Build A Business Community That Sells

We share how choosing the right people changed our results, from guarded solo work to open collaboration that drives sales and calmer launches. We talk about picking a small circle, learning from others’ mistakes, and why competitors can become partners.

• defining community as the circle that shapes decisions
• lessons from isolating as a young founder and woman in business
• shifting from competition to collaboration in marketing
• niching down to social media, SEO and ads to enable partnerships
• using peers to review offers, messaging and launch plans
• building a trusted group of two to five founders
• practical cadence for meetups and hot seats
• benefits of an online hub with daily touchpoints
• learning faster by studying others’ missteps

Join the Boss Marketing Club for $88/year. Your first 30 days are free. Add it to your phone and get daily access, office hours, and resources. Find it on my website or in my LinkTree on Facebook and Instagram.

Chapters

• 0:53 Welcome And Show Focus
• 1:11 Why Community Drives Sales
• 1:59 Picking The Right Inner Circle
• 3:00 Vulnerability And Letting People In
• 4:13 Collaboration Over Competition
• 5:02 Niching Down And Partnering Smart
• 5:19 Book Launch Supported By Community
• 5:24 How To Start Your Small Circle
• 6:59 Introducing Boss Marketing Club
• 7:24 Learn From Others’ Mistakes
• 8:14 Join The Club And Connect

Transcript

SPEAKER_00: 0:27

Hey y'all, what's up? It's Shelby. Thanks for tuning in to another episode of the Marketing Happy Hour podcast. I love to talk with you every single week about marketing for your small business, whether it be online or maybe in person, networking, you just never know what we're gonna chat about here on the Marketing Happy Hour podcast. Today I want to talk about the importance of community. Um, you may be like me and you may be a little bit of a loner and you may not think community is important as a business owner, but let me tell you it is when it comes to sales. Community is so, so important to have around you. I may, I mean, I'm not talking exactly like oh, your community that you live in, or maybe the one that's like your neighborhood. I'm talking about the community of people that you have built around yourself that you allow to influence you and your decision making. I've made a few rough decisions and bad decisions in my day of the community that I allowed around me, and it did not help me get to my goals. In fact, it kind of distracted me and I didn't do as well as what I thought I was, but it's because I was surrounding myself with the wrong people. Once I found my little group of friends that I have now that are all entrepreneurs and most of them are in marketing or some kind of creative outlet, I have really seen myself thrive in my business and know that I can go to them with any ideas that I have, or if I need some advice, I can go to them for that, or ask them if they've experienced it. And if they haven't, then we just kind of troubleshoot it together. And it's really nice and welcoming to have those people to be vulnerable with and to understand that they accept me for any kind of failures that I have or any kind of things that kind of come into play. Because as a business owner, we kind of get stuck in our head, right? Like we have to be perfect, we've got to make sure that we're showing people how successful we are. Um, we can't let our guard down because we don't know who's trying to screw us over. And I know I'm not the only one that thinks that because when I was a younger entrepreneur, I always had my guard up because I was like, who's trying to screw me over this time? Because being young and being in business are two things that are already against me, plus being a woman. Um, all of that together, I was just always on guard and I never really let a lot of people in. And I regret that now, but it was just a tough decision that I learned the hard way. And um this time or in this season, I should say, I'm really grateful for the people that I have in my corner that have helped me succeed, and I can sit here and go, you know what? I'm not doing this on my own. I'm not having to make these decisions on my own, I'm not having to um do this launch on my own. This book launch has been a lot, and it's one of those things that I had to pull in my marketing people in my community and be like, listen, I need your help on this, I need your input on this, let me pay you for your time. I know I can do launches for other clients, but when it comes to my stuff, I just didn't trust myself enough to do it right. I just wanted to make sure everything was done right and continues to be right. And um, two women in my community that have really helped me out with that on the marketing side, especially, has really relieved some of those fears that I've had and has made me realize that you know what, like collaborating together is so much better than being um enemies with each other. That was another thing I used to think when I was younger and in marketing is that everyone that was in the marketing industry was my enemy. I always thought everyone was a competitor, and I'm very competitive, anyways, and I did not want them to be better than me or get more than me, or and so I just always be like, uh, I wouldn't even talk to them like at networking events and stuff. But now I have amazing connections with some marketing consultants, with strategists, um, people that do things that I don't necessarily do because once I niche down to my social media management and my SEO stuff and ad management, um, it's really helped me to be able to partner with people that do the strategy part of things because I hate that part. Um, they do the strategy part, and then I'll do all the legwork me and my team do. And so that's been really fun to collaborate with other marketing people in my um like circle and in my industry, and I've connected with them on LinkedIn and stuff like that. So if you don't have a community, I really recommend that you just find like two to five people that you can trust and you get together once a month or maybe once every quarter and just really talk about your goals and be vulnerable. I have started the Boss Marketing Club, which is an online community. It's$88 a year, and you get to hear from me every single day, whether it be through a video or through a post or through a QA. I have office hours every month that we can just have a live together. You can pop on, you can ask me any kind of questions that you have. It's all about marketing and all about uniting the entrepreneurs that do marketing on their own, or maybe they just started a business and they don't really know where to go. Maybe they can connect with other people in their industry, but it's really fun to see people talk to each other, um, help each other out, and then you know it's this podcast, but every single day. So if you want that extra bit of help with your marketing stuff, I would love for you to join us over there. Your first 30 days are always free, um, so you can kind of get the groove of things. Um, it's really easy. You can add it to your phone, like to your home screen, and you can just click on it and view it any day. But I've got a bunch of resources on there for people that are trying to do marketing on their own, or if they're a business owner, I like to throw in a couple of things about business as well because after 13 years, I know a lot of stuff, but some people know even more stuff, and we've all learned the hard lessons the hard way, and it's easier if we learn from other people's mistakes, right? That's another great thing about community, is you can watch what other people are doing and be like, okay, so I see that they did this and it didn't really work out for them. I think I'm not gonna do that. Um, we think as you know, kids or we think as parents that our kids see like, oh hey, she did that, I probably shouldn't do that, but yet they still do that anyways, you know. Um, I know my parents probably think that I chose the hard way of life um for multiple years in a row, and I still think I choose the hard way sometimes. Um, but that's what community is always about. So if you are interested in joining the marketing uh boss marketing club, I would love for you to join us over there. You can introduce yourself, share all your social media stuff, give us some of your ideas that you've got going on. We can kind of troubleshoot any kind of problems that you have. Um, for 88 bucks a year, y'all, you cannot hate on that. And then also getting access to me every single day is kind of a big deal too. So I would love for you to join us. You can find it on my website, you can also find it on my LinkTree on social media on Facebook and Instagram, and I hope you join us. I'll talk to you next week.