On Belonging. Or, how to build community.
We have been having a lot of conversations recently with companies that want to build a community. Not just a brand. The answer is simple. You don’t. You build a brand instead.
I mean, sure, you can have a great go-to-market strategy and a client acquisition program in place. But none of this will lead to anything like a community (or last) unless you build a brand first.
A good community gathers around collective values. People want to be part of something, they want to feel seen and understood. There is usually an aspirational side to it, but essentially, we all just want to belong.
But since almost every company tries to build community these days, the offers to belong to something are endless, which means, we chose carefully since time goes exponentially down while offers go up - we are busy!
By building a brand first, you create a north star for people to follow. A super clear mission, vision, and values, communicated inwardly and outwardly, in a very consistent manner, is what pulls people in and connects. That’s what gives people a chance to feel seen and understood, and that in turn builds community. A community without a deeper purpose of how and why people connect with one another will never be a community. You have to be willing to exclude people to create this sense of belonging, nothing is for everyone. And that can work in two ways, either by starting small and inviting a very curated list of people who share your values and maintaining that integrity at all times or by communicating from such a singleminded, clear brand voice (visually and verbally, internally and externally) that the right people will automatically want to be a part of it.
It is the art of gathering. It is enlightened hospitality. And really, it is all about how you make people feel.
“In the end, what’s most meaningful is creating positive, uplifting outcomes for human experiences and human relationships. Business, like life, is all about how you make people feel. It’s that simple, and it’s that hard.”
― Danny Meyer, Setting the Table: The Transforming Power of Hospitality in Business
Much Love, Tim & Lisa
