#78 Take Vacation From Your Community
In a world of personal brand queens and thread-boi culture, we are all at risk of building a fan club instead of communities.
You can and should be the curator, facilitator, and connector. But your community members are the stars.
If Taylor or Beyoncé can't attend the concert, the concert is cancelled.
But your community should be able to go on without you.
I talk to founders about two issues that come up when thinking about community building:
I want my legacy (this community I've built) to live beyond me
I want to be able to step away from the community for a sabbatical, to pursue a new project, or to be a caretaker.
Do you want a 2-week vacation? or maybe a month off? You should be able to do this without any issue.
This means you need to build a community, not a fan club.
Don't build a fan club
A fan club has the creator or business owner at the center. All the questions and conversations are directed at you, and you are the "talent" of all the calls and experiences. Without your consistent presence, the majority of your members would cancel.
A network membership has the community members at the center. While you are a core member, you are not the focus of the membership. You curate and facilitate but your members are the focus. Your members talk about how you brought together an incredible group of people.
In most cases, we're leveraging audience to launch a community or membership... which may mean that people originally join your membership because they are a fan of you or your business.
But you can convert that fan-ism into a network membership experience.
Your fans are going to have things in common ... like their goals, values, and interests. Here's how to utilize this to develop a network membership experience instead of a fan club:
Create a strong premise – What journey on they on? What transformation does your membership serve?
Design & nurture the culture – create a culture where people connect with one another. Start this by connecting people 1:1.
Set expectations – Share during onboarding exactly how your members should participate with one another.
Host connection events – Create events solely for connection and create a space for your members to be social with each other
You can take vacation from your community
Your members will understand – in fact they will probably take ownership and show up for each other when they know you're away.
It's all about communication (like most things). When you want to take some time away just bring your community along for the ride.
Here's a few ideas:
Create a pattern break. For example, bring in a guest to lead an event you haven't done before.
Allow your members to step up and host events.
Encourage your members to support one another by sharing that you'll be away.
If your community is full of people that are all "newbies" together then you can bring in a few people that are a few steps ahead to support them. A great way to do this is to ask past program graduates if they'd be willing. You can pay them a small fee or trade them for their time.
Many of my clients have support coaches in their communities – maybe this is your sign to consider it. Chenell Basilio even had a newsletter expert besides herself from day 1 helping in the new community.
When you take time away you'll have a stronger community for it. There will be more intentionality in the way you connect members to one another, and bring in other support systems besides you.
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