Ep85 Transcript: 6 Ways to Find Business Communities – Quick Fix Friday

Whenever you need to make an important business decision, or even while you’re launching your new business, it’s important to have a great community to bounce ideas off of. In episode 83, I talked to Bill Whitland, who made some big shifts later in life and made some big important decisions using his communities. In this episode of Quick Fix Friday, I’m going to talk about seven ways you can find online or offline communities.

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Communities have always been a huge part of my journey, starting my business later in life, from masterminds to courses, to local groups. I’ve had great business connections that have helped me make big decisions. So I’m going to talk about some of the ways that I’ve seen that have really worked both for online and offline methods.

First I’m going to talk about offline because that’s where I started. And that can be an easier way to connect and it can be also a fun way to connect when you’re starting.

So one of the ways I connected to a community is using my local chamber. My chamber had some business meetings that they would have mastermind-type meetings, presentations, and I got to know people and brainstorm with people in the local chamber.

I also formed a mastermind early, and this was fairly organic. It came about just through some connections in my local area and we just said, Hey, let’s meet. Every other week and have some business goals together, and that was so powerful when I was starting my business. So some of it could be really noticing and hand picking some people who are local to your area. It could also be an online community that you know of and you agree to formalize it into more of a mastermind. There are also masterminds that are run by facilitators. And I will link to some of those places where you can find Masterminds in the show notes.

Another resource for local connections is the Small Business Association. A lot of times they have some formal training, some formal connections that you can get plugged into.

And then finally, one of my favorite ways to connect offline is through things like meetups and conferences, local events, or it doesn’t even have to be local, it could be an event around your particular topic that you’re interested in, and you could meet people that way, brainstorm that way, and that can be a way to form relationships going forward that you’ll eventually want to mastermind with.

And then a couple of ideas for forming online business communities is through taking a course. This has also been one of my favorite ways to find online connections in community. A lot of times these courses will have a group with them or some type of program where you talk online and brainstorm with other like-minded people. Taking a course and something you’re really interested in and need to learn will help propel you forward.

And a lot of times those people are also going through a lot of the same things that you are. It does take a little courage to bring something forth if you are struggling with something, but I highly encourage you to do that if you are needing some advice because people love to help connect and rise to the occasion and give you that advice, and also the course creator will chime in and give you some ideas from their path.

Another way to find community is through a membership, and that might be a little bit different than a formal course because maybe they don’t have a full on training, it could be just support for that particular topic. Maybe they’ve got some training built in there, but you’ve got monthly access to the forum where you can talk about things and ask questions and get some great advice along the way.

So no matter which way you go, I think it’s so critical to have that community to lift you up during these tough business decisions because if you’re starting something new, whether it be later in life or anytime, you really will need to run things by someone or with a group. So find that group. Get out there and make those connections.

Hope that was helpful, and make sure you grab the free guide. Top Tools for Late starters on the website at latestartersclub.com and let’s turn dreaming into doing.