A community professional who contacts 40+
new, existing and/or, potential members every day rarely fails to build a
community*.
This might be by e-mail, phone, or
(occasionally) in person.
Sadly, we rarely find a community
professional who will reach out to 40+ people per day. This is because it’s a grind. It is mentally exhausting. It’s tough to track the relationship
development of each individual. It’s tough to be eternally enthusiastic about
the process. It’s tough to greet and talk to everyone with the same enthusiasm.
Yet, these are the people we need. We need
people who are excited about reaching out to every participant. We need people
who are interested in everyone’s story and
want to build positive relationships.
Too often job descriptions ask for people
with excellent verbal and written communication skills. These skills are useful, not essential. What we need are people natural in building relationships skills and have the ability to reach out
to 40+ people today. They can ask relevant questions and sustain discussions.
If you genuinely reach out to 40+ people
per day, you almost certainly will succeed at building a community. Most people can’t do this, but can you?
* the
exception here is when they use a default, template, unpersonalized e-mail to
every single one of these people. Each approach should be completely tailored
to the recipient.
