costs you time, energy, effort, belief, and persistence, among other things. So you want when you build your community and I'm going to use membership and community interchangeably because you have members of your community so it is still membership you, if you are going to invest these pieces of your life, your personality, and your business into a membership, you want to have membership retention because it costs so much more to convert a new member than it does to keep your current members. 

01:57 So you want to make sure you have a community that has a high membership retention rate that is vital to your success and your well-being as a community. It's also better for everyone who's in the actual community, too. Retention is key to membership success. So here are the three things that really help you keep those members and retain them for long periods of time. You want them to stick, which means as soon as they join, they start to show up. They schedule that time in their calendar they make changes to their habits and their general schedules in order to show up for you and take advantage or show up for themselves and for your people and then take advantage of the benefits that you have to offer. 

02:40 You want them to stay and that means that they renew and they re engage over time. You don't want them to just hang out there and passively stay though you want them to also engage, which means that they're actively participating they find value from your community and engagement actually looks like when they start to invite their people to their friends and other like minded people to your community and talk about your community to other people, that would be a good fit. That's when you know you really have people engaged fully and really showing up for themselves and wanting to bring other people in because the community is a socially driven kind of experience, and that is how you'll know for sure. 

03:24 Do not let your community become a revolving door. As soon as you start having people who sign up, they maybe show up for a while and then they start to Peter out and then they decide this isn't for me, I'm not really interested. Then you're going to have a lot of lost revenue and time. Time has so much value please never underestimate the value of your time. You're also going to see a lack of referrals and general social proof, which is talking about why your community is amazing and that kind of thing and then also declining sales. 

03:59 And these are big traps and communities. I mean, it is it takes a lot to build it so you want to really build it the right way from the start and you don't want to have to rebuild it and, and when you see it's a revolving door, you will have to rebuild. Your secret weapon for long term growth is going to be the membership benefits first and foremost so what do your people need in order to succeed and you want to bake that into your membership. 

04:27 It also may grow and change with your members and your member needs. As technology changes, as culture changes, as we grow as people, we change. So you know, your membership will change slightly with time. It may change a little bit more drastically for some depending on your niche. But you know, for like when AI became readily available for, for business owners, you know, we had to kind of adapt some of District Bliss's education so that people can understand how to use it and you know, all the things so when something changes, you will have to adapt as well, but make sure those membership benefits are really built so that people can succeed and we're try a little bit about that more too. 

05:18 You always want to be delivering the promise that you have made so if you promise a benefit, then you want to make sure it's really easy for people to access they know how to get access to it, they know why to access it. And then you want, you know, this is going to help people really achieve that promise transformation. And then you want to make sure you're really clearly communicating how to access benefits. You want to remind people about benefits if you're hosting events as part of that, then you want to make sure you send reminders, ping people say I haven't seen you RSUP or I just make sure it's made on your calendar, that kind of thing. 

05:54 Make sure it's really easy for people to opt in and take advantage of those benefits and that you're communicating with them on a regular basis. And a lot of this can be automated, so it doesn't take that much time. And then this also lets people really know they're valued and that you, you acknowledge like you're, I haven't seen you or I have seen you so much and I think this would be a really great opportunity for you all those things, it really lets people know that they're valued in your community. 

06:21 Common mistakes that can kill a membership, lack of systems and structure. You want to put your systems in place before you start enrolling people into your membership so that might look like automated emails i have my workflow set up for onboarding in Flow desk and that helps people get access to their membership benefits it sends reminders about their membership benefits and really helps it make it really super duper easy. And then we also have a portal and Thrive cart that has everything, all the benefits listed in there with all of the quick links so that they can just really easily take advantage of it by membership tier each one has their own, you know, they're tagged and segmented into whatever their tier is in that portal, so they aren't seeing the other ones, But that makes it really, really easy for them to take advantage so you want to make sure your systems and and structure are in place so it's easy to take advantage and show up for your members limited value offers you don't want to only be offering things that take care of your new members you want to also be offering things that take care of your existing members. 

07:28 So if you are, let's say, if you're like District Bliss where you're working with entrepreneurs and you're providing a level of education, let's say we are not providing that same education every time so we evolve with our members. Right now, I've noticed that a lot of people are reworking some of their packages and pricing so I brought in one of the top experts in building an offer and we're doing a collaborative boot camp together so that our members can help can rebuild their offers if needed because that's something I'm seeing happen so you want to kind of have your finger on the pulse of your community and really make sure you're delivering in that way so that you are taking care of them. 

08:07 And if it's a limited value offer, that might be like how to use a hashtag generator or something and like that's not going to be helpful for your members who are year 2 and 3, generally speaking, because you probably have already done it and maybe they need a refresher but like you got to have more than that. Absence of support is deadly. So you want to make sure that they know who to reach out to in order to get support you want to make sure they know that they're valued. If they have questions, here's where to go, here's who to ask, that kind of thing. 

08:37 Make sure that you have that readily available for communication is deadly as well make sure that you are communicating how to access those benefits, what the benefits are, who gets access to the benefits if you have a multi tiered membership or community organization and then make sure you are communicating with them if you have a subscription do not auto renew them without communicating with them. You want to make sure that they know how to cancel do not hide this this will be deadly for everyone in your membership if this happens because they will start talking about it terribly they've already built relationships with people, it will be bad news. Make sure if they do auto renew that you make it very clear how to opt out and that you give them enough warning in order to opt out of that auto renew and hopefully they won't, but you still have to provide that information so that they can do that if they would like to. 

09:33 And then if your promise is not delivered, if that transformation is not delivered, then that is also going to kill your membership let's say you are a community garden. Then if you don't deliver that plot of land, that person cannot use the community garden and that isn't going that the promise is not delivered they are not growing whatever it is that they wanted to grow. 

09:54 So you want to make sure you are delivering that promise so that they can really get that transformation and and move forward. 

10:05 Make your membership so good that people can't even fathom leaving. You want to provide ongoing value i talked about this you want to continue to grow with those members listen to what they need. Pay attention to shifts in your industry or niche and make sure that you are staying ahead of a game and providing the value for them so that they just can't even imagine not being part of your community. Keep your members actively participating and engaged so communicate, send reminders, remind them about benefits, make everything super easy to access and automate where you can i talked about my onboarding is a workflow in flow desk, so it just emails them that's my email marketing system if you're not familiar, you can do it pretty much in any email marketing system, but you can automate it so it just reminds them to take advantage of benefits and that these benefits exist. 

11:00 So as they grow and they need different things that they can take advantage and then make your membership super juicy so over deliver and ensure they see that transformation or promise. And I want you to pack your membership with benefits that they need but do not overstuff it. If you provide just a ton of benefits like word vomit benefits, then you are going to create anxiety for people they won't know what they should take advantage of and, and I'll show you our list in a bit. And they are going to see that list of benefits when it's time for them to renew, they're going to have guilt that they didn't take advantage of like 50 % of the benefits or maybe more. 

11:41 And then they're not going to renew because they have that guilt surrounding that so don't stuff it with things they don't need. Put things in there that they do need and really make sure that those things are readily accessible to them. So do not just pack it full with things that you think are valuable or that they should need but they don't actually want i really don't want you to fall into that truck. I have fallen into that truck and I saw a bunch of people downgrade when I did that so they would go from the top tier, then to the first tier because they were the out of the three because they didn't want to be paying for the top tier and not taking advantage, even though the things that they actually were taking advantage of were in the top tier. 

12:23 So don't fall into that trap and then provide ample opportunities for growth, support and all the things. So let's take a look at that in action. So this is what we do at District Bliss. We have systems and structure in place we have an onboarding system that makes sure that everyone gets the links at immediately after signing up. And it has an onboarding video that is just a basic, you know, overview, high level overview of the benefits within 30 days every month, I schedule an A kick off call for new members and sometimes members come back after three years because they're like, did something change let me just swing in into this kickoff call and see what this is all about because things do change. 

13:09 So people know that they this is how to get access they know that that support is there immediately because I'm saying, OK, like, let me take some time out of my calendar i'm going to walk you through how to use the member portal i'm going to walk you through the benefits and I'm going to answer your questions about what benefits are the most valuable for you in this moment based on your goals. And I'm going to help you really make sure that you are getting the value you need and maybe prioritize these for later in the year and this is your second 90 days, your third 90 days, blah, blah, blah. 

13:38 And that is really, really helpful for them so they know where everything is, they know how to prioritize and they feel really taken care of in that moment communication i felt for a very long time that I was overly commutative with our people when we're onboarding, you get a lot of emails because I want you to know how to access the benefits but it's a fine line of over communicating. And recently I polled our people and they said that no, it isn't over communicating, that they just knew to flag some things for later and they knew to prioritize other things because we had done the kick off call together. 

14:14 So if you have your systems in place, then your communication, they will know how to, you know what to expect from your communication, then it's better to over communicate than it is to under communicate. So make sure people know how to really take advantage of those benefits and reminders and all those things. So we do that and then you can also do like we have a slack channel that people can communicate with us in. They know how to get into touch with us there and and each other there. 

14:44 You also can do like, let's say on Instagram, you can do like close friends and you can do like stories that only are visible to close friends and put all your members in there, that kind of thing so like it just depends on what your best way of communicating is i like email and slack. I also, I think you could use a lot of different platforms in order to make that really successful depending on what your membership is and who your people are, because we're all a little different, right? And then the value of your benefits. 

15:12 So this isn't like the value as in like this would cost 47$ if you were paying for it because these are your members they're already your clients you're not looking to like tell them what you know it's worth once they're in there, you want to tell them why it's valuable to take advantage of it so communicate let's say we, we have collaboration roundtable so people can come in and they can say, hey, Sarah, I noticed you brought in a bunch of new members from this bundle. I have never converted sales from a bundle before, just right off my email list without anyone interacting with me. 

15:47 How did you do that and I'll say, Oh well, you know, I strategically chose this contribution to the bundle and then I put them into a workflow that segmented out current members and people have already been through the sales cycle workflow. And then I give them a surprise and delight sequence and then I move them into a sale sequence where they get a discount and they just opt in because they have been given so much stuff in. So the value of the round, the collaboration roundtable is that we get to talk about those things. 

16:18 So bring your questions about collaboration and let's make sure that you're getting sales out of and monetizing those collaborations, not just participating and growing your list let's look at what your other goals are too. So the value of that collaboration roundtable is those conversations, not like 247$ something that's not what it's worth, but regardless. And then a supportive network so you want to make sure your people feel supported that they are able to communicate with one another. People are joining District Bliss as a community of business owners because they want to have conversations with business owners so that they can save time, energy and effort. 

16:58 And they don't have to do the whole Google thing or buy a whole bunch of courses they can get that all in District Bliss. And so you want to make sure that you're really highlighting, that's how we highlight. You all want to also make sure you're highlighting the supportive network as well and really leaning into when people sign up for a community, they want the people part of the membership so make sure you're leaning into that network, the people parts, the power of community i just want to remind you, you want members to stick, stay and engage. This is how you build a thriving community. So make sure that they stick, which means they join, they start dedicating time to showing up they make those lifestyle changes in order to make space for this community so they can attend events or whatever it is that are your membership benefits we, you know, for us it's primarily events today, meaning that they re engage and they renew over time you want them to continue to renew and what's going to help them stay is really that engagement piece. 

18:02 You want your members to actively participate and find value in your community ongoingly. And let me show you a little bit about that from us. So Melissa is a business coach she, I mentioned her earlier, she's an expert in building offers, among other things. And her priority is networking she wants to bring in clients through networking and she wants to find people who can be collaborators and associate coaches so she can provide trainings without, you know, where she doesn't have to be the one sharing all the content she can bring in experts from other parts, you know, book publishing or whatever if you're like she's not an expert in that maybe so she wants to bring in a book publisher and they can teach her people who are probably thought leaders to publish their book if that's what they would like to do. 

18:52 So Melissa has been a member since 2016 she has continued, this was after her first networking event with us. She has continued to gain a ton of traction from networking events. She's even converted clients out of Co working because she's shared something when people bring a question, she's been able to share resources or tips or that kind of thing and that has really helped her convert. Devin, the founder and CEO of Creative Gravity Social Media, has been a member for three years. And I want to point out here what she says is that district list is an essential part of her business toolkit and that she recommends it to everyone this is how you know people are engaging and that it's not district membership is not something you just forget and you don't use that she continues to get value out of it and this is what you want people saying about your membership. 

19:43 So make sure that's how you build your membership. I'm running out of time so these are our membership benefits. You want to make sure it's really easy to understand the difference between them and what the benefits actually mean at for each person and and make it easy for them to choose which level is the best so that you can build for them, so you can build a thriving membership and community. And then I wouldn't be a recovering teacher if I didn't. 

20:11 Share the now and next so get the support you need decide on the promise of your membership. I want you to really think about as you learn from all of these experts who have come together here to support you, I want you to think about what that promise is what are you going to deliver to your members of your community? And then I want you to start building that systems and structure and take the time to build it right because there is nothing worse than having to rebuild or move a platform after you've put a ton of time, energy and effort into it. 

20:44 It's awful i've done it i'm telling you, it sucks. Find a place where you can get on growing support as you build your community. If district list is the right fit for you because you are a solopreneur and you really want to build out your, your, you know, membership that is related to business owners in some capacity or maybe it's a be a seat where it's a, a community of people that you work with as a business owner and you're building the community so it's more of a group program then District Bliss might be the right place for you come on over, the water is warm. 

21:17 And then I want you to really build a successful community that grows with you and grows with your members and stay in touch. I am a real Cuban i love to connect with you. Grab my freebie and you, that'll get you further down the field. Stay in touch i would love to connect with you. The QR code is my Instagram i hope you have a wonderful rest of the day i know you're going to get a ton out of this summit and I will. Don't be a stranger, I will see you soon bye.