Started my Meaningful Relationships community about 5 weeks ago. I’m up to 18 members. 13 came from warm invites to people I know IRL, mostly through DM’s in Facebook messenger. At some point I need to count how many invites I sent out, maybe 40-50…? 4 from Skool conversations or discovery. One from a DM invite to a highly compatible person on LinkedIn (not in my network and no connections in common). I was able to do that by using the one month free trial for LinkedIn Pro. I’m trying out looking at my LinkedIn Contacts. If they are a suitable person to invite, I invite them to my group and/or I look at their contacts and send a message (click the connect button and add a message to your request to connect) to people whose profile seems like the kind of person I am wanting in my group, I also mention our mutual connections. I’m not sure how effective it will be, so far not a lot of responses with that method, but it is pretty easy to do and it’s free. I have also rejected about 4 join requests from likely spammers. I’ve only done one short YouTube. My plan is to start doing one per week. 1. My strategy has been to first fill my group with people who are highly compatible, create good culture, good connections, and a sense of combined purpose. And also encouraging people whenever possible to invite people they know. So far people aren’t doing that yet, but I think they will as they settle in and see that they like the group, this will get easier if I upgrade to the Skool pro plan, because I can promote using an affiliate link, but with no paying subscribers, it doesn’t make sense yet. 2. Later (or on the way) I’ll work to magnetize a larger community of people, this will make more and more sense as I get more clear on my offers and build out my course material and create the demand for my coaching/teaching. 2. My goal is that the long-term success of the group (as it gets bigger) and profitable will be that it brings personal, financial, and reputational benefit to the founding members and value, learning and connection to the community as a whole.

Congratulations! Well deserved Brian. You work hard and provide honest and valuable guidance and a space where we can grow along with you and from each other’s experience.

Skool

@Brian O'Neill I like pulling up perplexity when I'm trying to figure something out that I know will be on a website(s). I know the other ones have caught up on this aspect as well, but perplexity seems pretty suited for internet searching, summarizing, and explaining.

@Michelle Fuentes i’d rather ask a dummy question than not know 🤔What’s a SOAP?

As always, super clear and actionable message. Wouldn’t there be a problem of getting lots of people into a community without much to offer?Then most people would probably just ghost the group right? So it seems that to some degree you need to have good stuff put together from the start and then work through the process you’re talking about. I’m just thinking about how this works... I’m sure I’m missing something though.

@Brian O'Neill "The community is the product, not the classroom." Thank you, that wording nailed it, and is consistent with what I've seen you teach!