Building a Community Membership - Zoe Whitman

Last Updated: 

April 3, 2023

Zoe Whitman is the co-founder of The 6 Figure Bookkeeper and has built a support community of over 2.6k bookkeepers'. She creates courses for bookkeepers' who are either starting out in business or want to scale their practice.

What we will be discussing today

  • Recognise the value of building a community: In the wake of the pandemic, online communities have become even more important for businesses, providing opportunities to connect with customers and build brand trust.
  • Address clients' needs and pain points: To grow a community, business owners should create content that addresses their clients' pain points, answers questions, and increases customer confidence.
  • Engage with your community: Active engagement and relevant content are crucial for keeping community members interested and fostering a strong online community.
  • Balance value and promotion: When managing a group, strike the right balance between providing value to members and promoting your business in a non-salesy manner.
  • Implement an application process and enforce group rules: To maintain the quality and atmosphere of your group, use an application process to screen potential members and establish group rules that prevent spam and self-promotion.
  • Choose a group name that embodies clients' goals: When naming your online community, consider the aspirations of your clients and select a name that reflects their goals and the value they will gain from joining the group.
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Listen to the Full Episode

Building a Community Membership

In this episode of The Fearless Business Podcast, host Robin Waite talks to entrepreneur Zoe Whitman. Zoe is the co-founder of The Six-Figure Bookkeeper, a community for bookkeepers who want to build confidence and find support and accountability. This creates courses for bookkeepers who are either starting out in business or want to scale their practice.

Today, she joins Robin to successfully share her expertise in building a community and explains to listeners how they can implement a community membership model within their business strategy.

Why Business Owners Should Consider Building a Community

Over the last eighteen months, in the wake of Coronavirus and the pandemic, the desire for online virtual communities has increased more than ever!

Online communities such as Facebook and Whatsapp groups can be an excellent way for business owners to get to know their customers. As a result, they can provide excellent opportunities for building brand faith and trust.

Before starting a community, Zoe recommends that business owners outline why their clients need a community in the first place and strategise how to address those needs.

How Can Business Owners Grow Their Community?

Zoe has garnered great success within her community, The Six-Figure Bookkeeper. In fact, she has now managed to scale her group to 2.6k members. She boils her success down to these two factors:

  1. She’s created a community that addresses pain points, answers questions and increases customer confidence.
  2. She’s remained constantly engaged within her community and has produced content for them that is engaging and relevant to her demographic.

How to Manage and Maintain Groups of a Larger Scale

According to Zoe, the secret to group maintenance is being able to strike the perfect balance between providing value and marketing your business assets in a way that appears non-salesy. This also is relevant vice versa. Business owners should include members who are interested in your business and not there for the sole purpose of generating exposure for their own businesses.

So how does she achieve this?

Zoe recommends that community owners should implement some type of application process before people can become group members. This can be done through the likes of a form. Forms are a great tool to help assess whether a member is suitable for an online community depending on their responses and are an excellent indicator for what kind of content business owners should provide within the group.

Zoe also utilises group rules and signposts to them regularly. For example, having a rule against spam and self-promotion is a sure-fire way of keeping everyone happy within the group. As most business owners know, one bad apple can spoil the bunch; alongside this, Zoe recommends allocating a group admin because some things can still go amiss.

Deciding on a Group Name

When deciding on the name for her virtual community Zoe was initially apprehensive. She was hesitant as to whether the name should include the 6-figure element or not.

What entrepreneurs should bear in mind when deciding on a group name is whether it embodies the client’s goals. Although many of Zoe’s clients don’t wish to scale their businesses to six figures, they are still aspirational individuals. She believed that the connotations surrounding 6-figures were still a great incentive and implied that they would still receive the resources to ensure their businesses success.

How to Get Hold of Zoe

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/6figurebookkeeper/
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/6figurebookkeeper/
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/groups/6figurebookkeeper
Website: https://www.zoewhitman.com/

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