Former VP of Community at Salesforce Erica Kuhl joins us on this episode, Erica started the Trailblazer at Salesforce which has become the gold standard of both online and offline community. This is one of those episodes that you need to relisten to with a notepad because there are that many strategies we covered. We will talk about the key to growing an in-person community, building a community team, the best metrics for community and so much more. Take a listen!

To Long; Didn’t Listen

• How did Salesforce get to 1,000 in person groups? Erica thought the biggest contributing factors were that they made it very low friction to become a leader (especially in the beginning). They also made sure that they had onboarding materials and tools to give them when they become a leader in order to make them effective. As far as attracting them the leaders being apart of the brand was huge, tie leaders into your brand as much as possible. A great way to do that is with swag, titles and even rewards they can earn by hosting more events, getting more attendees etc.
• One thing most people haven’t touched on is C2C communities will create tons of content for your brand with local leaders hosting in person events. Both that could recorded but also, as Erica pointed out, as a means of people finding out how to use the tool better which reduces how much customer support they need.
• Erica shared some incredible metrics that her the Trailblazer community generated, here’s what she shared: Deals from the community have 2.5x more pipeline, 2x larger deals, 35% higher product adoption, they stay a customer for 3x longer (share these with your boss)!