With Tracey Warren, founder of Ignite Your Champions and InSpark Coworking. Tracey teaches business owners how to grow a business and create profitable community with ease and joy by making marketing fun, simple, easy and effective. She is an author, truth teller, community creator and speaker.

Tracey is passionate about helping entrepreneurs learn how to create connections and build relationships. We talk about what it means to be a community builder, how to find and build your community and why trying to be everywhere to everyone actually hurts your business.

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Biggest takeaways (or quotes) you don’t want to miss:

• Figure out who your champions are and then figure out where they are at.
• “I believe community changes the world.”- Tracey

Check out these highlights:

• 3:55 When Tracey realized she is a community builder.
• 10:22 “I’m not willing to just be fine.”
• 14:13 Why as entrepreneurs we overthink community building.
• 18:01 Tracey talks building your business through community.
• 21:17 Tracey shares why businesses get it wrong because they connect the way they want to.
• 29:29 Why trying to be for everyone and everywhere actually hurts you.
• 50:00 The difference between in-person and virtual community building.

How to get in touch with Tracey:

On social media:

Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/igniteyourchampions
LinkedIn: http://www.linkedin.com/in/igniteyourchampions
Instagram: http://www.instagram.com/igniteyourchampions

Learn more about Tracey here. 

Imperfect Show Notes

We are happy to offer these imperfect show notes to make this podcast more accessible to those who are hearing impaired or those who prefer reading over listening. While we would love to offer more polished show notes, we are currently offering an automated transcription (which likely includes errors, but hopefully will still deliver great value), below.

GGGB Intro 0:00
Here’s what you get on today’s episode of Guts, Grit & Great Business™…

Tracey Warren 0:05
20 people, 10 people, right? Like, once you start to identify those folks, the people that I call champions, like, it’s easy to go, oh, I want to have that person and that person and that person. But when you identify who these people are, then you can develop a plan. But if you go, I want to build a community out of everyone I’m connected to on Facebook and LinkedIn and Instagram. Well, that’s ludicrous, right? If that’s too much noise.

GGGB Intro 0:38
The adventure of entrepreneurship and building a life and business you love, preferably at the same time is not for the faint of heart. That’s why Heather Pearce Campbell is bringing you a dose of guts, grit and great business stories that will inspire and motivate you to create what you want in your business and life. Welcome to the Guts, Grit & Great Business™ podcast where endurance is required. Now here’s your host, The Legal Website Warrior®, Heather Pearce Campbell.

Heather Pearce Campbell 1:10
Alrighty, welcome. I am Heather Pearce Campbell, The Legal Website Warrior®. I’m an attorney and legal coach based here in Seattle, Washington and serving entrepreneurs throughout the US and around the world. Welcome to another episode of Guts, Grit & Great Business™. I am so excited to bring you my friend and a fellow Seattle light. Tracey Warren. Tracey. Welcome.

Tracey Warren 1:38
Hi. I’m so glad to be here.

Heather Pearce Campbell 1:40
It’s so good. Yeah. So good to see you. Again. It’s been a few years I think since we last probably actually saw each other.

Tracey Warren 1:48
Yes. Like that for everybody right now.

Heather Pearce Campbell 1:52
Right? I know. So crazy. One of these days, you know, maybe an in person thing again soon. For folks that don’t know Tracey teaches business owners how to grow a business and create profitable community with ease and joy by making marketing fun, simple, easy and effective. And if you’re connected to Tracy online, you know how she makes this true. She is an author, truth teller, community creator and fun, authentic speaker. She has a bold example of how authenticity and vulnerability can be a huge asset for entrepreneurs who want to build community, whatever trail she blazes and every journey she travels, including her recent victory over breast cancer, she shows up fully as herself. Tracy, I am so excited about your victories, all of them, but especially that one, and I’m so happy to have you here today community. Now more than ever is so important. So I think this topic we are overdue for on the podcast. I don’t think I’ve spoken with somebody yet that specializes in building community and training people how to build communities. So I’ve really been looking forward to this.

Tracey Warren 3:10
Thank you. I can’t I yeah, I start talking about community and I start talking faster and louder. And I’m like, okay, Tracey, chill out a little bit.

Heather Pearce Campbell 3:24
Slow down on the caffeine of it. Yes. Yes. So, you know, when did you first identify yourself as a community builder?

Tracey Warren 3:35
I think I’ve always been, I’ve always done it, but really owning it. For the last couple of years. I think one of the things that the pandemic taught us is there were a lot of people who thought they were part of a community until we stopped the people face to face. Yeah. And then it became blatantly obvious how we had what we had was proximity relationships, not actual connection.

Heather Pearce Campbell 4:08
Mm, proximity relationships. Yes.

Tracey Warren 4:11
So you know, like, you go to church every Sunday. And so you see those people on Sunday, but every other day of the week? They don’t know you exist. Yeah, I think that that can be the same sometimes in networking groups, where? Yeah, I don’t want to go too deep into that. But you know, that if the relationship relies on seeing one another in real life, and there’s no other contact outside of that, then it’s not necessarily an actual community. It could just be a proximity relationship.

Heather Pearce Campbell 4:49
Right? Well, and especially once that proximity goes away, right, like in the middle of a pandemic, like you said, then you realize how How entirely absent community can be, and how much effort it can take to really maintain constant connection. Right. And I think, particularly so as an example, I grew up in Walla Walla, right smaller town across the state, you know, lived on my bicycle pretty much not really, like knew everybody in town, but you know, people you wave, you say hi to everyone, right? It definitely has that smaller town feel, versus Seattle, where some of my favorite people live across the city or, you know, outside of the city, or what, it’s a much bigger effort to actually be able to see people to maintain regular connection, even for people that I really care a great deal about. Right? Yeah. That sense of like, what it really takes to nurture those connections and create community just has to happen on an entirely different scale when it comes to effort.

Tracey Warren 5:59
Yes. And it’s, you really do have to be intentional. Yes. Especially with those most important relationships. But I will also say that the those most important people, that even when you haven’t seen them for, I don’t know, 18 months. Yeah. It’s as if a beat hasn’t even skipped.

Heather Pearce Campbell 6:21
Totally. It’s, you know, getting down to the essentials of relationship building period. That’s always true when you have a real relationship. Yeah, for sure. Well, and I am fascinated by this idea of proximity relationships, because now even as I think of it, like I’m thinking about my roots in Walla Walla, so much of that was probably just proximity relationship. Right?

Tracey Warren 6:44
Well, and it’s funny that we’re even focusing on this, because this is not something I normally even talk about, but it has, it has just, it’s come up recently. That, yeah, if you don’t see them,

Heather Pearce Campbell 7:00
And they don’t really know much else about your life, right? I think that part is key, like, outside of those limited interactions, you don’t really have much knowledge of each other.

Tracey Warren 7:12
Sure. Jack can actually absolutely be true.

Heather Pearce Campbell 7:15
Yeah. Well, and obviously, I mean, you and I met I probably I’m guessing over five years ago, and some of my early outings into some of the entrepreneurial groups here in Seattle. Right.

Tracey Warren 7:26
I think we met at a chick chat. Oh, one of Tracey. My daughter’s right. Yeah,

Heather Pearce Campbell 7:35
I think so. I think that’s right. And so that would have been after my son Aiden, but well, before Miss Henley, right, as mom’s everything is related to the round children, and when I could actually leave the house and when I wasn’t nine months pregnant, right? And all of this stuff. Sure. But, you know, so I’ve always thought of you in the sense of being in community in entrepreneurially community in the Seattle Community, you know, in the female entrepreneur community, right? There’s all these ways that I think our worlds have overlapped a bit. And we’re connected online, I follow you online, I get to see what you’re up to. And of course, I’ve always seen you as somebody like really central to community. But as you and I were talking before we went live, that’s not natural for a lot of people, right to build community and be community builders. What is it? Is it something inherent? Do you think in your personality, like, what is it about you that makes you so naturally inclined to you know, be all about community?

Tracey Warren 8:44
I think, you know, I was working with a copywriter a while back. And we talked about this and where it started. And I know that as a kid, me we move like 40 times growing up. And so I think that, that, that might have been part of it, that I was always having to go to a new school and meet new people. And so I didn’t have I didn’t have that,

Heather Pearce Campbell 9:11
It didn’t automatically built in, you had to create it.

Tracey Warren 9:14
I had to create it. And so I think that that’s part of it. But also just some of the other things that I just do naturally, it’s about doing. I mean, you can be status quo, and you can build a great business being status quo. But if you really want people to remember you to like, Wow, I can’t believe she did that. Like I had a friend she texted me the other day and said I’ve had a really bad day and I immediately called her like, no can’t just message me that you’re or you can’t just post on Facebook that you’re having a bad day without me calling you like that doesn’t even make any sense but That’s not how a lot of people think, right? Somebody whose dog died and they say, oh, sorry, that sucks. Hugs, enter on Facebook, and that’s the end of the conversation. And and then that’s fine. But I’m not willing to just be fine. Mm hmm.

Heather Pearce Campbell 10:26
Is it? Because I think, you know, so many of us want relationships, right. And we want meaningful relationships, we notice in the absence of those relationships, how challenging life can be, right. And I think it’s become really apparent for certain people, even my husband and I were talking, I mean, we’ve talked about this actually, numerous times over the years, our journey, let’s call it our journey to parenting, and then our journey, since becoming parents, parents has been really challenging in certain ways, I have felt personally challenged in my ability to stay as connected as I want to community to, you know, like, it’s pretty much like my life gets divided up between my job as a mom, which I love, I call it a job, because it just takes up so much of my life, right? And my time in my business, so that like, anytime outside of that feels, kind of like it doesn’t exist, you know, it’s like, those two things are nothing. And so the ability for me, I mean, I’ll just say, I don’t think I’ve done this very well. Being able to maintain connections in the community and nurture relationships, the way that I would want to, based on like, probably how I’ve allocated resources in my life towards these two other functions, right. But it’s not for lack of wanting, it’s not for lack of wanting

Tracey Warren 11:55
And I would also say that, your close friends, they’re going to give you a ton of grace, right. Like, there’s just, there’s lots of opportunities to give grace. And I feel like it’s a good reminder for me that there are times when I’m not going to be the one reaching out. Yeah. And I think that’s one of the things that I learned going through treatment last year was that last year was the year for me to receive. It wasn’t like I had somebody bring me soup or something. And she was like, You better not send me a thank you note.

Heather Pearce Campbell 12:36
Right? No, thank you for this. And I was like,

Tracey Warren 12:39
Oh, okay. That’s really hard. And, but it was my time to receive. And I think we all experience ebbs and flows in our lives where we’re going to be more present, then, I mean, we just, we can’t be present all the time for everyone else. Yeah, that was when I was doing the final edits of my book, I asked the publisher, I was like, should I put something in there about making sure that you put your oxygen mask on first, basically? And she said, she’s like, No, there are 1000s of books about that? Yes. I mean, you can’t, you can’t take care of nurture other people if you’re not taking care of yourself. And I didn’t need to mention that in the brain, I think for people to understand like, oh, yeah,

Heather Pearce Campbell 13:33
Yes, it is a truth. Well, and, you know, that’s an important reminder about the ebbing and flowing kind of life. And that we go through times of giving and times of receiving for folks that are listening to this podcast, and are entrepreneurs or building their own businesses, maybe they have already, maybe they’re on the journey. And then think about the idea of like building community. I think for many that feels like whoa, like a big, like a pretty big scope unit. I mean, isn’t it? Is it? Is it big? Is it? Do we overthink it like talk to me about why it feels challenging for so many of us, right?

Tracey Warren 14:13
Yes, we absolutely overthink it. And I think, you know, one of the ways to simplify it is to just identify people, like identify 20 people, 10 people, right? Like, once you start to identify those folks, the people that I call champions, it the numb, like, it’s easy to go, oh, I want to add that person and that person and that person. But when you identify who these people are, then then you can develop a plan. But if you go I want to build a community out of everyone I’m connected to on Facebook and LinkedIn and Instagram. Well, that’s ludicrous, right if that’s too much noise, but if you can pare it down to a small group of people who are who you’re like, Okay, these are the people and I want to show up where they are or I want to, I want to engage with them where they’re at, I want to make them part of my touch point plan. That’s the easiest way to break it down is to just identify a handful of people instead of all the people. Mm hmm.

Heather Pearce Campbell 15:26
I love that. Well, and yeah, even I mean, obviously, we’ve got more to talk about with your book. Ignite your champions. Right. So you said that that just published five weeks ago? Yeah. Yeah. Congratulations.

Tracey Warren 15:39
Thank you. Yes. It’s, I really got serious about writing it in February, I took a retreat. And basically, I just needed time to organize all of the words I’ve ever written, which turned out to be a lot.

Heather Pearce Campbell 15:59
Right. Right now people are organizing all the words I’ve ever written. No, we go.

Tracey Warren 16:06
Well, and you know, I know there’s probably dozens of ways to write a book, and but putting it all together, and then separating it out, and then putting it all back together is what I did. But because I put it in like some I mean, I put it in a framework, right? Yeah. So yeah. And once I did that, then it’s like, oh, okay, then I know exactly where this content goes. It goes in this section. And yeah,

Heather Pearce Campbell 16:40
So it’s like engineering, the outline of the book, and then piecing together what you’d already created to fit into that outline.

Tracey Warren 16:47
Yeah. And then adding, adding more content. And then I took some out, and I actually have this file somewhere on my computer, like stuff that didn’t make it into the book, right? Like it’s valuable, but didn’t need to be in the book, that it can be a blog post, or I could do a YouTube video about it or something.

Heather Pearce Campbell 17:07
In the book, well, I love that there’s a woman that that helps people create courses. And she tells people, because our tendency, especially if we’re experts in our space, is to put everything we ever knew about this subject into the course. Right? And she’s like, No, no, no, no, no. I think she tells them that they can have like a vault, she calls it like the vault, like, put everything there, we’re only going to put like, really select few things over here into the course. But you can keep the vault, you can have your clients access that in other ways, right? That’s kind of like ringing that bell for me like, yeah, sometimes we need that vault in, like you said, that makes great blog posts or content for other things. So walk us through some of the key concepts of Ignite your champions, right, because this is a book all about how to create community. Right?

Tracey Warren 18:01
Yeah the subtitle is build your business by creating connection and community. The greatest thing about that subtitle is, that’s exactly what the books about. So when somebody says, What’s the book about? Like, it’s exactly that’s not fault advertising? No. So it’s about the framework is fire. So it’s about building a foundation, generating, ignition, building relationships, and creating engagement. So we can build our own fire in our businesses, because I believe community changes the world, or community can change the world. And it can impact our businesses, because it makes it easy to ask for help like it, there’s all sorts of things. So a friend of mine, she was like, I know you’re anti anti Facebook ads. But here’s this gal and check out her course. And I wrote back and I said, you know, I’m not so much anti ads, as I am pro community, right? Like, I can get far further in my reach or impact by asking 10 of my champions to share something that I can by dropping 20 bucks on a Facebook ad. Yeah. So so that’s really it’s when I say bringing joy and ease to marketing that I am dead serious about that. In fact, I’m getting ready to launch a podcast when I can get my act together and write some podcast episodes. Even even doing the podcast for my husband is an audio engineer by training and so I know him he’s gonna want the edits to be perfect and and I keep reminding him joy, and ease. Everything about my business is joy any and so, I want that to be the same thing for the for the podcast, but oh my god, I don’t want to overcomplicate this no, because it’s not sustainable, or duplicatable, or any of those things, right?

Heather Pearce Campbell 20:22
Well and I was gonna laugh because people hearing joy and ease in the same sentence as marketing are probably like, you know, it’s that disconnect,

Tracey Warren 20:36
really good cognitive dissonance going on, for sure.

Heather Pearce Campbell 20:40
I figured like a robot, like freaking out a little bit like getting to different commands, you know, joy and ease and marketing. So tell us, I mean, I’m sure this list is long. What do people get wrong about building community? Or even thinking about building community? Right? I think you touched on one of the points already, which is that like, they spam everyone in their network, instead of being really selective about how they go about, you know, initiating probably the foundation, if I were to guess, of like, how they’re going to create that community, right?

Tracey Warren 21:17
Well, I think one of the things that they get wrong air bunnies is they’re connecting with people the way they want to connect with them, not the way the people want to be connected.

Heather Pearce Campbell 21:31
Ding, ding, ding, ding, ding. This is like the four love languages, right? Like, yes, my partner should just understand that I want to be connected with this way. Right? And they really don’t know. And so we’re probably in reverse not doing it the right way for them as well. Yes.

Tracey Warren 21:50
Well, so we all know the golden rule, the golden rule is do unto others, but the platinum rule is do unto others as they would have done to them. Right. And so when someone says, oh, my gosh, don’t call me, I will never answer the phone, send me a text. Great. I need to make note of that, and honor what they want. So I think that that that is a challenge that people have is that they, they’re doing what they like, and so there’s a gal here that is at my office, and when her birthday comes around, I always jokingly say to her like, Okay, I know you, you don’t care about words of encouragement. So I am not sending you a birthday card. But next time you come to the office, I will take you to Starbucks because her love language is quality time.

Heather Pearce Campbell 22:57
That’s one of my quality time I hear you.

Tracey Warren 23:02
So I think that that being aware of how other people so I have another friend like words of I know words of encouragement is hers. So great. That means she’s going to get mail from me more often. She’s gonna get emails from me more often that just say, Hey, I just wanted to remind you, you’re awesome, or whatever, right? It doesn’t. It doesn’t need to be that big of a deal. But letting them talking to them in their language is really important.

Heather Pearce Campbell 23:37
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Tracey Warren 26:09
Totally miss it. And I think when I first saw, I own a co working space, and we’ve been here for four and a half years. And I remember when I was first writing, like the website copy, I am a massive extrovert. And my husband was like, you don’t want introverts to come there, do you? And I go, whoa, whoa, whoa, hold on, wait a minute, like, what am I doing? And but it was, it was the language that I was using, which was very, like, calm, join us how let’s have fun and him saying that allowed me like, okay, okay, tone down my extrovert language. But I even pay attention. Like, there’s some people that when they come in the door, they’re just quieter. So I’m like, do I say good morning to that person, because they might just want to come in and not be talked to Right? Like, and that’s fine. But I want to make sure to honor that in other people. Well, I titled me anytime.

Heather Pearce Campbell 27:16
Right, I will. And it’s just really important. I mean, even to be having this conversation that as a reminder, to just wonder about those things, and maybe even ask the question, right? Somebody’s coming into a co working space, you’re right, they might like want to go have a quiet corner and just be looking to, like, if they’re in my house, get out of the house away from or whatever. Right. But it is, I think it’s an important reminder to be really open minded about how, what are people’s preferences and to as much as possible, you know, respect those preferences. And it’s not that, you know, because some of us, for example, we may prefer to work with extroverts may be something that we provide in our business around a certain kind of service relies exclusively on mostly working with extroverts, right, it’s not beyond the realm of possibility. And many of us can be working with a wide range of personalities. And we just need to take that extra care of using language like so for example, Dino Jayne powers, I know, I forget even what her system is called. So she’s gonna clobber me on the head for that. But she’s got a system and you know, four different personalities, and some people are catalysts. And some people are optimizers. And, you know, some people are experts, but you use very different language for each of those folks. And even just remembering, like you said, in your sales copy, or in a conversation that some people need the hand holding and like, don’t worry, we’re going to walk you step by step through this and some people don’t can help you to more appropriately address people. That’s a really, I think, particularly important point in the context of building community.

Tracey Warren 29:04
Such their face, yeah, right. If their face glazes over, like, Stop, whatever you’re doing, and just check in right or whatever. Right.

Heather Pearce Campbell 29:15
So what else do people get wrong? Or misunderstand or overlook in the process of, you know, either preparing for actually trying to build community?

Tracey Warren 29:28
Well, I think if if there were one other big mistake that people make is trying to be for everyone. Yeah. Well, two things one, trying to be for everyone. And therefore, not ever expressing an opinion saying they work with everybody, which is not accurate. Or trying to be everywhere, right, like, oh, well, I have to do Instagram real and stories and posts and igtv. And oh, yeah, and all the Facebook and all that. Yeah. So the, but the everyone thing, just being more clear about what you do and who you do it for. Yeah, can be huge when creating community, because if, if people can’t talk about you in a clear way. That’s that’s and so for me what I had this realization in the last couple years that when people aren’t really clear about what they do, it drives me crazy. Because I want to make a connection for them, right? Like, more than anything. That’s what I, I live for making connections and when, when they’re like I work with, I, I sell skincare, I work with anyone with skin. I’m like, I can’t, I can’t I have a mental Rolodex. I can’t go through the mental Rolodex and go, Oh, yeah, that person has skin. But tell me that you work with people with adult acne. Okay, that would be a really tough referral to make. But that was the first thing that came to my brain. Oh, yeah. Heather, I’ve noticed you have acne, here’s my friend anyway. But when people are really clear about who they are, what they do and who they do it for? That I can go, oh, oh, I want to introduce you to this person.

Heather Pearce Campbell 31:45
Yeah, well, particularly in the context of community building, being willing to put your stake in the ground in order to have others say, Oh, this is a community for right and be able to refer other people to the community to you as the person behind the community, whatever, it’s, it’s critical. My brain is a lot the same way. And I’ll ask people, you know, do you work across industries? Who are your clients? Because I too, want to make connections, I want to know where they fit. I want to know who else I know, that should know them. Right? And if they’re like, Oh, everybody, I really, you know, and it’s, it still continues to surprise me. How many people have that wide open answer, like, oh, yeah, my clients really can be in any industry.

Tracey Warren 32:31
But here’s what I’ve seen. Your brain remembers, when you say something, and people laugh. So your brain remembers, and you’re, so you’re going to repeat that joke or whatever. So what I have seen in networking groups, as an example is the chiropractor will say, I work with anybody with a spine and the whole room laughs

Heather Pearce Campbell 32:55
and they’re obviously works.

Tracey Warren 32:58
They all laugh. What do they get referrals? And it’s the same thing when when people introduce themselves and say, Well, I work with small to medium sized companies. Again,

Heather Pearce Campbell 33:12
That’s like 89.9% of the business market in the United States.

Tracey Warren 33:17
Yes. And how do you define? And so that’s always my follow up question. Okay. How do you define small and medium sized business? Because technically, as a solo business owner, I’m what the government calls a micro business owner. So, so small to medium sized business, that can mean that can mean almost any deck could be QFC. Right? Like, well over could be a small business, small, medium sized business.

Heather Pearce Campbell 33:49
So that’s right. Right. I mean, the Small Business Administration Office for you know, in the US, I think, if you’re making less than $3 million a year in your particular location, you’re a small business, right? That’s so many businesses. So okay, I’m hearing from you that people make mistakes in, you know, not paying attention to how people like to be communicated with not putting a stake in the ground about who they’re for. And then also trying to be too many places. Can we talk specifically about the location because I think this is a sticking point for a lot of people that want to build community and they’re like, but where you know, where I’m out, like, you know, the logistics?

Tracey Warren 34:32
Well, so for me, when I ran a social media marketing company, I went to every networking thing I could go to, right, because I kept thinking falsely, by the way, that this next event is going to be the one where I meet the one person who changes everything. And that doesn’t happen and so what what, so I was In this, I call it the hamster wheel. You’re on the hustle hamster wheel. Because you’re networking, networking, networking, networking, and never following up, by the way, because you’re too busy networking

Heather Pearce Campbell 35:14
Stuck on the front end of that cycle.

Tracey Warren 35:16
Yes. And so for me what it meant that was I was having every coffee date out there, I was going to every networking event. But it also was felt like I was working from the time I got up until the time I went to bed. Because I was networking all day, but I still had to do my work. And so I think that there’s, there’s a book called The Power of who that’s been out for a really long time. Then one of the questions they asked is, What if you already knew everyone you need to know to be successful in your business? And chances are you already do. Right, right. It’s tapping into the power, it’s tapping into your network, and asking better questions and, and dialing it back, like taking dialing it back to a place where, oh, I can go to networking events, and do the follow up because I’ve created the space to do that. And the other thing, like, I don’t, I generally don’t go to free networking events anymore. There’s a gal that I know she wrote a blog post years ago about the about free, and how expensive for you really is, right? And I just, I don’t like to go to free events, because they attract a different, it’s just a different level of people. Sometimes, like, that’s a very broad generality. But yes, can you meet awesome people at free events? Probably. It’s just, I’d spent enough time going to enough of those to know, okay, let me not,

Heather Pearce Campbell 37:12
You know, having a payment will really for anything, there’s a different level of person that shows up. And it’s not, you know, level of person level of probably commitment to business, commitment to results that shows up behind that payment wall, right, whether that’s networking, whether it’s an event that you’re putting on in your business, that’s not networking, but content or workshop or whatever. It really is true that people value what they pay for.

Tracey Warren 37:43
Well, and think about, I mean, how many events have I been to? That were three? And how many note? People don’t show up? How many people that like, I went to this event, and then all the name tags were laid out and, you know, an hour into the event, there’s still like, 60 name tags? How am I? What the heck? Well, it’s a free event. Yeah. So it’s like, I don’t lose anything if I don’t go. Right.

Heather Pearce Campbell 38:13
So we’ve talked a little bit about in person networking, right, one of the ways that you can create community and yet, you know, now in the midst of the pandemic, we all mean, clearly, if we haven’t already, we should be pivoting to take a huge component of our business online, probably including the community building, what do you have to say around location and for people that you know, want to build communities? How you how you select that, right? There are a lot of options these days.

Tracey Warren 38:45
There are a lot of options. And I think sometimes it’s just about, you know, you got to dip your toe in the water and a bunch of places to find your people. And location thing. It was interesting, I had a live book launch. And I don’t remember how I don’t know exactly how many people were here, but it felt so foreign. Like hey, how do we do this again?

Heather Pearce Campbell 39:14
Like to Patterson

Tracey Warren 39:16
How do we talk to the the gal came with the food and she’s like, where do you want me to set up the food? I’m like, I don’t remember. But I think it’s it’s about testing out some things and and seeing what connections you commit. So there’s a local gal, she’s a mortgage broker, and I go to a number of her events that she does virtually and I just, I make it my goal to connect with at least one person. Some if it’s too great, but I can tell a lot by those five. I can tell a lot about the event by how those conversations go, right? Are they Hey, we’re really getting to know one another conversations, or are they by my stock conversation? Oh, yeah. And so I’ve just had some really great, I feel like I’ve been lucky with some of the groups that I’ve chosen. And there are some other groups that I have whittled away actually, in the Seattle area. Unfortunately, most of the networking groups don’t exist anymore, right. And so I am a member of WB O, which is women business owners, they’ve actually been in business for 42 years. So they, we’ve got some staying power. But it’s been, it’s been really hard to watch these other groups, just, I mean, people who relied on that live in person networking. And I will also say, there’s a lot of people that complain about zoom and zoom fatigue, and I get it. And could we stop talking about zoom fatigue?

Heather Pearce Campbell 41:11
Right? Well, it’s not going anywhere. Let’s be clear that it’s, yeah, it’s not going anywhere.

Tracey Warren 41:18
And for me, if somebody says, Hey, do you want to talk via phone or via zoom? I’m always going to say zoom. Because one, one, it helps me stay focused. Yeah, if I’m on, if I’m talking on the phone, I could maybe check my email, I mean, I might be able to do something else. But if I’m on on zoom with someone, I’m giving them my full attention, when you’re paying…

Heather Pearce Campbell 41:44
attention to their face, you know, their level of communication is a different kind of communication that happens over the phone where you can’t see them.

Tracey Warren 41:52
Well, and I think that’s, you know, that’s very true in building community in virtual events. Yes. If you have your if you one, if you don’t have your camera on? Okay, I get it. Sometimes you’re driving, so you don’t want your camera on. I’m totally for that. But if you have your camera on, and I can see that the whole time we’re in this meeting, you’re looking at a second screen. Like, I don’t want to connect with you. Because you’re not you’re not in it. Yeah, you’re not in this with me. And I want to be in it with other people who are in it.

Heather Pearce Campbell 42:31
Yeah. Well, I mean, it’s an important point, you raised the role of video nowadays and creating community, right? It’s, it’s essential, it is like doing community without the visual support, especially if there cannot be the in person, you know, I just don’t think you get there. And so I think that’s huge. You have to figure out a way to show up on video, right? And create that connection, whether it’s one on one as you build out the community, whether it’s in the context of a group. I’m sure you’ve got lots to say about that. Right? I know plenty of people who are very resistant to showing up on video, even though they know they need to be there. Right.

Tracey Warren 43:20
You know, it’s it’s um I’m sure there’s some there’s some stuff going on. There’s some enoughness stuff. There’s some worthiness stuff. There’s a I’m not camera ready.

Heather Pearce Campbell 43:38
Well, tough concept. Yeah, I’m laughing because for people that can’t see me, right, I’ve got a hat on my hair. kind of brushed as brushed as my hair ever looks because it has, it has natural wave. Right? I definitely currently in my life, I literally have a T shirt on that says Mom hustle, right?

Tracey Warren 43:59
But the thing is that okay, so I and I want to honor that. It’s tough for some people, I don’t want to just like because, but the other thing is part of the connection piece is about authenticity, and just showing up as you are and whatever that looks like. And I think part of part of the challenge is that we’re in this age of cotton candy content, right? Like everyone’s Instagram life, which is be asked most of it right like the filters and the this and that and so when Gosh, can you just show up and like there was a gal on a? I was on a call earlier today and she just started crying and she’s like, I’m so sorry, guys. I’m not normally like this. I’m like, well first of all Can women quit apologizing? Yeah, right for having emotions, but but I would guess that the people who were new to that room felt even more connected to her because of that. Right? Like, it’s not always perfect.

Heather Pearce Campbell 45:20
Well, and I would say, yeah, sorry to cut you off, I know you’re good. The, it’s not always perfect. And in my opinion, it’s better when it’s not always perfect, right, the gift for me of COVID has been that some of these, you know, whatever trappings have to fall away, because life force them to and it’s like, for me, if I was going to launch my podcast, show up to my podcast, have client meetings, like, I had to do this for the last 18 months in the context of also having two little people live behind me at any moment, doing crazy stuff, or screaming in the, you know, whatever, like, all sorts of wild stuff. And I feel

Tracey Warren 46:05
Like that has been the biggest blessing is, if I’m in a group Zoom meeting, and a cat doesn’t walk across the screen, I’m like, disappointed,

Heather Pearce Campbell 46:15
Right, like, show me real life here. Show me some real life.

Tracey Warren 46:19
It’s real life. Yeah. You know, the kids coming in and waving and I mean, I. I mean, I don’t have littles. Yeah. But I do have a barking dog, which is why I come to my co working space most the time. But, but I also think there’s, there’s just this greater understanding of life, that life happens and what happens.

Heather Pearce Campbell 46:47
And I think we have a whole new level of grace across the board that most people are willing to give, having been through the experience of COVID Grace, and just understanding that for business to even happen for this call to even happen, we have to accept these other things about life that we really didn’t accept. before. We tried to hide we tried to perfect we tried to, like, only show up if we had brushed our hair or whatever. Right. But it’s really true. And it’s like the conversation that I had right before this. Before we went live. The gal said, Oh, I shouldn’t have dressed up and I laughed, I said, No, she said that because of me, right? I’m very casual. And I said, No, come as you are. And this is how I am today. So I decided to still show up. And I’m in my mom hat and right, I might have put a little blush on or something. But the alternative of not showing up is just not an alternative. And I feel like more people get that now. Yeah. And it’s actually easier to drop those other layers that we put on ourselves of like, well, I should be this or I don’t look perfect, or my lighting isn’t looked like her lighting or whatever, right?

Tracey Warren 48:00
Oh, yeah. It and it’s the level of scrutiny we put ourselves through is it can be heartbreaking at times. Yeah.

Heather Pearce Campbell 48:10
Yeah, that’s really true. Well, and you know, last year, I ran an experiment where I showed up live, every Monday, I did an Ask Me Anything live, as soon as COVID hit, I realized, this is going to be hugely problematic for so many small businesses. So many of my clients, like, oh, we just got to get people online, we’ve got to get their businesses protected. Right? They need to understand what it means to be online from a legal perspective and have a business that’s taking care of and so I just told myself, I’m going live every Monday until, you know, anybody that’s connected to me has their questions answered. They know what they need. They’re not, you know, I didn’t want anybody left out in the rain. And aside from a few Monday’s that fell on holidays, hell or high water, I went live every Monday 11am Pacific for probably an hour. And it was amazing, who would show up and how grateful they were there. Even when my life was chaos in the background. They were like, it’s so great that you’re doing this. And the weird part of that experiment is it took literally that level of chaos and forcing myself to still go live to actually kind of get me over the hump of realizing like, Oh, this is what we all should have been doing all along. Now. We’re just in this compressed period where people are forced to accept it. Right. So right, but people on the other side, I think, are so much more receptive when you show up real regardless of you know, whatever circumstances. Yeah, for sure. And what a powerful thing in the context of building a community

Tracey Warren 49:48
To show up right? Yeah.

Heather Pearce Campbell 49:51
So what is your, because you’ve built communities online you’ve built you are owner of a co working space that it looks like your city In right now, right? Yes. So you’ve done both the in person real life community building and the online work. Are there differences between the two?

Tracey Warren 50:15
Hmm, that is a good question. So suppose I mean, yes. Because there’s a proximity piece. Right, right today in person. And, you know, we noticed when people are here, right, so there’s a guy here, who he works for Facebook. And last week, we didn’t see him Monday or Tuesday, but boy, when he came in Wednesday, like what happened, but give us the inside scoop. In so I will say that there’s something really, really nice about having built in people to talk to write if, if you want to, and if time allows, right, like it doesn’t, it’s not always, like we’re all running our own businesses, right,

Heather Pearce Campbell 51:05
You can hang out all day.

Tracey Warren 51:08
But I think there’s a lot of similarities, because you’re still getting to know the person and honoring how they want to be connected with that all of those other things, building relationships.

Heather Pearce Campbell 51:19
Yeah, yeah, yeah. When people think of, especially in the online space, building a community, I can imagine, and I know you’re a social media guru, I can imagine people get overwhelmed really quickly thinking about social media, what it takes to do that, do they need to be all the places? What are ways that they can streamline or simplify their social media? If they are, you know, trying to build a community?

Tracey Warren 51:49
One Wow. One would be to know who your champions are, like whittling down that list. And then, and then figuring out where they are. Right. And so as an example, LinkedIn right now, like, if, if your listeners aren’t on LinkedIn, and they’re not creating content on LinkedIn, they’re missing out on a humongous opportunity. So LinkedIn, I show number, and yeah, the number is staggering. There are 300 million active daily users. I think that’s the right number. Only 1% 10% It’s a very low number of those people, postcards content ever. So if you think about 300 million down to 10%, that’s 300,000 people, which, in the scheme of social media, I know I’m saying like, it’s only 300,000 people. But but when you think about there are a billion active users on Facebook every day. Yeah. 300,000 people that are creating content, that’s not very many. And so it’s a, it’s LinkedIn is full of opportunity. And chances are, if you are in business, and you are connecting with other business people, they’re also on LinkedIn. And especially right now, with a lot of people getting more and more. I don’t know what the word is, but there’s a lot of feelings people have right now about Facebook.

Heather Pearce Campbell 53:40
A really good way that a lot of blank feelings people know about Facebook.

Tracey Warren 53:49
Well, and and part of it is they don’t understand the First Amendment and that Facebook doesn’t have to give them a right to say whatever they want, because they’re a private company. Okay. So there’s that. But there’s also there’s there’s some problematic things about Facebook. Yeah.

Heather Pearce Campbell 54:08
And what it’s done to actual communities,

Tracey Warren 54:12
Yes, correct. Yeah,

Heather Pearce Campbell 54:14
I actually problem that I have with it.

Tracey Warren 54:17
Well, this statistic I, I heard the other day was that 90% of Facebook users are outside of North America. Okay, so only 10% of the users are in the United States of Canada. However 87% of the resources they dedicate toward policing, misinformation, is spent in the in America. I believe that 100 It’s like an 8020 like 90% of the users are out there. But they’re spending all their resources.

Heather Pearce Campbell 54:55
They should just check this all off. Right? They should just get rid of like their North Americans. For me, I have to confess that when Facebook went down whenever it went down, was it this week or last week last Monday? Yeah. Yeah. So I didn’t even know. And I was on a call with somebody that afternoon. And they were like, oh, did you hear about the social media, you know, craziness or whatever, cuz I think Instagram was also down and I was like, No, what’s going on? She was like, Facebook is down. And I was like, totally like happy dance. Like, what if it? I know, I shouldn’t say this. But what if it went down permanently? I know being ice, some of our problems would be solved because of that.

Tracey Warren 55:37
Well I thought about that a lot that day, because it wasn’t just that Facebook was down. Facebook lost their connection to the internet. So they were not just down, they were gone. Like, their DNS did not exist. And think about how many people’s businesses revolve around either they, they do Facebook ads for business, or they do social media marketing for companies. So it was not just Facebook, it was Facebook, Instagram, WhatsApp, because everything that Facebook owned was down. And it really did. It’s like, it’s a good reminder for ownership. And when it comes to Facebook or Instagram, they own you not the other way around.

Heather Pearce Campbell 56:30
Right? Well do not build your business on rented property. Right. I mean, I,

Tracey Warren 56:36
I think that about tick tock, right? Like, yeah, I don’t use tick tock. I think tick tock is problematic for a number of reasons. One, it’s owned by a company in China, which has questionable ethics to begin with, but, um, you know, these influencers, which that word makes him want to vomit, but they build this platform, and they have a million followers, and they’re making money, right? They’re, they’re making money because of that. But if tic tock goes down and is gone. You, you have nothing. Like you, you go, you have a million followers, you have nothing, I have a friend who she had a Facebook group that she had built forever. And then one day, it was just gone.

Heather Pearce Campbell 57:29
I’ve had friends that have gone through similar stuff, where for some random reason, it just got shut down. Like they didn’t even you know, do anything controversial or wrong, but something happened and it like that it was gone. It was shut down. No more access.

Tracey Warren 57:43
And, and, and in the case of there’s a lot of business owners that violate the terms of service without us knowing it, because they haven’t read the Terms of Service. So if you violate the terms of service, and you’re and something is removed, you have no recourse because you click that little button that said you agreed

Heather Pearce Campbell 58:07
I was damn lawyers.

Tracey Warren 58:12
I have read the Terms of Service, I’ve read the Terms of Service for Facebook a lot, right? Because, for me trying to understand for when I was managing pages, I wanted to make sure I wasn’t violating a rule on behalf of my clients. Right. Yes. And, and, and, you know, there’s some interesting things in the terms of service where I feel like it’s vague on purpose. So one of the one of the examples is it says you cannot use your personal profile for the sole purpose of marketing your business. Okay. So is that 10% of the time. So anyway, yeah, I could go on and on about the terms of service, but Right. But yeah, the I think the the platform’s going down is just a good reminder, like, okay, you know, what, those are all relationships in a social networking platform. So I took that opportunity to I message people on LinkedIn, I texted people, I’m like, hey, I want to get your email address and your phone number and your mailing address, just in case.

Heather Pearce Campbell 59:31
Right. Well, that’s what I was gonna ask. So the solution would be, you have multiple ways to communicate with somebody, right, like real world ways to keep that connection ongoing to keep that community together.

Tracey Warren 59:45
Absolutely. Yeah. Yeah.

Heather Pearce Campbell 59:50
Well, oh my goodness. Technology, when it works is brilliant. And then technology when it doesn’t, right can really put people in a pit And, you know, this issue, I had a friend who built her entire business on Google Plus. Ah, right. I know. Yeah. You know, one of those things that’s like, oh, just one day Google decides they’re done with Google Plus?

Tracey Warren 1:00:17
It’s yeah, it’s it’s a great opportunity. And I think that’s, that’s where, as a business owner, it’s hard sometimes to suss out, like, what are the good opportunities? And what are the like? Yeah, is having a Facebook business page. It’s not a good opportunity. Today it is, you know, it’s doing that on Instagram. Yeah, absolutely. And I think we can’t put all of our eggs in one basket, either.

Heather Pearce Campbell 1:00:55
Yeah. Well, and I think, definitely, that not putting our eggs in one basket and, and planning for flexibility, planning, like building flexibility into your business plan. Because anytime, especially in the digital age, that you you know, over rely on something, I just think it puts your business at such greater risk. Right. And so, you know, relying on any platforms, I mean, even you know, you look at website hosts, you know, hosting companies, you look at all of the things that can go wrong behind the scenes, you know, online on your own platform.

Tracey Warren 1:01:36
Right, well, even zoom, right. So, the people who thrived, and during the pandemic are ones that pivoted I hate the word pivot, who shifted quickly, right. But even zoom had trouble in the beginning, because there were some of us who’ve been using zoom all along, right? I’ve been using zoom all along. Yep. But all of a sudden, everyone, all their children, we’re using zoom for school and zoom had some issues.

Heather Pearce Campbell 1:02:10
Right. So definitely, there are security features. We’re not actual security feature, right?

Tracey Warren 1:02:15
Yes. And, you know, but like you said, where you host your website, I mean, my cell phone, right. Like, I’m with T Mobile, they’ve had some data challenges, recently, multiple times. And it’s just a good reminder them?

Heather Pearce Campbell 1:02:34
Yeah, well, and then you think about all of this in the context of community and holding a community like, it becomes so much more important that you have the flexibility that you have the multiple ways of maintaining contact, and reaching out and communicating with folks, which also, for me, has me thinking like, okay, you know, like, even in regards to your database and nurturing your list, like, have you trained them to open emails in case this other stuff doesn’t like how do you incentivize people right, to engage with you in ways that will support that community will support for example, my ongoing asked me anything lives, right? You actually have to open the email to get that information. So part of it is I know actually creating and delivering information in a way that still makes it easy to consume and take the action and stay engaged. There’s so much there, but it’s…

Tracey Warren 1:03:42
Bringing joy and ease, is, make it easy, make it easy for people to get in touch with you make it easy for people to find your pricing make it if I go to your Facebook page, and I can’t find your phone number. That and then I go to your website, and I still can’t find a phone number. Like, depending on how bad I want to reach you will be the level of like, how committed Am I right but but um, but for some people, they’re not gonna look that hard.

Heather Pearce Campbell 1:04:15
No, no. And I think it’s important to remember like even you saying that, like you go looking for a phone number. I’m the same way I’m very old fashioned. I pick up the phone, I spend a lot of my time on the phone because I have two wild children in my life. And if I only lived on Zoom, let’s be clear that I love zoom and I do a lot of zoom. But if I only lived on Zoom, there may be times where I can’t check on my children. I need to be able to do that. So for certain types of calls, like my short introductory calls, they’re happening on telephone right and so making it easy for people but I think so many people get weird and protective about their phone number and you know, they actually make it really challenging to get in touch with them and I know this because I do a lot of infringement work in the online space. And so I get really good at finding people. And I also write come across quite a few who have attempted to make it fairly challenging to get in touch with them. Intentionally. Right. Yeah, make sense if you’re up to shady business online? Yeah. Anyways, Tracy, I adore you. I mean, I feel like I could chat all day with you about this stuff that you have experience with. And we’ve really just touched on, you know, the tips of it for for folks that want more information. I know there’s a variety of ways they can reach out to you and we will include all of your links on our show notes page. So if you’re listening that is at Legal website, warrior.com forward slash podcast. But Tracy, where do you like to show up online?

Tracey Warren 1:05:51
I really do like to show up on Facebook and Instagram. I do. Instagram is getting more fun for me. But don’t even get me going on reels. Holy cow the other day like an hour. I did. I watched an hour of reels, which are like 15 seconds at a time or whatever they are anyway.

Heather Pearce Campbell 1:06:12
There you go. Ding ding ding right. The power Oh, video the power. I’m not

Tracey Warren 1:06:16
Doing it. I’m not doing it. Yeah,

Heather Pearce Campbell 1:06:18
I hear Yeah,

Tracey Warren 1:06:19
I’m not. Anyway.

Heather Pearce Campbell 1:06:21
So Instagram, Facebook?

Tracey Warren 1:06:24
Yeah, pretty easy to find. Okay. I’m ignite your champions everywhere.

Heather Pearce Campbell 1:06:29
And love that will also share a link to your book again, congratulations. And yes, if you’re listening, check out Tracy’s book. Ignite your champions. And, Tracey for those that are with us today. What final takeaway Do you have? What action step or takeaway would you like them to either be thinking about or to go do?

Tracey Warren 1:06:52
Well, I would invite you to really think about who in your life are your champions. And then a little giveaway I have is an Ignite your champions bingo game. So it’s just I like to make things fun. So it’s a bingo board with 24 ideas for ways that you can reach out to your network.

Heather Pearce Campbell 1:07:18
Oh, I love that. So we will be sure to to have a link to Tracy’s bingo board. I love that who doesn’t love bingo?

Tracey Warren 1:07:27
Yeah, I would like to go play bingo right now. I honestly I just want to do anything rollerskating

Heather Pearce Campbell 1:07:35
Totally well this morning my daughter has for us to me she’s in the process of learning letters right H and B can sometimes get a little mixed up and she said Mom What is h i NGO spell? I was like no, well she’s obviously mixed up our little you know we do all the time so you around her but I love so hard. What is h i NGO spell? Like fantastic spells. Bingo. Yes. Tracy, I adore you. I’m so happy to see you. And I really appreciate you coming on here and sharing your brilliance with us and you’re warm and all the gems around importance of creating community and what also sometimes we do the wrong way and how to correct that. So super important.

Tracey Warren 1:08:28
I’m so glad that it was it was honestly like I was so excited to see you and chat with you, of course. But thank you so much for having me.

Heather Pearce Campbell 1:08:35
Of course I’d love to have you on here again some time.

GGGB Outro 1:08:42
Thank you for joining us today on the Guts, Grit & Great Business™ podcast. We hope that we’ve added a little fuel to your tank, some coffee to your cup and pep in your step to keep you moving forward in your own great adventures. For key takeaways links to any resources mentioned in today’s show and more, see the show notes which can be found at legalwebsitewarrior.com/podcast. Be sure to subscribe to the podcast and if you enjoyed today’s conversation, please give us some stars and a review on Apple podcast Spotify or wherever you get your podcast so others will find us too. Keep up the great work you are doing in the world and we’ll see you next week.