Ep 19: Online Networking Events That Get Your Community Showing Up

Jun 28

Online Networking Events That Get Your Community Showing Up with Suzi Dafnis

If you're an online course or membership owner, you're always looking for ways to create more connections among your members. Whether you run a Facebook group or a Circle community, the question of how to get members to connect outside of the group is always on your mind. You want to create a space where members can connect, grow, and learn from each other. That's why today's chat is so exciting. Our guest, Suzi Dafnis, has been running a successful membership community specifically for women in business for years. And she has a unique approach to keeping her members engaged and connected that we can all learn from.

Suzi is the founder of Her Business Network and the host of two different podcasts, Her Business and the Content Sales Podcast. She has an impressive resume, including involvement in real estate and building massive businesses, and even counts Seth Godin as a friend. But what sets Suzi apart is her humility and her passion for serving the women in her community. In this interview, we'll get a sneak peek into how Suzi has kept her community engaged and connected for years, and how we can apply those lessons to our own online communities. So let's dive in and learn from Suzi's expertise.

Favorite Community

I'd love for you to tell me about one of your favorite communities you've ever been a part of, and one thing that you really love about that community.

There's a thing, how do you know someone does CrossFit? And the answer is because they tell you they do CrossFit. And CrossFit is actually the community I want to talk about because it is such a tight-knit community. Although I'm not as involved as I was 10 years ago, when I was going to local events and even international events and training a lot, it continues to be one of my favorite communities.

The hero in the room is not just the fire-breathing 20-something-year-old male who is hanging from the rafters. It is the 57-year-old who just did their first pushup, or the young person who just did their very first deadlift at the highest weight. I am not a gym enthusiast, but what I am passionate about is people lifting each other up. And I have seen that more evident in that community than any community. It's an international community, and whether you go to a local gym that is a CrossFit gym or you're at the CrossFit games in the US, the community feel is so thick and ever-present, and I absolutely love it.

Her Business Network

Tell me about your business, who it is that you serve and how you serve them

I started my first business back in 1994 and ran it for 13 years before selling it. I now run a community called Her Business, which serves women who own established businesses but are struggling with what to do next in order to grow and improve their revenue and systems. We offer a number of services to our members, including networking, mentoring, an incredible mastermind, and an annual retreat in Hawaii which we are excited to bring back this year after a two-year hiatus.

The community at HerBusiness is similar to the CrossFit community in that we celebrate each other's successes and support one another through collaboration and camaraderie, rather than competition. Our members come from a range of industries, including product and service businesses, high ticket and entry-level, but what unites us is our shared goal of improving our marketing, sales, teams, and systems. It's truly a tight-knit community that provides invaluable support for women business owners.

Community Over Competition

The Her Business Network values community over competition. Is that really what you see inside of your community?

Absolutely. We have some core premises when someone joins our community. There are three things they're invited to do that are part of our culture. This show is about culture and one of those things, I won't take you through the whole model, is lifting up. You will see people using the hashtag #liftup, and talking about when someone goes beyond their comfort zone, does their first Facebook Live, writes their first book or does their first online workshop. They collaborate and work together, and when someone achieves something, they celebrate them publicly. We have a culture where we call someone out and celebrate them. It's also about celebrating ourselves. For example, one of our members had her best month ever, and she didn't know who to tell. She came into our community and celebrated the fact that she had achieved her goal. We don't criticize or question someone's success, instead, we celebrate and ask them how they did it. That's something I'm very proud of, and that's how we play inside the Her Business community.

Networking Events

One of the things that's really important in a membership is creating connection among members, but also helping them make progress. What I love about this event that you do is that it does both of those things. So can you talk about these events? Tell us why you started them in the first place and what they are.

Now, we used to do these as an in-person event many, many years ago. But the more that we went online, the more that we wanted to be able to help women, whether they were in rural regional country areas in Australia, but also internationally. Increasingly, I wanted a way for women to sit around a boardroom table or the idea of a boardroom table and be able to have the conversations that they cannot have at the weekend barbecue with their brother-in-law or anywhere else where they cannot only make a connection, but also have a sounding board for that idea that is a whisper of an idea that they want to flesh out or for that challenge that they just can't seem to overcome by themselves. And we called these events round tables, and they were literally, when we first started doing these events where women would come together, they would sit at round tables, and I would facilitate a conversation between them.

We now run these and have done for many, many years online. And so women come together from all over via an online platform. And the event has a number of different purposes.

Introductions: First, they're there to make connections. So we have a facilitated way that they introduce themselves. They use a particular framework that is our proprietary framework that allows them to very quickly convey who their ideal client is, the pinpoint or problem they solve, what they sell, and the method by which they deliver their services. And this is something they are trained in when they join our network, and it's a way for them to open doors that are closed to everyone else because they have such a great way to introduce themselves. So we do that, and that kind of puts everyone's toe in the water, and we're like, "oh, I'm a little more comfortable. I've met a couple of people.”

Teach: And then in that same event, I will teach. So I will teach one of a number of areas that we focus on because these areas are essential to women growing and scaling profitable businesses. For instance, this month it was about business habits and how to cultivate more effective habits, how to get more consistent. Next month, it's going to be about sales and marketing and creating recurring revenue in your business. So we have a teaching piece that they will then discuss. So once again, they are connecting around something that's relevant to their business. And then we get to the really juicy bit, the bit that they show up for again and again and have done for years.

Breakout Groups: And that is when we break out into online groups, and again, they have a facilitated process by which they bring a challenge to the table, and then they give the rest of the group time to give them feedback. And that feedback again is not random because these are all women who are growing and scaling businesses. They are all creating lead magnets and sales funnels, hiring virtual assistants, writing role descriptions, and doing plans. And so they have commonality in what they're doing, but they have this period of time where the spotlight is on them, and everybody is giving and lifting them up with ideas. Now in that, there are going to be things that you're going to take on board, and they're going to be perfect advice. And other times it's going to be a little less so. But every single time we do these, women walk away, and they are elevated in their mood, in their spirit, and in knowing that there is light at the end of the tunnel. And this thing that they've been struggling with, someone else has been through this as well, and they can help them. So they've done introductions, they've learned something new, they go and have these discussions.

Month Focus: And then the final thing we do again in this one event is they then set their sights on what their top three areas of focus are going to be for the next month.

Now that sounds like a lot, but I've been doing this for a long time, and one of my areas of skill is how to facilitate conversations and have people take action. And so if you're going to try this at home, you want to start really simple, and it sort of grows into it. The key thing is, it's not about me being the mentor and the teacher, just like you might be in your community. It is about having people make connections with each other and then be each other's support. Because there's a saying that, I think comes from Stu, is that people might come for the content, but they stay for the community. And when people start to make connections with each other, when they know that, "Hey, Debbie can help me find that new staff member I'm looking for," or "you know what, Anita has the perfect gift for my daughter for her graduation," it's a different kind of community. They're no longer just looking to me for answers. They're looking at each other.

I think you said that you even have sort of a framework for facilitating the discussions, is that right?

Yeah, that's correct. And just on those goals, the way that they submit them, I get a copy, so there's a little bit of accountability, so I know what they're working on, and I will scan those. And so I know, it gives me great intel as well. It's like, "Oh, you know what, there's a lot of people creating online courses. Oh, there are a lot of people working on this." But also they know that I know that they have set a goal to, and so that is part of my responsibility of helping them make progress is having that accountability.

But yes, we do have structures because within a structure, people know, they know how to introduce themselves, they don't feel awkward, they don't overtalk and have someone's eyes rolling in the back of their head, or they don't feel stuck or uncomfortable. And so by giving people some very simple, "Hey, here's a way that you could do it,", they kind of know the direction that they're heading.

So they set their three action items or goals for the month. How do they actually get those in front of you?

So we put on a little background music and we give them a link, and the link is to an online form. And I can see those, I get notifications as those forms are coming through. So I'm giving them some time. I'm saying like, you've got three minutes to do this. And then as they're coming through, I can see that they're coming through and I can say, okay, great. I can see someone is going to be working on this and I'm calling stuff out anonymously. And then once I get that, the bulk of people have submitted them, we'll move on to the next thing.

But again, because this is a predictable part of the event, people know that they're going to come and they're going to be asked to put something in writing, if you like. And so I have all those and I file them away and it's private. I told them that it's confidential, it's just between me and them, which is again, a nice thing to be able to offer as a community leader. Now, do I pore over those? Do I follow up with them? No, but there's still a level of accountability.

Creating Safety in Community

I'm really big on creating safety in communities in order to create connection. And you have to have structure. So for you to create that structure, not only does it give people the ability to thrive, but it probably makes the event run so smoothly that people. I think that's why people look forward to this on a monthly basis and they come back for years, and you have such strong retention.

Yeah, we do. I'm so passionate about this. First, I love these women more than anything, and their success is so important to me. And again, you know, we've tried this over many years and there might be someone watching who is brand new at the gate. You're just building a community. Just know that you'll find your feet. But if your intention is to figure out what gives them progress, what keeps them coming back, what has a member who's been a member for 11 years come back? Because we are doing a round table this month and she wants to feel connected and she wants some feedback on that thing. You know, you and I have a similar level of wanting to do things excellently. That is very much part of our culture.

Advice from Suzi

So talk to that person, talk to the person who's hearing you explain these events and knowing that you've done it for so many years, you've been able to perfect it. And they may be feeling a little bit like, “gosh, I wouldn't even know where to start.” What's one piece of advice that you would give to somebody who wants to try and host a networking event like this in their community?

I would keep it simple. Like I talked about the four different things that we do, and we have got it down to a minute-by-minute activity. We've been doing it for years. Here's where I would start: I would invite people along to a networking event, an opportunity to meet others in the community. And I would just focus on that. One outcome is for them to make connections.

Then what I would do is send them into their groups, and of course, Zoom and other platforms allow you to do breakout sessions. Give them a simple structure, have them answer three questions. Maybe your name, your age, and one other thing. So make it really simple, and keep it to like three or four things. No crazy stuff, and give them a time limit. We're going to break out into groups. You're each going to have X number of minutes. Here's what we want you to say in that amount of time, this, this, this, great. When that time's up, know that you're eating into the next person's time. We're going to throw up a sign into the room, this is something Zoom allows you to do that says, that's time. Move on to the next person. At that point, you'll move on.

So we're going to have groups of five or less. If you've got less than five, just because the groups have worked out that way, then you're going to get another round. But still, go ahead and move at the five-minute mark so that we make sure that everybody gets a go. Then you time, and then you keep your agreement, you're timing them, you're moving them on, you bring them all back. Now within there, I've already said don't eat into someone else's time. I've kind of given them a little bit of my values. It's like everyone gets a fair go, here's the structure. You're going to share these four things. Then you bring them back in. Your work is done.

You do not need to pop into the groups. You do not need to add to a takeaway, just let them do their thing, but give them the structure, give them the outcome. One of the things that can happen at those networking events is that you go in, and then you go, “oh, I can't remember, was her name Mary or was it Meredith?” So one of the things I might say is, when you go in, notice, is there someone you want to follow up with? Make sure you get their name. Because you're not going to get a list of everybody who is here.

It's about becoming a better facilitator, something that I've honed over years and something that I love to get better and better at. But it is really about setting that framework and saying, this is what's going to happen. Then letting it happen and then pulling some of the wins out. So one of the things we'll do when we get feedback is I'll go, how did it go? Share and chat with me. Did you meet someone interesting? Did you get a problem solved? Then people are starting to go, “oh, okay, that's how they used it. Oh, I didn't think to do that. Oh, next time what I'm going to do is I'm going to bring a picture of my homepage and I'm going to say, okay, this is my new homepage design, where would you click?” And I'm going to get some feedback. Now I'm talking very much about a business-to-business kind of culture, but for you it might be, health or fitness or whatever it is.

So it's just a matter of getting in there, doing it, hosting it, trying it, seeing how your community responds and learning from it.

If they're getting results, whether that result is, "Oh, I feel seen and heard," or "Oh, you know what? I needed that tip for what database I should be using." You want to have clear intentions, what are the sort of outcomes that people might be looking for? Because none of us have time to just go and chit chat. I mean, yes, if you're working with people like I do who often are solopreneurs, just not feeling isolated is one of the reasons they come. But they want to get something out of it. Nobody has time to waste. And so that's where having them have a really clear intention of why they're there. But also for me, one of the reasons I love the feedback is that I love to see, "Oh, someone just got a new client," or "you know, someone just got this PR opportunity," and hearing those stories. Of course, I'm going to show up again. I just got a new client.