if you're copying someone else's formula, there is no way you stand out. templates are great. "what works" is great. but when your community looks like everyone else's, you compete on price. and competing on price is a race to the bottom. not the race you want to be in. John Hegarty wrote it on a Levi's ad in 1982: "when the world zigs, zag." a black sheep walking against a flock of white ones. that's the whole strategy. especially when you're starting out — focus on what other people don't do. automations save you time. i use them. but they suck the soul out of interactions. they'll save you hours and keep you dry. your goal in the beginning isn't efficiency. it's to get people to love you. to turn them into ambassadors. the famous 100-1000 true fans. the key word is FANS, not the number. you don't get fans by being optimized. you get fans by doing the crazy stuff nobody else will bother with. here's what that looks like for me: - everyone celebrates wins. i celebrate failures. - people run calls in their own time zone. i run mine to catch my APAC friends and my US/Canada friends. even if one person shows up in the Community Income Mastermind. - i send personal welcome messages, not automated ones. and when i do send an automated message, i tell you it's automated. - i offer 1:1 welcome calls in a free community. makes zero sense on a spreadsheet. makes total sense to the person on the call. - i publish my real numbers - conversion rates, retention, the maths - including the unflattering ones. - i answer questions with a recorded video when a text reply would take two minutes. because you hearing my voice is worth more than my two minutes. none of this my competitors do. that's the point. when you do what others won't or don't, you stop competing on price. you become UNIGNORABLE. you stand the f*ck out. what do you already do differently?