Vision, Mission, and Values Part 3: Creating a Mission Statement
In my last post, I shared a process for creating a vision for your organization. What type of world do you want to create? If everything goes right, the vision will be the final result of all your efforts. I referred to this as the mountain you want to climb. Now that you are clear […]
Vision, Mission, and Values Part 2: Creating a Vision
When you ask yourself, “What mountain do we want to climb?” What you are really asking is, “What big problem would we love to solve?” Or, “What kind of world would we love to live in?” If everything went right over the next 1, 3, 5, or 10 years, what would you have solved through […]
Vision, Mission, and Values: Part 1
One of my best friends moved 2000 miles away from me to set up a new life with his family in Colorado. Needless to say, we knew we had to find ways to stay connected. So we decided to plan an adventure trip together and settled on climbing a mountain. Neither of us had any […]
How To Run A Strategy Retreat For Your Organization
It didn’t take long for the celebratory election smiles to fade to confusion and fear as we realized we didn’t know what we would do for the next 12 months. Six people, including myself, were elected into leadership positions in our local National Speaker’s Association chapter. We accepted our new task of running the chapter […]
Dirty Marketing: The Negative Impact of Mixing Marketing with Relationship Building in Business Communities
It felt like he had just dropped a dirty towel into our perfectly purified community, and it didn’t sit right with me or anyone else in the group. As a forum moderator for a community of business owners, I facilitate peer groups for members to learn and grow from each other. For example, one section […]
How To Spot Trending Leaders In Your Community And Keep Them Engaged
I was paying thousands of dollars but wasn’t engaged at all; therefore, I was not getting any value. Two years ago, I received an invitation to join a fatherhood community. Although I paid my membership fees on time each month, I wasn’t very active in the group. It wasn’t a priority for me at the […]
The Key To Successfully Closing Down Your Community
Our regular uplifting monthly meeting had a dark cloud of sadness lingering over it because I felt like I had to say goodbye to eight friends all at once. For the past two years, a community of e-commerce business owners hired us to grow and engage their members. I facilitated several of their monthly meetings, […]
Growing a Community is Never Passive
What started as the magic ingredient needed to save their community became a logistical nightmare. Through a mutual connection, the head of a large community of e-commerce sellers invited me to lunch. The purpose of the meeting was to see if we could help them buck their negative member retention rates. The organization had steadily […]
The Three Core Principles of Member Engagement that Apply To Every Community
Even though I can hold my breath for over three minutes, what could I possibly teach the U.S. Military about engaging their Marines? Marines are known for swimming for hours in freezing cold water while holding heavy weights above their head. I’m known for Free Hugs and my love of peanut butter. So when the […]
Why Strong Communities Have Secret Internal Languages
I joined a virtual community that I thought was about being a better parent, but seeing everyone with bingo numbers in their name almost made me leave, thinking I had entered the wrong zoom room. As a parent, I’m constantly thinking about how to be better because just when I think I’ve mastered the game, […]