Last week I traveled to New York City to take part in a very exclusive and ultra elite mastermind on the 29th floor of the new 7 World Trade Center.
The topic was membership sites and the participants were 20 of the top marketers in the world.
Guests like Ramit Sethi, Derek Halpern, Marie Forleo, Stu McLaren, Michael Hyatt, Ryan Lee, Chris Farrell, and a small handful of others including myself, gathered for a day of ‘no-holds-barred’ sharing of our best and most exclusively-kept secrets for building incredible online communities.
I plan to share more insights from the event, but one thing that was repeated over and over and over again throughout the day was the importance of simply showing up. Nearly everyone in the room maintains a strong personal brand and a community based on that brand.
When you’ve opened your doors and brought people into your private community, this isn’t time to slouch off and hit the beach for a day of surfing. You need to get in the trenches and take part each and every day.
Back in the day when I had my own private membership community, I showed up every single day. There were no excuses to not respond, or to take part, or to initiate discussion. I fondly remember taking a five minute break at 13,000 ft on the top of the Jaungrau in Switzerland to use an Internet terminal and answer a couple of pressing questions.
Chris Farrell has a massive community and each day you can find him within his community conversing with his members and taking part. He says he’s “literally fallen in love with his members.”
Michael Hyatt will spend a great deal of time engaging with everyone who’s taken time to leave a comment on his blog, and Derek Halpern will do the same.
Michael engaged his community early on for help designing the cover of his recent New York Times Bestselling Book, “Platform, Get Noticed in A Noisy World.”
Elliot Hulse refers to speaking to his community like “poetry.” He explained just how excited and jazzed he gets to be there for his community.
Here’s another example… I’m part of Alan Weiss’ incredible community of world-renowned consultants. Out of 90,000+ forum posts, Alan has posted a whopping 25,000 times. He shows up day in and day out, even when he’s at the beach.
Ask yourself – are you showing up for your customers as often as you should?
