Creating Client Communities Is the Next Evolution of Client Experience

In a Nutshell: Everyone wants to feel like they belong. As important as your relationship to your clients is, their connection to each other and your broader mission could be even more important to the future of your business.

Guest: Carrie Melissa Jones, a community builder, entrepreneur and community management consultant who has helped create community strategies for presidential campaigns, nonprofits, and small businesses in the Fortune Global 50. Carrie is also the co-author of Building Brand Communities: How Organizations Succeed by Creating Belonging.

My Key Takeaways:

Communities are the next level of client experience. Financial advising is a relationship business. Yep, we all get that. But most advisors focus on 1 to 1 relationship building and completely neglect the relationship power and scalability of building “client communities.”
Communities can be a powerful cultural force. Humans are tribal by nature. We want to belong and be in relationship with others with whom we share common concerns. By creating your own client communities, you deepen the bond among your clients and with your firm.
Building a client brand community is an intentional act. Until you orchestrate your community to share mutual care and concern for each other, you have a collection of people, not a brand community.

Also Learn:

Lessons on effective — and ineffective — community building from Harley-Davidson, Microsoft, Starbucks, and political campaigns.
A deep dive on the Harley Owners Group (HOG) and how it became “the granddaddy of all community-building efforts” that promotes a consumer product and a lifestyle brand with over 1 million members.
The difference between a community and a brand community.
The 80/20/4 and the 90/9/1 rules of community building.
How to create a “community” with your employees as a way to enhance your culture.
The “inner” work you need to do to become an effective community leader.

Complementary podcast: Jon Levy discussed the art and science of cultivating influence in a decentralized world. Listen/read here.