(Updated in 2020)
Community Starts at Home
During my years in publishing, I was a serial community builder. It seems that every job I took included “rebuild the department, refocus the vision” in the role. I’m fairly certain that those two challenges are what attracted me.
Even as a teenager, explaining the quest, translating the context, and helping folks bring their best to what they’re doing has been my natural response. I’ve always done that. Not that I’ve always done it well. Still the failures and successes of the past have taught me what moves people to trust in a vision and to join in to build something they couldn’t build alone.
So I was the one they hired
- to rebuild the company and the strategy for growth six months after the company had laid off 40% of the previous employees.
- to re-establish the department identity when it had grown too quickly and lost its role within the organizational process.
- to build a cross functional team that could function with professional ease and confidence from a crew of new hires when the start up started growing.
- to establish a winning brand and a high performance product / marketing team from a single product offer and a squad of contract workers
- to lead an ad hoc SWAT team of 60 professionals to reconceive and bring to market a product in crisis (in 1/6 the time originally budgeted for development.)
Every one of those jobs was the best job of my life while I was doing it, because we built teams that made outstanding things happen. Who doesn’t want to work with people who are “in with both feet,” working at their best level, and having fun?
The 10-Point Plan to Build an Internal Community of Brand Loyal Fans
Now I’m working with two new clients that very topic close to my heart and my business. Both are asking how they might get their teams to “raise a barn” rather than “build a coliseum.” Both companies want a to build an internal community of brand evangelists the expands from team to team, from department to department that will spread from inside to outside their company’s “walls.”
We’re going to use traditional interviews, a social tool called a “histogram,” and tested, collaborative instructional design to build an internal community of brand loyal fans. Here’s a 10-Point Plan to build an internal community of brand loyal fans. It’s exciting to offer a program and a process that grew out of the of the working model we use every year at SOBCon.
- Articulate a clearly defined vision.
- Negotiate a leadership commitment to live that vision.
- Assess and benchmark the current status.
- Identify and enlist a core team of champions to lead the quest.
- Build a brand values baseline by gathering the values that drive the brand.
- Challenge the brand teams to condense and clarify the brand values baseline by talking them through with stakeholder and bring back less than 7 words.
- Align your brand values with your brand value proposition
- Engage the brand teams in identifying and collecting cultural stories, signs, and rituals that exemplify the values of the brand values baseline.
- Move the process outward training teams in — a leadership team that focuses on departmental quality and performance and communications through persuasion.
- Exhibit leadership commitment by investing regular time and resources to ongoing collaborative brand values conversations to build decision models, communication models, and performance / hiring standards that align with the brand values baseline.
Over the next few weeks, I’ll be writing about each step in the process. We will explore what each step is; why it’s important; how to put it into action; and how to know whether it’s working in the way you intended. Then we’ll talk about how to connect that internal community to the community of customers, partners, and vendors who help your business grow from outside.
Any questions?
READ the Whole 10-Point Plan Series: On the Successful Series Page.
–ME “Liz” Strauss
Photo by Ryoji Iwata on Unsplash
I’m actually excited to hear what you have to say about this; the timing’s perfect. My novel will be coming out in a few months and I need to create a fanbase from nothing.
I’m most interested in finding the right approach that resonates with my would-be champions. How do I make that initial introduction to effectively start a conversation?
Hi Chris,
Start by being interested in the people who come by. Ask them what made them curious enough to stick around. Get to know them. Invite them to be part of what you’re building. People bring ideas we’ve never imagined, but if we listen we can bring them into what we’re doing in ways that make something that belongs to us both … then we’re both invested in the outcome. 🙂
This is very exciting. I look forward to building a “team of champions.” Is it possible to build a brand of loyal fans if you’re a two-woman show? I guess my real question is: how?
I’ll definitely be following this series with interest. Sometimes people get so focused on obtaining brand champions externally that they forget it needs to start from within (no matter how small your company is).
Community building’s never been my strong point, so I can’t wait to hear what you say.
Hi Terez,
Sure it is. It starts with having your own passion and being fully committed to what you’re doing. I think as the series goes forward you’ll be able to see what I mean.
Rosemary!
BINGO!!
You are so on the money. If we don’t love what we’re doing, why should anyone fall in love with it? Or to say it another way …
If you want to attract fans, you have to be a fan yourself.
Hi Andy,
It’s scary when you think in terms of community, but when you think in terms of telling new friends how much you love what you’re doing … it gets a little easier, I think. 🙂
Can’t wait to hear the rest!
This post got me thinking and wondering … Can my team define our brand value baseline in 7 words? I’m going to do a little more thinking and research on this.
I love it that you brought the “raise a barn” rather than “build a coliseum” thinking into this post. This is so true. Looking at the end goal is important, but too many organizations (and perhaps individuals too) focus so much on the end goal that they forget they need win small victories. Often (almost always) these small victories will involve teamwork along the way.
I look forward to reading the follow on posts.
Hi Jeff,
It’s a challenge, but it’s worth trying to get the words together … Because once you have them, they can become a baseline for future decisions in this way –> Does this action meet the 7 words we agreed upon? Will helping this client in this way live up to the 7 words?
You’re so right about the small victories. The little wins are what fuel the bigger ones. They’re what send us home smiling at the end of a hard day.