{"id":5389,"date":"2021-04-28T06:00:00","date_gmt":"2021-04-28T10:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.meetup.com\/blog\/?p=5389"},"modified":"2021-12-13T13:22:12","modified_gmt":"2021-12-13T18:22:12","slug":"episode-9-community-building-for-business","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.meetup.com\/blog\/episode-9-community-building-for-business\/","title":{"rendered":"Episode 9: Community Building For Business"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p>Community has the power to change lives. It also has the power to change businesses. In this interview with <a href=\"https:\/\/davidspinks.com\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">David Spinks<\/a>, a seasoned community manager, co-founder of CMX, and author of <em>The Business of Belonging<\/em>, you&#8217;ll hear why more and more companies are investing in community. David shares the seven Ps of community building and how to find community-market fit. By the end of the episode, you&#8217;ll know more about how to make community your business&#8217;s competitive advantage, no matter your industry.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<figure class=\"wp-block-embed is-type-rich is-provider-spotify wp-block-embed-spotify wp-embed-aspect-21-9 wp-has-aspect-ratio\"><div class=\"wp-block-embed__wrapper\">\n<iframe loading=\"lazy\" title=\"Spotify Embed: Community Building for Business\" width=\"100%\" height=\"232\" allowtransparency=\"true\" frameborder=\"0\" allow=\"encrypted-media\" src=\"https:\/\/open.spotify.com\/embed\/episode\/7flYOs8LiwFSY7r9vZJE12?si=R_JKizpbSnyrk4NFBfMzAQ\"><\/iframe>\n<\/div><\/figure>\n\n\n\n<p>Ranked as one of the top <a href=\"https:\/\/blog.feedspot.com\/ceo_podcasts\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">25 CEO podcasts on Feedspot<\/a>, Keep Connected with Meetup CEO David Siegel is a podcast about the power of community. For more details on other episodes, visit Keep Connected on the <a href=\"https:\/\/www.meetup.com\/blog\/category\/keep-connected-podcast\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">Meetup Community Matters blog<\/a>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>We hope you\u2019ll keep connected with us. Drop us a line at podcast@meetup.com. If you like the podcast, be sure to subscribe and leave us a rating on <a href=\"https:\/\/podcasts.apple.com\/podcast\/id1545712240\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">Apple Podcasts<\/a>!<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Learn more about Keep Connected host David Siegel\u2019s experience as a leader and decision maker in his book, <a href=\"https:\/\/www.decideandconquerbook.com\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\"><em>Decide &amp; Conquer<\/em><\/a>. Pre-order your copy today!<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-text-align-center\"><strong>&#8211;<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n<h2><em>Community Building For Business<\/em>: Show Notes<\/h2>\n<p><strong>In this episode, we talked to David Spinks, the Founder of&nbsp;<\/strong><a href=\"https:\/\/cmxhub.com\/\"><strong>CMX<\/strong><\/a><strong>. We talked about how a community is a moat. If you don\u2019t know what a moat is, you\u2019ll find out. How a community is a smart business and about the 7P\u2019s of community. You\u2019re going to learn a lot in this episode. I hope you enjoy it as much as I do.<\/strong><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: center\"><strong>&#8212;<\/strong><\/p>\n<p><strong>David Spinks, welcome to the show. I\u2019m glad to have you here.<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>I\u2019m very happy to be here. Thanks for having me.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Let me introduce you. You\u2019re the Founder of&nbsp;<\/strong><a href=\"https:\/\/CMXHub.com\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\"><strong>CMX<\/strong><\/a><strong>, which is a 20,000 strong community dedicated to leaders of communities. You are like the cook for professional cooks. You are the leader of leaders. When anyone is a community expert, you are the expert for community experts. I\u2019m particularly excited about it. Before we start getting into your background, speaking to a David, I have to ask you this question as a David myself, how do you feel about your name, David? Do you like it or not?<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>I like it. I didn\u2019t use to like it when I was a kid. I thought it was too basic. No one calls me David. None of my friends call me David. Everyone calls me Spinks. My last name is more interesting than my first name. I\u2019ve always been called Spinks in school and sports by friends. Even my sister calls me Spinksie. For some reason, the name stuck to my identity.<\/p>\n<figure id=\"attachment_5392\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-5392\" style=\"width: 240px\" class=\"wp-caption alignleft\"><img decoding=\"async\" loading=\"lazy\" class=\"size-medium wp-image-5392\" src=\"https:\/\/www.meetup.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/04\/9KCMCaption1-240x315.png\" alt=\"KCM 9 | Community Building\" width=\"240\" height=\"315\" srcset=\"https:\/\/www.meetup.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/04\/9KCMCaption1-240x315.png 240w, https:\/\/www.meetup.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/04\/9KCMCaption1-480x630.png 480w, https:\/\/www.meetup.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/04\/9KCMCaption1-768x1008.png 768w, https:\/\/www.meetup.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/04\/9KCMCaption1.png 780w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 240px) 100vw, 240px\" \/><figcaption id=\"caption-attachment-5392\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">The Business of Belonging: How to Make Community Your Competitive Advantage<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<p><strong>My goal for this show is by the end to start being at that level to be able to call you Spinks.<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>High aspirations for your show, but I think we can get there.<\/p>\n<p><strong>For me, when people say David Siegel in a crowded room, a high percentage of people ended up turning around. In my graduating class from the University of Pennsylvania, there were four David Siegels. I\u2019m LinkedIn connected. Take ten different David Siegels. I\u2019m not a huge David fan, but you could call me Siegel. I\u2019ll call you Spinks, and we\u2019ll go from there. You founded your first community at thirteen years old. I\u2019ve got to hear about that. I would have my Bar Mitzvah then and you founded a community.<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>I also had my Bar Mitzvah then, but that wasn\u2019t the community I started. If I had control over my Bar Mitzvah, it would have been a much better community event. Unfortunately, it was the standard Bar Mitzvah. I was a kid growing up in Long Island in New York. I largely struggled to fit in socially and had a bunch of social struggles. I found myself isolated from friends at various points in my middle school career. I was also an avid gamer. I became obsessed with Tony Hawk\u2019s Pro Skater 4. I would run home and play for six hours every day. I became one of the top players in the world.<\/p>\n<blockquote>\n<p>People and purpose are the two things that will make or break a community.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n<p><strong>Did you also skateboard yourself?<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>I was not good at actual skateboarding. My hometown in New York was a surf town. Everyone surfed, everyone skated. I like longboarding, but actual like trick skateboarding, I was never good at it, but in Tony Hawk\u2019s Pro Skater, the video game, I would crush everyone. I played that a lot and ended up starting a clan. On video games, you start clans to battle other clans. We became the best clan in the game. We launched our forums and website. It became one of the most popular online communities for Tony Hawk\u2019s Pro Skater 4 at that time. I started it with my two clan cofounders. One of them happens to be a web developer. He built the website. I did a lot of the community management. I was thirteen. I didn\u2019t know what that meant, but I was creating moderation standards, rules, guidelines and managing the forums. We would host competitions and host events. All the things that community builders and managers do nowadays. I was doing that as a teenager for this video game.<\/p>\n<p><strong>By the time you were in college, you probably forgot more about community than most people even know?<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>That\u2019s possible. It continued to be a thread throughout my whole life. I was an early adopter of every social platform I could find. I was active on IRC, mostly around video games in those days, but then, the DeadJournal, LiveJournal, Tumblr and MySpace is when that came out. My whole generation was early on Facebook. I was very early on Twitter and started using that a lot, and that ended up changing my whole career. It was in college where I started connecting the community to business because I was a Business Administration major. All the classes in my business administration, like the path, were all very traditional old-school marketing. None of it talked about technology and social media, and how online communities were changing, how customers were talking to each other and interacting with businesses. I ended up pitching the idea for the first-ever social media class to the business department. They said no, then I pitched it to the group.<\/p>\n<p><strong>\u201cWhat is this social media thing? It\u2019s never going to get big, anyway. Who needs a class on it?\u201d<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>I pitch it to the Computer Science department. He said, \u201cYes, if you help me create the curriculum.\u201d I helped build the curriculum for the first social media business course in the college. It continued to grow my interests. I started blogging about business and community, and that led to my first job as a community manager right out of college. I\u2019ve been working as a community manager professionally for about eleven years.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Did you know back in college that you would be a community-focused person, possibly for the rest of your life?<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>No.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Do you believe that you will be now?<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>Yes, now I do.<\/p>\n<p><strong>How did you accept that?<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>I always wanted to be an entrepreneur. I wanted to be successful in business. I saw those two things as clashing because the community was still very much not a thing in the world of business and not understood, not invested in. It wasn\u2019t a career path or a job, but there were a few communities for this kind of stuff, but it was very small and disparate. I didn\u2019t speak to entrepreneurship, startups and the things I wanted to work in. People would say like, \u201cDavid Spinks is a community guy.\u201d I was like, \u201cNo. I\u2019m not the community guy. I\u2019m interested in it. I like it, but I\u2019m an entrepreneur.\u201d I started multiple startups. One in the blogger outreach space, then I started an online cooking school and went through a 500 startups accelerator program.<\/p>\n<p>I did this startup route. I felt very much like I was swimming upstream. Anyone who\u2019s built a business before knows the feeling of like you\u2019re swinging, and you\u2019re not getting anywhere. You\u2019re spinning your wheels. It felt like that for 5 or 6 years, but the community thing continues to come up. I ended up cofounding&nbsp;<a href=\"http:\/\/www.TheCommunityManager.com\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">TheCommunityManager.com<\/a>&nbsp;as a place to start talking about community management, writing about it and bringing other people to write about it as well. It grew a little bit. My reputation kept going in that direction, whether or not I wanted it to.<\/p>\n<p>We had an idea to run a conference for community professionals for a few years. It was very intimidating to launch a conference. We didn\u2019t do it, but I had pitched it to my friend,&nbsp;<a href=\"https:\/\/MaxAlts.com\/\">Max Altschuler<\/a>. He ended up running a conference called Sales Hacker and that went well. He came to me and was like, \u201cThat conference CMX Summit you\u2019ve been wanting to host, I know how to run a conference now. Let me run all the logistics, and you handle speakers and marketing. We\u2019ll see if it works.\u201d I was like, \u201cGreat. Those are the things that were intimidating to me around running a conference. Let\u2019s try it.\u201d<\/p>\n<blockquote>\n<p>All communities have a purpose.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n<p>We put it together in seven weeks from the point we shook hands to the actual conference being hosted, which is insane to think about now. We had 300 people come out from multiple countries around the world, and all of them were community managers or community professionals. It was the first highly produced conference that was 100% dedicated to community professionals. They were good events, conferences and meetups, but it\u2019s a well-produced premiere stage conference. It was the first one like that. It clicked for me at that point.<\/p>\n<p><strong>What I love is how iterative that approach was. It\u2019s not as though when you were in college, you said, \u201cI\u2019m going to start building the biggest conference system out there.\u201d It was first moved to newsletters, then moved to discussion forums, then start building community yourself. Little by little, you got to figure out the shape that you wanted to take and thrive. It\u2019s a great example of entrepreneurship where you don\u2019t necessarily know where you\u2019re going to take it, but you know you need to keep learning and keep exposing yourself to new people and new ideas. A positive comes out of it. There\u2019s a lot that we could learn from you. I read an article that you wrote around&nbsp;<\/strong><a href=\"https:\/\/cmxhub.com\/the-7ps-of-community\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\"><strong>The 7Ps of Community<\/strong><\/a><strong>. We both went to business school. I remember the 4Ps, which for some reason, it was price, power, promotion, and distribution, which is not a P, but we\u2019ll let that pass.<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>They changed it to positioning.<\/p>\n<p><strong>I must\u2019ve missed that, perhaps, maybe that\u2019s the P. Please share with us. It doesn\u2019t have to be all seven. It could be your top 4 or 5, but help us learn about the 7P\u2019s of community.<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>The 4P\u2019s of marketing mix inspired the idea of like, \u201cWhat if we applied that to community and gave everyone a standard of what are the elements that go into a community program?\u201d For some reason, there are a lot of good words that start with the letter P. It works out.<\/p>\n<figure id=\"attachment_5393\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-5393\" style=\"width: 600px\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\"><img decoding=\"async\" loading=\"lazy\" class=\"size-full wp-image-5393\" src=\"https:\/\/www.meetup.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/04\/9KCMCaption2.jpg\" alt=\"KCM 9 | Community Building\" width=\"600\" height=\"400\" srcset=\"https:\/\/www.meetup.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/04\/9KCMCaption2.jpg 600w, https:\/\/www.meetup.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/04\/9KCMCaption2-473x315.jpg 473w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 600px) 100vw, 600px\" \/><figcaption id=\"caption-attachment-5393\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">Community Building: Discussions about community are always a talk about a social identity. Unhealthy exclusion is when who should be in the room cannot be there, which usually shows unconscious bias.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<p><strong>I thought it was a coincidence.<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>It was, and then I was like, \u201cThe letter P is magical for some reason.\u201d The 7P\u2019s are People, Purpose, Place where you gather, Policy like the rules and guidelines around how they gather, Participation, what they\u2019re doing in that space, Promotion, how you\u2019re growing it, and then Performance, what does success look like?<\/p>\n<p><strong>You passed the test. I thought you might only be able to get six of them.<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>I\u2019ve said it enough times. I always forget the exact order because the order of it is a thing that I keep iterating on as well. You asked for my favorite ones. The order is interesting here because people and purpose are the two things that will make or break a community. All the other things, the place like the platform you use or where you host it, that doesn\u2019t matter at the end of the day. It has to be driven by people and purpose. How people show up has to be driven by people and purpose. How you grow is driven by people and purpose.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Let\u2019s double-click on each of those. What does people mean? What are you looking for? What\u2019s the right mix of people, types of people, etc.?<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>In people, what we\u2019re looking at is identity. It\u2019s like, who is the identity that you\u2019re trying to bring together. When we\u2019re talking about community, we\u2019re talking about social identity. What is the identity that we\u2019re trying to bring people together around? What\u2019s the shared identity that exists and what\u2019s a shared identity that we\u2019re trying to create? Max\u2019s community with Sales Hacker, for example, there are sales professionals as an identity. He wanted to create the Sales Hacker identity. It\u2019s a specific group within the larger group of salespeople that you can get more specific on because they don\u2019t have a space to come together and support each other. It\u2019s honing in on who you are serving. What is their problem? How does the community serve them, or how could it serve them? Understanding their pain points as deeply as possible, so you\u2019re building a community for a very specific identity.<\/p>\n<p><strong>There\u2019s a difference between interest and identity. What you\u2019re saying is it has to truly be a social identity. If a community is formed around interests, \u201cI\u2019m interested in board games. I enjoy playing board games.\u201d Can you be a real community if it\u2019s around an interest or, in your mind, it\u2019s always better to have it be identity-based? I believe there\u2019s a difference between the two.<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>The interest is part of our identity. You reframe that phrase. \u201cI have an interest in board games,\u201d to \u201cI am a person who has an interest in board games. I identify as a board game advocate player.\u201d Let\u2019s say board games, for example. Would a community for people who play board games be compelling? Maybe. It\u2019s a broad interest. The key is to get more and more specific until that identity becomes apparent.<\/p>\n<p>You move from this broad interest into, \u201cThere\u2019s an actual identity here that people don\u2019t have a social space to interact around. That\u2019s an opportunity.\u201d You get more specific on like, \u201cWhat is the board game?\u201d You can make people who love board games but who are parents and find board games that are good to include their kids in. It could be people who play board games who live in Austin, Texas. There are all these different elements you can make to make it more specific until it\u2019s like, \u201cThat\u2019s an identity that\u2019s compelling.\u201d<\/p>\n<p><strong>We have found at&nbsp;<\/strong>Meetup<strong>, and I\u2019m sure you find the same thing, that it\u2019s not about necessarily the size of a community. It\u2019s about the sense of belonging and how close the fabric is of people to each other. In fact, large communities could, in many ways, be less impactful than much smaller, more niche communities, which speaks to exactly what you said, which is the closer identities happen, the more specific a community is. Feel free to disagree with that.<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>I\u2019m publishing this book in March 2021. I did research into this exact topic. I found that both can be true. It\u2019s not about the size. The size has to be aligned with the purpose. You have to find the group that feels isolated right now and doesn\u2019t have a space to gather. There are tons of examples of getting more specific, being how you can find community market fit is what we\u2019re looking for, but sometimes, going broader is the solution. Here\u2019s an example. There\u2019s an amazing community called&nbsp;<a href=\"https:\/\/www.HireTechLadies.com\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Tech Ladies<\/a>, started by Allison Esposito.<\/p>\n<p>She was a woman working in tech. She wanted a community for women working in tech, but all the communities that existed for women in tech were very engineer-focused. It\u2019s specific on women who are engineers working in tech. She couldn\u2019t find a community that existed for women who are working in a marketing role in tech, in support in tech, operations in tech, or all these other roles that didn\u2019t quite identify with engineers. She launched Tech Ladies to create a broader identity for women who work in tech, regardless of what their specific role is. That\u2019s a good example. We\u2019re expanding that circle a bit is what tapped into an untapped need that people had for the community.<\/p>\n<p><strong>You\u2019re modest about the book. I do want to want to give you credit for it. It\u2019s amazing.<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>Thank you. I\u2019m excited to get it out. I\u2019ve been working on the book for many years. You can now order it anywhere,&nbsp;<a href=\"http:\/\/DavidSpinks.com\/Book\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\"><em>The Business of Belonging<\/em><\/a>. It\u2019s all about why businesses should invest in the community, how to measure the value of community as a business, and then going through specific templates and frameworks like the 7P\u2019s, and there are lots more in there on how to execute and build a community program out.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Let me ask you another question about the 7P\u2019s. Let\u2019s talk about purpose because you said the purpose was the one right up there with people. Help our readers understand what does it mean to have a meaningful purpose and how do you know if you have that or not because some people could delude themselves into thinking, \u201cWe have a purpose,\u201d but in reality, they don\u2019t? What\u2019s an example of maybe a non-purpose and a purpose to help people differentiate between the two?<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>All communities have a purpose. It\u2019s whether or not they\u2019re intentional about it or not. If you bring people together and you say like, \u201cTalk amongst yourselves. Have fun,\u201d then that\u2019s not being intentional. A purpose might be to bring people together, but you\u2019re missing an opportunity there. What\u2019s important is to get clear on why you are bringing those people together. What is the pain point that you\u2019re solving? What is the problem that you\u2019re solving? That\u2019s how you\u2019re going to design the experience around those people to make sure that the community is compelling and the event you\u2019re hosting or the space you\u2019re organizing has a clear objective in mind.<\/p>\n<blockquote>\n<p>How you grow your community depends on people and purpose.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n<p><strong>Can a social community be a real community? Is that enough of a purpose?<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>What do you mean by social community?<\/p>\n<p><strong>It\u2019s like, \u201cLet\u2019s get together and hang out.\u201d<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>Even that, why are you hanging out? Who\u2019s there and what brings them there? Is a bar a community? Not really. If you\u2019re going to a bar, there are a lot of people socializing there, but it\u2019s not a community. There\u2019s no purpose. That\u2019s a social space.<\/p>\n<p><strong>There could be a small group within a bar that might be a community, but the entire bar itself is not one.<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>The small groups are usually friend groups. A friend group is like, \u201cI\u2019m investing in my social relationships and the people that I care about. I\u2019m spending time with them.\u201d It could be people coming there after work. It\u2019s like, \u201cOur purpose is to get to know each other on a more personal level outside of the office because, in the office, we\u2019re always talking about projects. I want to learn more about you. Let\u2019s gather at a bar and have drinks.\u201d It\u2019s the purpose that\u2019s going to define it. Another good example is a community called&nbsp;<a href=\"https:\/\/www.TheDinnerParty.org\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">The Dinner Party<\/a>. It is a community for people who are in their 20s, 30s, and 40s who have experienced a loss in their life of a loved one.<\/p>\n<p>The founders started this community because when they went to support groups for people who lost loved ones, they found that most of the people in those groups were in much older generations. It\u2019s more likely that you\u2019re going to lose someone at a much older age than if you\u2019re in your 20s and 30s when both of the founders lost a parent in their twenties. They\u2019re looking for a space. They couldn\u2019t find it so they launched The Dinner Party. The purpose became clear. It wasn\u2019t like, \u201cLet\u2019s gather and talk.\u201d It was like, \u201cWe\u2019re doing this because we are at a specific point in our lives that we lost someone. That brings a unique set of challenges.\u201d That purpose plays into everything that they design in a dinner party.<\/p>\n<figure id=\"attachment_5394\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-5394\" style=\"width: 600px\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\"><img decoding=\"async\" loading=\"lazy\" class=\"size-full wp-image-5394\" src=\"https:\/\/www.meetup.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/04\/9KCMCaption3.jpg\" alt=\"KCM 9 | Community Building\" width=\"600\" height=\"400\" srcset=\"https:\/\/www.meetup.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/04\/9KCMCaption3.jpg 600w, https:\/\/www.meetup.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/04\/9KCMCaption3-473x315.jpg 473w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 600px) 100vw, 600px\" \/><figcaption id=\"caption-attachment-5394\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">Community Building: There&#8217;s no hack around community. Give it at least a 12-month timeline before you start seeing business results.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<p>What they ended up designing is it\u2019s a potluck dinner. Someone can host it. They have a clear tone of playfulness and fun at these things. Dark humor is very welcome, like joke around about death, joke around about these things that are taboo otherwise because this is a space where you\u2019re normalizing that you\u2019ve lost someone, and you\u2019re accepted for that here. Other spaces might say, \u201cGather because you lost someone and talk amongst yourselves.\u201d By getting specific about who\u2019s in that room, how they\u2019re interacting and why they\u2019re there, they\u2019re able to create a much more compelling community experience.<\/p>\n<p><strong>How discerning and thoughtful should community leaders be when it comes to thinking about who is in the room? I know the answer is, \u201cIt depends,\u201d but do you have a general rubric or framework around the openness of the community? Should communities be open in general to everyone and should we lean ourselves towards not being discerning at all? Any perspective on that?<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>No, I don\u2019t think you should be open to everyone. Communities, by definition, are intentional and specific about who they are focused on. You want to exclude with empathy and exclude with intention. Unhealthy exclusion is where people aren\u2019t able to be in the room who should be there. That usually shows up in terms of unconscious bias, racism and sexism. That shows up in unconscious bias where, \u201cI have a community for product managers, and women don\u2019t feel safe and included here because we haven\u2019t been intentional about explicitly including a group that the norm outside is for them to be excluded because of systemic sexism or something like that.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>A good question I always ask is, \u201cWho should be in this room? Who isn\u2019t in this room? What is a voice that should be in this room that isn\u2019t in this room right now?\u201d That said, it\u2019s important to exclude with intention. If you\u2019re open to everybody, then you\u2019re not going to be able to create a safe space for the people that you are trying to create a new norm for and create space where they can be themselves without fear of judgment or being attacked. They can be truly open and transparent.<\/p>\n<p><strong>That\u2019s helpful because many community leaders struggle mightily with this, myself included, in that it feels incredibly uncomfortable to me to \u201cexclude\u201d anyone, but it\u2019s done the right way with empathy, respect, and thoughtfulness. It may be important in building the community that can engender safety like you had said specifically. Thank you for that thoughtful comment.<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>One tip there too when we design exercises with companies, a lot of times is we write down who\u2019s our community focused on. Another thing is who\u2019s our community not focused on. Being explicit about like, \u201cThis is not who we\u2019re building for. We\u2019ll help you articulate who you are building for.\u201d<\/p>\n<p><strong>Whenever I\u2019m doing strategic planning and prioritization exercise with our team in Meetup, I always talk about how deprioritization is far more important than prioritization. Anyone can come up with a list of 30 different things and say, \u201cLook at all the priorities.\u201d That\u2019s not helpful. The real strategy is in what you\u2019re deprioritizing and to be ruthlessly deprioritizing. There are some similarities between those two concepts. You talked about your advice to companies quite a bit, and we\u2019d love to know a little bit about any advice that you have for businesses who are thinking of investing more in the community.<\/strong><\/p>\n<p><strong>As you said, the community wasn\u2019t as much of a thing in the past. We both believe that it\u2019s going to be a much bigger thing in the future. I\u2019ve said that many people have social media experts in their companies nowadays. Many people have community experts in their companies, but a few years from now, they\u2019re going to be tens of thousands of companies, hundreds of thousand companies with a dedicated community expert. I believe that\u2019s the future. Like many years ago, people didn\u2019t have that.<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>It\u2019s already happening.<\/p>\n<p><strong>What advice would you give for companies that are struggling with how to build community?<\/strong><\/p>\n<blockquote>\n<p>The era of community is today.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n<p>I wrote a book on it. Buy the book, step one. To clarify too, it is happening. We have the data to show that it\u2019s happening and it\u2019s growing. We published the&nbsp;<a href=\"https:\/\/cmxhub.com\/community-industry-report-2021\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Community Industry Report<\/a>. You can download that on&nbsp;<a href=\"http:\/\/www.CMXHub.com\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">CMXHub.com<\/a>. Seventy-nine percent in 2017 of companies investing in the community had a dedicated community manager. Now it\u2019s 88%. Community team sizes are growing as well. We ask how many companies have a team of 1, 2 to 5, 6 to 9, 9 plus, and across the board, the bigger team sizes are growing.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Is that because people are able to measure the ROI somehow and see the value of community? I know that\u2019s something that you spend a lot of time thinking about, which is measuring the value of community. Maybe talk a little bit about that.<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>Why is it happening? You and I have been banging this drum for a long time that this is what\u2019s going to happen because companies have been moving in the direction of serving customers, customer service, customer success, empowering the customer, the voice of the customer. As customers have become more powerful in large part because of social media, companies have had to invest more in the customer, in the people that they\u2019re serving, and community was the logical outcome of that. Now every company seems to be investing in the community. First Round Capital did their report in 2020. It was over 80% of startups investing community and 28% considered their literal moat and competitive advantage that\u2019s critical to their success.<\/p>\n<p>It\u2019s here. The community era has arrived. If you are interested in building community, start learning. The first thing I\u2019d say is this is a discipline. It\u2019s a skillset. It\u2019s not something you can hand off to an intern or to a junior person who\u2019s never done it before. There are tools, systems. It\u2019s a lot of work. It\u2019s more than one person\u2019s full-time job. There are a lot of people who have been doing this work well for a while now. Start by learning what\u2019s working in this space and investing and building a proper team with actual experience to lead your program the same way you would for product, community, support, engineering. You would not hand any of those off to an intern, do not do that with the community. Make a real investment in it.<\/p>\n<p><strong>For those of you who don\u2019t necessarily know the term moat, it was first popularized by Warren Buffett. It refers to around a castle. You\u2019ll see in fairytales a moat around a castle. People can\u2019t necessarily get into the castle because of the moat. It is something in business that is perceived as one of the most important ingredients to companies being able to succeed because it\u2019s difficult for individuals to be able to copy a business with a strong moat. It\u2019s one of my favorite business terms.<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>If you think about why is community a moat because no code is on the rise. Low code is on the rise. There are a million developer boot camps. Building a tech stack is no longer a real competitive advantage because anyone can build that same tech stack relatively easily, sometimes without even needing to know how to code now. What can\u2019t they copy? There\u2019s no hack around community. If you\u2019re investing in a community, give it at least a twelve-month timeline before you start to see business results. The real value comes from these relationships that took time to build that get people bought into the identity that gets them to be an advocate. That\u2019s something that no one can show up and copy. They\u2019ll have to spend the same twelve months you did building relationships, helping people forming that network. That\u2019s why it\u2019s a moat. It\u2019s hard to copy.<\/p>\n<p><strong>If you think about what used to be considered one of the most significant moats many years ago, which was social media. I have a significant social media following and it\u2019s hard to build that. It\u2019s not that hard to build that these days considering how many individuals and celebrities can build a following as quickly. The key is that community is building relationships between all those people. If you picture a fabric, and that community has in factorial numbers of relationships, not to get too geeky, if there are hundreds of people, we\u2019re talking about tens of millions, if not billions of relationships between those people, that\u2019s something that is incredibly difficult to copy and is a far greater moat than anything that social media could ever do.<\/strong><\/p>\n<p><strong>Your point is well taken and a particularly good example of why community is on the rise. Before we go to our rapid-fire questions, is there anything that we didn\u2019t hit on that would be helpful for our readers to know about? I could talk to you for days. I don\u2019t know if you would want that, but I would love that around community. Is there anything that you\u2019d want to share with our readers or with any Meetup organizers or the tens of thousands, hundreds of thousands of organizers reading this?<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>One lesson that I\u2019ve had to relearn over and over again is to go back to your members. There\u2019s a 99.9% chance that if you\u2019re building community, you are not talking to your members as much as you should be. It\u2019s the same advice that you hear in startups like, \u201cGet out of the building. Talk to your customers.\u201d It\u2019s the same thing in community. It\u2019s like all the challenges that you\u2019re thinking about on how to engage your community or grow it, or make it better and make it more compelling. All of those answers live in a conversation that you can be having one-on-one with your community members. Talk to them.<\/p>\n<p><strong>I\u2019m going to ask you a few questions. I want to know the first thing that comes to your mind. Are you ready for rapid-fire?<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>As ready as I\u2019m going to be.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Favorite quote?<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>\u201cThe journey is the destination.\u201d<\/p>\n<p><strong>I have a sign in my home that says that quote, which I bought all the way back when I was in college. I still have it here. Your first job?<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>I was a busboy. That was my first actual job that wasn\u2019t babysitting or something nonsense. The actual paycheck was I was a busboy at a restaurant.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Favorite book growing up?<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>The&nbsp;<em>Goosebumps&nbsp;<\/em>series. I\u2019m a Millennial. I must\u2019ve been in elementary school, middle school time.&nbsp;<em>Goosebumps<\/em>&nbsp;were a collector\u2019s item. It was like pugs or Beanie Babies. These books are called&nbsp;<em>Goosebumps<\/em>. It was like this long series. They\u2019re all like scary stories. I don\u2019t think anyone read them. We collected them. It was cool to own a lot of&nbsp;<em>Goosebumps<\/em>&nbsp;books.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Name something on your bucket list.<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>I would love to get a van or a bus, live in it, and travel the country for at least three months.<\/p>\n<figure id=\"attachment_5395\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-5395\" style=\"width: 600px\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\"><img decoding=\"async\" loading=\"lazy\" class=\"size-full wp-image-5395\" src=\"https:\/\/www.meetup.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/04\/9KCMCaption4.jpg\" alt=\"KCM 9 | Community Building\" width=\"600\" height=\"400\" srcset=\"https:\/\/www.meetup.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/04\/9KCMCaption4.jpg 600w, https:\/\/www.meetup.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/04\/9KCMCaption4-473x315.jpg 473w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 600px) 100vw, 600px\" \/><figcaption id=\"caption-attachment-5395\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">Community Building: There&#8217;s a 99.9% chance that you are not talking to members as much as you should be if you&#8217;re building community.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<p><strong>Where in the country are you going to go?<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>I probably hit up a lot of national parks. I\u2019ve done a lot of traveling in my life. I traveled to a lot of countries. We\u2019ve done a couple of road trips across the US. That was my favorite trip because you get to see many more missed little details about people and culture when you drive and can stop wherever you want.<\/p>\n<p><strong>I like the retro with a bus. Are you not looking for an RV with a couple of beds in it and a bathroom?<\/strong><\/p>\n<blockquote>\n<p>More than its size, every community must be aligned with its purpose.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n<p>The buses on TikTok, I\u2019m like, \u201cI don\u2019t want any of those.\u201d<\/p>\n<p><strong>Final question for you, what do you most want to be remembered by?<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>Personally, I\u2019ll be remembered as a good friend, father, and family member who showed up when it mattered and when it counted. Professionally, my mission is to help a million-plus people learn how to build more meaningful communities. If I\u2019m remembered for having genuinely helped people launch communities that changed other people\u2019s lives and gave them a space that they needed to grow and heal, then I think I\u2019ve done a good job.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Thank you for being a guest. I\u2019m looking forward to sharing this with the world and influencing the millions that you will continue to influence.<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>Thanks for having me.<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: center\"><strong>&#8212;<\/strong><\/p>\n<p><strong>Thanks for reading. I took a lot of great takeaways. Number one is all around the importance of safety and belonging. Number two, around a focused community in terms of a purpose and how that will drive success. If you like this episode, then subscribe, give a review on&nbsp;<\/strong><a href=\"https:\/\/podcasts.apple.com\/us\/podcast\/keep-connected-with-meetup-ceo-david-siegel\/id1545712240\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\"><strong>Apple Podcasts<\/strong><\/a><strong>. Remember, let\u2019s keep connected because life is better together.<\/strong><\/p>\n<h3>Important Links:<\/h3>\n<ul>\n<li><a href=\"https:\/\/cmxhub.com\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">CMX<\/a><\/li>\n<li><a href=\"http:\/\/www.TheCommunityManager.com\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">TheCommunityManager.com<\/a><\/li>\n<li><a href=\"https:\/\/MaxAlts.com\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Max Altschuler<\/a><\/li>\n<li><a href=\"https:\/\/cmxhub.com\/the-7ps-of-community\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">The 7P\u2019s of Community<\/a>&nbsp;&#8211; Article on CMX<\/li>\n<li><a href=\"https:\/\/www.HireTechLadies.com\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Tech Ladies<\/a><\/li>\n<li><a href=\"https:\/\/www.TheDinnerParty.org\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">The Dinner Party<\/a><\/li>\n<li><a href=\"https:\/\/cmxhub.com\/community-industry-report-2021\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Community Industry Report<\/a><\/li>\n<li><a href=\"https:\/\/podcasts.apple.com\/us\/podcast\/keep-connected-with-meetup-ceo-david-siegel\/id1545712240\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Apple Podcasts<\/a>&nbsp;&#8211; Keep Connected with Meetup CEO David Siege\u202al<\/li>\n<li><a href=\"http:\/\/DavidSpinks.com\/Book\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">http:\/\/DavidSpinks.com\/Book<\/a><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<h3>About David Spinks<\/h3>\n<p><img decoding=\"async\" loading=\"lazy\" class=\"alignleft size-thumbnail wp-image-5397\" src=\"https:\/\/www.meetup.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/04\/David-Spinks-150x150.jpeg\" alt=\"KCM 9 | Community Building\" width=\"150\" height=\"150\" srcset=\"https:\/\/www.meetup.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/04\/David-Spinks-150x150.jpeg 150w, https:\/\/www.meetup.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/04\/David-Spinks-315x315.jpeg 315w, https:\/\/www.meetup.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/04\/David-Spinks-630x630.jpeg 630w, https:\/\/www.meetup.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/04\/David-Spinks.jpeg 750w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 150px) 100vw, 150px\" \/>Founder of CMX, a 20,000-member organization dedicated to helping community professionals thrive.<\/p>\n<p>David is also the VP of Community at Bevy, an enterprise software platform that powers event-driven community programs and virtual conferences, following its acquisition of CMX in 2019.<\/p>\n<p>David has personally advised and trained hundreds of organizations in community strategy, including Facebook, Waze, Salesforce, Airbnb, and Google.<\/p>\n\n\n<p><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<div class=\"post-excerpt\"><p>In this interview with David Spinks, a seasoned community manager, co-founder of CMX, and author of The Business of Belonging, you&#8217;ll hear why more and more companies are investing in community.<\/p>\n<\/div>","protected":false},"author":45,"featured_media":5719,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[83],"tags":[],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v21.2 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/wordpress\/plugins\/seo\/ -->\n<title>Episode 9: Community Building For Business With David Spinks<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"David Spinks shares the life of someone immersed in the world of community building by diving into the seven most important points in bringing people together.\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.meetup.com\/blog\/episode-9-community-building-for-business\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta 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