Picture your typical networking event. As an introvert, it can be daunting even the thought of saying hello. Then come the sales pitches. You need to duck and weave. It's exactly why many introverts don't attend.
What if networking could be different? This week's guest and self-professed introvert, Joe Glover, set out to create a non-traditional, positively lovely community for marketers. The Marketing Meetup was born. From humble beginnings to global impact, this is a story of community you don't want to miss.
The key moments in this episode are:
00:00 Welcome
02:39 LinkedIn Survival Guide for Introverts
07:07 The Marketing Meetup Back Story
11:14 Secret to building momentum in communities
19:04 What has been the biggest challenge in building the Marketing Meetup Community?
22:59 As an introvert, how has the community helped you grow?
Connect with Joe Glover on LinkedIn - https://www.linkedin.com/in/josepheglover/
ABOUT MICHELLE J RAYMOND
Michelle J Raymond is an international LinkedIn B2B Growth Coach. To continue the conversation, connect with Michelle on LinkedIn and let her know you are part of the community of podcast listeners.
Connect with Michelle J Raymond on LinkedIn - https://www.linkedin.com/in/michellejraymond/
B2B Growth Co offers LinkedIn Training for teams to build personal and business brands and a LinkedIn Profile Recharge service for Founders/CEOs.
Book a free intro call to learn more - https://calendly.com/michelle-j-raymond/book-an-intro-call-15mins
Social Media for B2B Growth Podcast is a fully accessible podcast. Audio, Video, Transcript and guest details are available on our podcast website - https://socialmediaforb2bgrowthpodcast.com/
Subscribe to our YouTube Channel - https://www.youtube.com/@MichelleJRaymond
#community #marketing #communitybuilding #communityengagement
TRANSCRIPT
[00:00:00] Michelle J Raymond: Welcome everybody to the LinkedIn for B2B Growth Show. I'm your host, Michelle J Raymond. And this week everybody, I'm having a fan girl moment. Joe Glover. I am so excited to have you on the show.
[00:00:52] Joe Glover: I'm excited to be here. I wasn't expecting that.
[00:00:55] Michelle J Raymond: I know you weren't. And for those of you who haven't met Joe before, Joe is one of the most positively lovely people who has an amazing community, and I can't wait to talk to you about this today Joe. Because as a guest at one of your events, I was absolutely overwhelmed with the kindness of the community of people that you've built around you. And so I am just like a little excited and I know every podcast host says excited and I'm trying to think of another word. But I'm so glad that you're here this week.
[00:01:27] Joe Glover: I appreciate you. Every bit of excitement is matched in the other direction. I was singing your praises before we went live and you deserve it.
[00:01:35] Michelle J Raymond: You and I are probably equal opposites. We have kindness in our hearts. I'm the absolute extrovert. You are the introvert.
[00:01:42] Michelle J Raymond: We're gonna be talking about community today, which includes my introverted friends. These are always popular episodes, as I said. But Joe, how did you even get started on LinkedIn. Let's go back a little bit. How did you even land here?
[00:01:56] Joe Glover: Shoot, On LinkedIn. I don't know. So I think I've naturally gravitated to LinkedIn because I just love business stuff, like I genuinely, I don't really have, I play football and exercise, like every other human.
[00:02:09] Joe Glover: But I just really enjoyed business things and so it was like one of those platforms that just naturally I gravitated to and enjoyed the conversation on. Yeah it is not a lot more complicated than that. I went through the same cycle as everyone else in the sense that I probably started a little bit intimidated and then went through a bit of a salesy phase when I was working at an agency, getting in touch with everyone and like trying to sell at them.
[00:02:31] Joe Glover: And I'm probably at a place sort of seven years later now, where I'm just enjoying it a bit more. And I wrote a post yesterday, which, wasn't the most beautiful piece of writing, but it was just like, here's an expression of what's in my head right now. And, people seem to resonate with it, which is a very pleasant thing.
[00:02:44] Joe Glover: So yeah, it's I landed by accident, but I'm enjoying the process.
[00:02:48] Michelle J Raymond: I'm very glad that you landed and our paths have crossed and LinkedIn is one of those places that you can find what you are looking for. And we all go through that growth phase, which is why I love to share it straight up with people.
[00:03:00] Michelle J Raymond: Because for those new people to LinkedIn that are listening in, often it's overwhelming. It's intimidating and you just haven't quite found your people yet. And so I wanna share, some of these tips. Before we jump into the pieces about community, I want your best tips as an introvert. What's the LinkedIn Survival Guide tips that you would give those that are listening in, how do you manage your energy levels on a platform, which is designed to drain it by being social, I would imagine?
[00:03:32] Joe Glover: I think there's a lovely thing in the first instance, which is how the information is presented on your screen. And so my voice is not that loud in a busy room, but on a screen it's presented with an equal weighting to anyone else. A piece of writing is just a piece of writing. A picture is a picture and so on and so forth. There's a real sort of leveling that goes on for introverts and extroverts in the loudest room, the loudest person in the room can't be heard any louder. Of course they can use tricks and algorithm hacks and stuff like that to do whatever they want to do. But, I think it's a place for meaningful, thoughtful discourse as much as it is tips and tricks and hacks and so on and so forth.
[00:04:09] Joe Glover: I wouldn't necessarily say the experience of LinkedIn is that different as an introvert? The only thing that I would probably say is a personal reflection, and I dunno whether this is a symptom of my introversion or wider personality, but the thing I really crave for is thoughtful content.
[00:04:25] Joe Glover: Stuff that is longer form, more in depth and I do find that there is the opportunity for that more on LinkedIn than there is elsewhere. And so actually, instead of approaching it as like a place of intimidation for an introvert, I find it quite pleasant, in the sense that there is a bit more of that sort of stuff.
[00:04:44] Joe Glover: The last tip I have on that is that also there's there's a very handy unfollow button, which is really important actually, cause if you do find yourself being overwhelmed by content that you don't like you can remove it from your feed and pretty immediately, look to improve your experience one way or another.
[00:05:01] Joe Glover: And I use that without mercy and and my experience of LinkedIn has improved massively over the course of time. So yeah, curating your experience is important.
[00:05:11] Michelle J Raymond: I have to join you in that. I am a chronic unfollower. I will remove connections at an instant if something scrolls past me and for whatever reason, it doesn't match my values or it doesn't inspire me, and not every post has to inspire me, but there are just some things and people out there that I've collected along the way that we've just gone down different paths now. And so for anyone that's listening, how do you do that? On every post in the top right hand corner, there is three little dots. They are the magical little dots that you click on. It opens up a new menu, and that's where you can unfollow or mute people. They don't get notified so it's okay.
[00:05:47] Michelle J Raymond: No one needs to be scared around that. I do that with removing connections because I think even when it scrolls past your eyes in the feed, we've gotta protect that because it can be really valuable or really distracting. And sometimes for me, what I've been conscious of lately, Joe, is that I get sideswiped.
[00:06:05] Michelle J Raymond: So my comparisonitis kicks in and I think everybody else is doing better than me. And then all of a sudden I go from feeling 10 outta 10 back down to 2 outta 10. And then I'm thinking what happened? And quite often, it's someone or something, which has nothing to do with them. It's all on me. But I call them sideswipes.
[00:06:25] Michelle J Raymond: You're not expecting them. No one else is doing it deliberately, but they just knock you off course. And I've had to unfollow some people that I found myself doing that more frequently. And so I was like, you know what? It's not you, it's me, but we need to break up, unofficially.
[00:06:42] Joe Glover: That's fabulous.
[00:06:43] Joe Glover: It speaks to a truth of any relationship, right? That you hope to surround yourselves with people who lift you up and improve your life experience one way or another. Life is short and if we're spending our times comparing one way or another or indeed having a negative experience on your life in a small or a big way then, that's a good signal to say, I don't need that right now.
[00:07:02] Joe Glover: And that's okay. Your life is your situation.
[00:07:04] Michelle J Raymond: Yeah, exactly and the fact is I spend so much time on there that I have to protect it because otherwise, it will become overwhelming very quickly, which I know is what happens to a lot of people when they're starting out. I think I've been on LinkedIn for coming up to 10 years. It still impacts me and that's something that I'm growing into and being more aware of, now I'm a business owner and so that's really exciting. But I love the networking. I love the people that you can meet that I wouldn't otherwise have the opportunity to come across. And they inspire me, they teach me, they challenge me as well, which I think is also important. So we don't just get surrounded in that echo chamber, which can often happen.
[00:07:42] Michelle J Raymond: But somewhere along the way your journey turned into this little thing called The Marketing Meetup. Now I want you to share that backstory cause it's no longer a little thing, a little idea.
[00:07:54] Michelle J Raymond: It is gone global and it really, honestly, it inspires me, what you've created. But I'd love to share that with everybody that's listening.
[00:08:03] Joe Glover: That's, you're, you are you're very lovely.
[00:08:06] Michelle J Raymond: Calling it how I see it, my friend.
[00:08:09] Joe Glover: So the marketing meet up started seven years ago. I was a solo marketer working in a small company at the time, and I knew that I wanted somewhere where I could meet other marketers and learn about marketing.
[00:08:20] Joe Glover: But traditional events were terrifying, frankly. Walking into those rooms where people stood in those circular formations or chose to sell at you was not the environment where I found I, I found myself being happy. I would stand in the corner and hide on my mobile phone and hope somebody would say hello to me.
[00:08:36] Joe Glover: But if they chose not to, then I'd probably leave. My record for attending an event it's four and a half minutes. And in that event I spent three minutes hiding in the toilet. So that gives you the rest of the the one and a half minutes of getting in and getting out. And so it was clear that something kinda needed to exist.
[00:08:53] Joe Glover: And so I just did a thing which was hold an event in a canteen in Cambridge, which was called The Marketing Meetup or the Cambridge Marketing Meetup at the time, actually. It was a meetup group, so our meetup.com we had 50 people come to the first event and it was kind and it was lovely, and we learned and it was fun.
[00:09:10] Joe Glover: And so we did it again next month and next month, and the next month. Over the course of time, people started coming up to me and saying I'm traveling two, three hours to come to this, evening event. This meet up in Cambridge, do you mind if I do it closer to my house? And so we started building out locations from 2016 through to 2020, which took us to 13 locations and 140 events each year up until Covid happened.
[00:09:33] Joe Glover: Covid happened, the community was about 10,000 people at that point. And we took everything online and built an incredible sense of momentum behind our online events. Each week The Marketing Meetup gets between sort of 500 and 3500 people sign up for our webinars. And we've just had some bonkers, bonkers names, the head of global marketing for the Olympic Games. Michelle J. Raymond, the true glitterati of the marketing world as well as very practical talks. But the lovely thing about all of this is that like we've come together. In this safe kind space that for the past seven years has maintained that spirit, those values.
[00:10:08] Joe Glover: And now we're doing it all over again. So The Marketing Meetup is online still, but we're also in person. So this year we'll run, I think up to 270 events, and we're starting to pick up locations across America, Tokyo Africa. 20 locations across the UK and it's all just a bit mad ,but in the most positive way possible that we just look to, to help each other and have a nice time.
[00:10:32] Joe Glover: Yeah, it's a good life.
[00:10:34] Michelle J Raymond: If anybody sees these events. So I got to, appear as a guest, as you just said, with a wonderful Lea Turner, and I just expected it to be. Just another go live, webinar type thing. I've done a thousand of them. I love them. But from the moment we set off, I have never experienced those comments were coming like crazy, the overflow afterwards of the kindness and shout out to the guys that put together the event up in Edinburgh.
[00:11:01] Michelle J Raymond: That was mind blowing to me that people were getting together to watch me and Lea and yourself have this conversation. It still does my head in and it's just mind blowing. But that's the kind of impact, it's bouncing from the UK to Sydney, back to Edinburgh. Like that is the power of this community, which, when I say it inspires me, it does because these people are truly grateful for what you've created.
[00:11:25] Michelle J Raymond: I've spoken to lots of them in the background, but the positive and lovely. It just shines. I know I've said it so many times during this episode, I have the right to say it more times. It's my show. I can keep going. But it just, honestly, like when I tell you it was mind blowing. It really was because these things start off as maybe a little group, a little idea, and then they get some momentum and they start, but in my experience, these things fall over. They just get off to a good start and then nothing.
[00:11:57] Michelle J Raymond: What's the secret in your experience, to building momentum in communities to keep them going all this time? Because, you've gotta have crashed and burned, tried things, experimented what's the secret sauce Joe?
[00:12:10] Joe Glover: What a fabulous segue. You did that. You did that was great.
[00:12:17] Michelle J Raymond: I'm onto you.
[00:12:19] Joe Glover: That was fabulous. So the secrets to building momentum in the community. I think you have to turn up, you have to turn up a lot. And don't forget that point. A great LinkedIn trainer, a guy called John Espirian in his book speaks about having a 30 month mindset on building content. And I think the same applies for pretty much everything. I think most people will try and do three events, maybe one event, and then go, oh yeah, that didn't work and then stop, and so there's been plenty of ideas, there's been plenty of ideas that have happened once. I've had ideas where I've did it once and then given up. But for whatever reason, I turned up time and time again. And so to give an example, like in London, in particular, that was a real hard slog pre covid to to fill the room.
[00:12:59] Joe Glover: It's an hour and a half each way on the train for me, it was late. I was still working full-time. And so you ask yourself the question, is this worth it? Now our London events sell out within a couple of days, and there's a wait list of 154 people, which is stupid, but turning up is really important.
[00:13:17] Joe Glover: Turn up is the first. The second is, I think you have to have a strong sense of it's a bit Simon Sineky and I don't wanna go too far down that territory, but, do it.
[00:13:28] Joe Glover: Why are you doing what you're doing? And I think that probably closely relates to the story of it. So my personal story is one that was pining for this safe space, a place where people could come together and look to elevate one another and that has stayed true for the past seven years. And that is the guiding light of why we do what we do. And of course, there's variations that sit within that, but fundamentally at it's core. We're solving that problem. And so if you're motivated by the problem, then you want to turn it more.
[00:13:58] Joe Glover: I think the last thing is probably there's probably two more, but let's focus on one word of mouth. So building momentum. So you've got a core of nice people who turn up to your first event to your LinkedIn Live. You've got your Sebastians, your Nicks, your Antones, Anthony's watching in and the magic there is asking them, these already amazing people, you know who do you know who should be coming in, and being part of this experience, because we know you are the type of person we want to reach. Who do you know that would also benefit from this? The Marketing Meetup has been primarily driven growth that's been driven through word of mouth and social media.
[00:14:34] Joe Glover: Social media is debatably, word of mouth, amplified, and that's a bit of magic as well, realising that, giving folks a little bit of accountability to build this as a group. If it feels meaningful, let's build it together. Let's not rely on one person.
[00:14:48] Joe Glover: Let's make this a co-creative experience. And yeah those are three things. Of course, there's so many more, but that would be where I'd start.
[00:14:56] Michelle J Raymond: I've got like such a small group of women business owners called the Cheer Squad for Good. It's like such a small group on LinkedIn, but one by one I'm not gonna say I'm an elitist and handpick them, but at the same time they are because they match a certain kind of person, which is more important to me. I don't care what kind of business, but there's a commitment to empowering other women, like that's what I wanted to create in this small group.
[00:15:21] Michelle J Raymond: And whilst it's only just under a couple of hundred, at the same time, it's been interesting to see that get started. And I've struggled because when I get busy, I wanna take myself out of it. And at the moment it's just a group. It's not a community because when I'm not there it disappears. And then when I come back people are excited.
[00:15:38] Michelle J Raymond: And so this is the journey that I'm on back at the beginning. And I hope it doesn't end up at 60,000. I am like even I am like, shuddering at that. But you know the impact that you can start to see the collaborations, the introductions. Now I just have one little quick question. What if there's like a, an extrovert that's listening out there, are we allowed in the door sometimes? Can we sneak into this thing or is it just the cool kids introverts club?
[00:16:03] Joe Glover: No. So we articulate our values or desired behaviours through three phases, which is listen, say hello and be positively lovely. Listening because it's not a shouting match. Saying hello because that's the hardest word of networking and be positively lovely cause it's all about kindness. Introvert, extrovert it doesn't matter, we're all people and frankly, job title doesn't matter too much. I think you'll get most from The Marketing Meetup, but if you're a marketer cause that's what we speak about.
[00:16:27] Joe Glover: But if you come here and you resonate with our value set and you enjoy that experience then like you, you're our people. And that's what our community is. We come together to build each other up and make each other stronger than we, we would be alone. And so values, is what you spoke to, is the most important thing. It. Absolutely is welcome to whoever wants to be part of it.
[00:16:48] Joe Glover: So long as you walk through the doors with those with those values in mind.
[00:16:52] Michelle J Raymond: All right. Note yourself. Follow those three things. I think I can do that. I think I can. I think it's funny because you know my experience has been on the other side whilst I'm an extrovert and I've always worked in B2B sales 20 plus years, so my job has always been meet a stranger, be their best friend within the next three minutes, and then go from there and form a relationship for the next, ongoing, as long as I look after that client.
[00:17:16] Michelle J Raymond: And so for me, my experience of these networking events is a little bit different. I love to come to them. I naturally gravitate. I wanna say hello to everyone. But there's an element of, you almost feel like you are the shark and they're the prey. Because other people are sitting there going, please don't come over to me. Please don't say, oh my God, here she comes. She's gonna ask me a question.
[00:17:35] Michelle J Raymond: And so it can be a little bit intimidating on the other side whilst we may not show it or it may not come out in the same ways. Quite often I've found the dynamic is the thing that's a little weird, and I love that you've created a space that kind of neutralizes that. I'm sure there's people on either side that still think it feels a little that way.
[00:17:54] Michelle J Raymond: But at the same time, I love that you've got things in place and practical tips for people so that they know when they arrive, just the expectation is to say hi. You know? Like That's all we ask. Just say hi and be lovely. Which I think, I would imagine most people can pull off.
[00:18:09] Joe Glover: It's remarkable how I do think it's, it is pretty special how if you tell people to be positively lovely, generally speaking, they will. And I think quite often there will be people who have come to The Marketing Meetup who have gone, this isn't for me. A bit weird. A bit weird, and that's ok too. I, that's the point about having a point of view, right? Is that it's it's here for folks who agree with those things.
[00:18:32] Joe Glover: And you know that extrovert, introvert dynamic is, is useful, I think if you've got a genuine curiosity in the person in front of you, which you always seem to carry with you, and I'm saying it about you personally, but, asking the question is such a pleasant thing if you're showing genuine interest and then responding to their answer rather than starting in the next sentence with.
[00:18:52] Joe Glover: Oh, yeah. I did that when, or whatever it may be. I think it shares such a care for the people in front of you that they can't help but feel, even if they're a little bit shy, they can't help but feel appreciated and acknowledged, which I think speaks to something that on a human level most of us would like to be, is appreciated and acknowledged so,
[00:19:14] Michelle J Raymond: And I think we find when we have these conversations, we realise we're not that much different. And it's those opposites that actually help us to grow. If I look back in my experience in my career, it's not the people that have been the same as me, that helped me to grow. It's the people that were different to me, that helped me to grow. So I love that whole fact and I can be friends with marketers just as much, even though I have that, sales career.
[00:19:35] Michelle J Raymond: Shh, don't tell anyone. There's two sides to every coin as we were talking before the show started and whilst there's a lot of positive that's come out of it, what's been the biggest challenge for you personally in creating this community? Because we're talking seven years now, something that, grew its own legs and gained momentum.
[00:19:52] Michelle J Raymond: Fast forward, what's the impact on you personally, or the biggest challenge that you find?
[00:19:58] Joe Glover: So the phrasing of your question was what was the biggest challenge that you have found? And so I think it's important to point that out in my answer because I'm I feel like I'm gonna be quite selfish when I, I sort of speak about myself, but, that's where we started.
[00:20:11] Joe Glover: It's okay.
[00:20:13] Joe Glover: Something we spoke about in the previous answer was this idea of both, both introvert and extrovert. Both good and bad being useful and not useful. And I get the sense that many of my challenges with events are both useful and not useful.
[00:20:26] Joe Glover: So I would walk into an event and I would be terrified. And I still am. Like I attended an event last week and I was so drained by the experience. What we did is on Tuesday this week, we had a conversation about how we can create our events to make sure that they're even kinder for people who feel like I did and that is the . The biggest challenge is like for every bit of good there is also the bad. And for every little bit of bad there is also the good.
[00:20:56] Joe Glover: And that's big because I think particularly when you put so much emotional energy into building something, then you feel these things deeply. And so I would say that in another example of both T M has been an example of something that has been immensely energy giving but also immensely energy draining, and and that is the biggest challenge.
[00:21:20] Joe Glover: The good is also the bad. The difficult is also the easy. The useful is also, not very useful. And it's a bit of a cryptic answer I appreciate, but I think it's literally been my biggest learning from the past year is that everything is almost always both. It's very rarely, you know, I I, I always gravitate away from anyone who says, this is the answer.
[00:21:42] Joe Glover: This is how you do it. I've got the code. There is no code. There is only the best thing that you can do with the information that you have in that moment in time with your context. And yeah you can get templates and frameworks, which are very useful and I'm a fan of them, but you've just gotta navigate this thing by doing the best that you can each day.
[00:22:01] Joe Glover: And that's not always terrifically easy. And so yeah the good and the bad of myself is the biggest challenge. And it's a little bit existential, but also useful, I think.
[00:22:12] Michelle J Raymond: I think so too. And as Dolly Parton says you can't have the rainbow without the rain. So I'm gonna take it completely the other way trashy. But yeah, two sides of one coin. But that's it. I really appreciate you answering that so honestly and raw because there are people that are listening in today to this live and will listen to it on the podcast that needed to hear this today. And we've already got feedback on that in the comments.
[00:22:38] Michelle J Raymond: So I appreciate you for sharing that with people that it doesn't happen by magic. It's not always perfect. It is an evolution of the event ,of you personally and the community itself. Yeah, I just really, again appreciate you sharing that. Both sides. Because I'm on a bit of a mission at the moment because I feel like there's a lot of people on LinkedIn that are a little bit feeling down because it looks like everybody in the home feed's got it all together.
[00:23:05] Michelle J Raymond: Everyone knows how to create the best content. They know all about the algorithm. They know how to write the world's best posts and then there's these other people watching on the sidelines that are just intimidated by it. And I'm out to change that conversation by keeping things real and saying no we're just further down the track.
[00:23:22] Michelle J Raymond: We're the people that didn't give up when it was scary, and I think that's, your message here is you just kept going and finding a way and back to that why. Why you are creating this. So I think that's really powerful. The flip side, let's go back again. Like how has it helped you grow as a person?
[00:23:40] Michelle J Raymond: So you've given so much to the community, but you wouldn't do it if there was something not coming back. What do you think's been the biggest thing or maybe the thing you didn't expect would happen?
[00:23:50] Joe Glover: There, there is, there are so many. I would say, a thing that has happened is that the terrified person who walks into networking events isn't so terrified anymore.
[00:24:02] Joe Glover: Which, is an interesting dynamic. And I think as a result of that, there has been an interesting shift in that while I still relate and resonate with everything that we speak to. I also feel like there's been an evolution in myself, which is I am now a little bit less scared and therefore I can help people who felt like I did, and so as a, as an evolution, as a person then. And I think a lovely starting point is I'm probably just a little bit less fearful about things. And of course, there's learnings that go along with it. I have the privilege of, and so does everyone else if they chose to engage every week.
[00:24:44] Joe Glover: But, I get to listen to really smart people every week. I'd like to think I've become pretty good at this sort of stuff now, which has been lovely. But on a far more personal level, my growth has been has been immense. And the pleasure of that is that once you're doing okay, then you put the ladder down and you help others get to that place too.
[00:25:00] Joe Glover: And so that's really where the mission is right now, is just we're doing all right. The community is big. We've got an event structure. The foundations are there. How can we take people on that journey of confidence and really resonate with that challenge that there are people who felt like I did.
[00:25:15] Joe Glover: There are a lot of people who don't feel like I did as well, and we can help those too, but if we can take people on that journey confidence then that's fabulous. And I feel invigorated. And empowered to do that equally exhausted by that thought in, in the world of both, but in a very pleasant way, yeah.
[00:25:35] Michelle J Raymond: I can see how it is all of those things and then some. Joe, normally when I wrap the show up, I love to leave people with an actionable tip. So if there's a community builder out there, what is a tip that you have for them? It can be your choice. I don't minds like which direction you go, but how can we help someone take an action today?
[00:25:57] Joe Glover: I think. I think if one was interested in starting a community, then I think the number one thing that you need to know is your story for doing why you're going to do it. Because I think so many people, in particularly in the corporate environment, will sit from a perspective of, okay, we'd like to build a community to build a lead generation thing.
[00:26:17] Joe Glover: And that's not the starting point. There's a starting point, which is this community exists because, it needs to exist. This community exists because I needed it. This community existed because my friend needed it, and I wanted to, to create that space for them. Whatever it is I think the foundation step is this community exists for this reason, and it's meaningful and it's thoughtful. And it's human related. After that point, you can go and do it. You can keep on turning up. Yeah. Actually, it doesn't matter what you do. It doesn't matter if it's webinars or live events or newsletters or whatever, the thing that matters is, you know why you're doing it. And if I could add an attitude that sits as part of that is four words, which is "it's not about you". Which means to say that after you've identified that story and you've began your journey, then realise that actually a community is not yours to command and control, a community is yours to be part of.
[00:27:11] Joe Glover: It's to co-create the experience. And so even though you are the community organiser. Like just be willing to have those conversations with people and allow the community to go where it needs to go itself rather than feel like you need to to control it because it's not yours, it's ours.
[00:27:27] Joe Glover: It's everyone's, that's what a community is. Yeah, start with that attitude
[00:27:30] Michelle J Raymond: too. I
[00:27:32] Michelle J Raymond: think that's a pretty good attitude in life in general. So I absolutely appreciate you for being that person and I'm gonna put all the details for how people can come to the events and register online. Whether it's you watch it from afar like I do, or you get to go and meet up locally like some of the other events in your part of the world. When I tell you it was palpable the kindness and the positively loveliness that came out of my experience being on your event, I genuinely mean that.
[00:27:59] Michelle J Raymond: I set out to do my business three years ago my motto is Do Good Business with Good People. I just want you to know you are one of the good guys and I appreciate you and I love you for the fact that you are terrified and you still do this for other people. When I say I'm a fan girl. I absolutely am. And I don't say that to every guest. But I just love what you've achieved and I wanna thank you for it. On behalf of everybody in that community we all appreciate you and yeah, thank you for being you.
[00:28:27] Joe Glover: No I dunno how to be anyone else, so thank you.
[00:28:30] Michelle J Raymond: Perfect. Do not be anybody else.
[00:28:32] Michelle J Raymond: And on, I'm gonna leave it there. But yeah, I just wanted to say thank you. All the details to contact Joe, how you can follow him on LinkedIn, how you can get in touch with The Marketing Meetup they'll all be in the show notes. So thank you everybody for joining us live and those that are listening in on the podcast appreciate you and look forward to speaking with you all next week. Cheers.


