Introduction
I sat down at my computer ready to work. I opened up the Word document. I put my fingers on the keyboard and stared at a blank screen. I needed to figure out what my offer for my audience would be, but I wasn’t quite sure where to start. I was considering a few different approaches, but hadn’t decided what path was the right one to take.
I was excited, but sitting alone at my desk wasn’t helping anything. I realized that I needed to get help from my community of entrepreneurs, so despite primarily responding to posts in specific groups of entrepreneurs, I decided to actually make a post, ask for ideas and thoughts, you know what happened, clarity. I didn’t take all of the ideas that were offered on my post, but I did recognize those ideas. What I was able to do was get my brain going, here’s some new perspectives, and this connection with my community helped me to choose which path to take on the offer that I was creating and get down to work.
Having a community of like-minded entrepreneurs is not a want. It’s a need.
As a business owner, even if you are a solopreneur, that doesn’t mean that you have to do everything in a vacuum. Reaching out and connecting with other entrepreneurs was what turned the tie to my business and allowed me to move forward. My question for you today is, do you have a community that you rely on? If the answer’s yes, great, if the answer’s no, you can still get that done. You can still find a community, so let’s spend our time together on the podcast talking about community for your entrepreneurial journey.
If you are ready, grab your pen, grab your paper, and let’s dive in.
Benefits of an Entrepreneurial Community
Have you ever been at a family gathering out to dinner with your friends or even at your child’s practice or rehearsal and the other adults there start talking about their jobs?
We’ve all been there. The conversation turns to you and it’s your turn to chime in about your job, except you are an entrepreneur and you don’t have a cranky boss, an insufferable commute, endless meetings that could have been solved with a single email or any of the other horror stories that you’ve just heard. You are an entrepreneur. You work for yourself. You commute to your home office. The meetings on your schedule are the ones that you personally deemed necessary for your business. Not to mention, you are the only entrepreneur in your group, and it’s hard to explain the struggles you’re experiencing, like creating your latest offer so that it’s irresistible or crafting your new webinar presentation and then creating a warm-up sequence to make sure that your audience is ready to join you for the webinar in a month.
The reality is that you start talking about these things and the glazed over eyes become a real thing. What you need is a community of entrepreneurs. You need to be able to talk about the webinar, the offer, the struggle of staying focused in your home office when the laundry has just chimed that it needs to be moved from the washer to the dryer.
Today we are going to talk about the benefits of being part of an entrepreneurial community. Here’s the thing, being part of an entrepreneurial community does a lot of things for you as a business owner.
1. Being in an entrepreneurial community can offer you a lot of support and resources.
Think about when you decide that you need a new finance system or a new social media posting system.
If you belong to an entrepreneurial community, you can go to that set of people and say, here’s what I need. What do you guys like? What do you recommend? Instead of spending hours upon days, upon months researching all of the options, you can start with a narrowed down list. You still have to make the decision for yourself, but with that narrowed down list, with that support from an entrepreneurial community, guess what? You’re starting with a list of three instead of a list of 50.
2. You can also network and connect with others who do, who not only understand what you’re doing, what you’re trying to accomplish, but they’re going through the same things that you are.
They know what it’s like when you put your offer out there and maybe just one person buys it or they know what it’s like to have delays.
When you have a virtual assistant who isn’t doing what they said they would do by the date they said they would do it, they know what that’s like. They can commiserate, they can empathize, and they can also help you think of a way forward so that you don’t just get stuck. You can also network, which means you get your name out there.
You get to learn more about what others are doing. You get to be a part of something bigger than yourself.
3. Being in an entrepreneurial community can also help you find mentors and get advice when you have that tricky situation.
When you have that member in your membership who is asking for a refund after clearly having used all of the resources and your refund policy says, no refunds after a certain number of days, it’s well outside that number of days, but you can tell they are going to be the ones that go and write a horrible review. You can get advice about what to do in those situations so that you don’t just sit in your vacuum going back and forth about what to do.
You can get ideas and take action and move on so that you don’t get stuck on those things that don’t deserve any more of your time and attention. And that brings me to the next benefit of an entrepreneurial community.
4. It can help you stay focused because it’s a great place for accountability.
Someone who says, Hey, what are you going to work on this week? You tell them and the next week they say, Hey, what did you work? What did you get done? Did you get that thing done?
And everyone knows that if you have to admit to what you got done and what you didn’t, you are much more likely to get it done. To push that extra little bit to finish the task you said you would finish. The accountability also helps you create relationships because when someone knows inside and out what you’re going through, what you’re working on, they’ve seen you succeed week after week in getting something done, and then you show up to an accountability meeting and you haven’t finished your task. They know it’s not normal. They know to ask if you’re okay, what happened, how they can help. Because they know that every single week for the past 65 weeks, you have shown up with your task done. This time you didn’t. They know something’s wrong. When you have an entrepreneurial community, they are seeing those little things. They are able to connect. You can create those relationships, even if it’s virtual.
I am part of a co-working session that we meet Monday, Wednesdays and Thursdays at 6:00 AM and we work for 90 minutes. And you know when someone doesn’t show up, we know something’s wrong. Even though it’s 6:00 AM it’s not usually an I overslept because we are all excited to be there.
We’re ready to get our work done and commit to those 90 minutes, and so we know that something’s going on. If they don’t show up, we know that moment of I got sidetracked in the 90 minutes, and so we can help them reframe. Was it really getting sidetracked or was it realizing you had something more important to take care of that got taken care of?
Having that accountability is magic. It gets things done in a way that just simply writing a goal down doesn’t always do.
5. And the fact of the matter is that having an entrepreneurial community to rely on when your motivation is low, there are going to be others there to bolster you until you get the wind beneath you again.
They are gonna be the people that reach out and say, you know, what’s the next little step you can take? Or, Hey, I actually have this resource. It may help you right now, make things just a little bit easier and they’re willing to help. Or they say, what if I took over your social media for a day? Would that be helpful? Because they get exposure. You get a little bit of a break, you get a breather, and everyone wins. When you’re part of a community, these things naturally happen. These connections, these moments of support, of resources, of advice, of focus are built in. And if this is not enough, having support, resources, networking, connection with people who are going through the same thing, finding a mentor, seeking advice, staying focused, getting some help when your motivation is low, if all of that’s not enough.
6. Being part of an entrepreneurial community can help you find profitable business opportunities and partnerships.
I love the communities that I’m a part of because I find those partnerships, even if it’s not a paid partnership, it’s an opportunity to work with someone else’s audience or to provide value to someone else’s email list, and they do the same for yours. You know what happens? You both rise up. It’s not a competition, it’s a collaboration.
7. And when you collaborate, when you have this opportunity to work in an entrepreneurial community, the growth happens together. We all grow and lift up.
A rising tide raises all boats, right? Guess what?
In an entrepreneurial community, it is designed to raise everyone up, and because of that, you can grow your business faster with fewer missteps along the way. There are people there watching, offering ideas, listening when you need a listening ear and helping you get going. Again, the benefits of an entrepreneurial community are the all of these things and so much more. But I commit to keeping this podcast short.
So I’ll start with just those seven things that an entrepreneurial community can do for you. It is an opportunity to surround yourself with a growth possibility so that when you are at that dinner, that practice, that rehearsal, and others are talking about their cranky boss, their insufferable commute, the endless meetings, that could have just been a single email, you get to say, yeah I got together with my accountability group today, and we set our goals for the week, and we were able to kind of work through some problems, and I had an awesome co-working session with about 15 other people. We set our goals, we got it all done, and at the end of the day, we went and had fun with our families.
Don’t you want that to be you? Don’t you want that to be what you say when people are talking about their jobs and what they’re doing at work right now? Absolutely.
Action Item
So this week’s action item is to outline the tasks that you often feel stuck on when you’re working inside your business. Where could you use an outside eye, an idea, a conversation.
When you get clear on the places that you usually need help, you will be better poised to actually seek out that. Help to find an entrepreneurial community. And if you are listening to this and thinking, man, I wish there was just an entrepreneurial community that did all of these things, I want you to keep your eyes peeled. I might have something up my sleeve coming in January of 2023 that does all of this and more. It makes it simple, keeps it easy, and builds that community that you have been missing in your business and in your progress and just in life.
Conclusions
Let’s recap our ideas for today. The fact of the matter is, we need an entrepreneurial community to be a part of. Even if you’re a solopreneur, it doesn’t mean you have to do everything in a vacuum, reach out, connect. It’s what turns the tide in so many businesses, being in a community can offer support, can offer resources. You get a chance to network, connect with others who understand what you’re trying to accomplish and what you’re going through. They are going through the same things.
You can find mentors, you can seek advice. It can help you to stay focused when you have accountability, when your motivation’s low, an entrepreneurial community is there. They’re there to bolster you until you get that wind beneath your wings again, so to speak, you can find profitable business opportunities and partnerships. You can grow your business faster and with fewer missteps along the way because there are guides and people there to listen, help offer ideas, suggestions, input every moment that you are willing to lean into that community.
I would love to know how you are going to make use of a community in your entrepreneurial journey. I’d love for you to send me a DM on Instagram at www.instagram.com/coachinghive, or you can find me on Facebook at www.facebook.com/CoachingHiveLife. Let me know what tasks you often feel stuck on when you’re working inside your business. How you feel an entrepreneurial community would be of help to you where you would actually use help.
Do you need the outside eye? Do you need accountability? Do you need ideas? Do you need a conversation? Do you need to network? Are you looking for partnerships? Let me know what comes to mind, because when you’re clear on what you actually need in your business and in that community, it is much easier to find the right community for you.
I’ll see you back here next week for another episode of the Coaching Hive Podcast, where a focus on mentoring and community and implementation removes the overwhelm of building your successful and profitable business and adds in a dose of momentum.
Until next time, have a healthy, safe, and happy week.
