Deal with the Bad Eggs & Misfits
Lesson 24 from: Build a Community & Grow Your Standout BusinessTara McMullin
Deal with the Bad Eggs & Misfits
Lesson 24 from: Build a Community & Grow Your Standout BusinessTara McMullin
Lesson Info
24. Deal with the Bad Eggs & Misfits
Lessons
Class Introduction
21:32 2Why the Market is Primed for Your Community
18:55 3How Community Can Transform Your Business
16:39 4Why This Isn’t About You
24:18 5What Community Means for Your Business
09:12 6Take Advantage of Network Effects with Mighty Networks Founder Gina Bianchini
32:31 7Interview and Q&A with Gina Bianchini
34:53 8Craft Your Community Vision
11:05Craft Your Community Vision Define the Boundaries of Your Community
39:23 10Invite Your Charter Members Inside
19:03 11Create Your Community Story
18:25 12Hot Seat with Mollie Fagan
06:17 13Discover Why People Use Your Community
20:16 14Discover Why People Join Your Community
14:44 15Craft the Right Message (Hot Seat with Nadia Santiago)
15:38 16Make Your Members Feel at Home
16:51 17Design Your Community Onboarding Systems
13:36 18Hot Seat with Ayelet Marinovich
16:08 19Craft Your Member Support Philosophy
14:51 20Craft Your Member Support Plan
08:38 21Choose Your Platform
37:56 22Create Your Member and Contribution Plan
23:01 23Develop Your Community Policies
13:13 24Deal with the Bad Eggs & Misfits
10:19 25Communicate Who Belongs in Your Community
10:56 26Create a Context for Joining the Community
34:47 27Retain the Members You Have
11:50 28Hot Seat with Alice Karolina
15:26 29How Community Can Transform Your Brand
10:14 30Support Your Customer's Journey Through Community
18:54 31Decide Whether Your Community is Free or Paid
21:29 32Leverage Your Community for Other Offers
18:45Lesson Info
Deal with the Bad Eggs & Misfits
If you do everything that we've been talking about, you focus on your vision, your values, your purpose, if you build the procedures, the policies, in to your community, if you think about what your member support philosophy and what your member support plan is, if you make your value proposition very clear that it's about access to people and not access to you or access to programs or content, you are going to have a lot fewer bad eggs than you fear. But bag eggs happen. That's probably a good egg, it probably doesn't stink but it's an egg, I mean, what are you gonna do? The most important thing about this lesson is that I don't want you to let the potential for the wrong people to show up for your community stop you from building a community. You guys have already drank the community building Kool-Aid, you are in this to win this, you see the vision, you have the mission, you want to make it a reality, don't let some troll that ran in to you on the internet 10 years ago stop you from...
building this community. Don't let it happen. It may crop up at some time but the only way you lose, the only way this becomes a real problem is if you don't build a community in the first place. In order to do that you need to believe in your policies and use them to your advantage. It's why I talked about those policies and procedures, it's why we spent time on vision, values and purpose. When you know those things you can use them to your advantage. When you create a community culture that supports those policies, that supports the vision, values and purpose of your community your community will police itself. Other members will say, hey, that's not cool. Or other members will redirect the conversation. It's awesome. Community culture goes an incredibly long way to ensuring that you as a customer support person, as a member support person, as a community manager, community leader, don't have to deal with many misfits or bad eggs. I'm not saying you won't have to deal with it, not saying it's not a real possibility, but your community, when you have a strong culture, will start to police itself. Again, remember that your customer service is on display. A lot of times the trolls, bad eggs, the misfits that might wander in to your community will make themselves known publicly. Your job in those situations is to keep your cool, to rely on your policies and procedures, to rely on your company culture and to ask your other members for help when you need it. So remember that, remember that that customer service is on display, every member interaction you have is an opportunity to uphold your vision, values and purpose. Now here's the really great part, not only are policies important and culture is important but that sense of belonging is important. Because people who don't belong don't want to stick around. And so they might message you and they might ask a whole bunch of weird questions, they might complain about something or they might voice their concerns but quite often what's happening there is they're expressing that they don't feel that they belong. And the truth is, they might not. So as you are dealing with those misfits and bad eggs, what you might perceive as misfits and bad eggs, you want to ask yourself, is this someone who really belongs here or not? Can I help them discern for themselves whether they really belong here or not? And if they don't belong it's okay to let them go. You don't have to hold on to the sale if it's a paid community. You don't have to hold on to the member if it's a free community. Let them go, it is so much more worth it to you to have a culture and a community of people who are there for all the right reasons, who belong for the right reasons, who approach things with the same sense of values even if they come from incredibly diverse perspectives than to hold on to that one member. Don't be afraid to let people go. Any questions? That's really all I'm gonna say on bad eggs because I truly do believe if you get the rest of this right this is not going to be a big problem for you. Yes, every so often you're gonna run in to something but it doesn't have to consume you. Mya? So worst case scenario, what if any legal things do we need to think about? Do we need to consult a lawyer when we put our policies together, when we decide we're gonna let someone go? Like all of that, any thoughts about that? So this is where I get to say I am not a lawyer. I would say it's never a bad idea to consult a lawyer when you are creating a new product, when you're bringing people together, when you're doing anything with your business, it's never a bad idea to consult a lawyer. I think by and large a lot of these things you can handle without legal support but that doesn't mean it's not a bad idea to talk to your lawyer and see, you know, is there something that I need to do to protect myself here? Maybe you're in a regulated industry, maybe you're adjacent to a regulated industry. Maybe you are dealing with people's sensitive information and that's absolutely a time when you want to get a lawyer involved and just as it's never a bad time to consult a lawyer it's never too early to consult a lawyer either. It's always better to consult one earlier in the process than when you have a problem. I personally don't have experience with anything elevating to the level of needing legal support on kicking someone out or whatever. But I think the easiest way to avoid that too, especially if you have a paid community, is if you really have a problem with somebody. You know, refunding people's money goes a long way to making them happy. And so I'm quick to use, I should not say this publicly but I am really quick to use a refund to say, you know what, this isn't a good fit for either of us. We're gonna give you your money back and here's some other recommendations that we have for you. And that generally keeps people quiet and can actually build a long term relationship with people. I've had people we've refunded for different reasons come back to us later on for something different and love it. And that's great, and become a member and engaged person in our community and totally blend in with the culture. It's happened more than one time. So yeah so that's kind of my approach on that. But yes, it is never a bad time to consult a lawyer. Alice? I have a bit more of a, maybe, sort of in depth or maybe one of the naive questions. As we were talking about how a community evolves and how it grows and I'm assuming there's a lot of, like, organic things that shift and move. I can well have my policies, my procedure, my culture, everything set up and, you know, these are the guidelines and then obviously there's gonna be people that are gonna question that and, you know, how much do I budge, how much do I move, is that just like a continual organic process or do you have specific things that you say? I mean, I can see myself saying, alright, no these three things are crucial and these five things are kind of malleable, so when is it a bad egg and when is it actually something where you're like, no, maybe I need to consider this? Yes, that's a great question. So I would say one person complaining about something or having a concern about something is not, it's not that I don't pay attention to it but it tends to not affect my actions or decision making. Now I might say, Shannon might say, hey, so and so has an issue with this, I'll be like, okay, have you heard that from anybody else? And she might say no and I might respond to that, go see what you can find. Because one person may be speaking for a larger group of people and so I want to investigate that a little if it's something that, like, I can see the truth in it, you know? And I might want to just gather more information before I make a change or decide to make a change at all. Yes I also agree with you that there are absolutely non negotiables for me and I would hope for you guys as well. Those non negotiables are going to me formed by my vision, values and purpose and then there are all sorts of things that change over time. In our community it was absolutely true that people would come for my advice and access to me and communicating that change, me acting in that change, them understanding that change, has been a process that's taken, really, a couple of years to go through. And some people left because of it. Well if Tara's not gonna answer my question I don't want to be here. Fine, that's cool, I get it, that's understandable. Go find somebody else to answer your question. And that's not a cut, that's not a dig. This isn't the right place for you anymore. And then other people, as the community evolves, have a greater and greater sense of belonging. And so what I want to be thinking about is who do I value most as members? Not that I, like, rank my membership. You have favorites. I don't have favorites, you're all my children. (laughing) But you know, what does the ideal member look like for me? Who are the people who are showing up? Who are the people who are contributing? And how do I continue to form and evolve the community, our policies, our procedures in a way that serves those people? Because I want more of those people.
Class Materials
Bonus Materials with Purchase
Bonus Materials with RSVP
Ratings and Reviews
Ayelet Marinovich
This class was exactly what I needed. It clarified, confirmed, and connected SO MANY more of the remaining dots for me. Tara, as always, is brilliant, energetic and a general joy to watch as she shares her immense knowledge and helps others get to "the nitty gritty" - thank you Tara, and thank you Creative Live!!
a Creativelive Student
Like I said on air... "Wow!" I've been building an online community for about 4 years now, based on what I thought I wanted to my business to be. Now I realize the value of creating a community around my VISION, then building the business based around the community needs and values. What I thought: 1) What people needed from me was my expertise. 2) Members will naturally bond with and engage with one another based on their shared interests and needs. What I learned from Tara: 1) Members rely on me to FACILITATE conversation and sharing. 2) It's my role to be the a connector and mediator. Tara has an amazing presence on stage and is super skilled at drawing out your vision as a business owner/entrepreneur. She makes community building easy to understand. I'll definitely be watching more of her courses. This one alone has changed the way I think about my business and my plan for building in monetization and community building.
user-381fc4
I went from a vague idea of wanting to build a community to having a clear path to take to start building it. I appreciated the focus on the member vs the business model. Tara presented a clear path for creating the plan first, from vision and purpose to creating the experience for community members, to helping members take the journey to how to monetize in many different ways. My brain is full and I'm excited to take action and launch a community that consolidates my current varied business offers. The presentation was thoughtful and well presented. Excellent and highly recommended.