I’ve had some great questions come in about creating community, and I’ve picked a few of the best to share with you over the next few posts.

This one, or a version of, was popular…

“How does one plan to build a community but not manage to make a rod for your own back in the process? I’ve always been concerned about starting something up then regretting the amount of dull-work needed to simply maintain it!”

Totally hear you, this is a concern for many people, especially the over-givers! The truth is, us humans have a tendency to over complicate things, but it’s totally possible to build a successful and rewarding community without it becoming an admin heavy chore.

When you’re considering the purpose of your community it can’t just be about who you want to serve, but also about what excites and inspires YOU – if it doesn’t serve YOU first then it’s unlikely that you’ll be able to sustain it over the long term. You need to know how YOU like to work, who YOU love to work with and what kind of work lights YOU up.

I prefer meaningful relationships which is why you’ll never find me running a low ticket, high volume, faceless membership. I don’t want to be constantly worried about high churn and needing to constantly attract large numbers at the top of funnel just to convert a handful of people at the bottom, who’ll be gone in a couple of months. I want to know my people and know that they’re making progress and succeeding; that’s what floats my boat.

So I build my community with that in mind.

But I also know that the way that I like to work suits my people too; they’re the ones who are fed up of being one of many in large noisy groups, they’re the ones who have bought lots of courses and programmes in the past but have been left behind because the pace isn’t realistic, they’re the ones who want someone to help them apply the strategies and tactics to their circumstances because the blueprints don’t quite fit, they’re the ones who can get overwhelmed with all the ideas and possibilities so need clear action plans and accountability to make progress.

So first and foremost, you need to marry up your preferred way of working with the needs and desired outcomes of the community as this will reduce the stuff that you don’t enjoy from the get go.

Then you keep it lean; ask yourself whether you are adding features because they add real value or you are adding more to try and justify your worth. Less is more.

Then you start small and experiment with what works and be open to changing up or simplifying what you offer over time as you learn what has the biggest positive impact on your community. If 80% of results come from 20% of your efforts, focus on the 20% – simple things done well are always the best.

Then you leverage the tech; because yes there will be some admin and dull bits that you have deal with, but we save ourselves significant time and effort by automating the repetitive and soul sucking tasks.

So that’s how you build a community without making it hard work.