The Community Strategy Podcast: The nexus where online community strategy meets intentionality

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Episode 99: Create Belonging with Carrie Melissa Jones

by Deb Schell
December 18th 2022
00:58:54
Description

In this episode of the Community Strategy Podcast, Carrie Melissa Jones shares her community experience from her early days to becoming a full-time... More

Hi there and welcome back to the community strategy podcast. My name is Deb Shell. I'm a creator turned community builder after launching my online community in 2020 I have a passion for online events and bringing people together. I now consult business owners and leaders just like yourself who have a message, their life's work or a vision for helping others transform through their online courses, cohorts or memberships on this interview style podcast. You'll hear conversations with community leaders, passion for bringing people together online. Our goal is to provide you with interesting conversations to inspire you to build launch and grow an online community with energy, confidence and purpose. Let's get started. Hi, this is Deb, I'm just popping in here real quick to let you know um giving you a heads up that this is episode 99 with Carrie Melissa Jones in our conversation today. We talked so about so many things um her start in the community industry, the her being with CM X and then leaving cmX.

Her starting out on her own journey, her travel adventures. And we talked about the challenges in 2020 as well as in in 2022 how it's been a challenging year for a lot of consultancy, um experts and consultancy is tough. So we talked about just the journey and how she's gotten to where she is today and um what she's excited about for 2023 So I hope you enjoy this episode. I'm excited to let you know that there's one more episode left episode 100, it will be the last episode of this podcast and for 2022, that will be coming up next in your podcast, but please share this episode with a friend if you really enjoy it and I hope you do so take care and I'll see you soon. Hi everyone, thank you for joining us back here with the community strategy podcast. My name is Debbie, I'm the host here, and I am super excited to announce this is not episode 99 it's crazy long journey.

Um, but we're at episode 99 which means we got one more episode at 100 but today we're celebrating with Carrie melissa jones. Thank you so much for joining us here on the community strategy podcast. Cary, thank you so much for having me. It's an honor, truly, I am thrilled uh that you're here and I was telling you before we started recording, I was I was mentioning to you uh in the Fine Come here Community, we actually did your book for the Book Club this year, which was great. Our community loved it. We had lots of members who really enjoyed it. And so I just wanted to say thank you, I know you're an author, your strategist, there's a lot lot that you do. So, um maybe start us off with a little bit about before we jump into what you're currently doing. What got you interested in the community space. Yeah, so it's something that I inadvertently got into, I think like a lot of people, um but growing up, um I was just a really, I mean, if you've read the book, you know, this is in the very beginning, if you've read the 1st 10 pages, you'll know this about me.

But um, I was a super shy and awkward kid. I had trouble speaking up for myself using my voice, all these things, and especially in my teen years, I was just really, really lost and you know, my family was going through a whole host of shifts and changes and um, I didn't have anyone to turn to, so I was just burying my feelings and everything that was going on like many people do and say, wait, that's been me all year. Yeah, and there's no shame in it. Um But I had no one to turn to really. Um my family wasn't necessarily open and talking about what was going on and I didn't have friends that I felt safe to really share things with. I've never done it before, but um, around this time I discovered online forums and so I was, you know, 15, 16 or so and discovered music Forums. I was actually learning to play guitar. And so I was like looking for guitar, sheet music, and then there was like four arms alongside these sheet music websites.

Um and yeah, and I quickly discovered that there were people who were my age, people who were older, younger, um usually not much younger than 15, just because of, like, you know, the rules of the Internet. Um but they were sharing things that went way beyond the music, the music was the thing that brought us there, but you know, we would share things that were going on in our lives. We would have not just the forum discussion structure, but we share phone numbers and talk to each other on the phone. We did like these gift exchanges. Um and so it was the first time in my life where I actually felt safe to share what was actually going on and through that experience, I learned how to do that and that it was safe to do so with people who could hold that with me. And uh Looking back, I didn't realize I didn't really recognize that as a major thing that happened in my life, but as I entered my career in my early 20s, I just found myself continually drawn to making relationships on the internet.

I was like, I love people, I love being able to meet people all over and actually I've been doing this for a really, really long time, just naturally. And so, um I discovered this was like in the early days of Pinterest and lift, and some other companies were investing in community really early on in their company strategy and I met some of these community managers and they were just some of the most generous, warm, lovely people and just doing the most fascinating work just bringing people together from all over. Um and when I finally discovered that this was a job, I just remember coming home from a meeting with somebody I just met at a meet up group and uh just declaring this is what I'm gonna do with my career, I'm gonna do this for the rest of my life, this is it, I found it. Um so I feel very lucky that I had that realization and that kind of um connection to the work, but yeah, that's how I discovered it in the early 2000s. Um and then I turned out I've been doing it since the 90s. That's yeah, that's so interesting.

I can relate to so many things like that sense shared of um having a safe space, I think that's sometimes hard and it's challenging for um a lot of reasons, like in person, sometimes you just don't have that family or friend support, like in your actual physical community, and so that's why the online community space can, like transcend your experience um to be able to connect to people and and then who have shared values or interest. Um and I love um the journey and the experience there. Yeah, I can so relate to that with just my community experience and um and loving the experience of just connecting with others and seeming like that we're not so different after all kind of thing. Like I started especially in the last couple of years for me, I'm newer to the global space and so I've really built relationships globally in the last couple of years which I never would have thought about traveling to like you know, these different countries and now I'm like cool, I have like if I decide to go someday I know people like I it's unbelievable.

I mean I think about like my ancestors and what they would think about that, like just wait what you have like friends all over India, you're gonna like that's one of my travel plans to go all over India visit people. Um but that's actually a misconception that a lot of people have is that connecting online can't be as deep or you know, as quote unquote good as um in person and it's just not true. In fact there's a lot of research that indicates that some people depending on their personality types, communication apprehension backgrounds, they actually feel safer sharing online. And sometimes for good sometimes for bad, right over disclosure and people becoming radicalized in spaces. But in fact for many people it feels safer and it's easier to connect with people without the face to face. Many micro expressions, all this stuff they can take their time all that and in many cases it actually can connect people more deeply than in person.

That's so interesting that you brought that point up to tell us about. So you decided you announced you met some amazing online community managers, you got into this space, what happened next in the journey for you? So I worked for um I was working for, I thought I was going to be a book editor, that's what I thought I was gonna, I was gonna move to new york, I was gonna edit fiction books um but I graduated college in the recession of 2008, 2009, 10, however long that lasted, can't remember now. Um and there were no jobs in book publishing, it's still a very competitive field and I had an intern for a couple of different like literary agents and found that it just wasn't the thing for me. And so I actually I traveled, I lived in new Zealand for a year and just took some time and kind of figured out like what am I doing with my life um and came back, I actually worked in textbook publishing for a little while because that was where the jobs were at the time and then um found out that I was in California and there was a bunch of tech companies that were disrupting textbook publishing, disrupting education, um lots of disruption happening and uh I went and worked for one of them um uh it was called Check, It is called Check, It still exists.

Um and uh I was actually hired to simply manage relationships between the company and content creators, but it became very apparent to me in the first few months of working there that what needed to happen was that these content creators actually needed to know one another. They were specialists in like physics and um complex algebra and you know, like just all kinds of niche subjects and you know, some of them had like previously worked for Disney or like work for Nasa and they were fascinating people and so I was like, I shouldn't be the only one that gets to know all these great people. Um they should know each other, the company should know them and so I was really lucky. I worked with a lot of people um at the time who had been at yahoo and understood from yahoo answers, what was possible when you build community, um including the Ceo of Check, who's still the ceo, he had been the ceo of yahoo before it's kind of demise and brought a lot of yahoo folks with him and they were just all about it.

They were like, we get this, we understand what you're doing, take what you take the resources that you need to make this happen. So, um that was an incredible job and just like such a rocket ship to be on at the time. What was the experience in India? How did that um was there any insights that you get in new Zealand or new Zealand, sorry, you said India was where you wanna go Zealand was where you spent, Sorry? Yes. Yeah, so I spent a year in New Zealand and I went to Australia and I spent christmas in Tonga um and I went with my best friend from middle school is still my best friend and I, I was actually just thinking about this the other day that even though I had learned a lot of social skills from meeting people on the internet, um I had a lot of trouble going into like my first internship at a publishing company, didn't speak with anyone, I was so shy, I would just go to my desk and just get the work done and I was so nervous to even talk to the person managing me and I was like, I'm miserable, this is not, I don't know how I'm going to navigate the working world then that internship ended and I went to New Zealand and I was thrown into a place that I didn't understand and that I was culturally very different and uh lived in hostels a lot of the time and lived on farms with like families.

Actually we did woofing, which is where you like go around and you farm for a little while and they put you up in their home and feed you and all that stuff and you work a little bit every day um and you just have to talk to people like you have to navigate the situation. Um Another thing is we hitch hiked the entire time, which I did not anticipate we're going to do, and that's like, if you wanna really, Yeah, at the time we were like, are we really gonna do this? We didn't tell our parents until we got home from the trip alive. Yeah, we rented a car, we can totally afford that. No, we had no money, but it was the scariest thing ever, and I realized, oh wow, it's talking to people, it's actually really, really interesting and I can talk to anybody, you can talk to anybody about anything. Um and if they don't want to talk then you learn that pretty quickly too, and that's that's fine too. But um yeah, it just opened that up for me. Um and so I came home and I was like, a lot more extroverted than than when I left, a lot more extroverted.

Um it even surprises me now thinking about it. So It's so interesting because that's so I went to school in 1999, is when I went to college for photography, and then I wanted to become a photojournalist because I had been inspired by Martha Ryle, who was a photojournalist that used to work at the Pittsburgh Post Gazette and her work um was just so inspiring to me. I'm like, this is what I want to do with my life, and, and then like then technology happened Um and I went to school and got my bachelor's degree in photojournalism and I was like, great, I can be a journalist now and there's like no jobs and the jobs that there are, there's like no money and but I I did it anyway. Um but the biggest thing I learned when I got a full time reporting gig and I was doing that um in 22009 is actually when I finally landed, like it took me that long to like get a full time job.

Um but then when I was, when I landed that, I worked in newspapers from 2009 to 2012 and it was such like, you're talking about like my editor was like, go talk to people if you didn't ask the questions, you're gonna have to go back and ask the question. So you better ask in the first you get a really quick, you get a really quick crash course in like how to talk to people and get out of your shell, which I really was still kind of, even though I had graduated from college and I was in my late twenties at that point, I was still kind of in my shell. And so that job people say, oh you're outgoing, I'm like, I didn't used to be, I was like the one that wanted to hide behind everybody else. And so I love the story because so many community builders are like, I'm not extroverted or I struggle with this and I think it's just a practice and it's just like pushing yourself in that discomfort zone, you know, not all the time, but just at certain points, because then you just discover like people are amazing and yes, there's challenging people or challenging challenging conversations, there's like, not not nice people in the world, but there's also people who are really have you have the view that they do want to share their experiences with you as well as are interested in hearing about you.

So I think that is a really great insight to share and and the challenge around just working and as in your in your working life, but the way you described it, it's just interesting because I feel like we're finally getting to a place now where people are shifting that conversation of instead of how do I fit in their box, it's like there is no box and I'm a person, a human being and I have this one life, and I want to use it in a meaningful, intentional way, and how do I do that and make a living, and you know, and I think that I love that about what you said, that you really connected to the meaning of the purpose um in the beginning, what you said, and then that's what got kind of guided you. Yeah, and I think, you know, your story too, I'm reflecting that, I think it's really important cause I hear the same thing, a lot of community managers say I'm not extroverted, I'm very introverted and very shy and I think it's so important that we do not over identify with any personality characteristic that we think we have, we're very flexible, changeable, our brains are constantly learning new things.

Um you might think you're introverted today and maybe that is like your energy, like where you get your energy from, that hasn't changed for me, I'm still very much like, like to be alone, but so much can change if you put yourself in new situations and uh it's scary, there's no doubt about that, but it absolutely pays off, but the scary thing is where change happens transformation. Um I became a river rafting guide in 20 what have you not done that? This is exactly it, right, but this step not, let's ask. Um but I, I became a river rafting guide because I fell out of the kayak and I got before I became a guide and I didn't know what I was doing and I was with somebody who didn't help, like wasn't the greatest and that lesson like, but I felt like I almost died, which I didn't, but it was very scary at the time to be in the middle of a gigantic river and not have a boat and trying to figure things out, but like that experience of scaring me could have pushed me a direction, I'm never gonna go on, get in a kayak again or what it did was it said no, I actually want to learn and so I took a course, I took a workshop over a weekend to learn how to kayak and the guys were like, hey, do you, do you want to like be a guide?

Because they were like, they need volunteers. Yeah, I was like, I don't know. So I like started trading for six weeks. This is in 2019, that's when I was 2019 and I became a guide over six weeks. I journal the whole thing with a GoPro. Like I had a GoPro on it, but I was terrified every time I got in that water, terrified thinking I was going to die thinking like, oh my gosh, this is embarrassing if I like fall out and I can't and which happened like I fell out of my kayak and like, I had a hard time getting back in and somebody in a boat. One of the guests, there wasn't a boat was like floating by, I was like, you know, you should just get back in your kayak. I'm like, that's probably a good idea here. Okay, so, but just to say that like, things are scary. So I think that's so helpful for, for um, what I've learned is that the scary things every day doing a little something scary or trying every once in a while to do something that pushes the boundaries of what you're, what you're used to really makes a change long term.

Yeah, absolutely. So okay so we got, we got what do we got next? So I know there's, we gotta talk about CM X. Um but I don't know where that is in the journey. So I want to make sure we we keep I give you the full context at a very high level um to keep the story short. So um I was at check um I was at the time I had been there for nearly two years and um I entered into a very bad abusive relationship at the time, not something I ever thought would happen in my life. Um and I started having like panic attacks at work and I felt I got more and more isolated and so I uh went on medical leave from the job and unfortunately the medical leave kept me closer to this person who was not completely toxic in my life who was completely toxic and uh I had to leave the job at check because I just couldn't, I couldn't um pick myself back up and unfortunately I stayed with this person for a year and a half.

And so um I got another job in san Francisco because I was commuting before down to um santa clara which is like two hours each way. Um I didn't mind it when, because the train I could do work, whatever doesn't matter. No logistics are kind of important because it's part of the story and I'm, I'm falling apart mentally and emotionally, I'm like I can't do this four hour drive every day. And so I was like maybe if I work in san Francisco and don't have as much of a community like I can walk to work, things will be better. No, it's the toxic, toxic person that needed to be removed. But I, you know, I wasn't there yet, I wasn't like ready to go. And so I worked at another alone in that journey. You are not a loner that I know unfortunately. Um yeah, I uh I got another job, I worked there for only six months because that environment was also not, they were not ready for a community, they thought they were in three months.

It was very clear that they were not three months later I was you know, still in this relationship, things were falling apart. It was a great learning experience for me like to know to see the red flags when an organization is not ready all of that and also just not to push myself so hard and soon after that I finally I had support, I got support around me. I started reconnecting with my friends and family and got out of this relationship and um so I didn't have a job for a little bit and then I began consulting because at the time, This was in, what year would this have been? 2013, I think 2014, 80, um there were a handful of consultants out there um like Rich Millington was doing his work, the community roundtable existed. Um but there weren't a lot of community consultants and people who were, who could support organizations in this work. And so I was looking for another job, but every time I go in for a job I would say you don't need, you're not ready for a community manager yet, you just need somebody to guide you for the next couple of weeks or months and tell you what to do.

And so I kind of worked job interviews into consulting gigs inadvertently. Yeah, I started out, it was just a pretty bumpy path at first I actually went on a job interview that it was very clearly they had no intention of hiring me, but just rather picking my brain. And so I sent them an invoice afterwards, you are my rock star. Like, be bold enough to do that. I would, I like, don't know how I'd ever have the courage to do that because I've been in that situation. So, wow, I can't believe I did it either. That doesn't feel like that was me, that feels like that was somebody else. But I think that was maybe my intro to like most can I can I swear on this podcast, you can do whatever you, most people are full of sh it and they will like, well let's not say that, I don't believe that some people are full of ship and you can usually feel it and when that happens you need to use your voice stand up for yourself and uh really just stand in your power for that.

And I spent two hours talking to them and their team was just taking furious notes the whole time. And so I was like, those notes are worth tens of thousands, if not hundreds of thousands of dollars because I just saved you like years of trial and error. Um and you were not thinking about hiring me. So anyway, I was like, did that was like, next time I do that I'm gonna get consent first before I send the invoice, I don't recommend anybody doing that. Um and so yeah, I started consulting and um at the time, David had David Spinks had run uh one CMX summit in san Francisco act and actually um CMX some, it was an idea created by gen pd and Brett peter sell alongside David Spinks. And uh David took the idea did not include the minute and launched the conference without them. So technically there are three founders of CMX summit and I didn't know this until about a year ago myself. And uh so from the outside though, it looked very exciting and I was like this is something I definitely want to be involved in and I went to the one in new york and then after that, David asked if I would you know consult with CMx actually um as a content creator and writer.

And so I worked with him for about four years, went from being a consultant to quickly realizing that a lot more work was needed on the business to turn it into more than just a conference that was kind of scrappy. Um So worked on that for about four years and uh I learned a lot during that time it was a very healing time in my life. Um because I was coming out of this relationship that I was in Prior finding my voice again, finding my power and by the end of that like four year period I was like I've way outgrown this. Um I need to I need to get out of this uh role that I'm in. Um And so at that point I took a sabbatical. Uh this was in 28 2017, and then I began consulting full time, but even during the time that I worked for C. M. X. I worked on consulting projects part time, because it was so important to me not to get too abstract and theoretical about the work. Um It's so easy to just be a quote unquote thought leader and spout out stuff that's not realistic.

Yeah, that's not realistic, it's just like you know, it's like it's like a truism that everybody knows and you're just like acting like you came up with that thing, like I would never want to do that. And um uh so it was really important to me to always stay kind of on the ground with people. Um and so it was actually a really easy transition for me because I was able to say, okay, I'm gonna take a short break and then I'm gonna bring on clients and just really scale up what I started to do a part time during that time. So, so many things that I yeah, I didn't know the back story I heard through other people the backstory on CM X. But um I'm newer, like I met um with David actually at the end of 2020 because once I launched my online community and then I like did this big push and I'm like, oh, I'm gonna get members and then nobody was gonna pay me and then I was like, oh, now what I do. Um and then people started reaching out to me and asking me to help them build their communities. And that was at this time, there was like, Oh, there's a career here, and like this sounds like something I'd really love to do.

So I I kind of entered the community industry in 2020 thinking like this is amazing, like if I could get paid and do this fun thing, how amazing is that. Um And I quickly learned that what happened was I couldn't get a job, I struggled like so long, I kept applying applying applying to get jobs and like I applied three times for two cm X. For an internship and got turned down three times for an internship. I'm 42 years old. I need a little, I need somebody. I've like I've got a lot of background experience, I've been doing a lot of different things. I've been a creator for 10 years like I need something here. So what happened was I ended up getting clients and and so but what I struggled with was like I didn't know how to do a consulting business, like I didn't know what that was. And so that was kind of why I started the community consultants. That's the only reason I started the community consultants collective was, hey is anybody else doing this? I posted it on linkedin and asked is anybody else doing this thing called community consulting because I can't seem to get a job in this industry but people keep asking me to like build communities from.

Yeah, so that's kind of like how I got my my start and it's been this like bumpy road and consulting is a tough thing. Um There's lots of ups and downs. Do you what do you think was like the biggest hurdle that you or think that you overcame like struggle or thing that you overcame through that process when you first started who? There's so much I feel like I overcome stuff every week, consulting is really hard um and it's it's not scalable, so you're just constantly learning things. Um I think in the early days what I, what I wish I'd known at the time is well how better to price my services. I wish I had understood that better um because I would kind of think I just like threw out random numbers that were way too low, especially just like speaking of you know power dynamics and gender dynamics and all kinds of things.

Women typically tend to undervalue our work and the work force tends to undervalue our value, so if we don't advocate for the value of our work actively um then we, we stay low on that and it's really hard to ever make a business to support ourselves. So um I wish, starting out that I had had like what you have, which is like the community consultants collective, where I'd had other people who are navigating that with me, who are like 2-3 years ahead of me on that journey now I was very lucky and that I met um her name is Sarah Judd Welsh, I don't know if you know of her work, she is the founder of share hold before shareholders. She ran a agency called loyal and she did community, she had an agency, a studio basically for community building. She worked with ge she worked with Harvard, she's done some incredible stuff um and I met her pretty early on in my community journey and she was a huge, huge help to me um in pricing in contracts, like giving me ideas for like pricing for retainers versus hourly and all this kind of stuff.

So um Yeah, I think if I could go back I would just charge more right off the bat because because the expertise is so rare, it's so rare, even though you might have like now 2030 people who are doing this work, that's still very few people doing this work for the amount. I went to the Community Leaders Institute expo Community Leaders expo it was in Memphis in March of this year and I thought you know, I would meet a lot of these consultants and then when I met people they were like, oh yeah, they have a full time job and I'm like, huh? Like how are you doing this and you have a full time job? It's it's insane. But yeah, there's not a lot of people that are in this space, it's very, it's very a new space as a consultant um like you know, cmX kind of established and a lot of, you know, the round take community roundtable, established like this place for community managers and like training and understanding about what that means, but there isn't anything and that's, you know, that's the new direction for the consultants collective for anybody who's listening that is a community consultant and wants to uh to learn more about that.

Um We're gonna be building out a website, it's going to be um under the guidance of Clock tower advisers and which is Todd nelson who I've been working with since the summer. Um But yeah, there hasn't, there wasn't anything like beyond like what I researched and then I met people and then was like, oh these are the people and here's what you're doing and then we've just been talking about pricing is the hardest thing and I think you're so right as a, as a woman, we just, we just are so challenge with That in life like in our careers as like when we're working for others in an organization, when you go out on your own, you're like, so what do I do? Like charge like $50 an hour because that's like five times more than I used to make before, right? Like when I was making $10 or $12 an hour, like is that what I do know that no, don't do that. Everybody. What but what I learned was is I learned quickly by consulting with others that I personally don't want to trade time for money.

I recognize like you just said there's so much experience from like doing The things of building and I've built over 50 communities now, there's like so many experience that you learn from your own experience because I built my own and then from other people's experiences that saves people time and money. It's like there's like a, I don't remember the whole story but there's like a joke where it's like you call your lightbulbs out, a light bulb is out and you call, it's a special light bulb that you can't just replace and you call the company and there's they send a guy and the guy comes out, replaces your this light bulb and then gives you this this bill and it's like whoa You know, it's $999.99 or something. And it's like, you know, you're like what is you just all you did was take three seconds to change a light bulb and they're like, Oh no, like you don't get it. Like it spent me 2020 hours or 30 years or whatever, this amount of long amount of time to learn exactly how to properly remove and then install this specific kind of light bulb.

Yeah. So the advice you're giving in 19, that's the $999 and like the $1 for like maybe the light bulb or something. But really it's it's the knowledge that you gain over that lifetime of experience. Yeah, absolutely. Um That's I don't charge hourly for anything anymore. Um And I you know every everyone's business is different. So you have to think about that differently. I do know the ones that do and it makes sense for them, helps them manage their time better and things like that. Um But yeah, I price things by value instead of by time. So I think about how much money is this gonna make this company well, okay, I'm gonna charge $50,000 for this. Great, we're done. And did they say what? No, they sign the invoice, they signed the contract and I get a deposit for $50,000 in my bank account. But now it's just going to me quite right. But you didn't start there, but to know that there's a there's a progression. Yes.

But but just to say that there's options out there, so you don't have to for consultants listening like there's different ways to do things, There's lots of different ways and it's just a really good note to say what's right for you, what's right for me isn't necessarily gonna be what's right for you or whoever. Like it's just really dependent on what's right for you. And that takes a little bit of time to really identify and learn about how do I really like working and how do I who do I really want to work with? And then like you were talking earlier about saying no, when it's just the red flags are popping up, you know it, you know, in business or in personal life, I just got out of a very toxic relationship that I had to like literally move out of my home because he refused to and that just happened in december, so it's been a year and I'm still kind of working through that process of like getting back to my voice and I'm writing a book, which is really an emotional, if anybody wants to write a book, think hardly about Yes, I agree.

It's gonna take you, like, some people are very fast, I knew a guy who, like go to bali and write books in like two days, I don't know how good they were. I never read his books, but uh yeah, to write something like from in here, from your heart takes a lot of time. Yeah, so you wrote a book, um tell us about the book a little bit because I want to make sure we hit on the book, um and then kind of where you're looking forward to for 20, so I think those are kind of cap us off the conversation today. Yeah, so the book is building brand communities as you know, um co written by myself and Charles Vogel, who is the author of the Art of Community, which is just such a helpful and quick guide to community building that I know a lot of organizations used um and so Charles and I teamed up um actually was during the sabbatical, I met him um and he was an executive coach at the time and he said, I'll talk to you for two hours, like when you're ready to come back to work and we'll just, You know, I'll give you some guidance and it was really generous of him and so when I was ready to come back from my sabbatical in 2018, I met with him and just had this very transformative kind of session with him about like the story that I'm able to do this podcast with you and tell you the story of how I came to be doing what I'm doing because of that conversation with Charles and he's just a very like, perceptive and wise person.

And so a few months after that, um I had written a piece after working with um I actually partnered with Sarah Doug Welch and we have been working with the American Medical Association and I had written about some of our work with the american Medical Association and Charles calls me up and I was like, you should write a book. I'm like, no, that's like a 10 year thing, I'm not gonna do that right now. Um And he was like, no, you have a book now, you probably have another book in 10 years, but like you have a book now and um also if you want to write it alone, I'll support you and that will introduce you to my editor. Like I'm sure they're gonna love whatever you have to propose. Um but if you want to write it quickly we can write it together and so quickly it was 2.5 years, by the way. Uh so by myself, that would have taken me a lot longer. Um and uh yeah, so we worked on the book um and his background is in um I mean all kinds of spiritual community building, He's studied communities from thousands of years ago and um you know, traced kind of the principles that guide all of them, the most successful ones anyway.

And so we combined um that kind of big picture approach with my more like on the ground experience with working with organizations, um they're making these investments now. So yeah, the book distills all kinds of principles for community building, walks you through a process for creating, you know, a strategy, but it's really ultimately about how to bring yourself continually back to the relationships, because that's what everything comes down to are the is the quality of the relationships that you're building and those outlast any community you build and impact your quality of life and everyone else's quality of life too. And that's the kind of work I'm interested in. It's not just like building a forum for this tech company, but rather building relationships and yes, they might exist on a forum, but those relationships are going to be like a continual web that gets built, that creates a a better world for all of us and gives us people we can turn to in times of need.

So yeah, that's what the book is about, how does that get received as far as that um focus for the clients you work with. Is that a challenging thing to um get to or to approach with them when they might be focused more on how many members do we have or who's, you know, engaging or how can we boost engagement, those kinds of, you know, questions. So my job as a consultant, I view it as like I have to pull people back out of that like small myopic thinking. Um it's really easy to get stuck into that and constantly just be worried about like what do the numbers look like and all that. I have a very detached relationship with quantitative measurement um in communities, I think it's important. Um I think it only paints a little tiny piece of the picture that's all quantitative measurement of social phenomenon ever is going to do. Um and so two things to that one, I try to vet out clients who that's what they like, that's the outcome they're looking for. Um if I can't get them out, I try to educate them before we sign of like It's gonna take you some time.

Usually takes about 18 months for you to start seeing consistent engagement and growth and connection happening, so don't like don't expect that right off the bat. And then the other thing about that is um there are, this is another thing Charles has taught me is like there are leaders and companies and organizations that are really focused on things like winning and you know, being the best in all these things. They're playing a zero sum game with what they're doing and they're, I would say the vast majority of organizations are playing that game. And then there are organizations that realize we're part of this holistic ecosystem together, we all have to live on this earth together, we all rise together and there are leaders that understand that. And so those are the type of people that I try to work with because playing that zero sum game, uh we're never gonna win at it. I have no desire to win in it. So I'm also your consultant, that that's what you're looking for.

Um but if we're trying to create good in the world and ripple effects and a lot of that can't be measured. Um then you also have to find unique leaders and projects that people are investing in that um that they understand that that is that's the game we're playing, we're not playing to win, we're playing so that everybody can benefit So powerful, so powerful because like yeah, I get I just had a call on Monday with a potential or with a client who booked a strategy session, he just wanted to know how do I how do I get to $60,000 a year with this membership community that I want to build. Like that was where we started the conversation and I'm like, well, here's somewhere you're gonna have a hard reality, right? I don't sugarcoat things for people on my call. Some of my Discovery strategy calls, because that's not going to help them. I tell them what's going to be helpful and meaningful and it's about building relationships and getting to people to connect with each other in a meaningful and intentional way that's purposeful.

That makes sense for them. Like sparking that kind of collaboration and then just being, just being grateful that you can have that experience. Yes, I guess. Well, here's The thing about that, it's like, that's, that's a question you can ask, how do I, how am I gonna make $60,000 from this membership program that I'm running? That's a question you can ask. I think there's a better question that you can be asking, which is more like, how do I create a business that I love showing up for and that sustains me, which can be answered in a multitude of ways. And then if you really if the business that you really want to build is this membership community is a community generally, then yeah, do that. And figure out like where you're gonna start pricing wise, start low, raise up over time, you never want to drop prices. That's not a good look. Um And what what I found even in my own business, is that the way you think you're gonna make $60,000 when you're on day one is not the way you're gonna make $60,000 3 years from now. The business model is going to shift your, you might, you might still have a membership community, but I have a feeling you're gonna go into sponsorships and content creation and you're gonna end up getting, you know, paid to consult and to give keynote talks.

So asking right off the bat, how am I gonna make $60,000 in this business is a question that it feels when I hear it, I'm like, I feel trapped, I feel really trapped by that question. Um versus like how about we stay open and love the process. I don't know if you saw that, I forget what the movie is called. It was, it was a David Bowie documentary, like all in his own voice and um it was too long, but it was, it was really incredible and beautiful. And one of the things that he said said in that movie is like if the process of creating art and you know, we can define art really broadly, but the process of creating art should not be a miserable process. This is not an exact quote, but if you're not enjoying that process as you go, then the art is no good. Like it's gonna be bad art. Um and it can still be bad art if you're enjoying the process, but at least you enjoy the process and any art that's worth creating is art that was created through a process of, of joy and openness and yeah, so I think the same is true of community and business building.

That Lesson. That lesson that you just shared took me 10 years to doing my photography business myself to learn because I started my photography business and creating artwork for others. And you know, I didn't really, I didn't, you know, I didn't enjoy, it wasn't bringing me joy and then when I let go of the business and I just said, I'm just gonna take photos when I travel and post some of my blog, that's what I enjoy it. And it didn't make me mean I made a lot of money. I eventually got commercial projects that I didn't expect out of. I mean my artworks up in a convention center at the hotel here and in 100 or 225 rooms and stuff, but that's you know, didn't know that, you know, that was the path. So like, I love the just the recognition of the way you think you're going to make money as a business owner, it shows up so differently than what actually happens and you don't and nobody can give you the right answer to that.

Like you have to have that experience. And I think that's just a matter of placing, giving yourself some grace and patience and um you know, maybe doing the side hustle thing or you know, figuring out how other things are going to pan out for you financially. Um, so that you can find this like balance and and be able to experience the joy and the, and then, you know, hopefully be able to experience something more positive with, with a business going forward. But yeah, Um future. So it's the end of 2022, we're going into 2023, any insights or reflections that you want to share about this year and what you're excited about for next year. So this has been a really hard year. I I mean it's, I thought 2020 was hard and it was, let's not downplay how hard 2020 was, but 2022 um with, you know, the Russian invasion of Ukraine and whatever is going on with the stock market and all of the uncertainty.

Um it's been really hard and I think hard a really hard year for community builders generally and hard for consultants as well um because in times where people are afraid and they're just standing still, they're not, they typically start to close off and isolate, which is not an environment in which you can build a community. Um and so I noticed like in february when the the, when the invasion of Ukraine happened, like projects completely dried up. Like our inbound inquiries completely dried up and we're really like at a standstill, luckily we had a client that was really study through that time. Um but they were at a standstill until about august for us and everybody's experience of this has been different, but that's when I think people realize like, oh like life is going on and we have to keep continue to invest. And so I think um this year has been like a year of a lot of stops and starts and uh people Holding off of investments and things like that and I think for 20, um you know, I I expect some more of that frankly, especially among tech companies.

Um it's funny because I know a lot of them have like cash reserves but they're like laying people off, you know, it's like where I, I have a mentor, julianna stand camp stan cam piano and um she runs a learning and development consulting business and She was like where are the leaders? Like um you know Howard Schultz at Starbucks in the early days who treated employees like they were the most valuable asset, where are they right now? Where are they? Because we're just treating people like they're disposable and I understand there was over investments made in 2020, with incredible growth in tech. Like I understand over hiring happened, this happened in many industries and this is a little bit of a correction but it's the way that this has gone down the mass firings, the Elon musk layoffs where people literally couldn't get out of the twitter parking garage because he had fired the hr person who had the key to the garage, like, Like it's sloppy, it's inhumane, it is the worst of corporate world, of the corporate world and I think we're gonna see more of that in early 2023 and I just, I'm really really hoping for some leaders to be more vocal or maybe I just need to look harder for them.

Um who are standing out in this time, there will be a major opportunity for those who don't stand still, who do keep moving, who do keep investing in relationships um because that's really the key to everything else. So I think for consultants for business owners, times where there's a downturn are scary, but there are times of massive opportunity and so we've got to get hopefully, you know, in december and january, we can get a little quiet and reflect and just let things come intuitively to us and do like we did a bunch of research this last year and we're going to continue to do research from our customers next year and really be intentional about moving forward and just constantly trying new things. So lots of opportunity for next year being being adjustable, flexible and intentional about decision making I think. Yeah, and we didn't know that all these things, there was so many unknowns and one of my clients was, you know, getting ready to scale up and and um a year ago and the host of the, his name is Elijah Goldstein is the host of the Mindful living Collective.

And he was gonna start um you know, asking people for donations and then he decided he has a global community said no I'm not, I'm just gonna we're just gonna keep it open and free and Um because people need this space now, like more than ever, and it's just, it's it's so fascinating, like the transition of like I had an amazing 2021 and then like thought that I was gonna be like Doing all these big things and then 2022 came and said, hold on, Deb. So it's fascinating. And one of the things that I'm excited about with my partnership with Todd and the Clock Tower advisers is that he's working on Talent led with collaboration with um Hilker, who he and Todd met at the community consultant collective. And then through that meeting now have decided to start um building a new offer that's going to be supporting Talent led communities um In 2023, which is direly in need.

Like the talent spaces just need, we need, there's a lot of work there, there's a lot of work for every industry, every niche, like there's so much community building work to be done. There's no shortage of work, which is why I always like welcome in anybody who wants to do this work. I'm like, yes, welcome in, like you're going to do anything unethical or inhumane. Like we can talk about that as I see evidence of it, but welcome in and then you can let me know if you're if you're in it for the right reasons later on. Yeah, well, thank you so much for giving us so much insights of your expertise and um you're you're just your experiences are just very insightful. So I really thank you for sharing today on the podcast. Thank you so much for having me and happy 99 Yeah, celebrating 99 episodes. So the episode previous to this one was with the ceo of beat up David Siegel. And um, I'm not gonna announce the other one because I'm really excited about that. But um, this episode becoming uh, this coming Sunday and then um we'll celebrate our 100th episode on the last Sunday of 2022.

And for everyone who's listening, if you found this valuable, please share this with a friend, a colleague. Um, if your community builder and and and you're just looking for some support, please reach out to either I or carry because like she said, we always want to help other community builders and encourage them um, to continue building community online. Um, until the next time. I hope you're finding calm in this day, evening, moment afternoon. Uh, today it's friday at 12 Eastern for me, uh, find calm until the next time and take care bye. Hi everybody. This is Deb Schell and I am gonna give you an update on the crowdfunding campaign that I've been working on for the last few months for the book that I'm writing, currently the creator to community builder book. So this project has been quite an adventure. The project started over the end of the summer time and so we decided to kick off the crowdfunding campaign and when I say we I actually mean me.

So I have one person, Susie who thank you so much. Suzie has helped me with the content for the crowdfunding page and we kicked that off in september and then I was gonna end it after two months but decided to continue raising money to the end of the year. So currently, thank you so many to so many people because we have gotten a little bit more momentum in the last two weeks and we've raised almost $3000 to date. So, um, And I'm happy to announce that I just signed the contract this week for the book designer and my mission for the next two weeks for the last few weeks of the year of 2022 is going to be writing this book. So, um, I just wanted to give you that update. I wanted to share that. I wanted to thank all the people who have helped fund this book, Grace Robin. Uh, laura, Mark Matthew um, mary Elizabeth Pablo Vanessa.

There's so many more um, thank you so much for supporting me with this book and if you are listening to this episode and you're wanting to support, there's a few different options on how you can do that um best and what else if you're on the podcast player and if you go to the show notes, you're gonna see a link that would love it. If you just said support this show and went over and bought me a cup of coffee, that would be great. Um if you can't do that, No worries. Like just if at the end of the day, if you could share this episode with somebody that would be amazing. Um but I just want to let you know, I did sign a contract with the book designer. So this thing is happening and thank you for everybody who supported me as well as um updating you that I'm planning to have the manuscript written by the end of the year so that we can start having Suzy who's going to be the editor and also um I have another person who's here locally in pennsylvania who's going to be doing some proof reading as well.

So I've got some support there for the creation community builder. Book, it's actually going to be just to be real crystal clear with you. I'm gonna be sharing a lot about my journey as a creator, which is something that I did not know I was going to be doing when I decided I was going to write a book a couple months back, I thought it was gonna be this practical workbook and then I started writing a book and realized, wow, there's a lot of stories that I have here to share about community building and creating and being a creator, so just keep on the lookout for updates on this crowdfunding campaign. Uh and as we get into the pre launch in 2023 of this new book, creator, community builder, thank you again, so many of you who have supported this and this podcast. Um and as I mentioned in the episode here, I am going to be ending the community strategy podcast so that I can focus on writing and uh Making this amazing book happen for you and hopefully many of your community building friends.

So, um that is the update for today and I can't wait for you to listen to the next episode, which is episode 100. I'm not going to share who it is, but it's different than who you might think. So thanks again so much. Take care and see you soon

Episode 99: Create Belonging with Carrie Melissa Jones
Episode 99: Create Belonging with Carrie Melissa Jones
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