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Episode 14

E14: Yes, Your Online Community Is An Asset [Asset Building] with Shannon Paris

In this episode, I was lucky to have Shannon Paris as a guest on this episode. As a member of the Mighty Networks team, Shannon offers a SaaS product to help people to establish, foster, and expand online communities. Shannon shared her journey with the company founder who had monetized her network by creating a community and took the business to the next level by showing others how they could do what she did. Shannon explains details about the product, and she also delves into how the structure and strategic deployment of a successful community can drive profit.

In this podcast you will learn:

  • What an online community might look like as part of your business plan
  • How a service-based business can use an online community as an asset, not just a place to hang out and talk to each other
  • The ways that a community can help you promote sales and expand your sphere of influence
  • The benefits and differentiators of hosting a community on a platform other than the social media giants
  • The importance of having a “Big Purpose” for your community

Connect with Erin to strategize how you might use an online community to help make your business scalable and saleable.

Bio:

As an impassioned advocate for small business owners & creators, **Shannon Paris** believes in the life changing power of ethical entrepreneurship and community building. Shannon is Community Strategist with Mighty Networks, a premiere SaaS platform for creators and brands to start and grow communities they own. She works exclusively with Network Hosts building communities in the Mighty Pro plan - helping them bring to life their fully branded communities on the web and native iOS, iPad and Android apps. Before joining the Mighty Networks team, Shannon served as Community Advocate & Operations Director with Founder Tara McMullin at The What Works Network—a community of practice where experienced small business owners take decisive action to build more effective, sustainable, and profitable businesses one day at a time. She’s still providing leadership to the community - now known as The Network - and examining what it means for an online community to shift from expert-led into a community-led/self organized model. She loves the synergy that comes from leveraging her years of managing, experimenting and iterating in her own community into strategic community design for other Mighty Networks Hosts. Formerly, Shannon was a buyer for Ten Thousand Villages, a fair trade retail non-profit organization. There she studied the effects of business ownership on developing economies through collaborative relationships with artisans working on handicraft and jewelry product design and capacity building. When she’s not working, she’s either singing and playing the ukulele, or taking in nature in her sleepy river town of Marietta, in Lancaster County, PA.

Connect with Shannon:

Online: https://www.mightynetworks.com/

On Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/shayshay.paris/

On LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/shannon-paris/

We would love it if you would consider supporting Shannon’s favorite charity: https://www.revolutionlancaster.com/

Connect with Erin and find the resources mentioned in this episode at hourlytoexit.com/podcast.

Erin's LinkedIn Page: https://www.linkedin.com/in/erinaustin/

Think Beyond IP YouTube Page: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCVztXnDYnZ83oIb-EGX9IGA/videos

Music credit: Yes She Can by Tiny Music

A Podcast Launch Bestie production

Transcript
Erin Austin:

Hello ladies.

Erin Austin:

Welcome to the hourly to exit podcast.

Erin Austin:

Thank you for joining me today.

Erin Austin:

I am so excited to have Shannon Paris with me from night mighty networks.

Erin Austin:

Hi, Shannon.

Shannon Paris:

Hi, Erin, how are you?

Erin Austin:

Fantastic.

Erin Austin:

Thank you so much for joining us today.

Shannon Paris:

Yeah, my pleasure.

Erin Austin:

Yeah, I'm very excited.

Erin Austin:

We go a little ways back first meeting, uh, when you were with, Tara, uh,

Erin Austin:

at the time she was Gentilly, right?

Erin Austin:

Or.

Shannon Paris:

I think she was Gentilly

Erin Austin:

Yes.

Erin Austin:

Yes.

Shannon Paris:

became Tara MC Mullen.

Shannon Paris:

Yeah.

Shannon Paris:

Uhhuh

Erin Austin:

Now with CoCommercial at the time now, uh, what works.

Erin Austin:

And so I was very excited to have you here because we love to talk

Erin Austin:

about building assets with our service based business owners.

Erin Austin:

And so with your work at Mighty Networks, I'm like, Ooh, this is gonna be so good.

Erin Austin:

So please introduce yourself to our audience.

Erin Austin:

Let us know a little bit about you and what you're up to.

Shannon Paris:

Yeah, sure.

Shannon Paris:

As you mentioned, I'm currently working with mighty networks.

Shannon Paris:

We're a software as a service platform for community building.

Shannon Paris:

And, um, I came to my networks, it's always a flowery path when

Shannon Paris:

I'm telling my story anyway.

Shannon Paris:

From a background studying architecture to years in retail, having my own

Shannon Paris:

brick and mortar store, uh, and then for about a decade, I was working for

Shannon Paris:

a non-profit fair trade organization.

Shannon Paris:

We were working internationally with artisans and makers to

Shannon Paris:

bring their products to the North American marketplace.

Shannon Paris:

So we were working internationally, but then we were working domestically

Shannon Paris:

with a chain of retail stores.

Shannon Paris:

So eventually I was a buyer and I was working directly on the ground in

Shannon Paris:

India with our partners on capacity building and product design, materials

Shannon Paris:

and techniques, relationship building.

Shannon Paris:

And then I got laid off.

Shannon Paris:

And I made a lunch date with my old friend Tara Gentilly and we were

Shannon Paris:

just talking about our lives and the world, I was kinda like, I need a job.

Shannon Paris:

And she was kinda like, I need help.

Shannon Paris:

And from there we realized she was in the process, had just launched as she'd

Shannon Paris:

been a very successful business coach

Shannon Paris:

for many years, she calls herself an internet grandma, but had really

Shannon Paris:

decided in 2016, 2017 to double down on this idea of community building

Shannon Paris:

as the product, as the place where instead of her always being at the

Shannon Paris:

top where it would be a space to build a peer to peer connection network,

Shannon Paris:

where you could leverage the seasoned experience of a whole bunch of different

Shannon Paris:

business owners, not just her, right.

Shannon Paris:

To take all that wisdom and have it be shared.

Shannon Paris:

And I'm a community builder in anything I'm doing.

Shannon Paris:

I like to bring people together and so she felt like she could teach me this

Shannon Paris:

digital online business stuff, because I already had the people skills to

Shannon Paris:

make people feel welcome and help them facilitate relationships inside the

Shannon Paris:

four walls of our online community.

Shannon Paris:

So from there I became a full-time community advocate inside, like you

Shannon Paris:

said, it was called CoCommercial, then it became The What Works Network.

Shannon Paris:

Yeah, I was doing operations for her behind the scenes and, um, just loved it.

Shannon Paris:

You know, we grew from about 400 members to about 700 members over the years and

Shannon Paris:

just iterated and experimented and tried all sorts of different community building.

Shannon Paris:

Approaches.

Shannon Paris:

So just most recently, as I was sharing before we got on the call, Tara decided

Shannon Paris:

in her life and her work, it was time to take a step back from community building,

Shannon Paris:

just due to her own personal direction, some mental health and other issues.

Shannon Paris:

And at that point, there was an opportunity to sort of collaborate.

Shannon Paris:

We had this deep, deep relationship with Mighty Networks and on two

Shannon Paris:

fronts where I actually shifted into a full time with Mighty Networks

Shannon Paris:

now serving as a strategist, helping other people build their communities.

Shannon Paris:

And also them taking over sort of a sponsorship role of our, what

Shannon Paris:

works Network kind of shifted.

Shannon Paris:

They took ownership essentially of her network.

Shannon Paris:

Um, so yeah,

Erin Austin:

Fantastic.

Erin Austin:

What is a community strategist?

Erin Austin:

Like, what does that mean?

Shannon Paris:

I think what makes a strategist who's working in community.

Shannon Paris:

It's not just brand.

Shannon Paris:

It's not about just selling it's what's happening once you've already got

Shannon Paris:

those people who are deeply committed and almost evangelized around a shared

Shannon Paris:

interest around the kind of results and transformations they're interested in

Shannon Paris:

sitting together with other people around.

Shannon Paris:

The community strategist is working with that population of people to say, how

Shannon Paris:

do I make them have the best experience possible now that we're together?

Shannon Paris:

I mean, there's certainly the front end.

Shannon Paris:

You all have to get people in, right.

Shannon Paris:

That's absolutely part of the business, but what I'm working on with people

Shannon Paris:

specifically is helping 'em get launched,

Shannon Paris:

and then how do we optimize the experience of your members on this platform?

Shannon Paris:

I mean, in general, it's about facilitating relationships, coordinating

Shannon Paris:

we call it community design.

Shannon Paris:

When are you posting?

Shannon Paris:

How are you inviting people into a deeper level of conversation around

Shannon Paris:

this shared interest, this big purpose that's brought you together?

Shannon Paris:

What kind of touch points are you giving people throughout the week?

Shannon Paris:

How do you meet people where they're at and invite them to contribute

Shannon Paris:

to this fabric of the community that we're building together?

Erin Austin:

I love that.

Erin Austin:

You know, this is the second conversation I've had today, where

Erin Austin:

people, where someone was talking about the experience, which I feel

Erin Austin:

like talking about, you know, customer experience or community experience.

Erin Austin:

I feel like I didn't hear people talking about the experience like five

Erin Austin:

years ago was I have this service,

Erin Austin:

and is it good or is it bad?

Erin Austin:

But they're not making sure people are being taken care of

Erin Austin:

throughout that whole journey.

Erin Austin:

And so is this something new in the industry or is it a, my networks thing or

Erin Austin:

is it just, you know, this is the nature of how communities are built in 2022?

Shannon Paris:

I think online community has definitely grown and evolved

Shannon Paris:

over the past 10 years, five years.

Shannon Paris:

And then especially in the past two years.

Shannon Paris:

Right.

Shannon Paris:

So Gina Bianchini who's our founder absolutely has been

Shannon Paris:

thinking about community hardcore for five, 10 years now herself.

Shannon Paris:

And, it's more than a Facebook group, it's not just like you're

Shannon Paris:

slapping together a space.

Shannon Paris:

It's something that's where you're curating experience, where you're

Shannon Paris:

really designing what people are going through, especially nowadays

Shannon Paris:

with like zoom fatigue, right.

Shannon Paris:

And two years of having to be online.

Shannon Paris:

And how do you differentiate within that?

Shannon Paris:

And, I think in business, in general, especially with small business owners and

Shannon Paris:

service based business, we're thinking about how do we consider the whole human

Shannon Paris:

in this experience, right?

Shannon Paris:

Like you can't just leave, especially when your kids are home, you can't

Shannon Paris:

just leave that at the door when you go into your office, right.

Shannon Paris:

Or, or your dog or your cat, you know, whatever it may be.

Shannon Paris:

Right.

Shannon Paris:

We had to be whole humans coming to the table for both our businesses, and

Shannon Paris:

then the same as you build a community.

Shannon Paris:

Like,

Shannon Paris:

there's been so much toxicity out in community building, whether it's

Shannon Paris:

from the systems that we operate in, whether that's the patriarchy or white

Shannon Paris:

supremacy or, you know, whatever that is capitalism, like, I think we're

Shannon Paris:

all in the space of examining that.

Shannon Paris:

And so being intentional about honing the culture you're creating.

Shannon Paris:

It's culture making inside a community.

Shannon Paris:

And there are plenty of communities out there that aren't doing that, but

Shannon Paris:

I think that's what differentiates and I think that's what would

Shannon Paris:

be purposeful for small business owners and service based businesses.

Shannon Paris:

Yeah.

Erin Austin:

Well, let's back up to like, tell me more about Mighty Networks

Erin Austin:

generally and what distinguishes it from other types of communities?

Shannon Paris:

Yeah.

Shannon Paris:

So, Mighty networks is a software as a service platform that is

Shannon Paris:

designed from like the ground up to support community building.

Shannon Paris:

I mean, it has a lot of nice features.

Shannon Paris:

It is like aesthetically very pleasing, but you have an

Shannon Paris:

activity feed, like a form.

Shannon Paris:

It's got some similar qualities to what you might experience when

Shannon Paris:

you're inside of a Facebook group in sort of that social network feel,

Shannon Paris:

but there's no ads.

Shannon Paris:

All the members are, to whatever degree you determine is important,

Shannon Paris:

curated so to speak, right?

Shannon Paris:

Like you can have a public community, but you can also, you

Shannon Paris:

know, have an application process, however you wanna set that up.

Shannon Paris:

There's a course feature inside of my network, so you can have

Shannon Paris:

small groups, so you can have sub spaces within your big, main space.

Shannon Paris:

You can host events from within you can live stream inside of mighty networks.

Shannon Paris:

It's been evolving and evolving, but there's so many features that are really

Shannon Paris:

designed specifically to encourage community like, you know, you could, name

Shannon Paris:

specialties so you could know who else in your community is a therapist, right.

Shannon Paris:

You could know who else in your community is in your region.

Shannon Paris:

Like you can set it up so that I could learn who is near Lancaster, Pennsylvania.

Shannon Paris:

so there's just like, as you dig into the features, you see that

Shannon Paris:

they're really geared differently than like a website, so to speak.

Erin Austin:

Is there a cross pollination, like I know there are no ads, but if let's

Erin Austin:

say I'm in the, what works community.

Erin Austin:

Be able to see other communities that are in there or are they

Erin Austin:

just completely separate?

Shannon Paris:

They are, for all intents and purposes, completely separate.

Shannon Paris:

While I'm inside my community, that is what your experience is and, a

Shannon Paris:

kind of a key part of that is the data stays inside those four walls.

Shannon Paris:

So there are no third party people doing anything with the data, with the

Shannon Paris:

emails.

Shannon Paris:

There is, you know, no crazy algorithmic stuff going on behind the scenes.

Shannon Paris:

We, as a company, don't do anything with that data either.

Shannon Paris:

So, so both the owner of the community and mining networks as platform, we

Shannon Paris:

don't do anything with any kind of data.

Shannon Paris:

Now I will say we have an app.

Shannon Paris:

It's a universal app, that's called the mighty networks app and from within there,

Shannon Paris:

you can search for other communities.

Erin Austin:

Oh, okay.

Shannon Paris:

So if I'm a member of this, right, then I could also

Shannon Paris:

search for your community, you know?

Shannon Paris:

So it's easy within that app to get to other communities.

Shannon Paris:

Then at our enterprise level, it's more of a fully branded experience and you

Shannon Paris:

actually can have your own dedicated app.

Erin Austin:

Okay.

Erin Austin:

Gotcha.

Erin Austin:

Okay.

Erin Austin:

And is it white labeled for your enterprise clients or?

Shannon Paris:

We say fully branded, because there are some places where

Shannon Paris:

you might see mighty networks pop up, like in email notifications, et

Shannon Paris:

cetera, just because of regulations.

Shannon Paris:

So we have to sort of say who we are in, in that regard, but in general,

Shannon Paris:

many folks do approach it from almost like from a client host perspective.

Shannon Paris:

They're thinking of it as a white label experience.

Shannon Paris:

Yeah.

Shannon Paris:

At.

Erin Austin:

my networks or something

Shannon Paris:

Right.

Shannon Paris:

Exactly.

Shannon Paris:

Think of us as a tech

Erin Austin:

Okay.

Erin Austin:

it.

Erin Austin:

Got it.

Erin Austin:

All right.

Erin Austin:

My experience with mining networks is the, what works, community and

Erin Austin:

yeah, and very easy to navigate.

Erin Austin:

I, you know, being able to label like your specialties, I thought that was

Erin Austin:

so helpful, especially, you know, among that community of, you know, finding out

Erin Austin:

who is, you know, who knows marketing, who knows, you know, different things.

Erin Austin:

And so, and I think, you know, cause I'm currently.

Erin Austin:

A member of a few slack communities, and I'm not gonna, I'm not gonna trash

Erin Austin:

slack or anything, but, I guess the simplicity of slack is maybe the beauty

Erin Austin:

of it, but when you need more, if you want like more interaction and, um,

Erin Austin:

among the community members for them to understand each other better, you know,

Erin Austin:

mighty networks is definitely, obviously a much better option than slack for that.

Shannon Paris:

Yeah, I think it's a different experience entirely.

Shannon Paris:

Right.

Shannon Paris:

And, and there's absolutely other competitors out there that are

Shannon Paris:

offering different experiences and there's ways we can grow.

Shannon Paris:

Yeah.

Shannon Paris:

I mean, the slack becomes more of a forum type experience, right.

Shannon Paris:

And you have your channels.

Shannon Paris:

I now work for the company, but I was an evangelist, so to speak.

Shannon Paris:

I was a believer.

Shannon Paris:

I loved the experience.

Shannon Paris:

There's just something really positive about coming into a mighty network space.

Shannon Paris:

And it took me years to sort of identify.

Shannon Paris:

It was like being out of that sort of toxic social media world, having a real

Shannon Paris:

concentration around a specific interest.

Shannon Paris:

And yeah, I don't wanna slam slack.

Shannon Paris:

We've actually even crafted some smaller product community experiences around

Shannon Paris:

like a mastermind where that happened in a slack community, like a short term.

Shannon Paris:

And it was great and it had its positives and its negatives.

Shannon Paris:

I think the reach can be broader without feeling overwhelming inside of a Mighty

Shannon Paris:

Network versus inside slack, for instance.

Erin Austin:

Yeah.

Erin Austin:

And, and what you mentioned earlier is, because we all been kind of stuck, you

Erin Austin:

know, at home and spend so much time online, like having like a different

Erin Austin:

experience, that's kind of richer, more intimate, is super important.

Erin Austin:

You know, I, I'm definitely a zoom burnout, you know, although I'm enjoying

Erin Austin:

my time here with you and, uh, but you know, having, that place, you know, cause

Erin Austin:

you don't like even a LinkedIn, which is my social media option of choice.

Erin Austin:

Like I don't quite know what I'm gonna run into even on LinkedIn and it's not even,

Erin Austin:

you know, anything compared to the others.

Erin Austin:

And just kind of having that place where, you know, like, okay, this

Erin Austin:

is my community, like literally, and kind of understanding the expectations

Erin Austin:

are all set, their rules there's, you know, there for a common purpose.

Erin Austin:

And so that is kind of the lovely part of having,

Erin Austin:

having

Shannon Paris:

Yeah, and I love that you framed it in terms of not

Shannon Paris:

knowing what you're gonna run into.

Shannon Paris:

And I think that that's your experience as a member of a community.

Shannon Paris:

And as a host, it's such an opportunity to create that experience, right?

Shannon Paris:

Like to create a set of expectations around this thing that you all

Shannon Paris:

are passionate about, right?

Shannon Paris:

Instead of left field political.

Erin Austin:

Right.

Shannon Paris:

Whatever polarizing conversations that can be disheartening

Shannon Paris:

or, or just even being pitched to, right.

Shannon Paris:

I don't wanna pick on any sort of platform.

Shannon Paris:

It happens in all the platforms, but, you know, you can determine

Shannon Paris:

how that happens in your space.

Shannon Paris:

Like getting to the value of, is it a no pitch space?

Shannon Paris:

Is it, is it a place where you pitch in a specific way for it to be healthy or

Shannon Paris:

there's a space where you can pitch or a job board or, you know, there's just so

Shannon Paris:

many ways you can approach that, that's suitable for both yourself, your business,

Shannon Paris:

your members, and that experience

Shannon Paris:

you're wanting to create, those results and transformations.

Erin Austin:

Yeah.

Erin Austin:

Well, you definitely pushed a button with me with the pitching.

Erin Austin:

You know,

Erin Austin:

what I found I was trying to figure out is, you know, I was promoting the,

Erin Austin:

uh, launch of the podcast and, and, you know, we were looking at LinkedIn

Erin Austin:

groups like, you know, cause you know, you're a member of LinkedIn groups, but

Erin Austin:

there's something happening on this one.

Erin Austin:

And like, you know, should we post something in the LinkedIn groups?

Erin Austin:

And I can tell you like immediately, like sudden.

Erin Austin:

Pitches like just random pitches started coming in.

Erin Austin:

So it is nice to have a no pitch zone.

Erin Austin:

I'm sure.

Shannon Paris:

Yeah, yeah.

Erin Austin:

So our, our audience is, you know, female founders

Erin Austin:

of service based businesses.

Erin Austin:

And I wanna make sure that, and almost all of them have some sort of online

Erin Austin:

community that's, you know, maybe informal like through, you know, their

Erin Austin:

connections on LinkedIn or Facebook or Instagram, little more formal

Erin Austin:

through an email newsletter list.

Erin Austin:

I don't know that anyone really talks about their community, like as an asset.

Erin Austin:

And I want to like dig into that, like how a service based business

Erin Austin:

can use like an online community as an asset and not just as a place

Erin Austin:

to hang out and talk to each other.

Shannon Paris:

Mm-hmm, yeah.

Shannon Paris:

So like to your point, I think it's not just a space to have nice conversations.

Shannon Paris:

Uh, and another thing I think about with smaller service providers, it's not just

Shannon Paris:

a place to house your courses, cuz that would be another space where there's a

Shannon Paris:

lot of tech platforms being used is like learning management services, right?

Shannon Paris:

Like your Kajabi and your think if fix, but their community

Shannon Paris:

piece isn't necessarily.

Shannon Paris:

Robust.

Shannon Paris:

Right.

Shannon Paris:

So that's another place where there's an opportunity.

Shannon Paris:

If you are offering courses to enrich that entire experience by building like,

Shannon Paris:

people can watch a video on their own.

Shannon Paris:

People can read the content on their own.

Shannon Paris:

It's how do they process that and how do they move forward with that?

Shannon Paris:

So that's where community can really serve to make a more enriching

Shannon Paris:

experience around your courses.

Shannon Paris:

Those relationships though, that are built in there, people are having

Shannon Paris:

conversations and they're getting to know each other, they feel less alone.

Shannon Paris:

I mean, if you can help your clients feel less alone in the world, that

Shannon Paris:

is like, is a huge reason why they're gonna come back to you again, right?

Shannon Paris:

If they know that you're a person they connect with, if there's other people

Shannon Paris:

like them that they can connect with, I mean, they're just gonna be, you

Shannon Paris:

know, involved, invested, and engaged in what you're creating for them.

Shannon Paris:

Um, yeah.

Shannon Paris:

And networking, of course, for your members, Is valuable because they,

Shannon Paris:

even if it's a no pitch zone, there is organic back and forth that happens

Shannon Paris:

where relationships that blossom into future business partnerships,

Shannon Paris:

or, you know, it could be just an event or a coffee chat, or there's

Shannon Paris:

just so many things that can happen.

Shannon Paris:

And honestly, I would say one of the reasons why a community can

Shannon Paris:

be really great is because you're leveraging those connections without

Shannon Paris:

you having to do all the work.

Shannon Paris:

It doesn't all rely on you then.

Shannon Paris:

Right?

Shannon Paris:

It's it's scaling, but not scaling.

Shannon Paris:

And the next thing you have to do is do a group offering.

Shannon Paris:

The next thing you'd have to do is build an online course.

Shannon Paris:

That can be part of it, but you're scaling in the value that you're building

Shannon Paris:

that, like, it's not all dependent on Erin pushing out all the content all the

Shannon Paris:

time, because Erin says something, but so does Sarah, so does Jane, and then they

Shannon Paris:

have this deep conversation about their thoughts around this thing that Erin said.

Shannon Paris:

And suddenly this community has now become exponentially more valuable as each

Shannon Paris:

person that network effect spreads out.

Shannon Paris:

That's just as valuable.

Shannon Paris:

And it, that means you didn't have to do all that work around that.

Shannon Paris:

So that's why it could be hugely.

Shannon Paris:

We, we say really the value in a mighty network is in those connections, those

Shannon Paris:

conversations, and ultimately the contributions that your members start

Shannon Paris:

to make, they will start to put their own posts up and share their experiences

Shannon Paris:

generously.

Shannon Paris:

And it is a place where you can house your courses and groups, et cetera.

Erin Austin:

I wanna go back to, cause I had not heard about

Erin Austin:

community as a way of scaling before.

Erin Austin:

I'd never heard of put that way.

Erin Austin:

Like that, basically you're increasing your impact by facilitating like

Erin Austin:

these conversations around the topic.

Erin Austin:

You're scaling anytime there's somebody else kind of helping

Erin Austin:

spread your message, right.

Erin Austin:

Or helping spread your learnings.

Erin Austin:

So having that, that community that helps you do it.

Erin Austin:

I think that's really interesting.

Erin Austin:

I never looked at it that way before.

Shannon Paris:

Yeah,

Erin Austin:

I love that.

Shannon Paris:

It distributes value, right?

Shannon Paris:

It distributes value.

Shannon Paris:

It distributes the work, the creation, like you're thinking you're co-creating

Shannon Paris:

versus having to do all the creation.

Shannon Paris:

Yeah,

Erin Austin:

Oh, I like that.

Erin Austin:

All right.

Erin Austin:

So you mentioned, and I wanna dig back to this, like about what happens

Erin Austin:

with the data in your community.

Shannon Paris:

It's not that we don't keep data it's we don't do anything

Shannon Paris:

with the data.

Shannon Paris:

Right.

Shannon Paris:

Other than determine like our revenue.

Shannon Paris:

Right.

Shannon Paris:

You know, and we have policies online that, that are available for anybody

Shannon Paris:

to read around how we handle all that.

Shannon Paris:

But yeah.

Shannon Paris:

We're not marketing with them to any third parties or anything like

Erin Austin:

Gotcha.

Erin Austin:

All right.

Erin Austin:

Beautiful.

Erin Austin:

And then for the host of the community, what type of data

Erin Austin:

can they get from the community?

Shannon Paris:

Oh, yes.

Shannon Paris:

I love this.

Shannon Paris:

And we can go in a couple different directions with this.

Shannon Paris:

I mean, I think there are some non like numerical, you know, lots and

Shannon Paris:

lots and lots of anecdotal data that you can get from a community.

Shannon Paris:

I guess we call it the qualitative feel free to correct me.

Shannon Paris:

I'm not

Shannon Paris:

always great with my terms here.

Shannon Paris:

Right?

Shannon Paris:

Because you're gonna be listening, listening, listening as the host.

Shannon Paris:

You're just gonna be witnessing the conversations that are talking about

Shannon Paris:

the things, people are gonna be bringing up what's important to them, right?

Shannon Paris:

More than you having to create an idea, build a narrative, make up your own idea

Shannon Paris:

of what you think is important to them,

Shannon Paris:

every day you have people in front of you who are gonna be talking

Shannon Paris:

about what's important to them.

Shannon Paris:

So if it's the conversations they're gonna be talking about their needs,

Shannon Paris:

their problems and their successes.

Shannon Paris:

Right?

Shannon Paris:

So all of that is right there in that space.

Erin Austin:

In the language that they use, that you

Shannon Paris:

Yeah.

Shannon Paris:

Oh my gosh.

Shannon Paris:

Right?

Shannon Paris:

You can just, you're just gonna be tuned into what's like relevant today.

Shannon Paris:

There'll be new input every day.

Shannon Paris:

You'll be getting feedback on products that you put out there, right?

Shannon Paris:

Like with you decide to open up a mastermind within that space, right?

Shannon Paris:

You can do a beta test.

Shannon Paris:

You can iterate, you can experiment, you can bring in founding members.

Shannon Paris:

You can ask them to do it

Shannon Paris:

at a discounted rate or free, or whatever makes sense for you in your

Shannon Paris:

business model and the value you're delivering and instantly get input

Shannon Paris:

on how to iterate this, to make it your, you brought in your basic viable

Shannon Paris:

product to your most viable product.

Shannon Paris:

Right.

Shannon Paris:

And you can adapt as you go, right?

Shannon Paris:

Like you can just tweak, tweak, pull different levers around it.

Shannon Paris:

I feel like one thing I would say about mighty networks is it's

Shannon Paris:

really built for experimentation.

Shannon Paris:

You can just play with the different features and how you have it set

Shannon Paris:

up and where you're sending people.

Shannon Paris:

Cuz I'm talking to hosts every day.

Shannon Paris:

And I am telling you, I hear new ideas.

Shannon Paris:

I see.

Shannon Paris:

an infinite number of ways you can set up community and products and

Shannon Paris:

offerings, et cetera.

Shannon Paris:

So

Erin Austin:

I can imagine that would almost be, you know, the shiny

Erin Austin:

object syndrome would be magnified.

Erin Austin:

Like someone said this and they need to have like, okay, it goes on

Erin Austin:

the list, but, you know, make sure

Shannon Paris:

Yeah.

Shannon Paris:

I mean, from a few different levels, I mean, as a host, you always have to be

Shannon Paris:

saying, what's the big purpose here?

Shannon Paris:

How do we always tie it back into the results and transformations that we're

Shannon Paris:

working towards together as a company?

Shannon Paris:

Um, mighty networks, like the features and everything like that, that we get in.

Shannon Paris:

We are listening, listening, listening.

Shannon Paris:

I mean, we treat our clients as a community unto themselves.

Shannon Paris:

Right.

Shannon Paris:

I did wanna share.

Shannon Paris:

To the quantitative.

Shannon Paris:

We actually do have a really rich set of insights, we call it, but it's

Shannon Paris:

analytics.

Shannon Paris:

So you can see active members, you can see how many members are contributing,

Shannon Paris:

like percentages of host contributions versus member contributions,

Shannon Paris:

who's coming in from what platforms, are there opportunities

Shannon Paris:

to get more people using the app?

Shannon Paris:

Things like that.

Shannon Paris:

Heat maps of activity time, so you can figure out when should

Shannon Paris:

I, you know, host events.

Shannon Paris:

And then deeper, like what.

Shannon Paris:

Are your top hosts?

Shannon Paris:

Who's clicking on what, et cetera, et cetera.

Shannon Paris:

So you actually do have a deep set of quantitative, um, analytics

Shannon Paris:

that can help you set benchmarks.

Shannon Paris:

Tell the story, understand the story you wanna well determine what story you wanna

Shannon Paris:

tell, understand from those insights, how well you're doing on that, and then adjust

Shannon Paris:

and experiment and then you can keep checking those and checking against those

Shannon Paris:

benchmarks that you set for yourself.

Erin Austin:

Yeah, that's amazing.

Erin Austin:

Like data and insights are, you know, basically 21st century gold, right?

Erin Austin:

I mean, everyone.

Erin Austin:

Wants to know what the data says, decisions.

Erin Austin:

They wanna know that the decisions are data backed.

Erin Austin:

And, uh, and, and we need that data.

Erin Austin:

I mean, even though like a lot of us and myself included, don't consider

Erin Austin:

myself as like someone like who's data driven, but at the end of the day,

Erin Austin:

like, yeah, you know, kind of am, you know, I'm looking at, you know, my

Erin Austin:

likes and my comments and my LinkedIn.

Erin Austin:

I'm looking at, you know, my email subscriber list and when you have

Erin Austin:

like another source such as the very sophisticated types of data

Erin Austin:

and the insights that you can get through the money networks community.

Erin Austin:

It really helps inform like really every part of your business.

Erin Austin:

And when we're looking at it in the context of building a company that is

Erin Austin:

scalable and saleable, which are real challenges, when you have a service based

Erin Austin:

business, when you have an expertise based business, like how will a potential

Erin Austin:

choir know that what you're doing can be replicated, you know, and having the data

Erin Austin:

is one of those ways you do it, like.

Shannon Paris:

Yeah.

Shannon Paris:

I see it play out that way.

Shannon Paris:

You know, where individuals in smaller businesses are doing it, and the proof

Shannon Paris:

in the pudding to me is the way I see it play out for bigger organizations.

Shannon Paris:

So we have some universities, nonprofits, huge organizations that have different

Shannon Paris:

kinds of communities on Mighty Networks,

Shannon Paris:

and they, they have to be able to tell that story.

Shannon Paris:

They have to be saying, this is like definitely engaging our

Shannon Paris:

stakeholders in a different way.

Shannon Paris:

And here's the, here's the industry benchmarks.

Shannon Paris:

And here's how we line up against that.

Shannon Paris:

They have to sell it to get the

Shannon Paris:

grant, to get continued backing for it, to get buy-in from the board, you

Shannon Paris:

know, just to get the, the, whether it's seed funding or whatever it is.

Shannon Paris:

I'm thinking of a small group of like four financial advisors, you

Shannon Paris:

know, Australia who Wanted to create a space for financial advisors to

Shannon Paris:

be able to connect with each other.

Shannon Paris:

And they started out in Facebook groups, started out in LinkedIn

Shannon Paris:

groups and all of the, the moderation.

Shannon Paris:

Here's another thing, the amount of moderation that has

Shannon Paris:

to happen in those spaces,

Shannon Paris:

unless you have a real tight handle on it, like of who you're letting in.

Shannon Paris:

But generally so often in social media, the object has been

Shannon Paris:

growth like in those groups.

Shannon Paris:

So like between the moderation and what their clients expected, their

Shannon Paris:

members wanted a premium experience.

Shannon Paris:

So they're like we have to get serious.

Shannon Paris:

They tried to build something on their own.

Shannon Paris:

It was expensive, it was clunky.

Shannon Paris:

So they were like, we're gonna do this.

Shannon Paris:

So another arm of this that I wanted to kind of introduce to you here as

Shannon Paris:

another way people are using communities nowadays, especially from the small

Shannon Paris:

business owner coach, like kind of segmented service providers, is at

Shannon Paris:

B2B model in a couple different ways.

Shannon Paris:

So for instance, this group of financial advisors, it's a free network

Shannon Paris:

for financial advisors.

Shannon Paris:

But the people who serve financial advisors wanna get

Shannon Paris:

in front of these people,

Shannon Paris:

right?

Shannon Paris:

So they're not selling their data, but if they have an event,

Shannon Paris:

these bigger companies can get in front of their membership, right.

Shannon Paris:

And be sponsors of a larger event that those members can then attend for.

Shannon Paris:

Right.

Shannon Paris:

So you now have an audience

Shannon Paris:

of 4,200, 10,000 people

Shannon Paris:

potentially could even be small.

Shannon Paris:

It could be 300, 400 people.

Shannon Paris:

Right.

Shannon Paris:

But they have those numbers in the data to show that.

Shannon Paris:

Or we have other B2B models where I'm thinking of a established,

Shannon Paris:

well known, leadership coach.

Shannon Paris:

And we have quite a few communities that are doing something similar

Shannon Paris:

to this, where they're business, coaching, leadership, coaching, career,

Shannon Paris:

coaching, ways of working coaching.

Shannon Paris:

And they're working with companies, you know.

Shannon Paris:

They're working with, uh, I'm gonna just make something Nike, right.

Shannon Paris:

But they create a subspace for Nike within their community.

Shannon Paris:

So Nike gets its own group where Nike employees get a curated, personalized

Shannon Paris:

experience for that company.

Shannon Paris:

And in some cases, the companies can be really involved in that space too.

Shannon Paris:

It's not just the coach delivering the content into that space,

Shannon Paris:

but they are charging a premium to that company.

Shannon Paris:

Because they've made the container.

Shannon Paris:

They've established the culture and now it's kind of like renting

Shannon Paris:

space and delivering their content.

Shannon Paris:

So it sort of expands what a community can be just in like, as far as being one

Shannon Paris:

dimensional with the activity feed, you can bring other players in and create

Shannon Paris:

a really beautiful experience for that company or organization and their people.

Erin Austin:

Yeah, that, that reminded me two, you gave two examples that

Erin Austin:

reminded me of a couple of things.

Erin Austin:

One on the access to the community.

Erin Austin:

You know, I have, um, experience in the market research field as well.

Erin Austin:

And you know, one of my clients, um, works mostly with like pharmaceutical

Erin Austin:

companies that, and they will need access to specialize either doctor,

Erin Austin:

um, populations or patient populations.

Erin Austin:

And they will have to go on to say, you know, a Facebook to find a sickle

Erin Austin:

cell anemia, like support group in order to find those patients.

Erin Austin:

And, uh, and so if you have a community that's, you know, this kind of specialized

Erin Austin:

population that people want access to.

Erin Austin:

That, that is another way for you to yeah.

Erin Austin:

You know, provide value to both parties, you know, providing access to your

Erin Austin:

community and your community, you know, giving them a voice in different ways.

Erin Austin:

Yeah.

Shannon Paris:

And a two way street kind of way without just

Shannon Paris:

selling your members' data.

Shannon Paris:

But like just saying like, Hey, we have, co-created something valuable

Shannon Paris:

here, and this might be interesting

Shannon Paris:

to you, you know, or some of those organizations are spinning up groups,

Shannon Paris:

like, you know, um, I'm thinking of a large health organization who spun

Shannon Paris:

up a group for frontline workers.

Shannon Paris:

Right.

Shannon Paris:

And so that has had some traction and some movement, even though these are

Shannon Paris:

very, very busy people, obviously, but now there's other organizations under

Shannon Paris:

their umbrella, you know, sub-organization that have seen what's happened here and

Shannon Paris:

are like, Hey, can you do that for me?

Shannon Paris:

You know?

Shannon Paris:

So yeah.

Shannon Paris:

I mean, there just goes in a lot of different ways, but I think

Shannon Paris:

there's transparency and, um, honoring of boundaries within that

Shannon Paris:

at the same time.

Shannon Paris:

Yeah.

Erin Austin:

And back to the selling your business element, like, you know,

Erin Austin:

when you program your own community.

Erin Austin:

I mean, that is, makes it very complicated to sell actually, cause people don't

Erin Austin:

wanna buy custom software unless, you know, there's something they can monetize

Erin Austin:

directly, but they don't want your, your background based on custom software.

Erin Austin:

Cuz then it's very hard for them to integrate it with whatever they're

Erin Austin:

doing or they have to undo it.

Erin Austin:

So when they have a, a, you know, if you, if they, if your community is based

Erin Austin:

on a SAS platform that they can just

Erin Austin:

acquire, beautiful.

Erin Austin:

beautiful

Shannon Paris:

It's turnkey.

Erin Austin:

Yes, exactly.

Erin Austin:

That is so much better than trying to figure out, what did they do here.

Shannon Paris:

Yeah.

Shannon Paris:

And I will say like, especially at the pro level, but even in, even in our business

Shannon Paris:

and community, um, tier one thing, I think that really differentiates many networks

Shannon Paris:

in at least in my experience over as both a customer and now as a, an employee

Shannon Paris:

is like, The level of service customer service, like the fact that you could hand

Shannon Paris:

something off, but there's a team that's been involved at the, at the software

Shannon Paris:

platform level that could help you take that on and turn it into something else

Shannon Paris:

is, is highly.

Shannon Paris:

Like, I mean, if I was taking on a new company and I knew that, cuz I, I mean,

Shannon Paris:

we see it in turn with clients, um, like with key, like say, you know, there's

Shannon Paris:

the founder and the visionary who's.

Shannon Paris:

Come up with the idea, but they're always gonna have implementers and there's

Shannon Paris:

often turnover in the implementers

Erin Austin:

Yes.

Erin Austin:

Mm-hmm

Shannon Paris:

and sometimes the founders are really removed from

Shannon Paris:

the day to day, but we're there to say, don't worry about this.

Shannon Paris:

We gotcha.

Shannon Paris:

We have some courses, you can take that DIY, you can have a call with us, multiple

Shannon Paris:

calls with us, we have the strategists and we have folks that you can talk to,

Shannon Paris:

you know, in a tech support hotline.

Shannon Paris:

Right?

Shannon Paris:

So like having that, knowing that that transition is possible,

Shannon Paris:

I think adds to that value

Shannon Paris:

as well.

Erin Austin:

Absolutely.

Erin Austin:

I love

Erin Austin:

that.

Erin Austin:

Well, as we start to wrap up, is there a number one tip you would give to the,

Erin Austin:

someone who's new to building community?

Erin Austin:

Like how do you get, I mean, I know as a strategist, it's the whole

Erin Austin:

experience, but how do you get started?

Shannon Paris:

Ooh, this is such a good question.

Shannon Paris:

How do you get started?

Shannon Paris:

I really, I I've used the term a few times throughout this call, but

Shannon Paris:

getting clear on that big purpose.

Shannon Paris:

It's the first place we start in our, we have a community design

Shannon Paris:

accelerator, that's a course you can take, but I come back to it.

Shannon Paris:

I came back to it in this call a few times,

Shannon Paris:

I come back to it in client calls all the time.

Shannon Paris:

What are the results and transformation you wanna take people towards and

Shannon Paris:

getting specific within that, right?

Shannon Paris:

You have to start there so that you understand who it is, that's coming

Shannon Paris:

in the door so that you can start messaging around that so that they

Shannon Paris:

can then self-identify that they are that person, that this is the place

Shannon Paris:

they should go to for those results and transformations and to save time

Shannon Paris:

and to, you know, make progress.

Shannon Paris:

So.

Shannon Paris:

I think getting really clear on why would you bring people together?

Shannon Paris:

I've, I've talked with this few different folks in our, in our space

Shannon Paris:

where even though they've committed to the mighty networks platform,

Shannon Paris:

they're still thinking about it.

Shannon Paris:

Like it's just a place where I'm gonna throw my courses

Erin Austin:

Mm.

Erin Austin:

Mm-hmm

Shannon Paris:

and I'm like, it's not built for that.

Shannon Paris:

It's built to have community around and conversation around that.

Shannon Paris:

So, you know, redirecting them towards.

Shannon Paris:

That.

Shannon Paris:

Why would somebody come in there?

Shannon Paris:

Why is anybody gonna log in to one more place and hang

Shannon Paris:

out in one more online space?

Shannon Paris:

It's gotta be about that

Shannon Paris:

big purpose.

Erin Austin:

Right.

Erin Austin:

I love that.

Erin Austin:

Well, thank you.

Erin Austin:

So as you may know, uh, hourly to exit, we are committed to helping build

Erin Austin:

an economy that works for everyone.

Erin Austin:

And so we love to talk about people's favorite charitable organizations

Erin Austin:

that further the mission.

Erin Austin:

And so I'm wondering if there is one that you would like to.

Shannon Paris:

Yeah, absolutely.

Shannon Paris:

Um, I am on the board of an organization called revolution, Lancaster I think

Shannon Paris:

it's revolution, lancaster.com.

Shannon Paris:

we are social enterprise working with women who are experiencing transition

Shannon Paris:

and homelessness, and we are working together on learning jewelry making

Shannon Paris:

skills, and they craft jewelry,

Shannon Paris:

and then we sell that jewelry wholesale and retail.

Shannon Paris:

We have an e-com site, and so it's really an opportunity to make supplemental income

Erin Austin:

Fantastic.

Shannon Paris:

The reason I also love it because a big part

Shannon Paris:

of the mission is community.

Shannon Paris:

It's also about not feeling isolated, getting together with other women who are

Shannon Paris:

experiencing similar things as you and learning, it's a workshop that happens

Shannon Paris:

every week and the women come together.

Shannon Paris:

And so they get to know each other and can swap stories, et cetera.

Shannon Paris:

So

Erin Austin:

sounds

Shannon Paris:

what I'm passionate about.

Erin Austin:

fantastic.

Erin Austin:

Are you you're in Lancaster Pennsylvania.

Shannon Paris:

Yeah.

Shannon Paris:

Uh,

Erin Austin:

So, uh, is there a offer of perhaps that you might like

Erin Austin:

to share with our exit community

Shannon Paris:

I didn't come with an offer, but you can always visit mighty

Shannon Paris:

networks.com to find out more information.

Shannon Paris:

Everything's on there.

Shannon Paris:

It's a pretty cool website, uh, so you can learn all about the different

Shannon Paris:

product pricings and things like that.

Shannon Paris:

We also have a mighty community.

Shannon Paris:

So you could experience the software yourself and become involved in the

Shannon Paris:

conversations that other mighty hosts are having inside our mighty community.

Erin Austin:

And so where can people find you if they wanna find out more?

Shannon Paris:

Oh yeah.

Shannon Paris:

You can find me on LinkedIn, Shannon dash Paris.

Erin Austin:

Well, this has been wonderful.

Erin Austin:

Thank you so much.

Erin Austin:

I know everyone got a lot of value out of today and I hope they think about

Erin Austin:

community differently and, uh, and understand the real value, both social

Erin Austin:

and economic value in having community.

Erin Austin:

So

Shannon Paris:

Yes, Erin, thank you for opening up this conversation.

Shannon Paris:

It was exciting to learn where you're at and what you're bringing into the world,

Shannon Paris:

and the fact that you brought community into that conversation is so exciting.

Shannon Paris:

So thank you.

Shannon Paris:

I

Shannon Paris:

appreciate it.

Shannon Paris:

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About your host

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Erin Austin

Meet Erin Austin, a Harvard Law alum with over 25 years of copyright and contracts experience. As the go-to advisor for professionals with corporate clients, Erin empowers entrepreneurs to be their own advocates, standing out for her commitment to transforming expertise into empires through the creation, protection and leveraging of intellectual property assets. Explore her blend of legal expertise and entrepreneurial insight on ThinkBeyondIP.com and the "Hourly to Exit" podcast. Off the clock, you'll find Erin in the great outdoors or connecting with business coaches to elevate 6-figure consultants into 7-figure powerhouses.