People Magic: How to Build a $1M Community

Content seems to be king right now but in order to build for the future you want to focus on relationships. We are told to create more and more content but it’s more beneficial to create the least amount of content so you can focus your time on building relationships with other people. The minimal amount of content you build every week opens up your time to create connections that can change your trajectory and theirs. Organize a dinner, go to a conference. Your content can still be a part of what you make but make sure it’s in service of facilitating what’s really important, your relationships.

When you are building a business you want it to take on a life of its own so it can continue to grow without you having to constantly sell as you would with an e-commerce business. That’s a flywheel. A flywheel starts to build momentum of other people taking actions, other members providing value for each other and other members bringing in more members. In today’s episode Gina breaks down the meaning of a Flywheel business and why it’s a nearly perfect business.

With uncertainty at work, there’s no better time to start your side hustle than right now. But if you’re like most people you’re probably asking yourself, “where do I find the time?” In today’s episode, Gina breaks down how she carves out time. Don’t worry, it’s not about inventing more time but rather replacing a time suck with something more productive. Because building an additional revenue stream gives you more flexibility and your family more flexibility to do what you want to do. Why not start now?

It’s really hard to venture out on your own as a business owner or an entrepreneur because we are making it up as we go along. In this episode, Gina shares one of her favorite goals and goal setting exercises as well as which traps to avoid. The more clarity you have when it comes to building your future, the more likely it is that the future you’re working towards will become your reality. Happy New Year to you AND your future story.

Martinus Evans is a motivational speaker and resilience coach dedicated to inspiring organizations and individuals to embrace personal and professional transformation. With a powerful message rooted in overcoming adversity, Martinus turns challenges into relatable, actionable lessons that drive change in everyday lives.  His own journey began ten years ago when a doctor told him to "lose weight or die." Refusing to accept the stigma, Martinus boldly declared, “Screw walking, I’ll run a marathon.” Since then, he has completed over 100 races, including 8 marathons, graced the cover of Runner’s World, become a spokesperson for Adidas, and founded Slow AF Run Club, the world’s largest inclusive community for back-of-the-pack runners, reshaping the perception of what a runner can be. ABOUT MIGHTY NETWORKS Mighty Networks is the ONLY community platform that introduces your members to each other—for extraordinary engagement, longer retention, and word-of-mouth growth. You can run memberships, courses, challenges, and events on a Mighty Network—all under your own brand on mobile and web.

Everyone gets burnt out but understanding when you’re feeling depleted and need to take a break is so important. Having the ability to look at yourself and your energy critically and being able to make adjustments is vital for longevity because we are all only human. In today’s episode Gina lets us into what she does when she is feeling burnt out and how she refocuses her attention. You get to decide what is possible and impossible and the people you surround yourself with will help you dream bigger and be more ambitious. That’s the power of community. That’s the power of taking time off. Happy holidays.

So many people are ambivalent about starting a community out of fear. Great news. Mighty has a great alternative than a hard launch of a community. Before committing to hosting a community for the next year, try a 30 day challenge. Through a 30 day challenge you will learn, workshop and get more clear about the community you’re working towards. Additionally, you’ll get to practice charging people along with hosting a live event and even offering a course. You will learn more by doing a 30 day challenge than if you keep kicking the can down the road of an idea that could be a great community.

Sometimes we can get really excited about the social rank of our members, and we can lose focus on the thing that keeps people engaged…transitions. When identifying transitions, it helps you be able to articulate the benefits and results your member is going to get will get them their best year ever. Once you have a clear transition, you can go deep on monthly themes and daily questions. Your members will see progress when the value is clear.

Communities are really forgiving and they’re a great place to try something new and make mistakes. The whole concept of workshopping is for when you’re stuck and need help. In today’s episode Gina breaks down how your members can help you build the path forward for where they want to go next. You don’t want to be the host that lets their community decide everything, communities want someone to build the framework but growing and evolving together can be energizing and fun.

When building a community that is something that you’re charging, understanding what you can give to people that are helping you is really important. Sometimes we have the capitol at the beginning stages of building something new and sometimes we don’t. In this episode Gina breaks down how she would approach bringing someone on without paying them or making them a business partner. It’s tricky but being really clear about expectations is so important and it’s a lot more similar to people magic than you might think.

If you’re stuck in a workshopping loop there is only one solution. Try. In today’s episode Gina talks about taking those next steps forward so you can learn if something works or if it doesn’t. One of the best ways to get out of a workshopping loop is to lean on what your big purpose is for your ideal member. Chances are, if you’ve taken the masterclass, you already know what you need to do. So take the next step, and then the next step. Through that process, you’ll learn.

Gina believes that feedback is a gift, but not all feedback is valuable. It’s up to you to make that distinction. Being open to receiving feedback is a lot easier when you know where you want to go and you’re able to take time to workshop what’s working and what’s not. In this episode, Gina breaks down why she would rather be embarrassed than afraid and how that is tied to being open to receiving unsolicited advice from people on the internet.

When focusing on your ideal member who is going through a transition it’s easy to get stuck in the… What’s next? In this episode Gina does a deep dive in how to scale your business after you’ve helped someone with a transition by growing your community alongside them. Your community can have different levels and your founding members can help you navigate where people in your community grow. Not only do we want to help our community members succeed but we also want our communities to evolve.

The biggest challenge with a newsletter and an audience based business is that you are missing out on connecting people within your community and making your life easier. While an email newsletter seems easier, you’re still creating a lot of work. As more and more people create newsletters, people don’t have the time to read them and it makes it harder to stand out. Retention and scale is really hard when all you’re solely creating is content. Creating People Magic through community is scalable.

When we do something alone it feels so much more stressful. It’s easier to get overwhelmed or feel like a victim of circumstance. That’s why a co host could be a great 50/50 partnership or it might look a little different... In today’s episode Gina reframes how we delegate and approach building relationships and communities. Look, we are all more distracted than ever which makes meeting people even more challenging. In addition to having a co host, we can rely more on software, and yes, AI, to help bring people together.

You don’t need one thousand members to make your community highly profitable and highly valuable for its members. Your people and your people's people are enough to start. You want your founding members to also be highly motivated to be in your community. If you feel like you have to convince someone to join, they probably aren’t your ideal member, let alone your founding member. The pitch is: we’re going to build something amazing together, so that we can create our best year ever.

Everyone gets burnt out but understanding when you’re feeling depleted and need to take a break is so important. Having the ability to look at yourself and your energy critically and being able to make adjustments is vital for longevity because we are all only human. In today’s episode Gina lets us into what she does when she is feeling burnt out and how she refocuses her attention. You get to decide what is possible and impossible and the people you surround yourself with will help you dream bigger and be more ambitious. That’s the power of community.

Knowing who you are serving is the first step towards growing your business. If you’re not clear about who your audience is, you can get clear by finding the people who need your community the most right now and who you’re the most excited to bring together. Being profitable within the first week of launching is possible but you should not make a huge investment if you do not have clarity around who you’re serving and why.

It’s really hard to venture out on your own as a business owner or an entrepreneur because we are making it up as we go along. In this episode, Gina shares one of her favorite goals and goal setting exercises as well as which traps to avoid. The more clarity you have when it comes to building your future, the more likely it is that the future you’re working towards will become your reality.

If you’re finding yourself at zero and aren’t sure where to start, this episode is for you. When starting with zero the single best thing you can get clear on is your ideal member. Who needs your community the most right now and who are you the most excited to bring together? Remember, it’s not about your content or your social media following. You can start with your network. and as you start to bring together the first 10 people, and then your first 10 people’s people, your community will grow.