Building Your Dream Community - How to build, scale and sustain it! - Tara Geraghty

00:03 All right, we are going to dive right in today talking about how to build your community. And this is the topic I feel so strongly about because in today's world, your community really is your currency, whether you have a business or not. And I strongly believe that you should build your community before you actually need it. One of the things that I say all the time is that anyone can start a community, but not everyone can build a community and it's a very different skill. And I see this happen all the time people start something, but they don't really know how to continue it and how to scale it. 

00:39 So that's what I'm going to talk to you about today i hope you grab a piece of paper, a pen, get ready to take notes. If you've never worked with me before, my name is Tara Garrity. If you follow me on social, it's Tara's voice that's where you'll see that everywhere. But I've been building communities for about 27 years believe it or not, that is crazy to me when I think how long it was. My first community was a team of women that I was building within a business where I had to really learn how to build that community, build a community of clients, build a team. 

01:07

And then that turned into running in person communities where I was building communities where they were in person networking events, bringing people together, getting people to come back, bring their friends. So a lot of it was in person. Then in around 2009 when Facebook was baby, baby Facebook, if you remember back then, this will tell you how old you are you. There were no photos, there were no videos it was basically a little line that said I am and then you would fill it in with what you were doing i am eating an apple. 

01:37 And at that point I built my first online community, which was a little Facebook group that had just about a thousand people in it, which doesn't sound like very much, but if you remember back then, there weren't a lot of people on Facebook nobody even knew what Facebook was. And since then I've gone on to build massive communities, one that was as large as 46,000 thousand people. And So what I've learned along the way is that there are things that separate people who start one versus people who scale one. And when I built my largest community, a lot of people said, what are you doing what are you doing? And I kept saying, oh, I'm not really doing anything, I'm doing what everybody does. 

02:15 And as a friend of mine started to question me a little bit more, what I realized was not everybody actually knew what to do. And so that's what I'm going to teach you today i'm going to teach you how to separate yourself so that not only can you start one, but that you can build 1. And so the first question we need to really ask is why why do you want to build a community? What is it that you want from that community? And it's great to have that that nice heart to say, well, I'm here to give value and I'm here to serve. 

02:44 But unless you're doing this as a nonprofit, there is something you're probably wanting to get in some way that you want to monetize that community. Ok, So unless you're really coming from this is I want to build a nonprofit community and even then, nonprofits need to create profit to sustain. You want to go into your why what is it that you hope to get from this community now are you building it because you want to bring people together in a way to get them to know, like and trust you so that they'll feel comfortable recommending products and services that you're using? Maybe you have a product and you want to build a community around that product. 

03:17 Maybe you want to start a blog or a podcast or you want to write a book and so you're looking for a community that is going to benefit from what that you're doing oK. But the real question is, why do you want to build it and what's in it for you? You know, we don't like to ask that question we think, oh, that's a selfish question i think as women, we tend to really run from that question, oh, you know, what's in it for me, it's really all about others. It's not. It is OK to say what is in it for you. 

03:43 And when you're clear on that, then you can ask yourself the next question, which is what is in it for your community members? Why would they want to join your community? All right, When you know what's in it for you, then you can with confidence say this is what's in it for them. Without these basic questions if you just dive into building a community, you're probably going to hit some roadblocks. There's going to be some miscommunication. There might be disappointed people because we weren't really clear from the beginning, why am I doing this what's in it for me and what's in it for them? The other thing is being really clear are you looking to build a community versant audience now one is not better than another there is they are just very different. 

04:29 And what I have seen is that a lot of people want to build an audience, but they're calling it a community. Those are vastly different things. Here's how you know what the difference is with an audience. Think of a stage. You're standing on stage, you're speaking and the audience is listening. So this would be, for example, if I create a blog and I put a blog out there and it's me sharing with other people, they are my audience. 

04:57 It could be I create a podcast and people are listening to me and they're my audience. A community is very different. A community as you step off the stage, you get into the ground or everybody else is you get on the ground with everybody else and you start connecting those people together. Say this person, let me connect that person, let me connect this person and, and you're in with the people they're no longer the spotlight is no longer on you. 

05:27 The spotlight actually now turns and is on everybody who was in the audience. How does that look on a blog well, that's where somebody says, hey, start to engage in my blog and they create a forum where people can engage and get to know each other and connect so you can have a blog that's an audience where it's just the Blogger is out there or the Blogger then creates a forum where the community now gets to connect and have their voice heard. Same thing with a podcast. 

05:53 A podcast can be an audience where people are listening, or a podcast can have be where they invite guests and they have an interactive web page and they have a place, you know, a Facebook community where people can engage with each other and now there's a community around that. So again, that's not right or wrong, but what I've seen a lot of people do is they want the spotlight on them. 

06:14 They want to create an audience, but they're labeling it a community. And again, this is where this miscommunication happens and where feelings get hurt and people get disappointed and they feel like they didn't get what they expected because the community is like true, humble leadership you're taking the spotlight off of you and putting it on others. Ok, So I want you to think about this is your dreamtime in your wildest dreams, what would this community look like? And I want you to be really specific you know, it's very biblical without vision, the people will perish. You have to have the vision for your community, and it's not just what it will look like, but it's who is in your community. 

06:56 You know, what makes your community different what makes it unique? What do you want to be known for? Why would somebody want to be part of your community and your community versus maybe a similar one? Ok, when you have your unique values, like what are the values of your community what type of women will be attracted to your community? What will be the benefit for those people and what do you want to be known for what do you want your community to know about you? This allows you to kind of, if you picture like a pillar, right there are all these different pillars and there's all these different communities you want to be able to stand on yours with a solid foundation of this is what we stand for. 

07:36 Now here's how you will know if you have a solid community pillar. Can you explain your community in one sentence? 

07:47 If, and think of this is like an elevator pitch, if you've ever done like, you know, networking where you have to go and you have to introduce yourself, right? If you can explain in one minute what it is that you do so I get it by the time we get on the elevator and get off the elevator, I leave going, oh, I get what she does can you explain to your community in that same way? So for example, I'm the founder of one of my communities is the hey, girl, you can community. Ok. And if I was to say, if somebody said to me, well, what is your community about i say, well, it's a place where men want to grow themselves and grow their business. 

08:17 So you really get that this isn't just about business. This is about growing yourself, becoming the best version of you it's a place where I want women to step into their greatness and the best part of them so that they're in a position to be able to grow their business so it's a really 2 fold. My community is so that women can grow themselves to grow their business. And you explain it in one sentence. 

08:40 Ok. Then from there you can start to talk about what makes it unique. So for example, in in our community, one of the things that I think is very unique is that we have a very strong core value that every single person is significant and every single person has value. And that it's about becoming the best part of who you are. It's about changing who you are. It's stepping into the greatness that's already within you, right? And that every single person has a voice that deserves to be heard. So what do you want to be known for what do you want your community to be? What kind of people do you want your community and this is what's really important. 

09:18 And this is a little tip. You know, I teach a class on how to competition proof yourself so this will be a little timid on that. How to competition proof your community is that you as the leader set the tone. Nobody can steal your community. Nobody can mimic your community, even if they have the same, you know, basis. It's because you're the leader of your the community, you're the founder. So what you bring to the table is unique because you're the only you. So one of the things that you may want to do is really sit down and write what qualities do you bring to the group what makes you stand out as the community leader why would somebody want to be connected with you? What do you contribute as far as maybe your skill, your mindset, your values, your belief? You're going to set the tone. 

10:07 You know, it's kind of like if, if you see a thriving community, you know they have a really great leader if you see a, a, a community that's falling apart, look to the leadership it's no different than a company or a business, right? When a, when a company is bought out and taken over, what's the first thing they do they slash the leadership because it's, it's in that struggling place because of the leaders. Community is the same. The community is struggling it's because the leadership is struggling. 

10:31 And and that doesn't mean if you're sitting here right now and you're like, well, I have a community and my community is struggling. Now she's saying it's my fault. So this is not to point blame this is to say that maybe it's because you haven't done some of these basic things first looking at why grow your community what's in it for you what's in it for them what kind of people do you want like maybe just going through this session will allow you to write down some things to regroup, maybe rebrand a little bit. 

11:01 It might also be that you're kind of out there on your own trying to build a community, but you haven't surrounded yourself with a community. You know, it's kind of that idea that even a coach needs a coach. Every single person needs a community so while I have a community that I run, I'm also actively immersing myself in other communities so I can grow into the best version of myself, so I can be the best leader for my community, right and so there just might be some growth that you need there so what communities are you investing in to grow you so that you can go back and grow your community? Ok, what qual and, and you have great qualities. 

11:38 You have great qualities just because you're the only one who has your life experience. So what are these qualities that you bring to the group? Then there's just very logistical parts of running a community and where will it live and how will you run it. And this is their, you know, there's lots of different opinions on this. Obviously some people grow their communities on a social media platform like Facebook. And if you're going to do that, you want to think, OK, is this going to be a group is it going to be a page is it going to be public is it going to be private? You know, obviously there's social audio apps like Clubhouse or Chatter, you know, places like that where people are growing communities. 

12:14 Maybe you want a private domain. You know, there's a lots of so many that are popping up right now you know, Mighty Networks is one that a friend of mine just started using i have no affiliation with any of these i don't know, but there's tons of places that you can host your communities, right? Some have subscriptions where when people join, they have to pay a subscription. Some are free. But you want to think about how will people find your community how will they join are you going to pre screen members or can anybody join? You know, are you going to have admins who are helping you run the community or is it just to you? And then what's really important is what is available for the community members, What roles can they play and how often are you going to connect with them are you going to have regular events will this be through lives, webinars, Zooms, newsletters? Just thinking through the logistics. 

13:03 And here's what's important to know you may start your community in one place and decide at some point you want to move it to a different place and that's OK. So don't get so caught up in the logistics that it stops you from taking action. You know, your first step is just your first step you can always pivot what I would encourage you to think through and just avoid a huge pitfall that I, I fell into, so big pitfall pitfall that I fell into i do not want you to have this happen. 

13:32 When you're looking at a social media platform where you're looking at a free place to host your community, keep in mind you do not own that digital real estate. And I have seen this now with a number of friends who built massive communities through Facebook and then they got locked out of their account, their Facebook got shut down, Facebook terminated for whatever reason. And all of a sudden now that group is gone. That would caution you from building your livelihood on somebody else's rented space. Now, with that being said, I do have Facebook groups i think there's value in Facebook groups and I will say one of the things because I, I was part of the Facebook group that moved on to school, which is another huge membership platform right now and one of the things I don't like about it is that I'm on Facebook already it's kind of a place I'm already hanging out. 

14:23 Another group that I'm part of that I really love she had a Facebook group everything was in the Facebook group it was one of these stories where Facebook shut her down she got hacked, she lost her account she can't get back into the group. So she took her community and she moved it on to Mighty networks. The problem for me is that I'm those aren't places that I't hanging out. So I like Facebook because I'm already hanging out on Facebook, so it's easy for me to go there. However, if you're going to build your community on Facebook, it's very important that you have a system to collect people's information so that you're not just dependent on Facebook, whether that's getting their email, their text message, you know, a text number to be able to text them you need some other way to communicate with people outside of just Facebook because if Facebook goes down, you lose your community. 

15:06 All right, so I'll give you 2 examples of how I, I kind of messed this up on my end to avoid this, I built the Hey Girl you can community on Clubhouse now when that was in massive growth and, and we built up to 46,000 thousand people, I didn't have anything in place really to collect emails. It was quite a bit of time before I figured out, oh, that should be something that I should do. And so then it was kind of trying to play catch up to get emails from people who were really active on this platform. 

15:32 And I missed a massive opportunity to build a huge email list. And it was, you know, once I kind of figured that out and I got things in place, then I slowly started to recoup some of those emails, but never to the level that I would have had I done that right from the beginning. I have an email, I have a Facebook group now that I run for one of my other businesses. 

15:55 This is a private group it's an invitation only we pre screen all the members it's not anybody can just join. So it's really a closed group and we've got about I think maybe 25 three thousand people in there. But again, did not actively require that people give their email to join. And so then it's a lot of, but what we do in that group is as soon as somebody joins, we do a welcome post it's automatically to set every single Monday and those people are all tagged and then we individually message all those people who joined the group. 

16:24 So there's a lot of work on that end to build a relationship that people aren't just joining the group, but that we're really connecting with them so that we can then, you know, get them into an email marketing list or get them onto a virtual event or get them into a, a mailing, you know, catalog mailing list or things like that. So you do want to think about when you're getting your people in the group, what information do you want from those people. And there's a whole lot out there that email marketing is not dead so I would encourage you to look for email, marketing text marketing what however it is you want to communicate with your community members but don't be dependent on just one platform, even one that you pay for. 

17:02 So even if you're paying for something like School or Mighty Networks or any of these places, companies go out of business, right? And so you want some way that you can reach your members just in case. All right, So it's really think that through in the beginning do not do what I did. All right i want you to be set up from the beginning for success. Now, if you haven't started your community yet, then you are going to need to think about the name of your community. 

17:27 You want it to really accurately reflect the purpose of your community. Like you want somebody able to read the name of your community and get what it's about. And also your title has an energy behind it. So one thing that you want to do and, and kind of write down is what are some keywords, key phrases that describe the energy you want your community to have? And then also what are the qualities that you want the members to have? Do these match? If I want my members to be like this, then are the the energy that I'm giving out attract that? The other big thing is, can I look at this name every day for the next 5 years and still be excited about it? Now, that's not to say that again, sometimes the logistics slow us down and stop us from taking actions so you may want to start with the name you can always change your name, but I think if you can take a few minutes and brainstorm some ideas and come up, and maybe you use chat GPT to do this you type in like, here's some key phrases what kind of titles could I come up with can you give me 10 variations and see what sticks with you? You want that one that in your gut, you go say it. 

18:27 That lights me up i really, really love that energy. So in my community, hey, girl, you can you really get right away what that's about, right you get the purpose it's it's one, it's women, right hey, girl, right. And then you can, it's going to be empowering it's going to be, hey, we're going to lift you up hey, we're going to encourage you. You know, you get that pretty quickly. And it's interesting because I had a lot of people who joined just because they saw that name and they said, I want to be part of that. So you want your energy, your title, not to just be how I think it's a great pun on words, but can somebody else get it? And is it going to attract the type of people that you want? Obviously somebody who's really negative is probably not going to join my community saying, hey, girl, you can right now with that you also want to think about what are the rules for your community? You want to have expectations And just one tip, and this is like a people management leadership skill tip. 

19:23 You want to use phrases like our, OUR our rules, our community, not my rules, my community. Remember, my is the audience, our is us all together doing life. So think about what are the expectations. So for example, I have a an expectation one of the our rules in the Hey girl you can community is we have a no venting rule. I know that sounds really funny, but it's literally no venting. And the reason why is because of some of you. If you work with me, you know that I, I have a book and I have a TEDx talk all of in the childhood cancer community my daughter's a cancer survivor and so I talked to medicals professionals and and parents a lot about. 

20:09 How we are the mirror for our children and our energy and what we create and so in my research, in my scientific research, as I was doing my Ted X and going into using fun and laughter and stuff in the medical community, I had found a very interesting study. And it was about venting. And you know, we tend to think that when we vent, we feel better. Off my chest, I feel so much better i vented, I let it out. The research shows the opposite the research shows that venting actually is really harmful to your body. 

20:40 It allows those emotions to stay and to kind of get stuck in our body. It also negatively impacts the person who got the venting, who had to listen to this and so it was a really fascinating study about what happened psychologically, physically to our body when we vent and what we do to the other people around us and after reading that, I thought, huh, that's not healthy. That does not create a positive space or a positive environment that does not serve anybody it doesn't serve the person who's trying to quote, get it off their chest it also doesn't serve the people who have to listen to it and so we made a rule that in our in our space, there's no vecting. 

21:14 Now we can come with problems and struggles and we want to support women as they're going through difficult times and be a community that surrounds women who need support that's different than somebody who's just coming to vent and drop all their right. So really think about what kind of space you want now, maybe that doesn't resonate with you maybe you're like, dude, that is wild i love to vent and I think it's effective and it makes me feel better and you know, that's one of the things I like i like people coming in and kind of blowing off some speed. No judgement. It's just that those are two very different communities. 

21:44 And so you have to think about what do you want for your community? Your vibe will attract your tribe, right? And so somebody who doesn't resonate with what I just said is not going to be a person who's going to enjoy my community. And that's OK. You do not need to be everybody's cup of tea, All right and I think that's one of the things that we try to do is we try to make A and I know, at least for me, I want an environment where everyone feels welcome. 

22:09 So important to me because I have such a core value of that every single person is significant. I want everybody to feel welcome. But I also know that just who I am and my core values don't align with everybody else. You know, my, my mindset, the way of growth mindset, things like that doesn't align with everybody else and that's OK. You want people to find the communities that they're going to thrive in and if my community is not a place that somebody's going to thrive, why would I want them there why would they want to be there? And the same thing for you. 

22:37 You want to attract the people who are going to benefit from your community. So thinking about what are the qualities you want your community members to have what do you want these people to look like and I would encourage you to get as specific as possible. You know, this could be age, this could be demographic, 

22:56 Depending on what your community is it might even be a religious preference or spiritual preference. Are these people who own businesses are these moms? Maybe they're in a certain part of the world or in the country. The clearer you are on who you're looking for, the easier it will be to find that person and for that person to find you. 

23:18 So there's a great quote and it says there is a difference between followers and influence and you want influence. You get influence when people trust you, when they trust that you care about them. And that's not all about you now you're going to say, well, wait a minute, you started with what's in it for me but remember, I followed with what's in it for them. And the only way I know what's in it for them is when I can figure out what's in it for me. 

23:46 One of the key things and, and guys, if you take nothing away from this, one of the key things that I think has really supported me being able to build huge communities, but sustainable communities is that I proactively think of ways to appreciate and love on my members. How can you appreciate and love on your members? People will stay where they feel appreciated. People will stay where they feel important and valued. 

24:15 Where can you do this publicly where can you do this privately and where can you do this at no cost or maybe with a cost? So let me give you guys some ideas publicly. When I started, Hey girl, you can and we were on clubhouse. I would do what I would call, and it's kind of weird because I have a background getting out of a domestic violence relationship so the term love bomb has a little bit of a funny connotation to it, but we would call it a love bomb and I would drop into a room that somebody was doing kind of unannounced and I would just love on the moderators and I would thank them for contributing to our community. 

24:46 And I would appreciate them and, you know, be very sincere about what I thought was great about them and it was a way to publicly recognize them and affirm them for being in the room. I would post on social media and we would have, you know, somebody of the week and we would acknowledge that person. I still do that now within our community when people come to our networking events, I give them a Canva file and I give them an opportunity to get free PR i will post them on my, you know, IG and I will share what they do and I will publicly acknowledge them for being part of our community. 

25:17 You can do this privately you can do this by sending somebody a message and saying, hey, thank you i appreciate what you contributed or you, I really appreciate those thoughts that you gave the other day. And a lot of this particularly because of social media, you can do this at no cost. You can affirm people with no cost at all. In one of my communities, what we do is we'll do like a 5A Friday, Friday favorites and we ask people to post their favorite products on Friday and it gives them a chance to get showcased right. 

25:45 Anytime somebody, one of my communities where there's like different goals, when people achieve different goals, we post a picture of them, we create a Canva file, love on them, appreciate them. I do as much as I can to publicly affirm people. Now, some of those things are cost. So for example, I used to do with Hey girl, you can with we were doing it on Clubhouse i would do Starbucks 5$ Starbucks gift cards and we would kind of have random people of the week who had contributed or done something really great for our community and I would send them a 5$ Starbucks gift card and say, hey, thank you so much for what you contributed have coffee on me. 

26:23 You know, or maybe you offer a, you know, every month somebody in your community can win a coaching call with you or they can win a guest spot on your podcast or they can get, you know, maybe you offer people a chance to like one of the things that we do in Hey girl, you can is we give people an opportunity to contribute to the blog at no cost if they want to promote and they have something great that would benefit our community, you know, we give them a link they can contribute to our blog it's great for me it gives me content, It gives me some to share with my community and it's great for them it gets their name out there. 

26:53 I'm always looking for ways that it can be a win win. You know, I think that when you can find ways to collaborate that affirm other people and make other people feel important, people want to support that which they create. You know, that saying is so true. You want people to feel like this is their home, this is their community. Then you want to think about how we're going to grow your community. So as we wrap up, I'm going to give you a few quick things how will you personally proactively grow your community? And I want you to come with at least five ways. And then I want you to think of ways that your members can support you in building your community. 

27:26 And are you going to teach them how to invite people into your community? One thing that I've I've kept in mind, and I learned this in my first business when I was in my early twenties and it was a tough lesson to learn it was when I was building my very first team and I just wanted to do so much for people. But I learned very quickly, and I will give you this this is a saying I say all the time when I'm training people. I will never do for one person something I can't do for everyone. 

27:52 I will never do for one person something I can't do for everyone. And this is very specific this comes when you're building a team or building a community because you don't want to set a precedent where people feel like there's favourites. So this does not apply to all avenues of life this applies for this specific instance. If you start giving or doing for one person something that you cannot do for everyone, it can lead to resentment, it can lead to favoritism, it can lead to people having their feelings hurt. 

28:18 So it's very important that you are prepared for growth from the beginning. Yes, right now you might only have 10 community members and it would be great to be able to do those, but can you do that when you have 100 can you do that when you have a thousand can you do that when you have 10000 thousand? I want you to think right now from the beginning, where are you going and be prepared for that growth. Often if you're not prepared for the growth, you will not grow. What will happen is you will stop and cut yourself short because you know that you can't get to that next level because you've set it up where it would just be impossible to do that for more than twenty thirty forty fifty people. 

28:55 Ok, so I know that you probably have a bunch of spots spinning in your head. One thing that I want you to do as we wrap up is just brain dump for a second. Just take a minute when you're done watching this and brain dump all the thoughts that are in your head. And then when you look at that, I want you to choose one thing that you will do within the next week to build your community just one. Not ten, just one. It's like taking that first step down the path that you want to go. 

29:23 And for a lot of us, it's just taking a foot and putting it on the path that feels overwhelming. So when you when we go back and you look at all the things that we talked about today, you might already have a community and you're like, check, check, check, check. You might not have a community and maybe you're starting with step one, which is where is my community going to live and you know, what am I going to name it? I think if you haven't thought about the why, that's really your first step, OK because if you can start with those things, why am I doing it what's in it for me what's in it for them? It really becomes a ripple effect the other answers will start to come with you. 

29:57 And here's what I do believe i think that women are crave, like craving community there's an interesting study that says that women over 35 are lonelier than they have ever been. People want your community. They want to be connected to other women. As women, we are meant to live in community we, we were a tribal we, you know, we raised our children together in villages women want to come together. And when you can create a state, a safe, positive space for women to come together where they can feel good, where they can feel appreciated, they will want to be in your space. 

30:30 And so I would encourage you number one to trust that if you have a heart, if your desire is to build a community, there's a reason why you're meant to do that. Now, if you're just building a community because you think you should or because everybody else is, or it sounds like a really great idea, I would question that i would encourage you to maybe step away from that for a little bit because your heart has to be in it it's not about you being a community leader is a servant leader position. 

30:54 It is you are there to serve your community members you may be better off right now building an audience and maybe down the road you turn that into a community so you have to really kind of evaluate where you're coming from and why you're coming from that position, right? And then I would go seek out communities that you want to be part of that light you up, that are going to bring out the best in you so that you can show up for your community the best, the best version of you. Go find your spaces so that you can then be that space for somebody else. 

31:23 All right. And I would love to connect with you. I would love to hear about your community i would love to hear about what you are excited about or what lights you up. I know that we're sharing some gifts with you so I would encourage you to go check that out If you want to dive more in or if you're interested in our community hey girl, you can, it's literally hey girl, <a href="youcan.com">youcan.com</a> you can go check that out. 

31:45 But I appreciate that you hung in here till the end with me. And that shows me that you have a desire to create your community and so if I can support you in that, I would love to hear what you're creating and if my community hey girl you can is one that you feel is aligned with you that I would love to welcome you home there. So thanks so much for watching and I can't wait to see the community that you build.