Browsing Tag

Sunday Brunch

Community, LGBTQ, Marginalization, SaaS

B2B SaaS startups: Let’s support LGBTQ communities, and not just for Pride.

June 12, 2018 by

This article was originally sent as an e-mail as part of my newsletter, Sunday Brunch with Nichole: A Weekly Missive on Community Growth.

Pride Month is an opportunity to open up conversations about improving inclusivity – not just in our online communities, but for our employees and customers too. As I’ve mentioned in previous emails, I run an LGBTQ community, I am bi, and have been with my girlfriend for almost 8 years. But even if I wasn’t part of the LGBTQ community, I would be advocating for inclusivity, because LGBTQ rights are human rights.

Humans, however, are notoriously flawed, and the road to inclusivity is packed with potholes. It’s not an easy road, even for those of us walking it every day. I am constantly listening and learning from my marginalized friends. I’m constantly making mistakes. And I am constantly trying to improve.

That’s all we can ask, really. To have the desire to be more inclusive, to listen more carefully, and to constantly improve. Personally, I’d write that straight into company policy, if I had my way.

Some things your SaaS biz can do to support LGBTQ diversity and inclusion:

  • Train staff on the full spectrum of sexual orientation and gender identity, including the LGBTQ vocabulary so everyone knows the correct terms.
  • Provide sensitivity training that is up to date, and not just about racism and sexism. Tip: Learn from Starbucks recent foray into sensitivity training what worked and what didn’t.

“They told us we need to be ‘color brave’ instead of color blind and it was the whitest thing I’ve ever heard,’ she said, describing a journal and discussion portion held mid-way through the session. ‘Me and my coworkers of color felt uncomfortable the entire time.’” – Alicia, a Starbucks employee, quoted in Time

  • Don’t obligate your marginalized staff to help train employees who aren’t marginalized (it’s not their job!) – but, be open to their input. Being open to input could have helped Starbucks avoid the above.
  • Offer equal benefits packages for everyone. Some health insurance providers don’t provide benefits that LGBTQ employees need.
  • Diversify your network by introducing yourself to people who don’t look like you. This action is on the micro/personal level, but it can have a big impact on who gets hired, recommended and promoted in tech.
  • Become aware of who does the “office housework” (ie. it’s usually women), and create a rotation system. Things like taking meeting minutes, cleaning up the break room, collecting money for a birthday gift.
  • Advocate with amplification. When a woman makes a good point or brings up a good idea in a meeting, often a man in the meeting will say the same thing (afterwards) and take the credit. This happens a lot, especially in tech. So when a woman makes a good point, do like these White House staffers did and build on the idea so it keeps progressing and is properly attributed to its rightful source.
  • Donate to LGBTQ foundations to show your support. Some suggestions below!

Where to donate to support LGBTQ communities in tech year-round:

  • The Body is Not an Apology – an international movement committed to cultivating global Radical Self Love and Body Empowerment.
  • Lesbians Who Tech – the largest gathering for women in tech in California, and the largest LGBTQ professional event in the world
  • Trans*H4CK – tackles social problems experienced by the Trans community by developing new and useful open source tech products that benefit the trans and gender non conforming communities
  • Start Out – connects and educates LGBTQ entrepreneurs to empower great leaders and businesses.
  • Out in Tech – provides resources and mentorship to ensure career access for LGBTQ youth and provide web services for LGBTQ activists around the world.
  • Trans Tech Social – an incubator for LGBTQ Talent focusing on providing resources, support and community.

My Pride Month reading list:

This article was originally sent as an e-mail as part of my newsletter, Sunday Brunch with Nichole: A Weekly Missive on Community Growth. 

If you’d like to receive emails like this one, sign up for my newsletter:

Community, Customer Success, Emotion, Human-to-Human (H2H), Retention, SaaS

Set the tone of your SaaS community to be like Sunday brunch with friends 🥞☕️

May 15, 2018 by

Set the tone of your SaaS community

This article was originally sent as an e-mail as part of my newsletter, Sunday Brunch with Nichole: A Weekly Missive on Community Growth. 

Here’s the thing you may not know about me: SaaS companies hire me to help them build and grow communities around their SaaS products. I don’t advertise this. But they’ve seen me doing community growth at Growth Hackers, Product Hunt, Inbound, and now Zest.is and…

They want in.

Because they know they’ll only get the benefits of a community for their SaaS company if they can manage to build a community that’s more like, well, Sunday brunch at my place.

Or your place. It’s not really the venue that matters.

It’s the chemistry of the people.

The tone.

To get all woo woo on you – the energy.

This is where you come in.

Every Sunday morning, we’re going to talk about building, launching, engaging, and growing online communities for SaaS products.

We’re going to start at the beginning. What is a community? What does it do? How can you set the tone so everyone has a good time, and gets what they came for?

That’s what this very first email is about.

What does a community do?

Communities share ideas, give advice, ask questions, make jokes, support each other’s goals, break bread and bake pies. And community members help their neighbors build everything from barns to businesses. At least, that’s how they work in real life.

Here’s something else you may not know about me: I host gatherings at my house with large groups of creative, brilliant people every Sunday.

We cook, eat, make things together, have deep important conversations and blow bubbles in the pool.

Sunday get-togethers

However, It’s a little different when I talk about online communities with SaaS businesses.

Here’s what they hope will happen:

  • Customer retention
  • Upselling opportunities
  • Brand advocacy
  • A ready pool of voice-of-customer data that’s pure gold for sales & marketing

These are great goals, and the best way to achieve them is to create an online community that feels like an offline one.

How can you set the tone of your SaaS community to be like a Sunday morning brunch with friends?

Here’s how it works in my house:

If the gathering is large with new people who don’t know each other, introductions are important.

I’ll ask everyone to go around the room, say their names, their pronouns, and fun facts about themselves. This opens up the conversation.

When I know two guests who really should know each other, I introduce them and tell them what they have in common.

Then we have ice-breaker games like Loaded Questions where people have to guess who answered what to questions like:

Loaded Questions

The first steps toward building an online community are actually very similar.

Incidentally, CRO specialist Talia Wolf, has a new Facebook group called We Optimize where she took my advice and tried this out for her ‘Intro thread.’ But instead of a ‘brunch,’ she went with a tea party.

Talia Wolf

The responses she got were thoughtful, honest and open – the raw ingredients of real friendships. It gets down to people’s values, rather than “what startup are you at? What do you do?” Much more interesting. Much more engaging. (If you want to see this in action, let me know and I’ll show you the thread.)

Step 1: Know your guests (You got this!)

You’ve already laid the groundwork for genuine connections to happen if you’ve defined your ideal customer, actively market to attract them, and have a customer success process in place to make sure they’re getting what they need. (And if haven’t laid the groundwork yet, don’t worry, we’ll get to this too in an upcoming post.)

Do this, and your customers already have a lot in common. They share the same goals. They want the same things. They share the same values. They’re onboard with your mission.

That is an incredibly powerful place from which to build an active, engaged community.

Step 2: Write down your vision (You already know what it is)

When I throw a party, I have a few specific outcomes in mind. I want everyone to get along really well; I want people with related interests to meet each other; and I want stimulating conversations. It’s about creating an experience for everyone there that’s helpful, inspiring and fun.

Now, my guests know that’s what they’re getting when I send out the invitation. But yours don’t – not yet.

Before you invite your first members, get clear on what kind of community you’re hoping to build, and what experience you’d like their help with creating. What is the purpose of your community? (Tip: That purpose had better be helping your community, not just making more money for your company.)

Next week, I’ll share how to make your online community the place to be for your niche – and it all starts with your initial guest list.

kitten tea party

Have yourself a gorgeous day.

P.S. Hit reply and I’m happy to answer all your questions.

Know someone who could benefit from reading this e-mail? Please forward it on!

This article was originally sent as an e-mail as part of my newsletter, Sunday Brunch with Nichole: A Weekly Missive on Community Growth. 

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Churn, Community, Customer Success, Human-to-Human (H2H), Products, Retention, SaaS, Startups

Slack’s community superpower for SaaS is all about churn

May 14, 2018 by

This article was originally sent as an e-mail as part of my newsletter, Sunday Brunch with Nichole: A Weekly Missive on Community Growth. 

For SaaS products – whether B2B or B2C – Slack is where it’s at. By which I mean Slack is where your customers are already. But Slack has more going for it than just that. The platform is remarkably well-suited to creating exactly the kind of communities and engagement we’ve been talking about. The kind that fosters loyalty.

Consider:

Subscription-based businesses require strong customer relationships to prevent churn and increase customer lifetime value (the metrics that make or break your business).

Creating a community is one way to strengthen customer relationships and improve loyalty.

This is really – really – about eliminating churn.

Eliminating ‘Champion’ Churn

One of the leading causes of churn, especially for B2B SaaS, is when your ‘champion’ (the person who’s been talking you up to the boss, convincing everyone that you’re the solution they need) leaves. But if the whole team is on Slack? You’re already cultivating relationships with everyone, and they understand the value you bring.

Eliminating Churn among VIP Customers

BubbleIQ reported ZERO churn among the customers they shared Slack channels with. Now, they only began opening up private channels for their VIP customers who were already loyal and engaged, but still. Zero is a good number.

“Most companies rely on email or chat for support — but it turns out that’s a surprisingly high friction method of support for business customers today. Forcing customers through a formal contact form or into a long email thread creates a barrier between you, and makes it difficult to respond quickly to high priority issues.” – BubbleIQ

ProdPad’s Slack Community Experience

ProdPad also has never had a customer churn who was part of their Slack community.

Customers who join our Slack community were not cancelling their ProdPad plans at all. In fact, 99% of our cancellations were (and still are) coming from customers who weren’t part of our community.

In fact, ProdPad published a fantastic 40-minute video about their Slack community, and you should watch it. But I particularly loved what they said about how their Slack channel fostered and strengthened their relationships with their customers.

Andrea Saez, Head of Customer Success, talks about the “happy accidents” she discovered when their Slack community went live.

  • Users were helping other users to troubleshoot issues – out of the goodness of their hearts. So for those of you who might be concerned about the increased pressure put on your Customer Service teams, you might see the opposite effect. Cool, right?
  • The whole ProdPad team became involved and made themselves available to chat and answer questions, even the CEO, which meant that customers were taken care of even if the primary Slack designees weren’t immediately available. The “side effect” of this was that the whole team became more customer-centric, adding “a human touch to everything.”
  • Engagement levels rose – to the point where customers made friends with other customers.

As with any community, moderation was a challenge. They help set expectations with a Welcome Bot named Winston who greets new members and tells them the basics: how to submit feedback and ticket requests, and how to reach ProdPad members, as well as reminding them to be kind. I love the use of automation here!

There are so many good ideas in in this video for how to set up and use your Slack product community. It’s definitely worth the watch.

If you’re considering using Slack for customer support, Robbie Mitchell wrote a comprehensive Playbook for Working with B2B Customers in Slack that I recommend.

This article was originally sent as an e-mail as part of my newsletter, Sunday Brunch with Nichole: A Weekly Missive on Community Growth. 

If you’d like to receive emails like this one, sign up for my newsletter: