Lauren Uyeno is the National Director of Professional Groups at Workiva. We spoke about how she created a user group within a community to help her organisation work with ESG, which stands for Environmental, Social and Governance. ESG encompasses the measures and strategies that companies are taking to act responsibly - for example, when it comes to sustainability and having a diverse and inclusive workforce.

In this conversation, we dove into what user groups are, how to create and run them and how Lauren uses her community-building skills to lead in an area where she is not an expert herself.

In this podcast, Lauren and I talk about:

• Challenges she faced when bringing together multiple communities based on different platforms and how she increased discoverability
• What the process of starting a new community or user group while ESG and sustainability are just starting to gain interest looks like
• What makes user groups so valuable
• How to use community and user groups to help companies work with new rules and regulations that are impacting their industry
• Ways to balance an in-person user group with an online community and keep everyone on the same page
• How community building differs from what most companies are used to and why it is the business model of the future
• What it takes to build and nurture a community

Where to find Lauren:

• Website
• LinkedIn

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Did you enjoy today's broadcast of the Thriving Community Show? Please click here to leave an honest rating and review on iTunes. Your review helps me spread the word of this podcast, which allows me to line up amazing guests and continue to produce this podcast ad-free. Thanks so much in advance for your support.

Podcast and show note production by Nives Kurjak. Click here to get 10% off your podcast production for life.

Jen Sherman is the Community Manager at the Advance Women’s Expert Network - the premier networking group for female consultants, coaches and done-for-you service experts.

Originally a School Social Worker, Jen leaned into her strengths and experiences and applied her background in understanding people's needs and her passion for being a connector to support a community of women who want to accelerate the growth of their businesses through the power of relationships. Jen has been working at the Advance Women’s Expert Network since its launch in February 2021. In her time as Community Manager, she has taken the community through several phases of growth.

Today, Jen is going to talk about her top three approaches to making sure members want to stay because they get so much benefit out of the community.

In this podcast, Jen and I talk about:

• How a regularly occurring orientation process is impactful for retaining members and how that process is structured and personalized
• Finding the right balance between automation and personalization
• What are some aspects of the orientation process that help make members feel seen and valued
• How attending an orientation plays a part in higher member engagement later on
• What the benefits are of a personalized direct reach out vs an automated email when getting members to upgrade their membership
• The differences between a standard membership and a tiered membership system as well as what the transition process from one to the other looked like
• How to deal with objections when members are leaving the community in a personalized way and offer support

Where to find Jen:

• Website
• LinkedIn

Subscribe to Thriving Community Show on iTunes

Listen to Thriving Community Show on Spotify

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Did you enjoy today's broadcast of the Thriving Community Show? Please click here to leave an honest rating and review on iTunes. Your review helps me spread the word of this podcast, which allows me to line up amazing guests and continue to produce this podcast ad-free. Thanks so much in advance for your support.

Podcast and show note production by Nives Kurjak. Click here to get 10% off your podcast production for life.

Rush Sadiwala is the CEO and founder of Framework, building software dedicated to helping people run online challenges. Framework makes it dead simple to build, launch and operate - with hundreds of challenges taking place in the last year, meaning over 250,000 people have completed a challenge powered by Framework. They’ve worked with brands and organizations such as Columbia University, Chris Haroun (#1 ranked Udemy instructor), Annie Grace (#1 ranked sobriety author) and SugarAddiction.com

As we know, communities are multi-faceted and are more than just an online forum. Running a challenge could be the perfect tool to add to your membership as a way of boosting or refocusing engagement as well as bringing new members into your community. Let’s find out from Roosh what it takes to create a challenge and how it can fuel our community with new energy.

In this podcast, Rush and I talk about:

• What is a challenge and different types of challenges
• What community engagement looks like based on the length of the challenge
• How Framework software makes it easy to set up a challenge and not worry about updating it constantly
• Examples of some successful challenges that were completed through Framework
• What makes a challenge such a powerful tool for goal achievement and community building
• Why Rush recommends that everyone should run a challenge at least once and how that can benefit their business
• How Framework has simplified running a challenge, compared to running challenges through Facebook groups
• How running challenges is a great way to generate and nurture leads
• What the challenge creation process looks like on Framework

Where to find Rush:

• Website
• LinkedIn

Subscribe to Thriving Community Show on iTunes

Listen to Thriving Community Show on Spotify

Get your weekly dose of Thriving Community Show on Google Play

Did you enjoy today's broadcast of the Thriving Community Show? Please click here to leave an honest rating and review on iTunes. Your review helps me spread the word of this podcast, which allows me to line up amazing guests and continue to produce this podcast ad-free. Thanks so much in advance for your support.

Podcast and show note production by Nives Kurjak. Click here to get 10% off your podcast production for life.