A Slack group isn’t a community. Just opening a forum and inviting people to “connect” doesn’t create meaningful results. In this episode, I’m breaking down why people don’t buy for community — they buy for transformation. I’ll walk you through how programming, onboarding, and carefully designed touch points create the conditions for connection, and why community is the thing that keeps people sticking around, not the reason they join. If you’ve ever wondered why “like-minded individuals” isn’t enough of a promise, this one will give you a new lens on how to design your member journey.

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I met with someone this week that doesn't work in community at all.

She's a product marketer and she said, it's so hard to build community.

I admire what you do.

I'm actually part of seven Slack groups and I get zero value out of any of them.

And I thought that was so interesting because I think about this a lot.

Like you're not going to be successful in building community if you just set up a Slack group or some sort of forum and you say, okay, everyone, go ahead and connect.

You have to actually program an experience for them.

You have to curate connection.

You have to help them achieve something.

And there's this phrase I always use when I talk to clients.

I always say that your customers are going to buy for the transformation, for the roadmap, the step by step process, the outcome.

They're going to engage through the programming and actually see results through the programming and then they stick around because of the community.

Community is like a Trojan horse.

It's something that's hard to sell.

It's totally a buzzword right now.

Everybody's using it.

Marketers, it's like their favorite quote unquote strategy.

But it's more complex than that.

People don't necessarily buy for community.

They're not thinking, I want to join a group of like minded individuals.

They're thinking, I want to reach my goal.

I need to meet some people that have reached my goal.

They, they think about groups they want to join that are going to help them achieve that, achieve the thing that they're working towards.

But they don't think about just being in a room with people without a purpose.

There has to be some kind of agenda, some kind of programming that helps them do something.

Even if the thing they're doing, the goal they're doing is like networking.

The networking itself is usually to further something that is a goal in their life, like further their career or grow their business.

Peer to peer communities that are really all about connection, also have the ones that are done really well also have excellent programming.

They have an incredible onboarding experience where they're introduced to multiple people, data is collected about them around like what their interests are, what their goals are, and then they're connected to other people in the group that are working toward that thing.

Or maybe they're added to a subgroup or sub community or a mastermind and then they're able to like really dial into the goals that they're working towards with the people around them.

And the networking communities that are just like, okay, everybody come in here, we're gonna, I'm gonna have this space for us to chat isn't gonna work as well.

Even if you're prompting conversations, we need to have more live programming aspects than that.

I mean, this is definitely the year where in person is more back than ever.

In past years, we're seeing more and more in person events as part of an offer stack and as part of a mastermind or a community experience.

People are coming together in person.

So I always say, like, make sure your community members can meet up, make sure that you're able to facilitate even them planning meetups with one another.

And also, you know, thinking about hosting some kind of in person event yourself is really great.

But at a time where these kind of aspects are so important, just posting in a forum and asking people to reply to like a thoughtful question isn't enough.

So my question for you and something that I want you to reflect on is what's your promise?

What are you helping people accomplish?

What is the transformation that your business serves?

Even if that transformation is around networking or connection, what is the end goal?

Like why do they want to connect?

What is the transformation you're serving?

The promise that you're creating, that your membership offers, that your community offers, that your program offers because it has to be bigger than meeting like minded individuals.

That's just not cutting it anymore.

This is something in the very beginning of niche communities that worked, but it doesn't work today.

We need really solid goals.

We need to sell people into a process and experience that they're joining where every single touch point is designed and thoughtful and that takes a lot of work.

It's not something that is just thrown together.

I think a lot of people and there's an episode I did a little bit a little while back where you know, building community is hard and there's a lot of ways that people can fail.

And this is one of the big ones that I discussed in that episode where it's super important for there to be a really clear premise and transformation so that people are on a member journey.

You need to design every aspect of that member journey.

The onboarding experience, the touch points where they meet people, the milestone check ins that you have.

Every single moment should be thought through.

Think about when you go to like a really incredible event where somebody has designed like the different, where the vendor tables are and the conferencing and like they're the events that are going to be hosted.

Every single aspect of it is curated.

You get a series of emails or you might have an app on your phone.

With where things are happening and what order you should go in, and maybe there's different tracks for what your interests are.

All of this is highly curated and designed.

So you are the curator, the event planner of your community.

And there's all these different categories that you need to think about the member journey.

But the programming itself is what gets people to actually connect, to have those serendipitous moments that you desire that you want to see people having.

A lot of those are facilitated and designed like serendipity by design is a thing.

And so really think about what's your promise?

How do you design this incredible member journey that takes people on a path that also includes connection, and that's how you build community.

So people don't necessarily buy for community, but they stick around for community, and this is how you need to think about it.

If this felt like, oh, my gosh, that was overwhelming to you, definitely just direct message me or email me, we can definitely help you design an incredible member experience.

Journey mapping is a huge part of what we do at Affinity Collective.

So we collect research data, we try to understand who your customers are, what their goals are, we understand what is that transformation statement.

And then we design a member journey that includes incredible onboarding, that includes connection moments, that thinks it through the milestones, so that we can design an offer suite that really works for your customers and helps them reach their goals and helps them stick around.

Because when they start to see momentum in their life through this community experience they're having through the programming, they start to meet people, make connections, make best friends, make lifelong friends, then they're never leaving.

That's why community businesses are so incredible, because the community aspect is what makes people stick around.

So if you need help with this at all, definitely reach out.

I hope this gave you some food for thought and definitely something you can take to your journal.

All right.