The Rise of Community and How to Build One, with Sara Pion

WEBVTT 1 00:00:08.160 --> 00:00:16.239 Conversations from the front lines and marketing. This is be tob growth, coming 2 00:00:16.280 --> 00:00:21.199 to you from just outside Austin, Texas. I'm your host, Benjie Block, 3 00:00:21.239 --> 00:00:26.280 and joining me from Louisville, Kentucky, our creative content lead, Emily 4 00:00:26.359 --> 00:00:31.000 Brady, and in Nashville, Tennessee our director growth here at sweet fish, 5 00:00:31.199 --> 00:00:37.439 Dan Sanchez. Welcome in to the show and here about ten minutes you're going 6 00:00:37.479 --> 00:00:43.679 to hear a conversation that I did with Sarah. She's the senior growth manager 7 00:00:43.679 --> 00:00:48.320 over at voice flow. We talk a lot about community. Actually we're on 8 00:00:48.359 --> 00:00:52.679 a group call together where we were just talking about how you create community and 9 00:00:52.719 --> 00:00:56.119 foster community and she had so many good ideas that I was like we need 10 00:00:56.159 --> 00:01:00.520 to have her on b Tob Growth, and so I'm excited to share this 11 00:01:00.560 --> 00:01:03.920 one with all of you for we get there. You guys know, Monday's, 12 00:01:03.920 --> 00:01:07.680 Wednesday's Fridays, the three of us, Dan, Emily and I are 13 00:01:07.760 --> 00:01:11.079 here to do some show and tells talking about things we're seeing in and around 14 00:01:11.079 --> 00:01:15.760 marketing, and it's my turn today. So I kind of want to turn 15 00:01:15.799 --> 00:01:19.959 the tables on emily a little bit, because she posted about the return we've 16 00:01:21.000 --> 00:01:26.239 seen on our linkedin evangelist program. Emily, give us some context. It's 17 00:01:26.280 --> 00:01:30.799 been a year of really doing this thing. So maybe just a high level 18 00:01:30.920 --> 00:01:37.439 overview on what we've done and, like I mean, I guess congratulations. 19 00:01:37.439 --> 00:01:41.439 A year is is a long time and marketing world right. You've I know 20 00:01:41.480 --> 00:01:45.319 you've learned a lot from this. Yeah, thank you. Yeah, so 21 00:01:45.400 --> 00:01:48.560 that we've seen a lot of benefits from a program for our companies and also 22 00:01:48.640 --> 00:01:53.359 for our employees. And one of the things we've generated over three hundred Tho 23 00:01:53.599 --> 00:01:56.920 and revenue, and that's just what we were able to attribute. And hub 24 00:01:56.920 --> 00:02:02.000 spot. We had twenty, twenty plus team made team members go through the 25 00:02:02.000 --> 00:02:07.000 program and so we were able to help them grow and build their brands, 26 00:02:07.040 --> 00:02:09.840 which is really exciting. That's one of my favorite benefits of the program. 27 00:02:09.879 --> 00:02:15.719 And then also just another cool aside is like having invites to podcast because of 28 00:02:15.719 --> 00:02:20.840 the content we're posting, or some of gone on to get jobs outside of 29 00:02:20.840 --> 00:02:23.319 sweet fish that are really good because of what they've posted. So just a 30 00:02:23.400 --> 00:02:27.879 lot of cool and a lot of brand awareness, obviously in recognition for that. 31 00:02:28.000 --> 00:02:30.759 So those are results that we've seen. We're gonna have a lot of 32 00:02:30.759 --> 00:02:37.400 people like sort of all over the map with how they engage with Linkedin. 33 00:02:37.479 --> 00:02:42.599 So just talk a little bit about what this has looked like to get. 34 00:02:42.639 --> 00:02:46.719 When you say I mean helped twenty plus employees build and grow their personal brands. 35 00:02:46.759 --> 00:02:50.840 They those aren't all marketers, those aren't all people that might naturally just 36 00:02:50.879 --> 00:02:54.719 be like active on Linkedin. So talk about some of the inner workings, 37 00:02:54.719 --> 00:02:58.639 I guess, of what this program was and how it set people up to 38 00:02:58.680 --> 00:03:01.919 be so active over on the platform. Well, I mean the first step 39 00:03:02.039 --> 00:03:07.520 was creating a framework to make sure that we had a strategy in place that 40 00:03:07.560 --> 00:03:10.919 would make this thing go and like give it momentum and and then we on 41 00:03:10.960 --> 00:03:15.439 boarded whoever was interested. We had this open invitation and we just said, 42 00:03:15.680 --> 00:03:19.120 if anyone wants to be active on linkedn't build their brands, like we want 43 00:03:19.120 --> 00:03:23.400 to help you do that. And so we would on board people and help 44 00:03:23.520 --> 00:03:27.520 them flesh out their their content pillars. I like to ask them like what 45 00:03:27.520 --> 00:03:31.400 they're passionate about, knowledgeable about and curious about, and then from there, 46 00:03:31.560 --> 00:03:36.520 obviously something that's refined over time, but you need something, some sort of 47 00:03:36.520 --> 00:03:39.960 springboard, and so we talked about their personality as well as their content and 48 00:03:40.000 --> 00:03:44.560 just we give them training so they're confident posting, because a lot of people 49 00:03:44.599 --> 00:03:47.560 haven't posted ever on linked did and I hadn't either before I started this and 50 00:03:47.599 --> 00:03:52.840 it was kind of terrifying. So that's a huge part of it, is 51 00:03:52.960 --> 00:03:57.919 equipping employees and giving them that training and giving them the confidence to post. 52 00:03:58.000 --> 00:04:02.439 And we were really fortunate that we had Dan already had been posting on linked 53 00:04:02.439 --> 00:04:06.120 in for a long time, so he already had proved results and I think 54 00:04:06.199 --> 00:04:11.039 that just added to the excitement that our employees had of like, if Dan 55 00:04:11.159 --> 00:04:14.360 can have these results, then we can start working on this and see these 56 00:04:14.400 --> 00:04:18.560 as well. So that's how we got started with it. Yeah, Dan, 57 00:04:18.600 --> 00:04:24.639 I mean you've been on this for a while but also been alongside, 58 00:04:24.800 --> 00:04:28.199 you know, in Emily's journey over the last year. Would if, from 59 00:04:28.240 --> 00:04:30.680 your perspective, your vanae point some of the benefits you've seen, as this 60 00:04:30.720 --> 00:04:33.680 is kind of taken off for sweet fish and been a core part of our 61 00:04:33.680 --> 00:04:39.240 strategy. And I actually wasn't the first, that's say, James was the 62 00:04:39.240 --> 00:04:43.279 first, Logan was the second, but they were kind of going independently this 63 00:04:43.319 --> 00:04:48.560 program first started. In it they invited like just the leadership team to post, 64 00:04:48.600 --> 00:04:53.439 but of the whole leadership team, James and Logan included, they were 65 00:04:53.439 --> 00:04:56.519 the kind of the only ones already posting and I was brand new. I 66 00:04:56.639 --> 00:05:00.079 just been hired and threw me into the mix with a few others, and 67 00:05:00.160 --> 00:05:02.680 of the few new others that I got added, I was pretty much the 68 00:05:02.720 --> 00:05:06.480 only one really posting other than like they were writing and posting, but like 69 00:05:06.560 --> 00:05:10.639 they weren't really engaging with it. They were just kind of checking off the 70 00:05:10.639 --> 00:05:15.000 box, but I was going all in. But the fact that James and 71 00:05:15.000 --> 00:05:18.000 Logan had already been there, had already created momentum, it made it so 72 00:05:18.160 --> 00:05:20.680 much easier for me to kind of like draft behind them. You know, 73 00:05:20.720 --> 00:05:24.560 if you're into like biking, you know how right behind him, to like 74 00:05:24.680 --> 00:05:27.839 draft to it's kind of what happened. Like they had already been before me 75 00:05:27.839 --> 00:05:30.560 and would honestly, if they commented on my my post, my post would 76 00:05:30.600 --> 00:05:33.639 get way more reach because they already had reach, which, if you don't 77 00:05:33.680 --> 00:05:40.040 know, and Linkedin comments are like tapping share. If you comment on someone's 78 00:05:40.040 --> 00:05:42.839 post, it's almost as if you had hit the share button. In fact, 79 00:05:42.879 --> 00:05:45.959 even more so, I think, then just tapping share. It goes 80 00:05:46.000 --> 00:05:49.399 out to all that person's or a lot of their friends, followers and people 81 00:05:49.439 --> 00:05:54.519 they're engaging with. So every single person you can get to comment ex boost 82 00:05:54.560 --> 00:05:57.920 your post. And James and Logan were commenting a lot of my post early 83 00:05:58.000 --> 00:06:00.759 on and because they already have momentum, we brought it with and we're able 84 00:06:00.759 --> 00:06:03.439 to accelerate my growth and reach within the platform and I'm like, oh my 85 00:06:03.480 --> 00:06:05.879 gosh, if we could scale this out and ad a couple more people and 86 00:06:05.959 --> 00:06:11.439 doing the same thing I've done, even if not to the same degree of 87 00:06:11.480 --> 00:06:14.360 intensity that I put it put into it, it would work. And that 88 00:06:14.399 --> 00:06:15.920 was kind of like the whole idea behind launching it, as can we do 89 00:06:16.000 --> 00:06:20.560 this more, and obviously we needed even more help doing it. With more 90 00:06:20.560 --> 00:06:24.639 people came more work, and that's why we brought emily full time on, 91 00:06:25.639 --> 00:06:30.160 because she was so good at helping with my work, my post, and 92 00:06:30.279 --> 00:06:32.360 James and logans that I'm like, let's let's do this even more, and 93 00:06:32.399 --> 00:06:38.680 it freaking work. I appreciate the variety in that. It wasn't like everyone 94 00:06:38.800 --> 00:06:42.759 has to do this one way, and we've, I mean you tried multiple 95 00:06:42.759 --> 00:06:47.000 things and I wonder, emily, like what have been as you've done this 96 00:06:47.079 --> 00:06:50.160 and tried to scale it and then we've gone through all these different seasons of 97 00:06:50.160 --> 00:06:53.720 it. Essentially, like, what have been some of the biggest challenges for 98 00:06:53.800 --> 00:06:57.120 you in doing this? And I know there's so many people that come to 99 00:06:57.160 --> 00:07:00.000 you with questions, like we're interested in it right, but like biting the 100 00:07:00.040 --> 00:07:03.639 bullet and actually doing it is pretty hard. So what are what were some 101 00:07:03.680 --> 00:07:09.319 of the biggest challenges you've kind of encountered over the last year? The biggest 102 00:07:09.399 --> 00:07:14.560 challenges are usually centered around getting buy in from either leadership or from your employees, 103 00:07:14.639 --> 00:07:18.240 and a lot of companies that I've talked to who have tried similar programs 104 00:07:18.360 --> 00:07:23.000 that's been true for them as well. And so I think again, we 105 00:07:23.000 --> 00:07:27.199 were just fortunate to have James and Dan and Logan already posting, but I 106 00:07:27.199 --> 00:07:29.759 think that's kind of a misconception, is that you have to get the CEO 107 00:07:30.000 --> 00:07:32.720 posting. That's obviously it's valuable, but I think really you just need a 108 00:07:32.800 --> 00:07:40.279 channel champion who is commit yeah, who's committed to Linkedin and who will help 109 00:07:40.319 --> 00:07:43.199 other people do it as well. And so you know, for us we 110 00:07:43.240 --> 00:07:46.240 hired me on. I'm not everyone's able to do that. But if you 111 00:07:46.279 --> 00:07:50.600 have a channel champion, that makes a huge difference and then that helps getting 112 00:07:50.639 --> 00:07:54.839 employees to buy in as well, because a lot of companies will try and 113 00:07:54.879 --> 00:08:00.680 give employees content to repost, but that just that's not a strategy. We've 114 00:08:00.720 --> 00:08:05.639 also read content. It's all ignored. That content here's to read it. 115 00:08:05.759 --> 00:08:07.279 Yeah, nobody wants to read it if it's not coming from a person, 116 00:08:07.560 --> 00:08:13.000 and then they usually don't engage at all on Linkedin. They post and ghosts. 117 00:08:13.079 --> 00:08:16.360 So I think that's important to recognize as that. Employees need training and 118 00:08:16.399 --> 00:08:22.680 they need so much more than just giving them content but giving them the ability 119 00:08:22.839 --> 00:08:26.240 to engage on linked in as well. HMM, yeah, because, I 120 00:08:26.240 --> 00:08:30.199 mean we've gone through some phases, even though you know you've always done the 121 00:08:30.319 --> 00:08:33.000 like what are you passionate about, and you try to hone it in on 122 00:08:33.039 --> 00:08:35.320 like the niche that the person that's posting wants to be involved in. But 123 00:08:35.399 --> 00:08:39.519 we've gone through seasons where it was like, okay, we're writing full out 124 00:08:39.559 --> 00:08:43.080 posts, all right, now we're giving ideas for topics that you can talk 125 00:08:43.120 --> 00:08:45.919 about. We've gone through we have a ton of people in this. Now 126 00:08:45.919 --> 00:08:48.519 we have a smaller group that's really thinking through who and how we're engaging. 127 00:08:48.600 --> 00:08:54.039 Like you've tried these different methods. Do you just feel like in different seasons 128 00:08:54.039 --> 00:08:58.159 it's worth trying different things, or do you feel like you now have an 129 00:08:58.159 --> 00:09:01.159 approach that you say, Hey, you should like, this is the way 130 00:09:01.200 --> 00:09:05.279 and you're pointing in a specific direction that you think people should try now? 131 00:09:05.279 --> 00:09:07.840 It definitely depends on the season. I know Dan and I, when this 132 00:09:07.879 --> 00:09:11.320 first started, our conversations usually were like, how do we motivate people to 133 00:09:11.360 --> 00:09:16.159 post, you know, like no one's posted this week. How do we 134 00:09:16.200 --> 00:09:18.159 motivate them? And there are several different ways to do it. I know 135 00:09:18.200 --> 00:09:22.960 that like refine labs as a game of fight their experience and that's brilliant or 136 00:09:24.000 --> 00:09:28.399 rewards or something like that. And I think for us that at the fundamental 137 00:09:28.440 --> 00:09:31.960 level it was giving people a permission to post about what they were interested in, 138 00:09:31.320 --> 00:09:37.080 and so that meant like posting about the things that they're passionate about again, 139 00:09:37.200 --> 00:09:41.440 but like also posting things in addition to posting things close to their role 140 00:09:41.679 --> 00:09:46.120 and giving value. So I think and I think it also became just like 141 00:09:46.159 --> 00:09:50.240 a collective fun thing, because we have a slack channel where we're all we 142 00:09:50.240 --> 00:09:54.320 were all sharing our our posts and like celebrating Lens and that kind of thing, 143 00:09:54.399 --> 00:09:58.399 and so that became just sort of a rallying cry that people gathered around, 144 00:09:58.519 --> 00:10:01.519 and now, since we've done it for a year, it's changed a 145 00:10:01.519 --> 00:10:05.639 lot this last quarter, but it had we had enough momentum because people had 146 00:10:05.639 --> 00:10:11.360 been posting for one quarter, two quarters like after that, they just they 147 00:10:11.399 --> 00:10:13.879 had it. They knew what they were doing, unless they you know, 148 00:10:15.120 --> 00:10:18.279 we're new to the program, but those people were able to like carry them 149 00:10:18.399 --> 00:10:22.679 that momentum along and so that freed up a lot of time for me to 150 00:10:22.799 --> 00:10:28.000 focus on other things, to focus on creating things like monthly training or the 151 00:10:28.159 --> 00:10:31.480 editorial calendar, stuff like that. So it does depend on your seat, 152 00:10:31.559 --> 00:10:35.200 on your season. In the beginning it's a lot of like kind of hand 153 00:10:35.279 --> 00:10:39.360 holding and then once everyone's got it down, it's more big picture framework type 154 00:10:39.399 --> 00:10:43.120 stuff. All Right, last question that I have. But do you go 155 00:10:43.159 --> 00:10:48.039 in with like specific this is what a win looks like for the evangelist program 156 00:10:48.039 --> 00:10:54.159 like these are whether I mean the things we highlighted was followers. You talk 157 00:10:54.240 --> 00:10:56.919 about how many people we had in it. You talked about traffic. That 158 00:10:56.960 --> 00:11:03.159 was driven money. You know, three Hundred Eleven Tho in annual revenue directed 159 00:11:03.159 --> 00:11:07.600 directly attributed to Linkedin. where any of those like numbers clarified from the beginning, 160 00:11:07.679 --> 00:11:11.000 or did you go and going we just want exposure, we want you 161 00:11:11.159 --> 00:11:16.440 like what were the goals? Yeah, definitely, you know, exposure. 162 00:11:16.519 --> 00:11:22.919 Definitely wanted more brand awareness for the company, but also we promoted it as 163 00:11:22.919 --> 00:11:28.960 a benefit to our employees, to the as brand building, and so that 164 00:11:28.039 --> 00:11:33.960 was a big, a big motivator for us. I think as far as 165 00:11:33.000 --> 00:11:37.440 goals, those maybe we're too like really broad ones and we were able to 166 00:11:37.519 --> 00:11:41.000 zero in as we went along. But Dan Dan built the program before I 167 00:11:41.039 --> 00:11:45.200 came on, so I'd love to hear your thoughts on that. I think 168 00:11:45.200 --> 00:11:48.559 we'd been doing enough of those things to demonstrate that it worked and that it 169 00:11:48.600 --> 00:11:52.200 was actually measurable. Like people were coming in and telling us where'd you hear 170 00:11:52.200 --> 00:11:56.639 about us? I heard about you from linkedin. Sometimes it was specific people 171 00:11:56.679 --> 00:11:58.600 on Linkedin. So we knew it was working because that's where all the views 172 00:11:58.600 --> 00:12:03.080 were coming from. It's not like we could like technically track attribution, but 173 00:12:03.240 --> 00:12:07.039 like it was coming straight from their mouths. They knew where they came from. 174 00:12:07.080 --> 00:12:09.919 So I knew if we could just get more content posted, I mean 175 00:12:09.960 --> 00:12:13.879 I think it was a guess. It wasn't for for sure known, but 176 00:12:13.919 --> 00:12:16.960 it was a pretty safe assumption that if we can get more voices out there, 177 00:12:18.000 --> 00:12:22.279 because different people are going to have different personalities, different points of view 178 00:12:22.360 --> 00:12:26.000 and create more diversity of thought to attracted wide array of customers, that it 179 00:12:26.039 --> 00:12:31.919 was likely to work. And one so and they certainly did increase the reach. 180 00:12:33.200 --> 00:12:37.080 One thing that I wasn't that I didn't anticipate that it also did was 181 00:12:37.120 --> 00:12:41.240 increase the depth of which people would get sucked into like this sweet fish funnel 182 00:12:41.519 --> 00:12:45.799 just within Linkedin, because all of sudden, you know, we would start 183 00:12:45.799 --> 00:12:48.720 interacting with a certain account and then account would interact with maybe just me or 184 00:12:48.759 --> 00:12:54.480 maybe just logan or maybe just emily, but because they'd start engaging with one 185 00:12:54.519 --> 00:12:56.639 of us and we were engaging with all a sweet fish, all the sudden 186 00:12:56.639 --> 00:13:01.759 they'd start seeing multiple post from sweetfish and all of a sudden the whole feed 187 00:13:01.879 --> 00:13:05.960 was full of sweetfish people. And they could tell because all our profile photos 188 00:13:05.039 --> 00:13:09.679 have a matching ring color and we all have the same by line and are 189 00:13:11.399 --> 00:13:15.840 similar by line. That shows our the company's position and value proposition, that 190 00:13:15.879 --> 00:13:20.919 it just starts to create momentum and impressions of just value and good content and 191 00:13:20.039 --> 00:13:24.039 interesting people with interesting perspectives. So lots of people would get pulled down even 192 00:13:24.080 --> 00:13:28.480 farther because of the diversity of thought. Well, there's a lot there and 193 00:13:28.519 --> 00:13:33.240 if you have follow up questions, say reach out specifically to emily or to 194 00:13:33.320 --> 00:13:37.320 Dan on this topic, because they both been thinking about it. And Emily 195 00:13:37.360 --> 00:13:41.399 again, congrats on a year of this and know it's been a huge benefit 196 00:13:41.440 --> 00:13:46.120 to me come in on the team back in November and so many on our 197 00:13:46.159 --> 00:13:50.120 team. So I'm sure this is extremely valuable to our listeners, who are 198 00:13:50.159 --> 00:13:54.240 definitely thinking on on how they can be present on Linkedin as well. We're 199 00:13:54.279 --> 00:13:58.679 about to dive into a conversation I had with Sarah. She is the senior 200 00:13:58.799 --> 00:14:03.759 growth manager over at voice flow. I wanted to remind our audience of one 201 00:14:03.799 --> 00:14:07.799 thing. Throughout the month of May we are doing a survey here on be 202 00:14:07.960 --> 00:14:13.440 tob growth. Just takes less than five minutes but gives us an idea of 203 00:14:13.480 --> 00:14:16.240 what you like about the show right now, what we can cheek and continue 204 00:14:16.279 --> 00:14:18.240 to make better. Topics we can cover. That would hit home for you. 205 00:14:18.559 --> 00:14:22.360 So we will pay you twenty five dollars to fill it out. That 206 00:14:22.519 --> 00:14:26.799 is free money, essentially money. Twenty five bucks for less than five minutes 207 00:14:26.840 --> 00:14:31.960 of work. It is fully worth it. So go ahead and fill that 208 00:14:33.000 --> 00:14:37.480 out and you'll also be put in a drawing for a chance to win two 209 00:14:37.600 --> 00:14:43.600 hundred and fifty bucks. So let's jump in to my conversation with Sarah. 210 00:14:43.759 --> 00:14:48.360 Welcome back to be tob growth. Today I am joined by Sarah Pyon G 211 00:14:48.600 --> 00:14:54.440 is. This senior growth manager at voice flow. Sarah, welcome in to 212 00:14:54.600 --> 00:14:58.440 be to be growth. Thank you for having me. Yeah, it's going 213 00:14:58.519 --> 00:15:01.200 to be fun to draw on your expert TASA. Know you spent some time 214 00:15:01.440 --> 00:15:05.279 at Alice and at drift as well. But I want to start us with 215 00:15:05.320 --> 00:15:11.399 a buzzword. In the buzz word is community. It's a hot topic and 216 00:15:11.519 --> 00:15:15.240 V to be and last time I checked, I think everybody wants to have 217 00:15:15.320 --> 00:15:18.399 one. So I you and I. That's kind of and actually how we 218 00:15:18.600 --> 00:15:22.639 initially connected. We were on a marketing squad called together just like this pop 219 00:15:22.720 --> 00:15:26.200 up zoom, called Zoom Call, with people that were curious, specifically marketers 220 00:15:26.200 --> 00:15:30.279 that were curious about this and you were saying a bunch of stuff that I 221 00:15:30.320 --> 00:15:33.039 was like, I want to just jump on a separate call Sara and I 222 00:15:33.080 --> 00:15:35.720 want to pick her brain on this, and we kind of did that and 223 00:15:35.720 --> 00:15:39.200 then I'm like all right, let's let's jump on an episode. Talk to 224 00:15:39.240 --> 00:15:43.000 me a little bit about what it was that initially prompted your passion around community 225 00:15:43.000 --> 00:15:46.879 and why your head is sort of in that space. Yeah, I think 226 00:15:46.919 --> 00:15:50.960 community was always implied by a lot of the the work that I did in 227 00:15:50.960 --> 00:15:56.679 my last two roles at drift and Alice. At drift I started in support, 228 00:15:56.759 --> 00:16:00.360 so I just had a very high touch with a lot of drift customers 229 00:16:00.399 --> 00:16:03.440 and up until I left, if there were something like there were still some 230 00:16:03.480 --> 00:16:07.240 customers where if they came into chat like I would hop in and talk to 231 00:16:07.279 --> 00:16:10.279 them like they were they were my people, I was like, Oh yeah, 232 00:16:10.399 --> 00:16:12.200 just like shoot him over to me, be happy to chat with them. 233 00:16:12.240 --> 00:16:15.960 And also I got to be involved in a lot of like pre and 234 00:16:15.039 --> 00:16:22.120 postale conversations because I was the one leveraging drift for drift, so I was 235 00:16:22.159 --> 00:16:25.879 like customer number one in a sense, and I loved having that proximity to 236 00:16:25.960 --> 00:16:30.919 customers, to get a better understanding of like their thought process with a tool 237 00:16:30.960 --> 00:16:33.759 and how they would use it and then have that sort of imply the work 238 00:16:33.759 --> 00:16:36.840 that I do and I was I was doing customer marketing when I was at 239 00:16:36.879 --> 00:16:38.960 Alice, so I got to have that same sort of proximity the customers, 240 00:16:40.039 --> 00:16:45.840 personal relationships with customers, but voice flow was the the company that had built 241 00:16:45.879 --> 00:16:51.000 this this mote of a community around themselves before I got here, and so 242 00:16:51.159 --> 00:16:56.360 I was really excited because I think having that personal connection with customers just gives 243 00:16:56.360 --> 00:17:00.759 you really great product insight but also gives you like free marketing copywriting at all 244 00:17:00.840 --> 00:17:06.200 times, just taking the customers words that they're saying and using that and leveraging 245 00:17:06.240 --> 00:17:10.599 that and internal conversations and external conversation. So I was really excited to join 246 00:17:10.799 --> 00:17:15.759 a company and be a part of building and fostering and engaging a really tight 247 00:17:15.880 --> 00:17:19.680 knit community that already existed, and so that's one of my main like focus 248 00:17:19.720 --> 00:17:25.319 areas at voice will. Yeah, it's school that you bring in experience where 249 00:17:25.319 --> 00:17:30.680 it's like some level of customer in like community engagement has been across three companies, 250 00:17:30.720 --> 00:17:34.640 because you've seen it from multiple different angles. I know with voice flow. 251 00:17:34.680 --> 00:17:41.799 Specifically, that occupies an interesting space because you have this large community and 252 00:17:41.839 --> 00:17:45.400 then you're feeling this tension that we'll talk about with this need to migrate and 253 00:17:45.440 --> 00:17:48.319 like we need a more capable platform and how do we actually engage with and 254 00:17:48.359 --> 00:17:52.039 do this in the right way? What were you guys experiencing and talk to 255 00:17:52.039 --> 00:17:56.039 me a little bit about what prompted the internal conversations and the tension in the 256 00:17:56.039 --> 00:18:02.599 need to migrate. Yeah, I think as is our product evolved and as 257 00:18:02.599 --> 00:18:06.599 our ICP evolved, we realize that if we were ever going to have like 258 00:18:06.640 --> 00:18:11.359 an enterprise motion associated with our our tool, which like we have a dual 259 00:18:11.400 --> 00:18:14.480 go to market function where we have a fremium product but we also sell into 260 00:18:14.519 --> 00:18:18.559 an enterprise, a lot of enterprise employees are people, yes, but they 261 00:18:18.599 --> 00:18:23.240 can't generally log into a social network platform like facebook, like from their work 262 00:18:23.279 --> 00:18:32.680 computer. It's not always a platform that's just like white listed, essentially for 263 00:18:32.839 --> 00:18:37.480 customers. And we also wanted to have better recognition within our community and didn't 264 00:18:37.519 --> 00:18:42.319 have that in facebook. We didn't own any of the customer data, we 265 00:18:42.319 --> 00:18:45.599 weren't able to recognize people in the way that we wanted and we could only 266 00:18:45.680 --> 00:18:52.440 have like one never ending updating news feed of conversations. We couldn't split off 267 00:18:52.440 --> 00:18:57.000 any sort of conversation or try to initiate any smaller group conversations, which I 268 00:18:57.000 --> 00:19:00.200 think is like where the power of community really comes in, is being able 269 00:19:00.240 --> 00:19:06.240 to facilitate small, like minded groups of people to have a conversation and connect 270 00:19:06.400 --> 00:19:08.480 organically, but also, like, with your with your help, and facebook 271 00:19:08.559 --> 00:19:11.799 was really the platform for us to do that. We had no way of 272 00:19:11.799 --> 00:19:15.039 getting people back into the community since we didn't own any of that data. 273 00:19:15.119 --> 00:19:18.440 We couldn't, you know, pull a list of people who were in the 274 00:19:18.440 --> 00:19:22.960 facebook community and send them updates in terms of what was happening, and we 275 00:19:22.000 --> 00:19:26.000 didn't just want to send all of our all of our sign ups like a 276 00:19:26.160 --> 00:19:29.799 weekly news letter. And what was happening in the community is they couldn't even 277 00:19:29.799 --> 00:19:33.319 act sess it because it was behind a firewall or something like that. So 278 00:19:33.559 --> 00:19:37.759 that was kind of the inflection point of we need to start to really own 279 00:19:38.400 --> 00:19:42.240 where the conversation is happening and like have a have a better definition for what 280 00:19:42.319 --> 00:19:47.720 kinds of conversations we want to have happen within our community, because voice, 281 00:19:47.759 --> 00:19:49.759 well as a product, has evolved so much over the last three years, 282 00:19:49.799 --> 00:19:55.799 where initially it was first just to build Alexa and Google skills, which has 283 00:19:55.839 --> 00:20:00.559 a very specific audience type, but has evolved into not only election Google but 284 00:20:00.599 --> 00:20:06.640 being able to facilitate like chat bought conversations, in car assistance, in toys, 285 00:20:06.680 --> 00:20:11.720 like voice activated toys, website chat bots, any sort of medium where 286 00:20:11.720 --> 00:20:15.319 you're having a conversation. And so for that the the community was highly focused 287 00:20:15.319 --> 00:20:19.839 on election Google only. So we didn't want our our professional users to feel 288 00:20:19.920 --> 00:20:23.880 left out, but we didn't want the Alexa and Google builders to feel like 289 00:20:23.920 --> 00:20:27.200 they didn't have a place in the community anymore, and so that's kind of 290 00:20:27.680 --> 00:20:33.400 all together created this like big need, both internally and within the community, 291 00:20:33.480 --> 00:20:41.440 to have a new place to have different topics of conversation happening simultaneously. There's 292 00:20:41.440 --> 00:20:44.759 a lot that I want to go into in the what you guys landed on 293 00:20:44.839 --> 00:20:48.480 and how you got there, but I want to ask a couple questions specifically 294 00:20:48.519 --> 00:20:51.759 on what you think brought the initial success, because we're talking about a large 295 00:20:51.759 --> 00:20:56.680 community, eight thousand members. That's not a small thing. Obviously to build 296 00:20:56.759 --> 00:21:00.519 that takes time, and I like that you mentioned the evolution of it, 297 00:21:00.519 --> 00:21:04.559 as well the Alexa and Google skills, and in the need for like how 298 00:21:04.559 --> 00:21:07.680 do we transform this, because now we got a bunch of people here that 299 00:21:07.720 --> 00:21:12.519 are here for different reasons. But why do you think sparked the initial success 300 00:21:12.559 --> 00:21:18.079 of the facebook? Like take me back to are rewind real quick. Yeah, 301 00:21:18.119 --> 00:21:23.119 so voice flow in and of itself started as first a place where parents 302 00:21:23.119 --> 00:21:30.400 could design stories for their kids that would like, that would speak these stories 303 00:21:30.799 --> 00:21:33.359 and they were going to live on Alexa. And the CO founders realize that 304 00:21:33.480 --> 00:21:38.279 trying to build an Alexa skill without like a visual user interface tool was really 305 00:21:38.279 --> 00:21:44.519 hard because Amazon didn't make it easy and it was very code heavy and even 306 00:21:44.640 --> 00:21:49.000 within the code like Alexa developer console itself, it was very unintuitive. And 307 00:21:49.079 --> 00:21:55.759 so they created this this tool that they called story flow that was to build 308 00:21:55.799 --> 00:22:03.000 these stories, but they themselves were not parents so interested, which is, 309 00:22:03.039 --> 00:22:07.799 you know, fair. So they wanted to bring together their customers to get 310 00:22:07.799 --> 00:22:14.759 feedback immediately on okay, like what would you expect in a verbal storytelling tool 311 00:22:14.960 --> 00:22:18.359 or assistant? Let's bring a lot of parents together, and we're parents were 312 00:22:18.359 --> 00:22:22.799 living at that time was voice. Was Voice, was facebook. So they 313 00:22:22.799 --> 00:22:27.079 created a facebook group and had a really strong, like back and forth communication 314 00:22:27.400 --> 00:22:32.880 with these parents that would help basically builds the foundation of what voice flow is 315 00:22:32.920 --> 00:22:37.799 today, because they were iterating on this like visual interface that they were using 316 00:22:37.880 --> 00:22:41.920 just to like build their stories, but realize that could be a product in 317 00:22:41.960 --> 00:22:47.640 and of itself. And so from there the Alexea and Google market was was 318 00:22:47.680 --> 00:22:52.839 budding and really exciting and a lot of people were really enthusiastic about building on 319 00:22:52.880 --> 00:22:56.359 Alexa and Google, but there were there wasn't like a place where they could 320 00:22:56.359 --> 00:23:00.039 all come together and kind of like nerd out about it, and so it 321 00:23:00.240 --> 00:23:06.400 kind of was started out of necessity in that they're the founders, were building 322 00:23:06.440 --> 00:23:10.000 this thing that a lot of people were going to be really excited about, 323 00:23:10.039 --> 00:23:12.680 but they didn't have a place to be excited about it all together. So 324 00:23:14.160 --> 00:23:18.519 they kind of joined a lot of groups that were like developer specific for Alexa 325 00:23:18.559 --> 00:23:22.519 and Google and kind of set the foundation of like Hey, if we were 326 00:23:22.559 --> 00:23:26.359 to build a tool that helped you, in a visual manner, create alex 327 00:23:26.440 --> 00:23:29.559 and Google skills, would you guys want to join that? Would you guys 328 00:23:29.559 --> 00:23:33.680 want to use that? And everyone was like yes, absolutely, so that's 329 00:23:33.720 --> 00:23:37.519 they saw the initial success with story flow, which was the the inception of 330 00:23:37.559 --> 00:23:42.680 voice flow, and so they just maintained that model as the product evolved and 331 00:23:44.039 --> 00:23:48.200 built a really strong mode around themselves when it came to the user base that 332 00:23:48.440 --> 00:23:55.839 was excited and passionate about the product and the solution that they got to get 333 00:23:55.920 --> 00:23:59.119 to when they use the product as well. So the community wasn't just a 334 00:23:59.119 --> 00:24:02.279 place to ask support questions, but it was a place where you could tell 335 00:24:02.319 --> 00:24:04.920 people about the skill that you just built that you could get some more usage. 336 00:24:04.960 --> 00:24:07.720 It was a place where you could share cool tips on like how you 337 00:24:07.759 --> 00:24:11.039 got your assistant to do x, Y and Z thing, and it was 338 00:24:11.079 --> 00:24:17.119 like really just like a great place for knowledge sharing. It's unique to some 339 00:24:17.160 --> 00:24:21.440 marketers who are listening to this going like we're all put maybe trying to create 340 00:24:21.440 --> 00:24:26.920 slightly different communities. What I think is a specific advantage to this is that 341 00:24:27.279 --> 00:24:32.200 you're all able to build something and go like Hey, look what I built, 342 00:24:32.200 --> 00:24:37.079 and then in that you don't just have the someone that's facilitating community that's 343 00:24:37.119 --> 00:24:40.400 having to figure out how do I get people engaged? It's like such a 344 00:24:40.559 --> 00:24:44.759 natural thing that I think we can kind of all learn from. I wonder 345 00:24:44.799 --> 00:24:48.200 as the number of people grew within that group, did you guys sense any 346 00:24:48.279 --> 00:24:51.680 tensions of like, okay, we have a lot of people but not as 347 00:24:51.759 --> 00:24:55.640 much engagement, and like how did you go about moderating that and keeping people 348 00:24:55.640 --> 00:24:57.880 sort of engaged? Or it was that never even worried because people were kind 349 00:24:57.880 --> 00:25:04.559 of creating them? Yeah, engagement was always built into how we structured the 350 00:25:04.559 --> 00:25:11.960 community, because we call ourselves like a community led growth pro platform. We 351 00:25:11.519 --> 00:25:17.519 Are Road Map has been determined by our community since our inception, and so 352 00:25:18.079 --> 00:25:22.559 our CEO used to record weekly vlogs of himself. They were like thirty minutes 353 00:25:22.559 --> 00:25:29.039 long of just him with the founding team and some of the early team, 354 00:25:29.240 --> 00:25:32.400 just like what are we working on this week, what's going on in the 355 00:25:32.480 --> 00:25:37.480 voice flow sphere, talking to people who were building the product in real time 356 00:25:37.640 --> 00:25:41.680 and then posting that in the community to basically keep people updated in like build 357 00:25:41.680 --> 00:25:45.640 out loud. A lot of people on social media we'll talk about building out 358 00:25:45.640 --> 00:25:49.079 loud when it comes to their products, and we kind of did that, 359 00:25:49.160 --> 00:25:52.519 but within the confines of our community. So they felt like they had some 360 00:25:52.599 --> 00:25:59.480 exclusive look into the product, that they were sort of like the first customers 361 00:25:59.519 --> 00:26:03.920 to be and so in that sense, engagement was built into the founding of 362 00:26:03.960 --> 00:26:07.400 the community and the growth of the community. It started to taper off for 363 00:26:07.480 --> 00:26:12.160 sure on the voice flow side because the team was growing, priorities were shifting, 364 00:26:12.200 --> 00:26:17.640 there were just fewer hands on deck that were a hundred percent focused on 365 00:26:17.680 --> 00:26:22.640 the community. But that's kind of when the community started to moderate itself, 366 00:26:22.640 --> 00:26:29.279 which was really cool to see, where we had people trouble shooting in the 367 00:26:29.279 --> 00:26:32.839 comments, we had people continuing to share what they were working on, we 368 00:26:32.839 --> 00:26:36.759 had people going out of their way to talk about how they solve the specific 369 00:26:36.799 --> 00:26:41.240 problem, and that's when we knew that this community was definitely something special. 370 00:26:41.279 --> 00:26:45.240 But we wanted to make sure that they they still felt it, and that 371 00:26:45.359 --> 00:26:48.000 was kind of the inflection point that I came on to voice flow, where 372 00:26:48.279 --> 00:26:52.720 it was self. It was a self moderating community. It was maybe not 373 00:26:52.960 --> 00:26:57.839 daily engagement, but definitely a weekly engagement, and we wanted our community members 374 00:26:57.880 --> 00:27:03.279 to feel like they got that exclusive access to the voicebook voice flow team once 375 00:27:03.319 --> 00:27:10.359 again, and that's that's when migration conversation started to happen and when we started 376 00:27:10.359 --> 00:27:14.839 to think about like actual programming on the community side of how are we going 377 00:27:14.880 --> 00:27:19.319 to engage now that the persona has shifted a little bit? Hmm, okay, 378 00:27:19.319 --> 00:27:22.000 so let's go there a little bit. You kind of grow, grow, 379 00:27:22.079 --> 00:27:26.160 grow, and then, as we kind of mentioned, it's time for 380 00:27:26.200 --> 00:27:30.000 something new. So what were you looking for in this new community platform? 381 00:27:30.000 --> 00:27:34.000 Because I think they're only people that go. I've thought about a facebook group 382 00:27:34.039 --> 00:27:38.400 and now there's probably less thinking that way, but it's like Linkedin has some 383 00:27:38.480 --> 00:27:45.160 options with some bad features. People are trying slack channels and whatever it is. 384 00:27:45.240 --> 00:27:48.359 So what were you looking for? Yeah, we were looking for a 385 00:27:48.359 --> 00:27:53.240 community that we could own, we could white list, so that people could 386 00:27:53.279 --> 00:28:00.880 easily remember how to find it if we were going to remove ourselves from social 387 00:28:00.880 --> 00:28:07.160 media, which is really hard because that's in people's like regular notification checking habits. 388 00:28:07.160 --> 00:28:10.160 We wanted to make sure that it was an easy place to find and 389 00:28:10.200 --> 00:28:12.400 so, in that sense, we weren't sure that slack communities were going to 390 00:28:12.400 --> 00:28:18.599 be like the best channel for us. A lot of our professional users are 391 00:28:18.640 --> 00:28:22.440 on Linkedin, for sure, but we still have a lot of students who 392 00:28:22.519 --> 00:28:26.599 use our platform and a lot of individual builders who use our platform, and 393 00:28:26.599 --> 00:28:30.720 so we didn't want to just move it on to a professional platform where the 394 00:28:30.759 --> 00:28:37.119 group functionality is quite for and so we started looking at like proper community platforms 395 00:28:37.200 --> 00:28:41.200 and we landed on one called circle for a few reasons, in that we 396 00:28:41.240 --> 00:28:45.759 could white list the domain, we could add as many user tags or user 397 00:28:45.799 --> 00:28:52.079 badges is as we wanted and automate the application of applying those badges so that 398 00:28:52.200 --> 00:28:56.519 when you reach US finite milestone, you do something, you get a badge 399 00:28:56.559 --> 00:29:00.079 and then you get a little personalized message being like Hey, congrats, you've 400 00:29:00.119 --> 00:29:04.759 got the showcase or badge because you shared three of your projects in the showcase 401 00:29:04.839 --> 00:29:10.480 space. Congrats to you. Here's to the next one something, something along 402 00:29:10.480 --> 00:29:15.519 those lines, where we with some of the default community platforms that we see 403 00:29:15.680 --> 00:29:21.359 right now, which are slack Linkedin facebook, you don't really get that level 404 00:29:21.440 --> 00:29:26.599 of automation that still feels personal. And so whenever anyone joins our community, 405 00:29:26.640 --> 00:29:30.599 they get a personal DM from me. They have is a three Edm like 406 00:29:30.680 --> 00:29:37.119 kind of drip sequence throughout your first twelve days of don't forget to turn your 407 00:29:37.160 --> 00:29:38.720 notifications. What are you working on right now? Can I help you with 408 00:29:38.759 --> 00:29:41.880 anything? Can I shit? Can we are you comfortable with us sharing that 409 00:29:42.000 --> 00:29:45.839 in specific channels and people respond to those dams all the time. They don't 410 00:29:45.880 --> 00:29:52.759 know that they're automated. So it feels like a personal touch from us to 411 00:29:52.880 --> 00:30:00.400 the communities that we maintain a level of brand engage want that we had before, 412 00:30:00.440 --> 00:30:03.599 but we do it a little bit more scale. HMM, okay, 413 00:30:03.680 --> 00:30:08.160 so I like that. I think that's always going to be a tension right 414 00:30:08.200 --> 00:30:12.079 as we scale, like how do we continue the personalized touch? I think 415 00:30:12.079 --> 00:30:17.480 even badges makes sense. That something that we probably all struggle with, like 416 00:30:17.519 --> 00:30:22.279 how do we honor those that are really engaged here, and it's hard to 417 00:30:22.319 --> 00:30:27.799 do on certain platforms. I wonder, like do you have some core foundations 418 00:30:27.839 --> 00:30:32.839 to the way that this community kind of functions in inter acts, like are 419 00:30:32.960 --> 00:30:36.720 there? You're taking yourself out of some things right, like by automating, 420 00:30:36.720 --> 00:30:38.960 but in other ways, like do you have moderators or leaders prompting interaction, 421 00:30:40.039 --> 00:30:42.200 or is that just mostly at this Point We got a well oiled machine and 422 00:30:42.240 --> 00:30:48.759 people are kind of automatically posting and the communities just going yeah, we have 423 00:30:48.799 --> 00:30:52.720 a few internal moderators to start on our CS team, on our product team 424 00:30:52.759 --> 00:30:56.359 and within the marketing team as well, to facilitate different kinds of conversations. 425 00:30:56.400 --> 00:31:00.559 We have a product advocate who we hired from the community, so everyone already 426 00:31:00.559 --> 00:31:07.119 knows his name, everyone already knows me go, but he also has moderator 427 00:31:07.160 --> 00:31:11.400 privileges where he can, you know, make sure that he's facilitating conversations around 428 00:31:11.440 --> 00:31:15.720 the area of expertise that he has. But some of the founding principles that 429 00:31:15.720 --> 00:31:18.079 we made sure were defined before we did any sort of migration. If we 430 00:31:18.079 --> 00:31:23.200 were going to basically create this new community, that was where this like the 431 00:31:23.240 --> 00:31:26.519 source of truth of community for voice what was going to live was is it's 432 00:31:26.559 --> 00:31:30.480 going to be a community of practice or community of products? Is this for 433 00:31:30.519 --> 00:31:33.880 any conversation designer or is this only for conversation centers who use voice flow? 434 00:31:34.839 --> 00:31:38.079 And so that delineation we made before we did any sort of migration. And 435 00:31:38.119 --> 00:31:41.880 we are a community of product. So if you are in our community, 436 00:31:41.039 --> 00:31:45.319 you are you have used voice flow, and that made it easier to then 437 00:31:45.319 --> 00:31:53.519 focus programming conversations and who can join an easier conversation and who can moderate an 438 00:31:53.519 --> 00:31:59.279 easier conversation. Because was there was there debate? They're like, did you 439 00:31:59.279 --> 00:32:01.920 guys go back and forth on practice your product or did it feel pretty easy? 440 00:32:02.319 --> 00:32:07.400 It felt pretty easy. We did a procons list, essentially of like 441 00:32:07.559 --> 00:32:10.359 if we had a community of practice, what would the pros and cons look 442 00:32:10.400 --> 00:32:13.640 like? Food of community of product, but with the pros and cons look 443 00:32:13.720 --> 00:32:16.880 like. And if we as a company had a community of practice but all 444 00:32:16.920 --> 00:32:22.079 of the announcements were voice flow specific product features, it would feel very self 445 00:32:22.119 --> 00:32:27.240 serving and that wouldn't be the kind of vitual conversations we would want to set 446 00:32:27.279 --> 00:32:31.680 an example for within the community. And so by no means is our community 447 00:32:31.759 --> 00:32:36.559 a content distribution channel. I have a whole lot of hot takes about that. 448 00:32:36.839 --> 00:32:39.079 But it is a place where you can have direct access to the voice 449 00:32:39.079 --> 00:32:45.400 flow team as a voice flow user, and I think that's part of the 450 00:32:45.480 --> 00:32:47.920 benefit to being a part of it when you are a member or when you 451 00:32:47.920 --> 00:32:52.839 are a user of the product, is that you have all of this historical 452 00:32:52.000 --> 00:32:58.599 knowledge from other users, as well as the CEO, who posts our post 453 00:32:58.680 --> 00:33:01.920 and asks for product feedback on a quarterly basis. And so that was like 454 00:33:01.960 --> 00:33:07.599 one of the the set found founding principles of okay, are we going to 455 00:33:07.680 --> 00:33:10.200 change up the way that we position this community? Are we going to let 456 00:33:10.240 --> 00:33:15.240 any conversations that are in as sort of a prospecting technique, and the answer 457 00:33:15.319 --> 00:33:19.400 is no. It's more so a great place to have customer engagement where we 458 00:33:19.400 --> 00:33:24.720 can set up private spaces for customers to have group conversations with their own colleagues, 459 00:33:24.799 --> 00:33:31.640 but then also have the larger community to network and ask their their questions 460 00:33:31.640 --> 00:33:36.119 to people who may have also done this before. So that was those were 461 00:33:36.200 --> 00:33:39.200 the kind of principles that we look to. Of We want to have a 462 00:33:39.240 --> 00:33:45.279 community that allows us to recognize and celebrate our users and have this community be 463 00:33:45.440 --> 00:33:49.599 for our users. Okay, so let me ask you a question there. 464 00:33:49.640 --> 00:33:52.279 Then you address one of the first things that kind of came to my mind, 465 00:33:52.359 --> 00:33:57.119 which is you you want to go to the product side, but you 466 00:33:57.240 --> 00:34:00.200 also want to let people know this isn't just going to be an announcement board 467 00:34:00.200 --> 00:34:04.279 and, like us, showing off the product all the time. I appreciate 468 00:34:04.319 --> 00:34:12.039 that. My second kind of thought would be you're losing out on obviously some 469 00:34:12.239 --> 00:34:16.480 that in practice are your ideal customer, but you're kind of going we're going 470 00:34:16.519 --> 00:34:22.800 to specifically focus. So was what are do you see any cons now looking 471 00:34:22.840 --> 00:34:27.039 at going the product route? I don't want to put you on the spot 472 00:34:27.039 --> 00:34:30.400 because obviously you like the community you've created, but like, let's just use 473 00:34:30.440 --> 00:34:34.280 it as a thought exercise for a second. has there been any like it 474 00:34:34.320 --> 00:34:37.480 would have been we would have had value if we had gone the practice route 475 00:34:37.559 --> 00:34:43.360 or winder we thoughts center. I think what's valuable about the way that we 476 00:34:43.400 --> 00:34:45.360 decided to host the community was that it wasn't a slack group that you had 477 00:34:45.400 --> 00:34:50.519 to be invited into. It's community to voice photocom anyone can go to that 478 00:34:50.719 --> 00:34:54.000 url right now and see every conversation that's happening within the community. They themselves 479 00:34:54.000 --> 00:34:58.760 can sign up and post, and so, from a prospect perspective, we 480 00:34:58.760 --> 00:35:01.039 do have a lot of prospects who, a are within a trial or like 481 00:35:01.079 --> 00:35:07.480 in the sales process, who are just so freaking pumped about this world of 482 00:35:07.519 --> 00:35:10.920 conversation design where if you sign up for the free product, you can join 483 00:35:12.000 --> 00:35:16.519 the like the community will be applicable to you, and so it's there is 484 00:35:16.559 --> 00:35:21.320 a really low barrier to entry in that sense, where all of the content 485 00:35:21.440 --> 00:35:27.280 is searchable both inside the community and like Seo optimized for Google and open so 486 00:35:27.320 --> 00:35:30.039 that if you do want to just be a lurker like you can go and 487 00:35:30.079 --> 00:35:37.039 you can lurk, and so in that sense it helps so that sales teams 488 00:35:37.079 --> 00:35:39.199 can't, like our sales team, can point to it and say look, 489 00:35:39.199 --> 00:35:43.119 this is a really active community. These are the kinds of conversations that you 490 00:35:43.119 --> 00:35:46.199 could be actively participating in. You can join it right now if you want 491 00:35:46.239 --> 00:35:50.079 and get an inside look at what it is like to be a voice flote 492 00:35:50.079 --> 00:35:54.239 customer and get this additional layer of support alongside your CSM and your and your 493 00:35:54.280 --> 00:35:59.639 account manager. So in that sense it helps later on in the sales cycle 494 00:35:59.760 --> 00:36:02.400 or even middle of the funnel, of people have really specific questions about voice 495 00:36:02.400 --> 00:36:08.119 while functionality and conversations within the community pop up, they see that firsthand that 496 00:36:08.239 --> 00:36:15.719 there is this additional support layer to being a product user, regardless of if 497 00:36:15.719 --> 00:36:22.440 you pay us or not, because anyone can join the community. So hey 498 00:36:22.480 --> 00:36:24.559 be to be gross listeners. We want to hear from you. In fact, 499 00:36:24.639 --> 00:36:28.400 we will pay you for it. Just head over to B TOB growth 500 00:36:28.480 --> 00:36:32.760 podcom and complete a short survey about the show to enter for a chance to 501 00:36:32.800 --> 00:36:37.280 win two hundred and fifty dollars plus. The first fifty participants will receive twenty 502 00:36:37.280 --> 00:36:40.840 five dollars as our way of saying thank you so much one more time. 503 00:36:40.920 --> 00:36:51.079 That's be tob growth podcom, letter B number two letter be growth podcom. 504 00:36:51.079 --> 00:36:54.159 One entry per person must be an active listener of the show to enter and 505 00:36:54.320 --> 00:37:02.280 look forward to hearing from you. They see that firsthand, that there is 506 00:37:02.920 --> 00:37:08.280 this additional support layer to being a product user, regardless of if you pay 507 00:37:08.320 --> 00:37:13.400 us or not, because anyone can join the community. That's a really interesting 508 00:37:13.400 --> 00:37:19.519 way of being essentially ungated dated. At the same time, I love that 509 00:37:19.599 --> 00:37:22.320 it's optimized. I love that it's searchable. Those are things that we're all 510 00:37:22.360 --> 00:37:28.239 thinking about right you're kind of getting these the commonly asked questions out of the 511 00:37:28.280 --> 00:37:31.039 way, like people can still find the answers, but at the same time 512 00:37:31.039 --> 00:37:35.400 there's this value add of actually being in the community and I think that gives 513 00:37:35.480 --> 00:37:39.280 us a lot of like food for thought. I wonder anything else that you 514 00:37:39.320 --> 00:37:44.719 want to bring to the surface here on like how this community functions before I 515 00:37:44.760 --> 00:37:46.639 go? All Right, Sarah, tell some like practical takeaways for those of 516 00:37:46.679 --> 00:37:49.760 us that are trying to build communities, because we're going to go there as 517 00:37:49.760 --> 00:37:52.519 we wrap up. But anything else that kind of paints the full picture of 518 00:37:52.559 --> 00:37:57.639 what you what you all have create. Yeah, I think we've moved a 519 00:37:57.679 --> 00:38:01.280 little bit further away from from the weekly vlogs from the CEO, but instead 520 00:38:01.280 --> 00:38:08.639 how we drive engagement is through a monthly event calendar. So we have the 521 00:38:08.639 --> 00:38:14.440 platform that we found also ended up having live streaming capabilities within it, so 522 00:38:14.639 --> 00:38:19.039 we can go live at any moment, but we can also schedule live streams 523 00:38:19.039 --> 00:38:24.719 for community specific events, and that's how we've created exclusivity within the community itself 524 00:38:24.880 --> 00:38:30.079 of join this for community get access to these events, and the events themselves 525 00:38:30.079 --> 00:38:35.559 have been really fun and successful. We do amased with customers and we do 526 00:38:35.679 --> 00:38:40.679 live bought teardowns. So we'll choose a prospect, usually who has a conversational 527 00:38:40.679 --> 00:38:45.599 experience. We will let him know what's working, let him know what we 528 00:38:45.639 --> 00:38:51.440 would do differently, and then rebuild their conversational experience live on on the teardown 529 00:38:51.480 --> 00:38:54.079 as well, so that not only do the people who are tuning in get 530 00:38:54.119 --> 00:38:57.920 to see how we would use the product, but then I get to pass 531 00:38:57.960 --> 00:39:01.039 off a deck and a demo project to the sales up to be like here 532 00:39:01.079 --> 00:39:05.239 you go, here's some sales collateral. Yeah, hope you hope we close 533 00:39:05.320 --> 00:39:08.920 them Nice, kind of a two for one deal. But after those events 534 00:39:08.960 --> 00:39:14.320 we see a lot more people going out of their way to ask questions and 535 00:39:14.360 --> 00:39:19.679 engage within the community themselves. It's itself. So when we saw more professional 536 00:39:19.760 --> 00:39:22.360 users join the community, engagement was a little bit on the lower side and 537 00:39:22.440 --> 00:39:28.039 that in that segment, and so being a little bit more manual in terms 538 00:39:28.039 --> 00:39:32.159 of their engagement with like live events has helped increase the engagement of that persona 539 00:39:32.280 --> 00:39:39.960 and get get more people talking about their specific use cases and getting feedback from 540 00:39:39.960 --> 00:39:45.719 other members of the of the community that they know are facing similar issues to 541 00:39:45.800 --> 00:39:50.480 what they are internally or trying to solve similar problems within their own team structures. 542 00:39:50.559 --> 00:39:55.880 And so that's that's what we've done for community specific engagement. Is will 543 00:39:55.880 --> 00:40:01.760 send an invite to like our userbase, will do social pushes for these events, 544 00:40:01.800 --> 00:40:07.280 but they are hosted with within the community itself. So it's also an 545 00:40:07.280 --> 00:40:10.880 acquisition tactic. Last we could even talk there on the monthly event calendar, 546 00:40:10.920 --> 00:40:16.639 because I think what you create around monthly events and like how you interact obviously 547 00:40:16.639 --> 00:40:22.639 as a key component of community for you guys. The tear down what a 548 00:40:22.239 --> 00:40:28.000 fantastic way of utilizing both the community and then on the backend, like sales, 549 00:40:28.199 --> 00:40:30.400 you're offering value by doing it that way. So I think that's a 550 00:40:30.480 --> 00:40:35.239 huge takeaway from this episode is how you guys are doing that side of things. 551 00:40:35.320 --> 00:40:38.719 Let's paint a picture real fast of what the migration actually like, what 552 00:40:38.800 --> 00:40:42.880 the results were, and then I'm just going to hit you with some questions 553 00:40:42.880 --> 00:40:46.559 as we wrap up on what you would do for creating community if you were 554 00:40:46.559 --> 00:40:52.360 somewhere else. Okay, let's first just say you had a group of eight 555 00:40:52.400 --> 00:40:57.960 thousand the migration. Did you lose a bunch of people? What were the 556 00:40:58.039 --> 00:41:02.000 results of that like now, being able to see it in hindsight? Yeah, 557 00:41:02.039 --> 00:41:06.360 so we had a group of eight thousand and, to be candid, 558 00:41:06.400 --> 00:41:10.239 are our transition. Our migration is still ongoing. So there was going to 559 00:41:10.280 --> 00:41:15.480 be like a date where we officially are like no more facebook group. Will 560 00:41:15.559 --> 00:41:19.719 change the name of the group to say outdated, go here, so that 561 00:41:19.800 --> 00:41:24.760 when people do habitually go to that link, they are met with the instruction 562 00:41:24.920 --> 00:41:34.079 to not anymore. But we we took our most active participants and we first 563 00:41:34.159 --> 00:41:37.599 had conversations with them about what they were missing from the existing community what they 564 00:41:37.639 --> 00:41:42.639 wanted to see from the community as well as we took users who had not 565 00:41:42.719 --> 00:41:46.159 joined the community and we got their feedback on what they would want from something 566 00:41:46.199 --> 00:41:52.320 like this and what they would look forward to in a new sort of place, 567 00:41:52.400 --> 00:41:55.760 and we that's that's how we got our first ten users to join this 568 00:41:55.800 --> 00:42:00.159 new community. We gave them all badges. They all have a little one 569 00:42:00.239 --> 00:42:02.760 next to their name as a founding member, and we ask them, you 570 00:42:02.800 --> 00:42:06.800 know who, or ten others, like who's one other person that you would 571 00:42:06.840 --> 00:42:10.639 like to have in this community? which feels a little puremody, but if 572 00:42:10.679 --> 00:42:15.599 we have active users, we want to ensure that we have as many active 573 00:42:15.679 --> 00:42:20.960 users as possible so we can build up density of conversation within the community itself. 574 00:42:21.000 --> 00:42:22.559 So we didn't only just have the facebook group, we also had a 575 00:42:22.599 --> 00:42:27.559 forum that was for our more technical developer users and in that sort of in 576 00:42:27.599 --> 00:42:32.559 that sense, we've we've taken a different approach where that community wasn't very active, 577 00:42:32.800 --> 00:42:37.119 but but it was very its skewed more technical, and so we worked 578 00:42:37.119 --> 00:42:40.159 with a develop our developer advocate, to beef up documentation, to beef up 579 00:42:40.199 --> 00:42:45.880 our like open source, Github repot and to start building out this components library 580 00:42:45.000 --> 00:42:51.039 of like re usable like codes, code blocks and API blocks that people can 581 00:42:51.039 --> 00:42:52.719 just insert into their projects. So it's a little bit more self serve on 582 00:42:52.760 --> 00:42:58.840 that side and they don't have to have as much conversation and back and forth 583 00:42:58.880 --> 00:43:04.280 as as they have right now. From a developer perspective, a lot of 584 00:43:04.280 --> 00:43:07.039 them just want to tinker and be self serves. So we're trying to make 585 00:43:07.239 --> 00:43:10.880 that content as easily to find as possible. But from a from a full 586 00:43:10.920 --> 00:43:15.599 migration standpoint, we were totally okay and understood that there would be attrition. 587 00:43:16.159 --> 00:43:22.639 About a thousand of our users, we imagine, were would will not be 588 00:43:22.679 --> 00:43:29.559 coming over to this new platform with us, which which is a pretty solid 589 00:43:29.639 --> 00:43:34.119 like seven thousand out of eight thousand people coming out, incredible, pretty cool, 590 00:43:34.280 --> 00:43:38.199 pretty cool with me. And so it's more so now about quality of 591 00:43:38.239 --> 00:43:43.800 conversation and making sure that this community isn't just look to as a secondary support 592 00:43:43.840 --> 00:43:49.079 channel but a conversation design resource, like a resource within the community itself. 593 00:43:49.119 --> 00:43:52.599 The space is still small and developing, so there aren't a lot of products 594 00:43:52.639 --> 00:43:58.639 that fall within this category and that's why we can be both a community of 595 00:43:58.639 --> 00:44:01.960 practice and product at the same time, in a sense of the content that 596 00:44:01.960 --> 00:44:07.199 we create. So yeah, Migracian is still is still ongoing, but we 597 00:44:07.280 --> 00:44:13.199 are expecting to see attrition, for sure, but still with a lot of 598 00:44:13.199 --> 00:44:17.039 people coming over to join us in the new platform. HMM. Okay, 599 00:44:17.119 --> 00:44:22.360 I love the way that you've talked about this today. I think already just 600 00:44:22.400 --> 00:44:24.800 in hearing the story and this maybe this is just my personality type, but 601 00:44:25.000 --> 00:44:30.480 I love hearing how people are doing their work and then it just internally, 602 00:44:30.519 --> 00:44:36.000 I'm internalizing it and turning it into what I would do in my situation. 603 00:44:36.079 --> 00:44:38.920 I don't even even like need Sarah to be like, here's the three things 604 00:44:38.960 --> 00:44:42.320 now that I would do, but I want to go there for a minute 605 00:44:42.639 --> 00:44:45.239 because and I don't need you to give me three things, I just need 606 00:44:45.320 --> 00:44:51.039 us to go if we dropped Sarah in somewhere else and she's thinking practice for 607 00:44:51.360 --> 00:44:55.960 product community and you're kind of left with this blank space that you're getting to 608 00:44:57.039 --> 00:45:00.599 create, I wonder if you've taken away something things from this situation, in 609 00:45:00.599 --> 00:45:06.480 this migration and having to think about community at such depth that you feel like 610 00:45:06.840 --> 00:45:09.800 these are just things that stick with you, these are lessons you've learned that 611 00:45:09.920 --> 00:45:15.039 are going to be vital in any community you helped create in the future. 612 00:45:15.119 --> 00:45:17.920 Do you have some of those takeaways that you would maybe give us here as 613 00:45:17.920 --> 00:45:23.920 we start to wrap up? Yeah, I would say first, does the 614 00:45:24.000 --> 00:45:29.920 company have an existing community? And if they do, like totally different story. 615 00:45:30.039 --> 00:45:32.760 But if they don't, then first we're asking ourselves the question of do 616 00:45:32.840 --> 00:45:37.119 you need to have a like do you need to have a community at all? 617 00:45:37.280 --> 00:45:39.840 Is your product self serve enough? Do you have a really solid foundation 618 00:45:39.960 --> 00:45:45.800 of help Docs and tutorials and templates where people might not need to have a 619 00:45:45.840 --> 00:45:51.320 community of product, for example? Or is your market a little crowded and 620 00:45:51.360 --> 00:45:54.360 are there are a ton of of existing communities. I know marketing technology, 621 00:45:54.400 --> 00:46:00.880 for example, there are so many communities for marketers. I think if you 622 00:46:00.280 --> 00:46:05.800 want to build a community before joining any community that exists within the space that 623 00:46:05.800 --> 00:46:09.280 you want to build it in, you're missing out on on a good positioning 624 00:46:09.280 --> 00:46:14.800 statement for your community. I think the biggest thing is so many people want 625 00:46:14.800 --> 00:46:16.679 to own their community, but really they just want to have a distribution platform 626 00:46:16.719 --> 00:46:23.679 that they own with an audience that will listen to them, versus yeah, 627 00:46:24.000 --> 00:46:29.280 versus a place where people can have conversations, maybe about things that they dislike 628 00:46:29.320 --> 00:46:32.960 about your product, like to God forbid, but a place where there can 629 00:46:34.039 --> 00:46:38.719 be an open sort of dialog between all users of your product or all people 630 00:46:38.880 --> 00:46:44.840 within your market, as well as your company being there or not, like 631 00:46:44.960 --> 00:46:46.559 or not. You know, and so that that would be the first question 632 00:46:46.559 --> 00:46:50.880 I ask is, do you have one already and if you don't, doesn't 633 00:46:50.920 --> 00:46:54.440 need to exist. I think a lot of times community is a buzz word 634 00:46:54.480 --> 00:46:59.440 and marketers don't want to hear that their own community doesn't need to exist. 635 00:46:59.840 --> 00:47:02.280 But you need to understand if there's a gap that you're filling before you go 636 00:47:02.360 --> 00:47:07.320 there. I think secondarily, a lot of times companies who say that they 637 00:47:07.400 --> 00:47:12.679 want to a community don't hire the necessary resources that are needed to run a 638 00:47:12.880 --> 00:47:15.960 relief effective community. Like your social media manager is in a community manager, 639 00:47:15.960 --> 00:47:20.119 and either is your customer marketing manager, and either is your demand jet manager, 640 00:47:20.280 --> 00:47:22.559 like you need someone who is on your team who's willing to do the 641 00:47:22.639 --> 00:47:27.480 very manual work of talking to customers and then putting them into a place to 642 00:47:27.480 --> 00:47:30.960 make sure that they are talking amongths, some amongst themselves. Before you can 643 00:47:30.000 --> 00:47:34.800 automate anything. You can't just drop all of your customers into a selectionnel and 644 00:47:34.840 --> 00:47:42.320 be like you're in a community now discuss like that's not really how it works. 645 00:47:42.360 --> 00:47:45.320 And so in talking to some of my counterparts in marketing and talking about 646 00:47:45.320 --> 00:47:52.639 the work that it took to to build this platform and then my great people 647 00:47:52.760 --> 00:47:55.519 over, the eyes widen and people go, Oh God, that sounds like 648 00:47:55.519 --> 00:47:59.039 a lot of work and it's it's like yeah, of course, it's a 649 00:47:59.079 --> 00:48:02.000 full it's a job, it's someone it is someone's job. It's not someone's 650 00:48:02.079 --> 00:48:05.840 you know, three hours a week. It could be, it just won't. 651 00:48:05.880 --> 00:48:07.519 It won't move at the pace you probably want it to. And so, 652 00:48:07.800 --> 00:48:13.159 yeah, the first two things I would do is doesn't need to exist. 653 00:48:13.280 --> 00:48:15.760 How should it exist? Do we have the resources necessary to make sure 654 00:48:15.840 --> 00:48:21.199 that it can thrive? And then lastly, is just what are the customers 655 00:48:21.239 --> 00:48:23.960 want? What are the what do the potential community members want? What are 656 00:48:24.000 --> 00:48:28.639 they not getting right now, and having those one on one conversations and having 657 00:48:28.639 --> 00:48:34.039 a lot of them and seeing where the gaps are and where the commonalities come 658 00:48:34.079 --> 00:48:37.599 from so that you know that baseline. You need to have x, Y 659 00:48:37.719 --> 00:48:40.400 Z things baseline. For us, we knew we needed to have like a 660 00:48:40.440 --> 00:48:45.920 library of voiceful experts who were available to help you with your project, because 661 00:48:45.960 --> 00:48:51.320 we wanted to reinforce the work that they were doing and showcase them as as 662 00:48:51.360 --> 00:48:53.920 assets. We needed to have a badging system so that people who were active 663 00:48:53.920 --> 00:48:58.360 in the community could get recognized for their activity and we needed to have a 664 00:48:58.360 --> 00:49:02.119 place where we could split up the conversations in two different topics once we had 665 00:49:02.119 --> 00:49:07.239 density of conversation. If someone gets dropped into a community was like eighteen space 666 00:49:07.320 --> 00:49:10.400 channels and all of them are empty, they're not going to be super motivated 667 00:49:10.440 --> 00:49:15.960 to have conversation. So how could we build up density in two space channels 668 00:49:16.039 --> 00:49:21.800 first, until we knew that we needed to break off another another chunk of 669 00:49:21.840 --> 00:49:24.280 the audience that they could have their more in depth discussions and in a new 670 00:49:24.320 --> 00:49:30.599 space. So that was a lot, but try, I had to can 671 00:49:30.639 --> 00:49:32.480 condense it, and so you did. You did, and I think those 672 00:49:32.519 --> 00:49:38.480 are three really solid kind of questions to be thinking about. And just I 673 00:49:38.559 --> 00:49:42.320 mean, you're going to know if you have an existing community. But even 674 00:49:42.360 --> 00:49:44.719 if you didn't have, going back to your first point, even if you 675 00:49:44.719 --> 00:49:50.000 didn't have an existing community, you have people that interact with you and your 676 00:49:50.079 --> 00:49:53.880 what you guys are doing more than like, more than anything, that's where 677 00:49:53.920 --> 00:49:58.199 your community starts is that's the ECOS, that's a water you swimming. Those 678 00:49:58.199 --> 00:50:00.239 are the people that are interested. Like, just start there with those and 679 00:50:00.280 --> 00:50:02.960 then and figure out what they like and what they don't like. I love 680 00:50:04.000 --> 00:50:06.639 that you said that. To like, what are they not like? And 681 00:50:06.679 --> 00:50:10.840 if we know that, man, how valuable is that information? It's sometimes 682 00:50:10.840 --> 00:50:15.639 way more valuable. And knowing that there's you have a bunch of raving fans. 683 00:50:15.679 --> 00:50:17.639 So okay, as we kind of come to a close, I want 684 00:50:17.639 --> 00:50:22.760 to end on a positive note here. When this is done right, there's 685 00:50:22.760 --> 00:50:28.159 obviously a ton of benefits. Leave us with some of the benefits you've seen, 686 00:50:28.159 --> 00:50:32.280 Sarah, from doing this and why you would be a huge community advocate, 687 00:50:32.280 --> 00:50:37.840 why this is something that has become a passion of yours. Yeah, 688 00:50:37.000 --> 00:50:44.360 first things first. It makes hiring really easy, especially on the product support 689 00:50:44.440 --> 00:50:47.480 side. Our Support Team in our product advocate came from the community. They 690 00:50:47.480 --> 00:50:52.159 were users first. They know the product probably better than us at this point, 691 00:50:52.280 --> 00:50:57.320 and so they also shared the passion of the vision and the future of 692 00:50:57.320 --> 00:51:01.960 the company as well, where we knew that bringing them on the training aspect 693 00:51:01.960 --> 00:51:07.440 wouldn't be hard, but more so like how can we, you know, 694 00:51:07.519 --> 00:51:12.079 like make sure that the don't work for your heroes type mentality didn't necessarily apply 695 00:51:12.239 --> 00:51:15.480 to voice flow. So how could we ensure that, even if you were 696 00:51:15.480 --> 00:51:19.400 coming from a different background but you came on to the support function, like 697 00:51:19.400 --> 00:51:21.920 how can we help your career grow? How can we make sure that you 698 00:51:22.000 --> 00:51:23.559 get the visibility that you wanted to other parts of the business? What have 699 00:51:23.599 --> 00:51:29.480 you always wondered about that you just had questions about from behind the scenes, 700 00:51:29.480 --> 00:51:31.599 and how can we expose you to that? And so I work really closely 701 00:51:31.679 --> 00:51:38.079 with our our customer support in our product advocate team to be like what, 702 00:51:38.079 --> 00:51:42.039 what did you think was going to happen and what happened, and did you 703 00:51:42.079 --> 00:51:44.000 like that and did you not like that? And what should we take into 704 00:51:44.039 --> 00:51:47.760 account when we have certain things like as a commute, as a former community 705 00:51:47.800 --> 00:51:52.559 and current community member, what was most important to you? So that feedback 706 00:51:52.599 --> 00:51:57.519 loop is so important and it's like such a cheek code because I have they 707 00:51:57.639 --> 00:52:00.880 have the inside knowledge, I have the inside knowledge. We're all benefiting, 708 00:52:00.880 --> 00:52:06.039 I would say, also because community is a lift, it is an effort. 709 00:52:06.079 --> 00:52:10.280 It is also not something that can be easily copied in a world where 710 00:52:10.320 --> 00:52:15.639 anyone can copy your product. They can't copy your brands, they can't copy 711 00:52:15.760 --> 00:52:22.039 how your customers feel about you. And so our mote for our business is 712 00:52:22.079 --> 00:52:25.039 our community first, and then you know the fact that we have a really 713 00:52:25.079 --> 00:52:30.320 complex and hard to copy product. Second, but it's complex and hard to 714 00:52:30.360 --> 00:52:35.639 copy because of the impact that that the community had on its development. So 715 00:52:35.920 --> 00:52:39.400 super beneficial in that sense. And then there's so much untapped potential to grow 716 00:52:39.440 --> 00:52:45.039 exponentially with a community. One Dream Project that I have is we're developing a 717 00:52:45.159 --> 00:52:49.679 voice flow course, so anyone can learn voice flow and be certified in voice 718 00:52:49.679 --> 00:52:53.880 flow, but we want our community members to then be certified teachers of voice 719 00:52:53.880 --> 00:52:58.519 flow so that they can go to their own communities, have a ton of 720 00:52:58.519 --> 00:53:02.360 people sign up, whether they're in their community library, their community classroom, 721 00:53:02.360 --> 00:53:09.519 their community whatever, and and start to facilitate the teaching of not only conversation 722 00:53:09.559 --> 00:53:14.719 design, but like conversation design using voice flow, so that there is like 723 00:53:14.760 --> 00:53:20.159 a network effect and exponential growth effect for people who get to be recognized at 724 00:53:20.199 --> 00:53:24.000 another higher level than just yeah, og user, like knows their stuff and 725 00:53:24.039 --> 00:53:30.079 now like teacher of voice flow and so do a lingo has a great model 726 00:53:30.159 --> 00:53:32.199 for that and I can't I that's that's a dream project for sure. I 727 00:53:32.239 --> 00:53:36.800 really want to do that. Nobody steal that first. Well, good luck, 728 00:53:36.840 --> 00:53:39.920 because now it's out there. So but, like you said, if 729 00:53:40.000 --> 00:53:44.760 it's you guys doing it in specifically use there, it's going to be different 730 00:53:44.840 --> 00:53:46.920 right than what other people do. I think that is a fantastic way to 731 00:53:46.920 --> 00:53:52.119 wrap this up. Is Community is one of those things that you can't just 732 00:53:52.199 --> 00:53:55.480 replicate. It's not a copy paste situation. It's the same as the personality 733 00:53:55.519 --> 00:54:00.320 of your brand, which we had some conversations around that recently here. I'll 734 00:54:00.360 --> 00:54:04.840 be to be growth. It's community and personality are things that people interact with. 735 00:54:05.159 --> 00:54:08.679 It's what it's the culture that you've created and cultivated. Really, I 736 00:54:08.719 --> 00:54:12.000 guess, whether you like it or not, your lack of community, your 737 00:54:12.079 --> 00:54:15.119 lack of personality, is also your brand. If you don't have it, 738 00:54:15.119 --> 00:54:17.239 it's still the way that people are going to perceive you. Oh, they 739 00:54:17.239 --> 00:54:22.519 don't have it, they don't put effort there. So that is a differentiator 740 00:54:22.519 --> 00:54:24.280 that I think we should be all focused on, and that's why, even 741 00:54:24.280 --> 00:54:28.920 though it's a buzz word. Like we said on the top, it's a 742 00:54:29.079 --> 00:54:31.559 necessary one at this point. It's something we should be thinking about, and 743 00:54:31.599 --> 00:54:37.480 so I would encourage our listeners to continue down that road and to be asking 744 00:54:37.559 --> 00:54:40.440 some of these really important questions, like do we need one? I think 745 00:54:40.440 --> 00:54:45.199 that's an important first question. But beyond that then, like what specific function 746 00:54:45.280 --> 00:54:49.519 is the serving and how are we really serving our customers ultimately, and those 747 00:54:49.559 --> 00:54:52.440 that could be customers, how are we serving them? Well? So, 748 00:54:52.599 --> 00:54:54.679 Sarah, thanks for taking time for being on B to be growth. Tell 749 00:54:54.800 --> 00:54:59.800 us a little bit about how we can connect with you, and I know 750 00:54:59.840 --> 00:55:02.119 we've been talking about voiceflow. Can all episode, but a little bit more 751 00:55:02.119 --> 00:55:06.840 there as well. People want to connect, sure, yeah, I'm on 752 00:55:06.880 --> 00:55:10.679 twitter and Linkedin Sarah Pa no age and Sarah so sai a pio N. 753 00:55:12.400 --> 00:55:15.800 feel free to connect with me on either one. Pretty active on both. 754 00:55:15.039 --> 00:55:21.280 And then voice flow is a great graphic user interface for if you are designing 755 00:55:21.320 --> 00:55:25.360 any sort of conversation. So chatbots IV ours. So that's the that's those 756 00:55:25.400 --> 00:55:29.519 things where you call CPS and says press one for pharmacy, press two for 757 00:55:29.599 --> 00:55:32.559 whatever. That's an IP are. They're fun. If you want to build 758 00:55:32.559 --> 00:55:37.639 your own Alexa skill or Google skill for free. It's a really cool weekend 759 00:55:37.679 --> 00:55:43.280 activity with like kids. I'm gonna do that with my bookmend's younger sisters and 760 00:55:43.559 --> 00:55:45.719 yeah, real for you to just connect and ask any questions. I'm I'm 761 00:55:45.760 --> 00:55:50.519 always open to chat. Well, thanks for stopping by, BB growth. 762 00:55:50.519 --> 00:55:54.159 I know we learned a lot on community today from you and I know our 763 00:55:54.199 --> 00:55:59.599 listeners will reach out and would love to connect. So, for those that 764 00:55:59.639 --> 00:56:02.280 are listening and you haven't yet followed me to be grows, be sure to 765 00:56:02.320 --> 00:56:07.920 do that on whatever podcast player is of choice. We would love to stay 766 00:56:07.960 --> 00:56:09.639 connected to you and you can connect with me over on Linkedin as well. 767 00:56:09.679 --> 00:56:14.480 Talk about marketing business in life. Over there to search benchry Balk keep. 768 00:56:14.480 --> 00:56:16.239 You don't work that matters. Will be back real soon with another episode. 769 00:56:16.280 --> 00:56:31.199 Sarah, thanks for being on here today. If you enjoyed a day show, 770 00:56:31.360 --> 00:56:35.960 hit subscribe for more marketing goodness, and if you really enjoyed the day 771 00:56:36.039 --> 00:56:38.800 show, take a second to rate and review the podcast on the platform you're 772 00:56:38.800 --> 00:56:44.079 listening to it on right now. If you really really enjoyed this episode, 773 00:56:44.079 --> 00:56:46.599 share the love by texting you to a friend who would find it insightful thanks 774 00:56:46.599 --> 00:56:49.639 for listening and thanks for sharing