🔎 10 Rules To Choosing A Community Topic

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Jun 24 (edited) in Other

This is gonna be a long one... but if you are lost when it comes to starting your own community here on Skool.. I promise this will help and be worth the read 🙏

“The wealthiest place on the planet is just down the road. It is the cemetery. There lie buried companies that were never started, inventions that were never made, bestselling books that were never written, and masterpieces that were never painted. In the cemetery is buried the greatest treasure of untapped potential.” - Myles Munroe

If you’re not growing you’re dying, and your dreams within you. We have an unknown time here in life, so we must focus on growing every single day. When you feel overwhelmed, it is a sign of growth, doing something new, and taking action on the things that challenge you.

Overwhelm keeps more people trapped in their comfort zones than anything else, but we have to learn to embrace it. Comfort Zones = Graveyard of all dreams.

The good news is that we can relieve the pressure of the overwhelm by just focusing on the first step.

1️⃣ Rule #1 - Take The Pressure Off

Let’s zoom out from planet earth a bit and look at the tiny spec we are in an infinite void of dust. It helps relieve the pressure of our tiny universe going on in front of our eyes. In the grand scheme of things, what we do is not so serious but we make it out to be that way. We tend to put so much pressure on every decision we make that we end up delaying taking the actions we know we must.

So let’s state the facts.

No one starts with an audience or knowing what they can possibly start selling from the get go. We must discover it by bringing people together first. It will be much more enjoyable if you actually like hanging out with these people and get excited to wake up and see what everyone is up to.

“A big part of the pressure comes from this idea that you have to get it right the first time. In reality, it never works that way. Your original idea is almost guaranteed to be different than the thing you do a year or two from now. Start now and the next thing will show up when you are ready. So get your wrong idea out as fast as you can. And simply make it less wrong over time. Until eventually it’s so little wrong that it’s actually right.” - Alex Hormozi

What if you just take imperfect action and try something new? Instead of overthinking what to create a community about, choose ONE thing that you can talk about every day, something that lights you up. Who knows… that could be the one thing that takes off! Worst case, you now know exactly how to do this because you removed the pressure from yourself and got out of your head.

My goal in this post is to help you narrow it down, but keep in mind, starting is better than doing nothing. Start it and refine it!

Take these next 30 days to master skill sets that have taken me over a decade to learn the hard way because I was in my own head, and you will have everything you need to invite the next thing in.

That is the #1 secret. It’s not that serious… but what we do while we are here for the people we get to know is serious, but it gets to be fun and something we enjoy. That is Fulltime Freedom!

2️⃣ Rule #2 - You Don’t Need To Be An Expert

"It's better to be interested than interesting."

People try to lead by being interesting, but the truth is you become interesting when you show that you are interested. Become genuinely more interested in others because most people are not, and when you become this, people will start paying more attention.

When I look back on what actually worked for me after failing online for 7 years… I switched ONE thing. I stopped trying to be an expert that I knew I wasn’t. I stopped trying to be interesting. I stopped trying to sell everything to anyone and I began to listen.

"People don't care how much you know until they know how much you care.”

C - Get CURIOUS about people

A - Be AUTHENTICALLY you

R - Law of RECIPROCITY

E - ENROLL people to become a great version of themselves.

It is easier to become curious about people that share similar values and beliefs as you. So we must discover our own values and beliefs first, then share opening in the markets that our ideal audience is already congregating.

Traffic is not the problem, there are 8 billion people on this planet. Traffic is everywhere, we just need to know where to find them, share our message (get them to see their story through your own story), and the right people will be attracted to you and what you are doing.

Care about them and their story and watch everything to begin unfolding for the future you are creating.

Again, you do not have to be an expert to create a community. There are 3 other approaches you can take starting out.

4 Approaches To Leading A Community:

The Leader (Expert) - Leaders are attractive characters who lead their audience confidently and unapologetically from point A to point B. They know how to inspire their followers and they tell compelling stories that influence their followers to take action. The leader has a similar backstory to their followers (which makes them relatable) and so they also understand the pitfalls and challenges that their audience will face along the way. But the leader has already achieved the result that the audience wants to achieve. They provide the guidance, empathy, and clarity needed to help their followers do the same.

2. The Adventurer - The adventurer or crusader persona is much more scrappy than the leader. They don’t have all the answers… and they don’t pretend to. But their journey and their determination to get the answers is compelling to people who want the results this attractive character is trying to achieve. This persona gives his audience a lot of attention and provides new valuable information and insights as he comes by it.

The Journalist - If you can’t think of someone to be your attractive character who can provide your audience with the answers and stories they need, then the reporter is a great option. This persona puts on the hat of a reporter or researcher and sets out to find the answers they don’t already have. Maybe they interview hundreds of people. Whatever the case, as they’re growing and learning, they’re taking their audience along with them. Becoming a reporter is a great way to start a business in a niche you don’t know much about.

The Reluctant Hero - This is the humble hero who doesn’t really want the spotlight or any fuss made over their discoveries and results. But they know the information that they have is so important that they must overcome their shyness and share it with the world.

3️⃣ Rule #3 - Questions That Invite Revelation

The best thing you can do to find clarity is ask yourself questions that you may have not before sat down and really gone deep on. When I was trying to figure out the topic for my first community, these questions helped me find clarity in my decision for a starting point.

What did you go to school for? What do you have experience in?
What do you do professionally right now? What do you like most about it?
What else have you done for work in the past? What did you like most about it?
What types of questions do family and friends ask you about?
Do you have hobbies / interests?
What are you doing when you feel most alive?
What can you talk about for hours without a problem?
What could you teach every single day?
What life experiences have you overcome?
Who can you help most by speaking your truth?
What do you want to become known for?

4️⃣ Rule #4 - Ikigai

Ikigai is a Japanese concept that means "reason for being". The word is a combination of iki, which means "life," and gai, which means "value" or "worth". Ikigai is a structured approach to finding your purpose and living a meaningful life. It involves exploring the intersection of four primary elements:

What you love: Your passion
What the world needs: Your mission
What you are good at: Your vocation
What you can get paid for: Your profession

The key is not to focus too deeply on this, it will come, but only by STARTING with one idea, even if you know it is not what you love, what the world needs most, what you’re good at (yet) or what you can get paid for. All of that will come with time, so how do we find a starting point?

5️⃣ Rule #5 - Start With Where You Are At

Let’s talk about logic vs passion. Even if you know your passion and what you want most in life, in some cases, it may not be the best starting point but rather something we must work towards and find a way to build the vehicle that can fund the passion project.

Some passions can be very monetizable... some are better off being served through the logical idea you have. For example, my passion is bringing my community together and building homes for our Mission 100 Homes for families in need... not a thing I care to make money with. I use the logical vehicle of teaching client acquisition to fund that passion. Don't get me wrong, I love marketing and business, still a passion but it's the vehicle that serves the why. Sometimes starting with the path that is more profitable out of the get go can lead to building something bigger with the passion. I would have to get a bit more details to share my thoughts but you have the right idea.

Level 10 - Finding Your Starting Point At Level 1

Profession, pain, passion.

Most of us start in a job (profession) or solving a current problem (pain) we are seeking a solution to for ourselves. Oftentimes when we find the solution, this becomes what we help others with (passion). For me, trying to start with the passion was super overwhelming and had me in a spiral of self sabotage before I could even start. Then I realized that I just have to start with where I was at… level 1.

(See image below for a better understanding of what I am going to describe here)

Level 1 for me was my reality of working as a restaurant server 7 days a week on doubles. It felt like a catch 22 because I hated it, but I knew I needed to learn to love the process and where it was leading me to next. It was that very pain I felt that got me to start thinking about what I could do to start an online business. Because I didn’t feel like I had any specific skills, I took what I knew (restaurants) and took what I wanted to learn more about (Marketing) and began to explore my options.

So I focused on the fastest path to selling something online which was selling other people’s products. (Network marketing, white label / master reselling rights, and affiliate marketing).

I gained a ton of skills and knowledge from failing forward over the years of doing this.

But I realized I was RELIANT on other people and decided to take my skills and create my own offer.

That is when I took ownership and created an offer that can help restaurant owners get what they want (more customers) by providing a service to them (marketing and advertising).

A few months in, I was getting great results but I decided that it would be very hard to scale doing done for you services, so I expanded my audience and decided to create a course about what I was doing. Sales Funnel Mastery was born (my first community).

4 years later that has evolved to the Fulltime Freedom Brand (Community Creators Club, Audience & Offer Mastery, and Audience Conversion Academy).

Through this, I have found a passion for bringing people together, help them build something that gets them out of being reliant on an income source that is mostly out of their control, and build something that will create Fulltime Freedom for their family.

Now we are building homes together for a bigger cause that I am passionate about.

But do I know my level 10 purpose and passion? I feel like I am getting closer but still not 100% clear.

I know by staying the path, I will discover what that passion really is.

6️⃣ Rule #6 - Choose A Market & Niche

Every person on the planet is looking to get out of some kind of pain and working towards experiencing pleasure in life. Every experience can be categorized into one of these three markets/buckets.

Getting clear on the specific market you serve is the first step to discovering your niche. The more specific you can get right now the better, but understand that this isn’t as important as just starting… your community will show you where to niche down to.

What do I mean by specific?

Example, if you have a heart problem you’re not going to go to a family practitioner, you are going to find a heart specialist. So over time, my goal is to help you become the specialist that is known for solving the problem in your market.

Market: Health, Wealth, Relationship

(Let's use “Wealth” as the example)

Sub Markets: Finances, Investing, Real Estate, Make Money Online (and many more)

(Let's use “Make Money Online” as the example)

Niche: Affiliate Marketing, Ecommerce, Agency Services, Infoproducts

(Let's use “Affiliate Marketing” as the example)

Sub-Niche: MRR, ClickFunnels, GoHighLevel, Skool

(Let's use “Skool” as the example)

Who You Can Help: I help online business owners create profitable communities using Skool.

7️⃣ Rule #7 - Start with “Who” not “How”

When you get clear on who you help, they will show you how they want to be helped.

The best people to start with:

People like you
People like you’ve helped before
People you think are underserved
Or a combination of the above

Create your Customer Avatar:

Demographics (Age, Gender, Profession, Problem, Interests)

Psychographics (Values and attitudes, personality traits, lifestyle, activities, values, beliefs, opinions)

Enter Their Mind: (Challenges, Goals, Fears, Desires, Objections)

Name them, vision what they look like, where do they live, marital status, # of children, where are they already hanging out, what courses are they buying, what books are they reading, what websites are they visiting, what gurus are they following, what conferences are they attending, what software are they using, what do they value, what do they believe, what interests them, introverted or extroverted, what are their hobbies, what opinions do they hold, what are they challenges by, what are their goals, what do they fear, what do they desire, what are their limiting beliefs, what are their objections, what questions to they often ask.

The more like-minded people you bring to your community the more you are going to get clear on the above over time.

8️⃣ Rule #8 - Your Story Is Their Story

Struggles vs Accomplishments

Take a piece of paper and make two columns. Label one side struggles and label the other accomplishments. List out all of the things you have struggled with in life in the left column. List out all of the accomplishments you have achieved in life so far. When you do this, you will start to find ideas that you can help people who currently struggle with something that you have solved and accomplished something great.

When I first did this, one of my biggest struggles was trying to make money online with Clickfunnels. At the time, one of my most proud accomplishments was becoming a ClickFunnels Dream Car winner. That is when I started to focus on helping Clickfunnels users who want to make a living online with their affiliate program and guided them to the result of becoming a Dream Car Winner by helping them get 100 sign ups to ClickFunnels.

Think about what you help them achieve vs what you help them avoid and provide a plan to accelerate them towards the results they desire.

Go share your story and tell it in a way that gets them to see their story in your story. They see your past struggles being their current struggles and they see your results as the results they are looking to achieve.

9️⃣ Rule #9 - Who vs Ideal Who

Think about those that you can help and narrow it down to those who have a high impact problem that you can solve through your skillsets. Solve the problem that will make a substantial impact in their life if we do solve this pain for them.

“Ideal Who” are those who are easy to reach online. Are there communities for them already that exist? Who has the most pain and suffering that you can solve? Whose pain and suffering do you understand the most? Who has the money to invest and are willing to pay you to take the pain away?

High Impact Problem: The #1 problem they face, that if solved, would relieve all or most of the other problems they face.

They are easy to find online
They have a high impact problem
You can solve their high impact problem
You understand and can easily communicate their problem.
They have the money to invest and are willing to pay to solve the problem.

🔟 Rule #10 - Model What Works

Finding Inspiration & “Community Hacking” is going to become one of the simplest ways to start your own community. There is no competition! Just because someone else is doing it, know that they cannot reach everyone. There is a percent of the market that will not resonate with them or anyone else, they are waiting for YOU and the community you will build together.

Think about the number of people who are already teaching what I teach and how many more (maybe even you reading this) that will follow in the future. They cannot reach the billions of people who can find Skool and create communities of their own. I alone cannot reach the billions of people either. We are in this together.

Join the communities who are already doing what you wish to do. Show up every day and serve the community, add value, ask questions, document your journey, share your wins, and get known. You will soon see that there are things you love, and things that you feel are missing. Take what you love and go bring it to your people in your own unique way. Solve the gap of what you feel is missing and you will build something amazing for your community.

➕ Bonus Rule: Create Your Unique Differentiator

Over time, you’ll start to see a pattern in your process. It'll become your unique process and framework.

When I look back at what we are really doing with communities, and solving the problem of “turning free audience members into loyal customers”... it is because of the “automated community ascension model” we have designed in our own unique way and naming convention.

“I help online business owners create profitable communities using Skool by guiding them in installing the “Automated Community Ascension” model into their own businesses.”

🔥 Reminder:

This takes time. The only way to find clarity is to commit today, take control of your situation, take imperfect action, and just start knowing that things will change and evolve over time.

Create a community about something you enjoy talking about, knowing that this will probably more than likely not be the thing that makes money (but it could… who knows)... but you WILL gain a ton of momentum, experience, skills, and meet a lot of like minded people who will show guide you to your next level.

🛑 Action Steps 🛑