Avoid THIS in your Community

What to Avoid When Creating a Virtual Community
(so that you make friends + sales online)

Whether you have “sales” in your title at work or are the owner of a business – we all need to sell all of the time.

Today I am specifically addressing what to AVOID when creating a virtual community (so that you can make friends + sales online).

There are loads of ways to prospect. Leads are literally everywhere. The problem is, most people (unless trained properly) don’t know what to DO with them when they get them.

Sooo many people sell the idea of:

“I‘ll help you get leads…”

They know they are just selling you a pipe dream and literally a bridge to NOWHERE!!

​
X Getting MORE leads is not the answer to getting more sales

X Writing MORE content is not the answer to getting more sales

X Doing MORE Livestreams is NOT the answer to getting more sales

You need people that are more than JUST a LEAD.

So where do you find them? Great question!

You CURATE them.

You have heard Networking is SUPER Valuable for your business. There are thousands of books about it – so what’s the deal?? Isn’t that the same thing?

Not really.

Creating a Virtual Community is BETTER!!

It allows you to keep the conversation open!!

→ If you are talking, you have their most valuable asset: their attention.

Buuut I see waaaay too many people approach creating, growing and maintaining their Virtual Communities ALL WRONG.

They are setting themselves up to attract freebie hunters.

They do a “free challenge” and spend more time and money promoting and delivering it than they make and are left broke and ready to quit. I have seen it a hundred times.
SMH

TOO MANY “Guru’s” tell us to set up our Virtual Communities as “curriculum” based – what I mean is that it’s all about them being the AUDIENCE… the student . . . INSTEAD invite them to JOIN IN the conversation and CONNECT.

Connect with YOU and CONNECT with others in the community.

Especially when we are curating a virtual community of business owners, we want to encourage connections, referrals, conversations about what ELSE we have in common, all the while as the CURATOR you get to facilitate the connections.

My analogy is that you have the opportunity to be the HOSTESS, not the Lecturer. This is SO much more effective AND waaaaaay more FUN!!!

This alleviates you from having to be the ONLY ONE bringing value to the community.

This brings more people together.

This curated virtual community allows for you to stand out as the leader without having all of the burden or the heavy lifting all of the time.

Avoid standing behind the lecturn.

Instead, connect both on the main discussion page, in the comments of the discussions AND personally (this is the BIG difference riiight here).

It’s right there when you bring the conversation to 1:1 that it becomes an easy transition to ask about their business and that naturally leads them to ask you about yours.

Creating a Virtual Community is THE easiest way to create conversation opportunities with like-minded business people.

As long as you avoid showing up as the “lecturer”, and create opportunities for connection and conversation both within the group and personally, you will have a virtual community who will always stand beside you, listen to your offers when you have them and be the first in line to buy.

That is the power of building a Virtual Community the RIGHT WAY.

If you need to know HOW … check this out: https://www.reneehribar.co/best-group-on-the-block-1

No matter what, I want you to know something: you DO have the power to create a phenomenal Virtual Community of your own right now even if you are totally new and nobody knows your name (yet). ​

xo,
renee​

PS: ​​​​​Not ready to host a Virtual Community of your OWN yet? No problem! Make sure to come in and hang out with ME for FREE in my virtual community today!! ://www.facebook.com/groups/485712388288047/

TRANSCRIPT

Welcome to the “S” Word LIVE. My name is Renee Hribar, sales strategist, TEDx speaker and author. And my goal is to make sales simple and fun. So I created the “S” Word LIVE show. It’s all about sales and how to make it simple and fun. There are so many smart, professional business women that are out there. They’re former lawyers, former C-suite executives. They’re doing done-for-you services. They’re experts, they’re authors, and they’re there in the space of selling for themselves. And they’ve never been there before. So what I’m going to talk about this week is about creating that virtual community and what that means. Hey, Candy, say hello as you join, whether you’re live or on the replay, say hello. Tell me where you’re watching from today. I am in Detroit, Michigan, today. But no matter where I am, I can continue to curate and create that virtual community. So let me know by a show of “I have one” and you can even drop the link here, do you have a free Facebook community or a free virtual community that you like to hang out and whether it’s here or on LinkedIn or any other place that you enjoy? I know there’s lots of places to create a virtual community. So that’s what I want to talk about today. Because creating a virtual community can help bring you tons of new friends and tons of new sales.

So we hear all the time that to create a sale. Hey, Cynthia, how are you? Hey, Gabby. Say hello as you join. To create a sale, you need that know, like, and trust factor. Have you heard that before? That you need the know, like, and trust factor? Let me know in the comments if you’ve heard that it’s important to get that know, like, and trust factor to make a sale. Well, who better than people that we know, whether it’s from the online space or that we’ve met in person? The thing about meeting in person is that it only lasts so long, not necessarily our neighbors that we see. Heck, I don’t even see my neighbors every day. So than being said it’s important to have that virtual option, because what is that little tool that we have no more than arm’s length from us at any given time? Our phones. Right. So how many of us actually get phone calls on our phones anymore? But we’re always looking at social media, e-mail, and other ways to connect. So creating a virtual community allows you to connect with those people all the time. Anytime. While they’re waiting in line, while they’re at the pick up, while they’re on the sidelines of the soccer field, wherever your community might be.

This gives you a chance to connect with them. So let me know if you are hosting or an admin of or if you are a part of a free virtual community or a paid virtual community. And let me know how you like that or maybe even drop the link below. So let’s talk about it. One of the big mistakes, one of the biggest things that I want you to avoid is, and this is my free advice that I usually only share with my paying clients, is creating a curriculum based community. Here’s what I mean, specifically. So let’s say a professional, for example, let’s say someone who does, you know, Facebook ads. This person is an expert. They do this for a living and they create a community around Facebook ads. Well, what if eventually their skill set grows and they expand into becoming an author or a podcaster? Wouldn’t it be amazing if that community wasn’t just coming to you just for Facebook Ads? And what if that community was able to come to you for all different things? See, when it comes to selling, it’s all about having a conversation. So what I’m going to encourage you to do is avoid the curriculum based and lean into the conversation based.

Who here’s ever been to a great party or have you hosted a great party? People tell me that my house parties are pretty epic. In fact, I was married 20 years ago and although it wasn’t a house party, people are still telling me what a great party it was because it was just that good of a party. I feel great about hosting great parties. So I look at my virtual community as a house party. I want to make sure that when someone comes in they are welcomed with open arms. I don’t just leave the door open and hope they find their way. I make sure they know where things are. I make sure that they know, for example, in my free group, I have a whole section of a summit of good global business women from around the world that are sharing their secrets and giving away free gifts inside of my free Facebook group. What? That’s my virtual community. I don’t just talk about sales there. I’m just as easily going to talk about what we’re do on a Saturday, what the best movies are, or what the best email service provider might be, or how to convert something from a voice to text to SRT files. I mean, literally from tech to soccer to sales, those are all different types of conversations that might be going on at any one given time inside of my virtual community.

So that is what I encourage you to do when it comes to making sales, making friends and sales in a virtual space and how you can have it anywhere, anytime. People that you meet from any walk of life, from any business and from any part of the world can tune in anytime. They’re not just coming there for one thing. Curriculum based peace. They’re going there for conversation. So how do you do that? Well, my friends, I actually have an answer to that. And it is inside of this great program that I have. So I’ll leave the link to that and my free group, because no matter what, I don’t want you to stop the conversation here. I want you to continue the conversation. So if you know that networking is good for business, but the traditional way of networking never made sense, felt too masculine, felt just off and misaligned. I get you. That is 100 percent what this is meant to avoid. So definitely come and hang out with me for free and also check out how you can do it for yourself. There’s a special deal going on right now, so check it out in the links and I will see you next week for the “S” Word LIVE

See you soon.