Today’s episode comes from what feels like the expectation even with one on one to have some kind of community aspect (or group program) to your offer. I hope to keep this episode short and sweet, and really just gives you some things to think about in order to determine if you do or don’t want to have a group or community aspect of your offerings. One size does not fit all here, so you could have a large group community of all of your clients across all of your offers if you have more than one. Or you could have a separate community for each one of your offers, only one of your offers could have a community piece, or they could have nothing. And then within having a group or community, you’ve got different structures that you can work with as well.

So let’s get into the different types of communities that you can have.

Because we need to know that in order for you to then say yes I want to have a group aspect or, it’s not necessary.

You can have it from the loosest terms, just a group that people join when they are in one of your programs. There is no structure to this, people can ask questions, or you can maybe post like a weekly wins. But there is no expectation of structure or aggressive value being added. That, for me, is the most loose way to have a community.

Nothing wrong with that, it’s actually the type of community that I prefer to run myself. That is what you will find if you join either my Pure PROgramming or a FitsPRO Foundations courses. It’s just a communal place that people can ask questions and get feedback from either me or other people in the group.

The more extreme approach to having a group aspect to a program is when your clients join at the same time, and there is a structured group aspect. So maybe its group calls on a monthly basis, or it’s that you go live every week that the program is active for, or there is something specific they are learning on a timed schedule. And only the people in this particular round, or cohort are involved in these calls.

Then we have the in between. So really take any aspects of each of those types of groups or communities and you’ve got the middle ground. So maybe everyone who has ever joined the program is in the group or community but different people have different access to certain areas of the platform. This is possible on platforms like Circle, or Slack. You could also have a community where everyone who has ever joined has access to it, but you do go live or teach on a topic every month forever. And maybe those calls are archived somewhere so that when someone joins they get access to past calls in case they missed a topic.

Sharing these three types of community or group aspects is really just so that you can see that you have options. And you don’t have to go balls to the wall with a group or community. There is a spectrum of you being involved in the group. Which is typically the concern for most people - Is that time commitment.

Now on the flipside of that, I’ll ask you some questions that will hopefully lead you to a yes or no answer. Or closer to one of those.

I want you to look at whether or not your service or program requires and or benefits from a group aspect.

This somewhat depends on what is already involved in the offer or the service. Does the group or community aspect fill a needed gap? It may just not be needed. And it also might be the missing piece. But that’s completely up to you and your offer and what is involved in that.

The next thing I want you to think about is whether or not your ideal client or niche desires to be a part of an active community, or if that’s not necessarily needed for them in order to find...