Episode 107 - Building out a Community Team with Elizabeth Kinsey

Chris Detzel: Welcome to another peers over beers Elizabeth i'm Chris detzel and.

Elizabeth Kinsey: i'm Elizabeth kinsey.

Chris Detzel: Welcome back.

Elizabeth Kinsey: thanks for having me again.

Chris Detzel: yeah well thanks for coming This is great it's great I always love having you I mean you're just so easy going, and you know laid back I love that attitude.

Elizabeth Kinsey: Because it's because you're getting me on like Friday afternoon I did like a bunch of Nice stuff for people so i'm just filled with the joy in light of volunteer work so.

Elizabeth Kinsey: You get that benefit Chris.

Chris Detzel: away, you know tell me about that you do a lot of volunteer work and stuff so.

Elizabeth Kinsey: i'm interest yeah I volunteer for my local meals on wheels organization so it's SOS mo w.org if anyone wants to go volunteer in the Bay area or you know donate money to their cars, and so you know I just I deliver meals on Friday morning to about.

Elizabeth Kinsey: 12 to 16 clients depending on who's going to be home that day and drive around drop off meals, you know tell everyone have a good weekend and then get to go go about my day.

Chris Detzel: So fascinating I love that it's just so awesome that you would do that, like I guess i'm just not like I give back to like some specific communities, but not like that you know so wow I mean you must love it I guess you.

Elizabeth Kinsey: keep doing it, I do love it and i'm really.

Elizabeth Kinsey: interested in kind of food justice as social justice, and when we think about who are delivering.

Elizabeth Kinsey: meals to oftentimes you know it's you know they're over over 60 so it's our older populations who are not as mobile oftentimes have are disabled, in some way and so.

Elizabeth Kinsey: And are oftentimes living in areas where there are food deserts so they don't have access to a grocery store they don't have access to regular fresh produce etc, and so meals on wheels really helps to.

Elizabeth Kinsey: bridge that gap and so there's a couple of other really great groups in the Bay area, who are also doing similar things but to me it feels like.

Elizabeth Kinsey: You know if this is something that I care about food justice, this is a really good way to make an immediate impact on that.

Elizabeth Kinsey: But I would never would have gotten involved a friend of mine is the program director and so does nutritional planning and stuff for this Oregon at the beginning of the pandemic they lost a lot of volunteers, because a lot of.

Elizabeth Kinsey: folks that are able to spend that time are older themselves and so we're at high risk.

Elizabeth Kinsey: And I was like well flexible workplace means that I should be able to take two hours on a Friday morning to go deliver people some food and.

Elizabeth Kinsey: slack is wonderful enough to you know see that as a as a we are flexible and we do have kind of a Fridays are certainly days that we are we don't do meetings and stuff like that, so it all works out but but yeah I.

Elizabeth Kinsey: Highly encourage anyone who wants to get involved, even if you want to go pack food in a kitchen or.

Elizabeth Kinsey: go in, you know do paperwork filing there's all kinds of ways to get involved with local organizations like that that are working on food justice.

Chris Detzel: Food justice, I like that I feel like this next conversation is just useless.

Elizabeth Kinsey: Not at all yeah people get kind of have jobs they can afford the.

Elizabeth Kinsey: You know, to make those donations so.

Chris Detzel: Right very good point.

Chris Detzel: You kind of get into what Community you know things I wanted to talk about today, and as we kind of look at you know growing our Community and things like that I wanted to throw some.

Chris Detzel: hypothetical but non hypothetical questions at you, because you know, this is what you're living in real life already and it's about building out a Community team.

Chris Detzel: And so I wanted to just get your thoughts some of this will be building out your Community team, and if we have a little bit more time it might go into you know how do you make them successful in that kind of stuff so are you ready for my questions today.

Elizabeth Kinsey: I am ready, bring them on excited to talk about this.

Chris Detzel: All right, yeah and i've already read the questions and she knows what's going on to some degree within five minutes ago, so you know I think she's prepared.

Elizabeth Kinsey: As long as my short term memory is still like this.

Chris Detzel: Exactly all right first question Elizabeth.

Chris Detzel: What does a successful you know what I was reading the wrong thing this, so the role of a Community department head, you know.

Chris Detzel: How do you how would you go about you know building out a team and what does that look like so let's say you get a community and this like okay you're going to get a team, what would they look like.

Elizabeth Kinsey: yeah I think that this is a really interesting question because I think it kind of highlights when.

Elizabeth Kinsey: That happens in someone's career journey or in the maturity of a Community because usually, when you get that first headcount for community.

Elizabeth Kinsey: it's because you as the sole Community manager and the sole konami person there's a lot of ideas that you have that you want to do, but there's just no capacity, there is a finite number of hours and people power in the.

Elizabeth Kinsey: day when you're talking about one person, and so a lot of times.

Elizabeth Kinsey: you're able to justify that first headcount because you're like Look how much more we could do if we had another person and or there's more work than than I can do, on my own, and we could be more effective if we had additional folks.

Elizabeth Kinsey: And so I think that in that instance what you're looking for in that first Community higher, especially if you don't have a lot like more headcount available it's not like you get to say okay.

Elizabeth Kinsey: For our for our Community team we're opening five positions, and these are the five glorious positions.

Chris Detzel: That might happen yeah.

Elizabeth Kinsey: So I have to answer to that also like you were in this utopia, what would you do, but in the reality is you're typically hiring someone to take on either a new program or take the scope of work that you have away so that you can focus on something else or.

Chris Detzel: Some other program probably.

Elizabeth Kinsey: About strategy, you know.

Elizabeth Kinsey: So I think the in that in that case you're looking for someone who has a really varied background I think it's got to be someone who can.

Elizabeth Kinsey: Work on operations they're gonna have to take what you were doing and what a lot of probably unless you've been really diligent about documenting what you do.

Elizabeth Kinsey: they're gonna have to take that over from you they're gonna have to learn how to do it they're gonna have to understand your process and.

Elizabeth Kinsey: Most of the time you want someone who's going to improve it they're going to say hey what you were doing Jane is fantastic But what if we just tweaked it a little bit so you want someone that can do that right that can.

Elizabeth Kinsey: See those opportunities for improving operations and.

Elizabeth Kinsey: You know that that includes automation and how you get swag to people and how you're measuring data, how you know, are all the systems connected.

Elizabeth Kinsey: So, having a little bit of experience there is really, really helpful because they have to be able to come in and follow your footsteps and sometimes decipher what you may or may not have documented.

Elizabeth Kinsey: The second thing that you're looking for is someone who is really willing to learn and may and is very adaptable, because I think when you're bringing on a single new Community team Member.

Elizabeth Kinsey: To you know as a as your first additional person, you need someone who's going to be able to adapt to the changes because it's going to take a little while for you to figure out what's what really should belong to them.

Elizabeth Kinsey: To bring them on board.

Elizabeth Kinsey: To be able to get them to understand the products to understand the existing Community and so they're gonna have to be able to adapt.

Elizabeth Kinsey: And so, finding someone who can can do that really well is, I think, a key thing, and the other piece of it is someone that has a little bit of marketing prowess I think that's a.

Elizabeth Kinsey: Marketing is such a dirty word for so many people, and it makes me sad because, like good marketing is really amazing and you discover things that you would not have discovered otherwise without really great marketing.

Elizabeth Kinsey: crappy marketers who like sell your name to a billion different companies and don't protect your data and like push crap products sure let's be mad at them, but.

Elizabeth Kinsey: When you when you have a really when you have an understanding of how people move through a sales cycle, how and, especially, this is, I think, important in B2B companies.

Elizabeth Kinsey: yeah you know you have to have someone that understands some of that underlying marketing requirements.

Elizabeth Kinsey: they're going to need to push your program and then by pushing on I mean like they're walking up to you know.

Elizabeth Kinsey: college students on the street like forcing them into join your community.

Elizabeth Kinsey: But you know to be able to talk about your program to to inspire people and to talk about your product and to understand your product, so I think having a little bit of a marketing background is always really helpful in a Community role.

Elizabeth Kinsey: And then the last thing that I would say you're looking for in that person is someone who is.

Elizabeth Kinsey: Has a good, solid ability to say no, because what ends up happening or what has been in it, sometimes in my experience and folks I talked with.

Elizabeth Kinsey: who are at the same level, you know.

Elizabeth Kinsey: Being eager to learn and.

Elizabeth Kinsey: and saying yes to too many things is a really fine line to walk.

Elizabeth Kinsey: And so you it's really important that as you're like just because you now have two people doesn't mean that you can do twice the amount of work, you can probably do 50% more work you're not it's not you know and so.

Chris Detzel: and leading the first time you're teaching the person you're doing a lot of things yourself to right so exactly a little bit more work for you to do.

Chris Detzel: Especially in the beginning, because I mean.

Chris Detzel: And I think what's ish.

Chris Detzel: You know.

Elizabeth Kinsey: yeah absolutely and it also depends on is that person been in their role is this someone who's a little bit more junior where they've been up to two to three years working in these types of roles.

Elizabeth Kinsey: or working period, or is this someone that you're you know is like.

Elizabeth Kinsey: three to seven years so they're a little bit more advanced and have a little bit more experience under their belt that's also going to determine how much coaching you're going to have to do, how much sort of translation of.

Elizabeth Kinsey: Different different things that you're gonna have to do, how familiar, are they with the industry, like all of those actors are going to play into how much you're going to need to do to make them successful.

Chris Detzel: it's kind of like you know when you first start a job you know you might know what to do, as a community leader, but you don't know the product you don't know the people you know so you've got to start moving fast, you know and and I love those and you know it's a lot of stuff from.

Elizabeth Kinsey: so well, I mean think about everything that you're doing right.

Elizabeth Kinsey: Now you know you you're I mean or any you know single or person at it on a Community and your time you tend to be doing all those things already so you're looking for someone who has the capacity to that and i'll tell you what in my utopia if they're in there was just like.

Elizabeth Kinsey: You have all the headcount you want for a you know we're launching a community, and this is what you need so one, first and foremost operations.

Elizabeth Kinsey: Yes, you like that is.

Chris Detzel: desktop you real quick yes.

Chris Detzel: Nicole said the same thing, like I don't know when we do this peers have a beers like I don't know she's a.

Chris Detzel: Lady so important because.

Chris Detzel: it's hard because that's the first one, I wanted to hire but sometimes you just need a Community manager to do the Community manager role.

Chris Detzel: So there was a little bit of a you know when she thinks of operations, I think she thought more of kind of the data, the analytics and getting all that stuff together.

Chris Detzel: yeah important because so it's a toss up between a Community manager or an operations or yes, you know something like that.

Elizabeth Kinsey: yeah it's I think that there's I think you can find in program managers, I think you can find a good mix of that operations and day to day Community management.

Elizabeth Kinsey: I think a program managers really good at kind of balancing both those things but absolutely Nicole is spot on like.

Elizabeth Kinsey: it's it's the data it's the systems it's measurement it's the processes it's being able it's someone who has their specialty is the is that they can spot.

Elizabeth Kinsey: How to make things more efficient, at the same time than they are connecting the story like if I find operations folks are like the unsung storytellers in many ways, because they are.

Elizabeth Kinsey: Working on the backbone of your program right like if you're if you're in a user group capacity, for instance, and they can't host events, because they have trouble logging into your platform, because you.

Elizabeth Kinsey: haven't done a good job documenting the process.

Elizabeth Kinsey: Then you're not going to have events as often which means you're not going to be doing you're not going to.

Elizabeth Kinsey: Be accomplishing any of those other goals right so like I think an operations person is key, and then you can't justify the business reason you're not designing programs that are.

Elizabeth Kinsey: Connecting to end results or outcomes and objectives so operations absolutely I think Community marketing is another one that.

Elizabeth Kinsey: it's a role that's important because you need folks that understand customer journeys that understand what motivates especially you're kind of.

Elizabeth Kinsey: In depending on where your Community sits if you're pre sales or post sales like Is this a is your Community built around lead gen you absolutely need someone on.

Elizabeth Kinsey: Yes, who is a marketer than.

Elizabeth Kinsey: Who.

Chris Detzel: about what that community is to is it a support Community or is it.

Chris Detzel: You know kind of this, you know industry specific.

Chris Detzel: it's an absolutely perfect.

Chris Detzel: and fair enough, you can do some of that market stuff.

Chris Detzel: support, as you can and eventually people might come in, but it's it's a lot less.

Chris Detzel: Of those lead things right.

Elizabeth Kinsey: It is, it is, but, but at the same time that marketer if you are on the support side, how are you managing seo of your Community How are people discovering you and finding you what's driving awareness and growth of your community, the Community marketing.

Elizabeth Kinsey: manager is really critical to those things, especially when you're early on in a Community like.

Elizabeth Kinsey: I think that, like the that they can work on a lot of things with cross functional partners and act as a liaison with marketing, for instance, like.

Elizabeth Kinsey: say that you have a I keep going to events, because I have events on the brain, but then you have a user group program where people are hosting events about your product.

Elizabeth Kinsey: Your user group leaders do not have the database of users, you do so, who is promoting that who's going to be more successful and promoting to the right audience.

Elizabeth Kinsey: Your user group leader who is probably putting it on their linkedin network which is great sharing it on social, which is great, or you the company that has the database of your product users.

Elizabeth Kinsey: it's you like you need to be supporting that, so I think that that can be something that a marketing a Community marketer can really help support is the success of the programs that you run is so dependent on the awareness of those programs and.

Elizabeth Kinsey: In communities so many people are volunteers, whether that's a support Community where people are answering questions in a forum or a user group Community where they're hosting events like.

Elizabeth Kinsey: Those people don't have access to the same audience that you do and so that's why I think 3D marketers partner and needing to Community managers, or you know or.

Elizabeth Kinsey: Depending on how many programs, you have and what those programs are you're going to need some a couple of folks that are.

Elizabeth Kinsey: day to day, working with people answering questions you know communicating information, etc, and then I think the last thing that is really important is an engineer, because all of these systems are a developer, all of these systems are.

Elizabeth Kinsey: How do you how do you connect the data, how do you build something in like depending on you know if you're in a forum, a lot of them have proprietary stuff or you need to do design, you need to do all this engineering work and it's hard to find those.

Chris Detzel: let's put it in real i'll put some of that in real life because yeah.

Chris Detzel: completely agree with you, so when you start thinking about the platform of Community so I use higher logic, some people use kiro some people use vanilla forums, some people use.

Chris Detzel: Whatever right salesforce that doesn't matter so there's all you know, at the very beginning they're not it's not connected to any business system, so when you think of how do when you when you want it Dana around.

Chris Detzel: You know, for example, like the things that I get today is an APP to do it manually is.

Chris Detzel: Customer success when you think of current accounts that you know real to owns versus non accounts versus partner accounts how what's the percentage of accounts that are that have.

Chris Detzel: been put that are in Community today versus not so I could say X number of percent of these accounts and link them to directly the CSM say you know these are the ones, already in Community today.

Chris Detzel: And these are not this is ones we have to go after as a matter of fact i've.

Chris Detzel: Five in this account 10 in this account 20 minutes you know what I mean like.

Chris Detzel: yeah and so.

Chris Detzel: When you start presenting information like that you know and and also not to get off, but you know to me that's a business kind of need is you know for the CSM organization is like hey.

Chris Detzel: These people are asking questions, these people are engaged, these are the accounts, you have you know, but you need somebody to tie that data together right like if.

Chris Detzel: You have an excel spreadsheet I use excel and I.

Chris Detzel: You know, do an export of all this data and have to kind of you know it's it's a lot of work and the other pieces when you look at tablo, for example, or my sub bi, for example, how you push that data that's already into the community into like a dashboard like like.

Chris Detzel: tablo instead of having to do excel and then, how do you automate.

Chris Detzel: All that information that I just spoke about, and so having an engineer, or you know we call it like a.

Chris Detzel: You know, like a something stack I forget, you know, in the marketing teams, they this person goes.

Elizabeth Kinsey: Our developer.

Chris Detzel: yeah yeah and this guy isn't a full developer right, you know, but he knows he's pretty technical and do some things you know if you have to maybe but I don't have that today.

Chris Detzel: You know, and so it's frustrating, because the data that I get is just I would say 90% accurate, because you know it's me doing this shit.

Elizabeth Kinsey: yeah yeah no I totally totally agree and I think that that is like it's it's connecting the systems and it's also being able to build new things in your Community I mean I know you know for.

Elizabeth Kinsey: A lot of platforms to actually like, if you want to roll out a new version or a new feature like that takes development work and a lot of times you work with the company and they send you over a specialist but.

Elizabeth Kinsey: How would you end up paying and contracting and services if you just had someone who is and again again, this is the utopia.

Elizabeth Kinsey: Obviously yeah I don't know this person either or I definitely have someone who helps us with our systems, but it's only a very small part of his job, and so it doesn't always get the.

Elizabeth Kinsey: prioritization because there's so many competing priorities that so yeah I think that.

Chris Detzel: I mean it's like if I want to so i'm building out this rewards and recognition program and it's not hard per se, but you know there's some slight development javascript and some other things that that have to go in there and I just honestly don't have time for it and so.

Chris Detzel: I had to hire kind of a consultant to kind of think about that.

Chris Detzel: program right, you know and then have to have somebody develop it, you know and push it in and automate it to some degree and build the badges and what does that look.

Chris Detzel: Like etc, etc, you know and.

Chris Detzel: Not that that's just table stakes right, you know I should have probably done that, back in you know April of last year, but I didn't and so that's what i'm doing now, but still, you know it's just those little things that you know you put on their roadmap boom boom boom so.

Chris Detzel: This has been really good, I want to kind of move on to the next questions because.

I think.

Chris Detzel: You know this is helpful to me, you know because it's like Okay, how do I think about this.

Chris Detzel: You know I own a lot of different things like Executive Council and the Community and thinking about some thought leaders Community lead groats thought leader podcasting stuff so in a way i'm in over my head, but you know.

Elizabeth Kinsey: We all.

Chris Detzel: But if you don't think about these things, and you don't push the organization you'll never get it.

Chris Detzel: So when you when you hire these people let's say you hire you know.

Chris Detzel: I don't know you can give me one or two examples, but.

Chris Detzel: let's say an operations person one and then two it's a Community manager and three marketing or whatever.

Chris Detzel: How do you goal them and and and how do you kind of look at how they're doing throughout the year, what would you would you say you know what are some of the things you have to go do and how do you, you know track down.

Elizabeth Kinsey: yeah I think that that's totally fair um, so I think I don't have anything specific for any of those roles, I think a lot of it is dependent on your program and your company goals.

Elizabeth Kinsey: So how are the things that they are going to be working on roll up to the overall.

Elizabeth Kinsey: okrs that you have to measure community, so what is their piece that's going to impact that, and so we.

Elizabeth Kinsey: At slack we're using them and at salesforce we use the V2 mom so it's really easy to sort of.

Elizabeth Kinsey: take these legos and say Okay, the seven things that you are going to work on this year and here's how we're going to measure them roll up into this larger goal of empowering customers, or whatever it might be that's not one of them, but.

Elizabeth Kinsey: let's just say hypothetically it is and we're measuring that through Community.

Elizabeth Kinsey: And so what is the thing that's that's how I look at it is like what are the pieces of your job or the things that you're going to be doing the impact those bigger goals so, then I can break it down into smaller goals for that person.

Elizabeth Kinsey: So I think that that's that's kind of how I approach it I think in terms of evaluating it or.

Elizabeth Kinsey: taking a look back and seeing you know how how is how are you performing against these goals, I think that there's regular feedback is a really like key part of it, I think you can't wait until it's like oh it's been six months they're going to feel.

Elizabeth Kinsey: Like you should be trying to deliver feedback as much as possible.

Elizabeth Kinsey: And i'm even considering like setting up like a monthly just feed bi directional feedback session with folks that report to me just to say that it's never a surprise, so if you do that, then you.

Chris Detzel: Tell me that, once the leaders like.

Elizabeth Kinsey: yeah.

Chris Detzel: You should never be surprised about how you're doing or how you're not doing you know.

Elizabeth Kinsey: yeah absolutely absolutely, so I think we're checking in regularly for feedback, you know not always using your one on ones, just as a status report, I think a lot of times that happens.

Elizabeth Kinsey: But really using it as like how are you doing what can we what what are you looking for having career conversations, so one of the things that I do.

Elizabeth Kinsey: With folks that report to me is really like what are, what are your goals like, how can we put together a plan that's going to.

Elizabeth Kinsey: help you reach your professional goals, while we're you know you're doing your job very well and, like those two things should go hand in hand right.

Elizabeth Kinsey: And so having a lot of conversations I think is really important, in measuring whether or not they're successful and it's and it's setting those things down and saying okay.

Elizabeth Kinsey: If you are, you want more responsibility take it as an example, like you, you feel like you're ready for taking on more responsibility.

Elizabeth Kinsey: let's figure out what you can take on and then, how will we measure whether or not you are successful, with that over the whatever time period, the next six months.

Elizabeth Kinsey: And so it's I think it's being specific and like taking it, you know as much feedback as possible as often as possible.

Elizabeth Kinsey: And then, a lot of really good communication around what are the goals that we can work towards and help you develop professionally and then I think the last thing is like.

Elizabeth Kinsey: it's you when you're thinking about like success right, some of it is on you and some of it is on them and so being really clear that, like you, are not a mind.

Elizabeth Kinsey: If you have if your direct report has goals and they are there things that they want to achieve, they need to be able to also communicate that with you and.

Elizabeth Kinsey: it's your job as a leader to make space for that and to make people feel like they can you know tell you what they're looking for out of your out of their career and what their professional goals are.

Elizabeth Kinsey: But you sometimes need to remind folks that like it's okay to talk to me about like you do have to kind of push folks sometimes to to think about what they want, because.

Elizabeth Kinsey: If they're not participating there's nothing in the world that you can do to help them be successful if they're if there's no participation on their end.

Chris Detzel: So it's awesome insights it's really good i'm Adam I have anything to add to that because I don't manage people at the minute.

Chris Detzel: But you know if you think about when I think about myself, you know I think most people would say look or leaders it's a.

Chris Detzel: you've got to know where you want to go, I can help guide you I can help you know you understand some of your strengths and things like that, because not all of us think about it, like i'm sure some of the people you.

Chris Detzel: You manage or you know managing the past or whatever don't necessarily know they want to move up and they think Oh well, i've been here for three years, I should move up well.

Chris Detzel: Maybe maybe not you know, like What was it that you're trying to do, and maybe there's a senior Community manager or something like that available, but you know, then you got to think about what what.

Chris Detzel: What that means right like what's additional for the senior person that they can take on, or whatever, but I think you're right I think that's an interesting thought around pushing or people need to know what they want to do, or at least have some ideas or have some willpower to do something.

Elizabeth Kinsey: You know, some thoughts yeah.

Elizabeth Kinsey: And I think it's a two way conversation like you need to create those opportunities and you need to have a plan for how to accelerate people, but they also need to communicate with you on how on what what it is they want.

Elizabeth Kinsey: And I would be remiss not to point out that, like all of my brilliant ideas are basically stolen from.

Elizabeth Kinsey: Erica cool and holly firestone and a lot of the work that they did, both at atlassian and salesforce on building teams out, and I think that there's they both have a couple of different blogs on kind of how you think about teams and building out Community teams.

Chris Detzel: yeah.

Elizabeth Kinsey: That are really useful that I revisit.

Elizabeth Kinsey: All the time when I was thinking about like okay what's the next stage of our team look like.

Chris Detzel: it's amazing how those two have had such an impact on the Community world, I mean I hear it costal in and I don't disagree with that I just think it's pretty amazing Those are the two names, the women that really have made a huge impact within Community yeah.

Chris Detzel: Absolutely yeah all right.

Elizabeth Kinsey: So yeah I mean I could I am part of the fan girl club for for both holly.

Elizabeth Kinsey: And Erica and then number of other Community professionals, but I think that they are.

Elizabeth Kinsey: They have made a huge impact on on history yeah.

Chris Detzel: Absolutely, and you know it's funny because I think I talked to Nicole about this, and just get off that subject a little bit, is it feels like it, maybe it's less less but it feels like.

Chris Detzel: I think there's way or big percentage more women in Community management than there is men in general.

Chris Detzel: But it feels like for the last several are few years, yes there's been a lot of women stepping out, but when I look at podcasts like myself or other podcasts like Brian and Erica are doing a podcast but then.

Chris Detzel: It feels like there's a lot more men doing these things you know what I mean and so and i'll be honest like I wanted whenever I I told my wife this because she's a.

Chris Detzel: Huge women's kind of rights advocate you know and everything else, and I was like you know what how do I kind of.

Chris Detzel: make a difference if there is any difference, you know I don't know, but it is, I truly have went out and tried to get people like you, on my podcast you know, because the last thing I want you to think as hey who's this crystal weird guy you know I don't think I have that.

Chris Detzel: But I do I want because there's there's more of women in this and then than men, and so there's gotta be a reason why and so let's let's talk to the women that are doing some really cool things you know.

Elizabeth Kinsey: I absolutely agree and I, you know we can unpack the patriarchy but I don't think we have enough time.

today.

Elizabeth Kinsey: Anything it's.

Elizabeth Kinsey: it's you know the recognition is good, I think, recognizing that hey although women are more prevalent in this industry men take up a lot more space.

Elizabeth Kinsey: I think that's just recognizing that is a really good first step and thinking about how do we fix it.

Elizabeth Kinsey: And why does that happen, I think there's a lot of historical and institutional reasons for why.

Chris Detzel: You know.

Elizabeth Kinsey: Men may or may not be you know.

Elizabeth Kinsey: rewarded or funded or or have more leisure time you know to be able to pursue things like this there's a lot of stuff we could talk about but that's not what we're here to talk about today.

Chris Detzel: Clearly, I can.

Elizabeth Kinsey: Maybe in the future, maybe future podcast.

Chris Detzel: So future podcast could be and I talked to allison.

Chris Detzel: boudreau about this and she's the calyx.

Chris Detzel: She does she runs community and she runs academy and I thought about having you her and Nicole on and maybe another woman or two you know just as kind of a panel on maybe I just kind of go out, you know and then you're off, you know what I mean like I don't know.

Elizabeth Kinsey: It do I do.

Chris Detzel: But it'd be a great peers over beers and and I keep talking about I just schedules are so it's hard to.

Elizabeth Kinsey: Get people's schedules are hard.

Chris Detzel: scheduled for that one person is like oh.

Elizabeth Kinsey: yeah.

Chris Detzel: that's my that's my only issue.

Elizabeth Kinsey: But man was like we're not.

Elizabeth Kinsey: that's not we were not doing the podcast where all of our biz our schedules are just so busy that we just don't have time to make first.

Elizabeth Kinsey: come over Christmas show but that's it that's all the time we got.

Chris Detzel: Friday seem like Okay, you know, so I might I might push for that if you're open um.

Chris Detzel: So I have really one last maybe two, but last question, and I think that how we tie this back into you know.

Chris Detzel: If you were to hire a team, what would that look like and how do you kind of look at goals, but then at the end, the day, how do you like measure.

Chris Detzel: The success of your community with all those people like when you look back and you think okay we've had some success here there there, whatever and then as a team, you know how do you kind of look at it, you know when, how do you measure it or yeah, how do you measure success of the Community.

Chris Detzel: I mean that's a big one.

Elizabeth Kinsey: yeah that is a big one that so and you mean kind of in relationship to being into growing your team like what what is the growth of the team have an impact on the success of the Community.

Elizabeth Kinsey: yeah we're just.

Elizabeth Kinsey: Trying I think I like the general.

Chris Detzel: Because you know it's it's the entire success so at the end of the year, when you have this team, you know how are you going to say, this was successful and then, how do you measure that.

Chris Detzel: You know.

Elizabeth Kinsey: yeah I mean again I think it's about what were the goals that you set out so for and what were you aiming to measure.

Elizabeth Kinsey: What were you aiming for it to do achieve those goals is number one so like.

Elizabeth Kinsey: I will use Community growth as a metric that a lot of people use just for kind of.

shelf.

Elizabeth Kinsey: So if you hadn't added those TEAM members on what would you have grown.

Elizabeth Kinsey: i'm probably less, but since you did, did you did you budget that number to account for we're going to have more people power behind this we're going to have more resources, maybe more budget.

Elizabeth Kinsey: Did you achieve that number that you set out to achieve, I think another thing to look at, especially as your team grows is if there is a year over year statistic that you are consistently measuring your community on, and I think growth is an easy one to do.

Elizabeth Kinsey: yeah are there points where it accelerates, do you grow, you know, and if this takes time, obviously, to be able to measure that success year over year and say hey we were able to last year we grew 15% this year we added TEAM members and We grew 25%.

yeah.

Elizabeth Kinsey: I think that there's always a lot of correlation that happens, I don't think that you can do a lot of like causal linking of.

Elizabeth Kinsey: things and I think there are things that you can measure that you know, certainly the programs he ran or the.

Elizabeth Kinsey: Decision on tactics you take those are causal and you can measure those very implicitly in a quantitative way but.

Elizabeth Kinsey: it's it's really about like what are you measuring and did you achieve it.

Elizabeth Kinsey: And I think that that goes individual to every different Community and it's like what is the purpose of your community is that product feedback, is it.

Elizabeth Kinsey: Support is it brand awareness is it advocacy is you know and did you reach the baselines are the goals that you set for yourself within those, so I think it varies on these it's a.

Elizabeth Kinsey: Good answer.

Chris Detzel: No, it is a big answer, and you know the real answer is, it depends.

Chris Detzel: But you gave a good one, like you know it's a it's a it's a hard question is, and I like how you said it wanted depends on why you have the Community what's kind of.

Chris Detzel: what's your mission, what are you trying to accomplish and then from there, you can kind of break it down to say.

Chris Detzel: You know if it was support deflection which you know people think that support deflection is like oh there's there's a shitty commit and I, you know that's a huge you think of cost savings.

Elizabeth Kinsey: For organization.

Chris Detzel: yeah when you say well how much does it cost to you know go from one K open a case to closing a case, how long does it take you, you know you can say, well, it costs, it costs $200 per case open to close and it takes 13 days to.

Chris Detzel: To answer a question well, did you know, on Community that it takes for less than 48 hours sometimes 24 hours to answer a question that should be that 13 days so let's.

Chris Detzel: yeah you know to me like stories.

Elizabeth Kinsey: About like the cost of.

Elizabeth Kinsey: Of of your like I think about how.

Elizabeth Kinsey: We recently implemented have a feature where folks could actually delete some stuff on their own that before they would have to write into our customer experience team and ask them to delete it and some data privacy stuff and.

Elizabeth Kinsey: Just the sheer amount of time that is saved now, but that, because people have the ability to do that is phenomenal, but when you think about.

Elizabeth Kinsey: That particular thing may never have been surface or that pain point may never have been surface because of Community so there's the cost savings there like hey you're able to improve your product and.

Elizabeth Kinsey: increase longevity of your customer so there's like the indirect cost savings, but then like what you're talking about with support costs you're also freeing up your team to work on harder.

Chris Detzel: Problems yeah like.

Elizabeth Kinsey: If your support team is having to answer the same excuse my language, but like basic bullshit question over and over and over again, and you have this enterprise customer who has is very complicated hairy problem like you're wasting money on this thing that Community could help support.

Chris Detzel: And you're frustrating people because.

Chris Detzel: What.

Chris Detzel: to open a case.

Chris Detzel: went and then, if your guys forget gals forget to you know answer, or you know reply back or whatever, then they're frustrated, so you know.

Chris Detzel: there's a lot of really.

Chris Detzel: Good stuff I mean an iteration and stuff you know, by the way you never talked about having a content person, you know for for Community which i'm a little surprised.

Elizabeth Kinsey: I mean yeah I think I love content marketing in the same bucket okay all right got it.

Elizabeth Kinsey: Okay, in my in my brain, at least, but I think that if you have the ability to break that out and have someone who specifically focused on contents sweet.

Chris Detzel: yeah just so when I think of content, like one of the big things that I love to do and I don't know why I love to do this, too much, but it's content creation content kind of getting that.

Chris Detzel: flywheel going so like you know I use our weekly webinars because they're so in depth so really good that you know i'll get you know 7080 people on these shows icon Community shows.

Chris Detzel: They create a bunch of content, like I capture the Q amp a that comes from I get, like the other day I get 30 questions on a one hour show.

Chris Detzel: Literally I couldn't get them all, so I had to give them back to the experts, and could you answer like these 10 you know and then push them out to the Community right boom boom boom so.

Chris Detzel: i'm getting content from our customers, you know from Q amp a creating a blog or two per episode, you know getting video of getting them access to engagement, you know it's put this content pieces video blog Q amp a quick hit video you know.

Chris Detzel: there's a lot of really good stuff around that that you can really and then the other piece to that is kind of the seo strategy.

Elizabeth Kinsey: yeah.

Chris Detzel: You know, when you think of anyways I get off a little bit, but I think there's a lot to do in that content and if you're creating relevant content all day every day for those people to help solving problems using the product or you know, maybe you know to be on the Community.

Chris Detzel: You know if it's high level stuff like you said kind of this peer to peer networking, or you know custom brand awareness, whatever you can do kind of these thought leader type stuff content yeah.

Chris Detzel: Even want somebody show some yeah I think about.

Elizabeth Kinsey: The content be the interesting and I think it also depends on like what does, what is the purpose of your marketing team overall because, like, for us, we have a content team.

Elizabeth Kinsey: They produce amazing stuff they talked to a lot of customers they work on you know the some of the stuff that they have is we couldn't do it better.

Elizabeth Kinsey: And so, then I is it our job as an ad that's where I think I knew kind of.

Elizabeth Kinsey: Community marketing like being that liaison between that team and and the community of like how do I, help to bring all of the stuff that my.

Elizabeth Kinsey: Marketing team or my brand team is creating around this or my Dev rel team, or any of this like.

Elizabeth Kinsey: it's almost like you end up being the conduit and then I think there's communities where the Community manager is the risk is really creating that type of content.

Elizabeth Kinsey: So it kind of I think for me in the where we are it's like we have so much great content and there's so many people that already.

Elizabeth Kinsey: know you can I get to like be that conduit to get that into the Community to inject it directly into their little slack veins.

Chris Detzel: I like that you know.

Chris Detzel: we're a lot smaller company so we're creating content, but you know our marketing team really looks and top of the funnel.

Chris Detzel: yeah i'm i'm really kind of thinking about you know adoption upsell cross sell you know new features.

Chris Detzel: And things like that and bringing that out to to the market to our Community, so that they know oh I didn't know about that you know let's go deep let's figure out how to use it's a complex, you know slack.

Chris Detzel: Although i'm sure there's some complexities for sure to it on integrations and things are thing it's super complex.

Elizabeth Kinsey: Right yeah.

Chris Detzel: yeah but.

Chris Detzel: But anyway, this is good this.

Elizabeth Kinsey: Is.

Chris Detzel: really appreciate your time.

Elizabeth Kinsey: Absolutely, always a pleasure.

Chris Detzel: Well, thanks everyone for coming and listening to another peers over beers i'm Chris Detzel and.

Elizabeth Kinsey: i'm Elizabeth Kinsey.

Chris Detzel: Thanks Elizabeth.