3 keys to Build, Manage and Monetize a thriving LinkedIn Community - Teacher: John Espirian

Many marketing experts say building small online communities is the future of marketing. And we all know that LinkedIn is the platform of choice for business. Today in our lesson we're going to marry those two things and look at how to build an online LinkedIn community. We're going to look at how you build and monetize your community and the three essential steps to get you there.

Teaching you to make useful content so that you can build long term relationships with the people That matter to your business.

Hello and welcome to the useful content podcast. And today we have a brand new teacher. May I say a professor in the useful content classroom, John Espirian. Hi, John. Thank you very much. That's a lovely description, Juma. Thank you for having me on the show. Delighted to be here. So I've been looking at your work for a very long time and we know each other from LinkedIn.

You have one of the, the deepest set of technical LinkedIn content from your website to the newsletter to Espresso to the content you share on LinkedIn. How have you been able to gather? I I'm amazed. I, you know, I'm kind of at a loss for words. I'm going to, I'm amazed at how, how have you been able to gather all that content over the years?

Cause everything is so well connected and laid out and cataloged. Well, I appreciate that. Thank you. Uh, I think it's mostly longevity. I've been blogging regularly since 2016. So, you know, when you've been doing something for, for several years, it becomes easier to, for it all to compound. I call it a content estate, and I'm paying into that estate every time to build the interest in it.

And, um, I've just been really obsessed with learning how LinkedIn works for many years. So I've. I'm focused on being known for that topic and it means I can go really deep with my research and I know what my audience wants and that's what I've been building on my website and then putting out through my LinkedIn posts and through my email list and now through my paid community.

So I guess it pays to focus on one thing for a very long time. You end up building a really big body of work. Yeah, it's a fantastic body of work. I mean, you could just basically ask any question and it can be answered by doing a simple search. I love the fact that that was the case. And today we're going to talk a bit about building a personal brand and trust.

And clearly that body of work is reflecting the fact that you've taken time to build this, uh, this personal brand in your own explanation. What is a personal brand? A personal brand is the set of thoughts and feelings that are associated with either the, I think either the perception or the actual experience of dealing with a person or an organization.

So it's what you think and what you feel about what a person is going to be like, and then what they're actually like when you deal with them. All of that makes the personal brand. So it's not just what people say about you when you're out of the room, but actually when you're in the room and you experienced that and you come away with a feeling that captures what the personal brand is.

For some people, it's really brash and machine gun and right in your face and really energetic. And for other people, it's really laid back. It's really thoughtful, knowledgeable, and you know, there are a million different types of personal brand out there. Mine is really centered around this idea of being relentlessly helpful, which you will have read about in my book, I know.

And so I try and focus everything on that idea. So I think, what does it mean to be relentlessly helpful? And I try and show that in everything I do. So for example, my content is not going to be full of ads and lots of rambling stuff. I want to help you and get out of your way. So I'll focus on. What are the tips I need you to know, I'll give you as much detail as I can, and then I'll get out of the way.

That's an example of my personal brand. Yeah. I love that. And I think that's a good point you make because people often quote, think about Jeff Bezos about the thing that people say about you when you're not in the room, but what does he think people say about you when you are in the room as well? And, you know, it's not just an absent thing.

It's also a presence thing. And, um, I often refer to a as the thing that people don't forget about you. So Whatever makes that impression, whatever is long lasting for me, that's what it is. They go away and they take something and that is what it is. That's an excellent explanation. And you use that personal brand to build trust.

Connect those two dots for me, personal branding and trust. Yeah, well, I think it's, it comes back to this idea of being the same shape every time that congruence.

If, for example, you are, you know, you're a video expert, you always turn up in your red shirt, you've always got that liquid smooth voice, I kind of know what to expect. And if you always show up doing that, when the time comes that I need that video expert in my life, I'm going to trust you. If you suddenly moved into a totally different field, wearing different clothes, you're talking about a completely different thing.

I don't really know if you have any chops to back that up. So maybe I'm not so likely to really remember you. So if you can be congruent, the same shape every time you show up and you talk about a subject relentlessly, then over time people will say, he's the guy who does that. And that makes you rememberable, memorable and referable.

And that that's what all of that is about. And, and you have no choice but to be trusted. If I'm going to turn up for seven years talking about LinkedIn all the time, I probably know what I'm talking about. Uh, and people will trust you, maybe not immediately, but after months or certainly years, There's no option.

You give people no choice, but to trust you because you put out helpful content. That's what it's all about. Yeah. And you've used that content, uh, to build trust at scale. You, people see your content and now they say, Oh, this is John. He's never led us astray before. I can now trust anything that he is saying.

And even if you make a mistake, you come back and you correct it or you update it and you're very responsible with the way you share your content. And, um, and I guess that has allowed you now to go into community building. And so let's talk a bit about LinkedIn communities and why did you choose to particularly build a community on LinkedIn?

And then we'll talk a little bit about how you started to do that. Yeah, sure. I mean, the, the, the, one of the key things to keep in mind here is that when you're creating content for social media or the internet in general, very often you're giving away that content for free. You're giving away a slice of your brain completely for free, possibly to the whole world.

In return, you get social credit in the bank for that. You build trust with people because you're helping them. After a while, you get the privilege, the opportunity to cash in on that value that you're giving. So if you're going to go and make a thousand videos, let's say at some point, you're going to go, okay, people trust me now.

I can take advantage of this in some responsible way. And for me, the opportunity was there to say, I've got this body of work, this content estate. I can now monetize and build a community where people trust me enough to say, your free content is good enough that I'm going to pay you. On a regular basis to go to, to another level and that's where a community can take you.

And you can only really do that if you specialize, I think, and do it for long enough. So I always say to my members, if I tried to set up a community five years ago, who's going to pay me every month when they don't really know enough about my skills? No one's going to do that. We haven't got money to burn.

You need that runway to build before people will go, okay, he's the guy. I'm going to, whatever he's going to charge, I'm going to pay that because I know this is going to be good. Yeah. Did you also have that in mind or did that just come as an idea as you went along? No, I got a bit lucky here. I, I created a free version of my community to, to help the people who were subscribed to my mailing list to talk to each other because what used to happen is I had this mailing list, we had excellent conversations.

But it was me having the conversation with the other person and no one else got to see that it was happening in private. So I thought, let's have all of these conversations in one place. Most of the conversation is about LinkedIn. So let's do it on LinkedIn in a LinkedIn group. Um, and that quickly grew to, I think something like 650 members who were talking to each other all the time or every day, asking questions, sharing tips.

And that became like a full time job. And I thought, hang on, I'm a copywriter. Actually, I can't spend the time doing this unless I make some money out of it. And that's where the paid community came from. So actually I never had a master plan to do that, but it became obvious that this is what people wanted.

And so I leaned into that. And now here we are, it's been 18 months and it's working out pretty well. Yeah, and I like that. I like the process. You went from focusing on yourself, clarifying your own, uh, personal brand and building trust. And then it naturally led into now having a community. You formed a nucleus in yourself.

And then a community gathered around you this naturally. And I guess if, if you can do that, it can be pretty clear because in content DNA, you talk about that. You talk about, uh, obviously being the same shape everywhere. And the fact that you had this terrible, um, tagline before, and just by happenstance, you have happened to see relentlessly helpful on stage.

And that was starting a new journey for you. Um, so let's talk about your LinkedIn community management. A bit now. So what does that actually mean? What is this? What is, uh, managing a community on LinkedIn? How do you, how do you do that? Well, we've got lots of facets to our community. So there's a place to have discussions with other members and there's also an email list, but there's also things like a video library and a private podcast, and we have a members map and a database of skills.

So there's lots of facets that make up the community, but I suppose the key thing to, to, to know with all of that is. It's a privately managed zone of the internet. And I found over the years that a lot of people, especially with LinkedIn, they're a bit scared of saying something publicly because there are 950 million members potentially watching that.

Maybe their boss is going to see it. And people just would prefer to stay silent. Than to say what they really think about things. And so giving people a private space to talk just lets them talk a bit more freely. And they can see that they're in a room effectively in a room with other people who are like them, who all pull in the same direction.

And that means there's this, this idea of kind of psychological safety. If you feel like you're in a small room with people you trust. You can do things that you wouldn't do in front of 950 million members because it's too scary. So that's one of the great values of having a small community, I think. Are the members aware of this impact or do you just see this, can they articulate the fact that it's safe?

Yeah, I think they absolutely do. I mean, you know, we run little challenges within the group and sometimes I'll say to people, okay, this month I'd really like to see you create your own video for the first time if you've never created one. And sometimes people will say, okay, here's my second take. And what do you think of this?

And they would share that, but they would never share that publicly. And then sometimes you can get real success stories where someone says, I've made my first video and I didn't die. And actually I'm going to go and start a podcast now. And you're like, great. You know, so, so a little win. has turned into something potentially massive for your life and your business.

And you would never have done that if you had the public potentially criticizing you. Um, so, so you can't always predict what's going to happen, but if you're in a space with other people who want to support you, want you to win, they're your cheer squad. Then, then great things can happen and, and small communities, I think actually will be the future of the internet rather than the big wide open.

We'll have lots of little communities that are all collaborating with each other. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. It kind of is in line with some of the other things I've been hearing online in, in marketing about small communities and that idea of belonging to a space that you can freely share. Okay. So psychological safety is like the trifecta of things.

We're going to talk about today and you pretty much covered that or already. Um, is there anything you want to add about people being safe in the community and how someone can build that for themselves? Well, I think again, that just comes back to having the trust. I mean, if you were starting a community tomorrow, would anyone trust that you could produce the kind of environment?

That they would feel safe in, you need a long runway for that. This can take years, but if that's your end goal, if you're starting with that end in mind, I think you can probably speed up the process in terms of talking about that kind of thing in your content, which I never did before. It just came about quite organically.

So maybe it took me, let's say five years to get there. Um, I think people could probably do it sooner than that, but yeah, you need some time, you need some skin in the game, some time in the game. Uh, before people will get there with you and you've got to do everything you exhibit shows whether you're a trustworthy person, you know, your ethics.

So, um, yeah, just, just be patient and it can also happen for you, but it's important to speak to people with a like mind. I try and I think I attract people who are a bit like me and that makes it much easier for them to trust me and therefore we can all get on well together. How do you determine like mindedness?

I think it comes down to things like your ethical approach to things. I mean, I've got something called a manifesto on my website where I'll say what I will do and what I won't do. And people can see those things as signals of what kind of person I am. I don't get involved in really hot topic debates. I don't.

Get into any controversial stuff. I prefer to keep things much more neutral and fact based. So, so the kind of analytical, pragmatic person, I'm, I'm a scientist at heart. So those people can see themselves reflected in me and we, we congregate well together then. Yeah. And that's also reflected in your content, which they, they connect to.

Yeah. Yeah, absolutely. You know, I'm not going to write some rambling poetry. It's it's always going to be data based and it's going to be short and sharp and clear language and to the point and people who like that will probably like me. Yeah, you're no broetry or anything. I'm not sure. All right. Good stuff.

Good stuff. Okay. So we spoke about psychological safety and there is another thing that you talk about when building and managing a community on LinkedIn. The second thing you you. You identify is accountability. Tell us what accountability means. Well, I think action is always going to be inaction and inaction is your biggest enemy, you know, so there's so many things competing for your time.

But again, if you're in a, if you're in a zone where you're with other people who want to move forward. seeing those people moving forward and having little challenges to get you to do just a little bit extra each day. That's massive when it compounds, if you can do that consistently. So instead of having a massive goal, we try and like to shoot for small goals, um, as a way of moving everyone forward and setting little deadlines as well.

So I mentioned earlier, you know, let's say you're going to do your first video before the end of the month. And then we're going to go and check that you really did it. And, and it's kind of, I suppose it works in the similar way to the way slimming clubs used to in, in the old days where you'd say, okay, we'll, we'll all do our way in together and you know, who's lost the most weight and you're all encouraging each other.

And no one wants to be the person who's, you know, failed that because you get that kind of social element going on where you don't want to let the team down. So even if it's something where, If you were on your own, maybe you don't care about yourself enough to do that thing. But if you're with five other people who all want to get a certain thing done, you also want to get it done because you don't want to let them down.

So accountability there is important. And remember that inaction really is a big enemy. And if you don't have an accountability partner, even if it's just one person in a DM conversation, That might be the difference between you getting your goals met or not. Okay. I've seen people who have done what we call challenges.

Like for example, they will say post every day for a year. At what point does accountability have diminishing returns and become stressful? Is that a thing that happens? Yeah, I mean that that's a massive goal to take on. I think something like that I probably wouldn't get go in for. I'd go for something that's a small win, because I think if you can get a small yes, a small win, that will encourage you massively to want to do a little bit more.

Um, so it's almost like, you know, climbing up a mountain in small steps is doable. But trying to jump straight to the top of the mountain is impossible unless you're a superhero. And we tend not to be superheroes. So go for the small wins, small and steady. If you can do it every day, it's the whole consistency thing.

Then you will get better and your business will, will improve as a result. But if you don't have that accountability component, you then need to be very personally disciplined to get anything done. So whether it's losing weight, You know, earning a bit more money in your business. If you've got someone cheering you on and keeping you accountable with deadlines, cause nothing gets done without a deadline either.

Uh, that's, that's a, that's a really good thing to do. I heard someone talking about the idea of body doubling, which I had never heard of that, that phrase before, but it's you both get on a zoom call and you don't talk to each other. You're just, you just use that to say, I'm, I've got 45 minutes and I'm, I'm on zoom with you.

But I'm going to be doing the task. I said I would do, and you're going to be doing the task. You said you were going to do whatever it is, but we're going to be looking at each other at the same to make sure that we actually do it, that kind of accountability. I've never actually done that before, but it's a smart idea because you don't want to let the other person down, sit there and play candy crush or something.

You've got to do the thing. Yeah, you know, interestingly, I just this week I heard about that same thing. I was listening to a podcast talking about ADHD and this person who has ADHD was explaining that's what they do in order to get things done. They would body double, they'll go on a call with a friend.

We might even have listened to the same thing. I think it was on the Chris Doe podcast. I heard that. So, yeah. Oh, yeah, yeah. That's exactly the same thing. Yeah. Um, right. So accountability. And I was just thinking about accountability goes both ways. Yeah. So you have, you as John Esperian, you're accountable to your community and then your community is accountable, not necessarily to you, but to the wider community.

Uh, how are you staying accountable apart from to the people? Do you have someone else or a group of people or leadership team that you're staying accountable to? Yeah, I've got small subgroups within my community who I discuss at a more advanced level, the strategic side of running the community. So, you know, we all need our own coaches, don't we?

And that's kind of what's going on there. Um, so I'm very mindful of that. I mean, ultimately, I judge myself on how many members can I retain and how happy are they within the community? So I'm talking to my customers all the time. This is another great thing about running a community. We always say that if you.

A business succeeds based on talking to its customers, really, you know, knowing what the customers think. All of my customers are my members. So I'm talking to them all day, every day. So it's great. Um, but you know, if people stay and they're happy to pay, then, um, then, then I must be doing something right.

And we've got more than 200 members now. So, um, so that's going well, but yes, I try and keep myself accountable by always telling my, my inner circle of what my plans are and moving things forward through there. Excellent. Okay. So we talked about psychological safety. We've talked about accountability and there is a third pillar in this tripod of LinkedIn community excellence called networking.

And I know people will immediately have ideas about what that means. Let's let you clarify for me. What do you mean when you say networking? I think just, it just means building a closer relationship than you would have with people who are just on the wider social network. You know, if you've got a follower on Twitter or connection on LinkedIn, great.

You've got a, there's a number in a column somewhere. So what, but if you're actually in a community talking to someone a lot and you get on the same zoom calls with each other and you take part in the same accountability challenges with each other, then you get to know each other. And that means that over time, you actually want to do business with each other, or you want to, more importantly, refer business to each other.

So people will come to me and say, you know, do you know an accountant or something? I'm always going to go to my community and say, yeah, we've got one. And here he is. Um, and so, and other members think the same way. They, they want to support the wider. the community by saying, yeah, I know a logo designer, I know a video expert or whatever.

And we, we refer business and we just remember each other a lot more. So I think the real gold of LinkedIn isn't selling yourself relentlessly, but building relationships so that other people want to sell you. And if you do that with enough people, Your marketing kind of takes care of itself. If, if I, if I know enough people, um, who like what I do, they're going to tell everyone else.

And that is enough to sustain my business. We don't need thousands and thousands of clients. Most of us don't anyway. Maybe we need. If you build enough first level relationships where you're really close to people, um, then, then that marketing takes care of itself. So that networking is really important and you've got to start somewhere.

And if you can start with a small community that you speak to every day, it just becomes a lot easier. I love that building relationships. Other people sell you and, uh, and that's, that's, I'm big on that. I'm being on that, hence it's good to relate. So, um, so I, I think, I think that, you know, in, in networking, when people talk about it, it can, it can definitely come across as kind of, I'm just doing this to get some, um, benefit for myself, I, I, you know, the only reason I'm taking your card is because I want you to take mine type of thing.

How do you, how do you stop that type of behavior inside of the community? No, well, that's never what it's been about. That's far too transactional for me. I think I would encourage people to build their personal brands to the point where if you ever think of that skill, whatever that skill is that you've got, your name is immediately top of mind.

If you can do that, transactional because people will remember you. So whether it's video streaming, LinkedIn expertise or anything else, you need to get your brand so sharp. That someone can, that someone can remember you at the critical moment where someone says, do you know a live streaming expert? I need to, I'm going to launch my own show and I need to help.

Oh, I know it's going to be, you know, Juma or, you know, that, that, that's where you want to get to. And people can see that I'm, I'm doing that myself. I'm, I'm leading by example. I'm not pitching my own services to anyone. They come to me. Um, and if anyone were pitching like that, they were just paying to join a community so they can sell.

Those people aren't welcome. They, they, they wouldn't, I mean, it hasn't actually happened, but if they did, um, they'd be shown the door pretty quickly. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Good, good stuff. Cause you want to maintain the first part of it, which is the safety of the community. And if somebody moves in that manner, it then compromises what the community values of the community.

And so you have to try and preserve that in your every decision. You have to think about how is this going to impact the people, whether negatively. Or positively the safety is everything you can't have people poisoning your group. Uh, that, that, that, that would kill the group if we allowed that kind of thing.

So you've got to protect that more than anything else. And people, I think really appreciate it. They don't, maybe they don't realize it when they, when they're not seeing it every day, but they would definitely notice it if it, if it, if that wasn't being taken care of. Yeah. Was that one of the reasons why you decided to make it a private group apart from the fact that you need to get paid for it?

Was it for that safety part of it? Well, I mean, I, I would happily have left it as a public group, but the thing is there, there was, it was just taking over my life. There was so much activity, you know, it was actually a respectful place, but there was so busy that I had to stop my other work to, to, to attend it.

So that's why it had to become a paid gig. And when I did that, we went from. 650 members down to 120 members, um, straight away because of that. So, you know, five out of six people left because they didn't want to pay and that's fine. You know, I think that will happen to anyone who tries this model. We'll probably find the same thing.

However good your services, not everyone is willing or ready to pay for it because they think they can get it all for free, uh, on Google. And, you know, often you can, but relationships you can't get for free. Uh, and psychological safety you can't get for free and there's, there's some value to be paying for those things.

And, you know, we've talked about three of the benefits of, of, you know, the three of the struts of community. Those aren't the only things, uh, you know, we're only talking about those because we're a bit limited on time. We can't talk for hours and hours, but, you know, the chances to do collaborative content together, you know, that, that's the kind of thing you can do when you build trust, you can go.

Let's write this blog together. Let's get on this video together. Let's do a podcast together. Um, you know, you can give your members discounts. You can give them exclusive news behind the scenes that maybe you wouldn't want to tell the whole world. So all sorts of other benefits for being in a, in a safe private space as well.

I have to admit, I was one of the people who opted out, not because I didn't love it. It's just confession time. Confession time, everyone. John has forgiven me, uh, clearly because he's on the podcast. But, um, yeah, I, I really wanted to be a part, but there's so, so much output. And sometimes that, that happens.

You have so much output in different areas. And the thing, the thing with the private content that some people don't realize as well is because, because it's behind a paywall effectively. You might think, Oh, I'm not, I'm not producing as much content. Actually, I'm producing more content than I ever have.

It's just that two thirds of my content is for my paying members. And one third of my content is for the public. So I'm still putting lots of stuff out there, but you're not, you're only seeing a third of it. Um, and now that I'm, yes, now that I'm running my own conference, um, we're just trying to bring together all the nice LinkedIn specialists from around the world and all the people who really like LinkedIn and want to just get to the next level.

And I think nothing really beats meeting people in person. You know, everything we've spoken about is an online community at the moment because I've got members in Australia, in, you know, in, in North America and Europe and all sorts, but actually. Shaking people's hands, giving them hugs, being in the same room and learning together.

I think that's, that's a potentially lifelong relationship you build there if you get it right. So, so we're, we're branching out into that and we'll see how well that goes next, uh, next March in Birmingham. Mm. Mm. I'd love to see that in person. Um. I'm thinking about it, really, really, I am. Okay, so, so interestingly, your desire to bring all of your, let's say, a friday shout for those who don't know every week, john identifies a person, let me just say a person on linkedin that he thinks has value and, um, and he puts them in the Friday show club.

I'm part of that club. And something you said a couple of years back was that you wanted to have this gathering of your, the Friday show club together that predates the uplift conference. And it predates the community as well, which is really what I wanted to say. When you said that, were you, did you have any inkling in your mind that it would manifest in this way in the future?

I think manifest is a good word for this. I, it was just a dream. I, I didn't know if it was going to be possible, but I think if you write something down, it's much more likely to happen than if you just keep it in your head. So at that time, I remember actually writing that tweet. I think we had 130 members of the Friday shout club and it was February, 2021.

When I wrote that tweet and I just said one day. I'm going to get all these nice people together. And I thought, well, but they're all around the world. I mean, how could I possibly do that? And then of course the community came around and I've really, really gone deep on LinkedIn. So all of the people who are going to be speaking at my event are in the Friday shout club.

And a lot of the people who are going to be in the audience are in there too. So it's not quite a Friday shout gathering. It's a LinkedIn expertise thing, but there's a lot, there's a lot of crossover, but yeah, I'm not, I'm not really a spiritual person in any way, shape or form. But I thought if I write this down, maybe there's a chance that, you know, I can come, I can remember this day and come back to it in the future and really make it happen.

And yeah, we're six months away from it really happening. Faith Plus works, right? You do stuff, you have a thought, but then you do stuff, right? Yeah, absolutely right. It's just, just writing it down on its own is, is not, you know, is, is not going to, it's not a magic wand, is it? You've got to work really hard to make it happen.

But I think if you don't set out what your goals are or, or, or some kind of plan, Then you're just relying on luck. And I think I've had a lot of luck to get to where I am, but it's, it's not just luck. There's a lot of hard work too. Yeah, absolutely. One hundred percent. That's lovely. Is there anything you want to add again to the people about community building that you think is important to know?

I know you mentioned collaboration, you mentioned different things earlier on, but is there any final thing that anyone who wants to build a LinkedIn community that they should know that's very important that we missed out that you want to add now? I think I would just go back to something I've said in the book, which is.

Really make sure that if anyone, if your friend or colleague were to describe you, they would be able to describe you in just a few words, four or five words. If you can get to that point and you keep reinforcing that message, you will attract the people who are like minded. And that's the beginning of a community, but you've got to get that thing really nailed first and not waver from it.

Um, so if you can do that, then you're on, you're on the right course. Perfect. Excellent. Great way to end. John, please tell the people where they can find you online. Thank you. Um, yeah, if you search for Aspirian, you'll find me on LinkedIn and on my website and the current project is the Uplift Live Conference.

So if you search for Uplift Live Conference, it's also linked on my profile. You'll find out all about the conference and I would love to see you there. Thank you. I would love to see me there. I want to see how tall you really are, Juma. That what you, I think you'll be, you'll be pleasantly surprised to see how tall I really am.

Is it six foot seven? Six, six, seven. Yes. Yeah. Yeah. Massive. Yeah. Okay. I'll have a proxy step in just to measure the height. Nice. Thank you so much for joining me, John. And thank you all the students in Useful Content Classroom for listening to this podcast today on LinkedIn Community Management and how you build that through psychological safety, accountability, and networking.

And until we see you next time, have an excellent, excellent, two weeks, Useful Content Classroom. Dismissed and we are clear. Nice. Thanks Jim. That was great. It was a really, really good, really, really good. Oh, lemme just stop the recording here, . I don't wanna say anything terrible. Like go Manchester United or anything like that, Dear, lemme not do that.