#69 3 Ways To Help Your Community "Do The Work"
Hello & happy weekend!
This week I ran a workshop with my client who is a relationship & personal development coach.
Through my team’s research and journey mapping process we identified the toughest part of the journey for his community in overcoming their limiting beliefs and communication struggles.
The toughest part: putting what they learned in concept into practice in their life. They needed encouragement and structure to “do the work”.
I hear this all the time — “well my students aren’t seeing results because they aren’t willing to do the work. Those that do, succeed.”
My question to you… Are you doing everything you can to help your members do the work and be successful?
Changing behavior, re-wiring our beliefs, and learning something new is difficult… especially as an adult.
Today I’ll share a few strategies you can try to give your community the tools they need to be successful.
Let’s get into it —
If you’re serving a community on a path of transformation then you are, in many ways, an educator.
In this industry we focus so much on marketing that we forget about learning to be a great teacher.
Every teacher with an education degree will tell you that students have different needs. And as learners, we know that we learn differently than our peers.
A series of how-to videos with no follow up or implementation plan will work for a few motivated, self-starters with excellent time management skills and a positive mindset.
If your programs are only getting results for a few students, you could be offering more to get more of them to the finish line.
There's no shame here – you read this newsletter because you believe in building a community-driven business which cannot exist without a service-mindset.
The good news is that you have the luxury of stepping outside the typical classroom model. You get to run experiments on your own terms.
Your goal is customer success – here are a few strategies to help your students implement what they're learning and reach their goals.
Run A Challenge
We focus on gamification like login and engagement streaks but oftentimes those really don't move the needle for members – they still need to put in the real work in their business or life.
Challenges are a better form of gamification. They're powerful because they help your members re-wire their behavior.
Challenges can provide daily prompts or action over a set period of time to help your members achieve wins & build momentum toward their goal.
Challenges are often used as low-ticket or free lead generators.
For example, last week at Craft + Commerce I met someone who is offering a $97 30-day challenge that converts 7% into a high ticket membership.
This isn't an outlier – challenges that align super well to a core offer convert very well. I have a friend that has seen 8-10% conversion into his mid-ticket course from a live challenge.
Challenges work because the community starts to see traction toward their goal. They feel momentum and they want to keep going.
Challenges can also be used within programs and memberships to drive member success and positive engagement. Examples:
One of my clients offers an evergreen (always running) challenge a few weeks into her program encouraging students to reach out to 100 prospect clients with the goal to convert 10.
In one of the client memberships my team is managing we are experimenting with new challenges each month with the goal to help them have their best year in business. Our 14-day daily social media challenge had great member results. We provided daily prompts and a content tracker.
Personalized Roadmap
We want to create the feeling of "this was made for me" – this is one of the 3 factors that contribute to a "sticky" product.
Your customer's #1 question is "What does this process/transformation look like for me?"
When people are on a path to do something new, they want a step by step list that is going to get them there. And they want it to be tailored to them.
If your members have a roadmap to help hold them accountable, it takes the guesswork out of what to do next. Provide a resource for them to reference like a roadmap (interactive to do list).
With a little bit of work you can create custom roadmaps –
Automate it with a quiz using Interact – you'll select a few different paths using this method.
Do it manually with a template and update it during a member 1:1 onboarding call. You can delegate this as you scale.
Either way, your members get a personalized roadmap and feel good about their next steps. With a personalized to-do list in their hand, they're more likely to take action.
Pair this with an email sequence encouraging them to work on their roadmap for best results.
Get sh*t Done Programming
In my transformation membership model I share that programming is how you help your members practice and implement what they're learning.
Host events to help your members "do the work". Examples –
Chanti Zak has offered “get sh*t done days” in her program where her team runs an accountability zoom all day while students work on integrating everything they are learning.
Many communities offer some sort of co-working sessions. The CEO Crowd offers co-working as one of their core events for their networking membership.
Workshops going through the exercises in your curriculum can help, too. For example, if you provide a worksheet on developing a business vision, you could host a business vision workshop and go through the worksheet with them.
Experiment with these types of events, it's not something you need to promise on the sales page, but it is something you can try out!
If you try any of these in your business let me know! I'd love to hear how it goes for you.
Are you running a challenge?
I'm collecting examples of challenges if you'd be willing to share yours! If you send one in, I'll share the list I'm putting together with you.
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