How did teaching change our business?
In October 2020 we decided to create a “master-class” / ‘workshop’ for brands in our community with two goals in mind:
1. Teach them how to build their brands.
2. To create a sense of community in a shared learning environment.
Here is the trade-off though — 6 weeks! With no user-acquisition, no onboarding, zero product work, only workshop! We needed to prepare the lessons, rehearse the delivery, create slides, exercises (or “workouts” as we like to call them), and give /receive feedback (while building a content management system to support that process).
The cost: Hundreds of founder hours (all 3 of us founders took part in it).
The workshop idea was materialized at a very critical point in our growth path — so, why did we make this decision? and what can you learn from it?
Here is what we uncovered (some of these lessons, we only learned in hindsight):
It’s a deep way to connect with your customers
The workshop was built out of 5 interactive sessions. During the sessions and in between the sessions we chatted with our members. We gave them feedback, we asked them questions, they asked us questions, we had meaningful conversations. Sometimes they pushed back — great!
We explained our take on things & moved on. These conversations have shaped us all into one group, it didn’t matter anymore who was ‘the host’ or who was ‘a participant’. We became a group — in which we all know each other.
A week after the workshop ended, an order came in (on our B2B Social Commerce & community platform) from a retailer, looking to buy goods from one of the brands that took part in the workshop, but she had a few questions beforehand. Because I knew the brand owner well, I quickly whatsapped her and got the answers for the buyer quickly. Thanks to the workshop she attended with us, that brand owner and I formed a connection, in which, it’s ok for me to text her on a Saturday afternoon, she is happy to see a text from me (hopefully.. hehe) and she replies quickly. Then, I can quickly deliver that information to the buyer (who doesn’t know me that well) and form trust with the buyer as well thanks to that fast information exchange & personal touch.
The three of us got a great outcome. The retailer ordered what she wanted, the brand owner got an order, and we formed trust with two members of our community & facilitated a new bond between them!
It leads to product innovation
This one was very counter-intuitive to realize. A workshop was a new form of “interaction” between our community members. We couldn’t support it with the current technology we had. The need to share content and have social elements to go along with that sharing (like, comment, reply) is simply not a part of a commerce website. This led us down an exploration path. As a result, we’ve found new powerful ways to take our product to the next level. This unlocked so many other opportunities and has really opened up our thinking.
Maybe you’re thinking that this benefit is more specific to SAPIA and where we were at the time in terms of our entrepreneurial journey / or our thinking. But I beg to differ.
The point is to understand the needs of your core market. There is something deeper at play here. In 2020, we are expected to build more robust products for more specific niche groups. Why? simply put: the online world is noisy & generic. Audiences are seeking verticalized experiences more & more. To visualize it, try asking yourself: does the world need another Craigslist (in 2020)? Probably not. So, what’s the opposite of it? a product for your core niche market. Workshops could be part of your product offering.
A workshop is just one way to think deeply about the needs of your core market and translating them into your product. This could be achieved in many other ways.
It made us raise our standards
Because each week, we had to face an audience of people who trusted their time & money in our hands and needed to deliver real value to them, we went deep. We researched topics methodically, went down all the possible ‘rabbit holes’ you can imagine, argued, debated, edited, re-edited, deleted, and nearly pulled our own & each other’s hairs out.
Looking back I can say: Totally worth it!
It was the seed to grow our community
What is a community? It’s a group, with shared values, assembled around a mission. The community behaves in a certain way, and has a reason to exist. How does one seed a community? Well, you don’t really create it out of thin air, you assemble people who share similar world-views. In 2020, an online workshop was a phenomenal way to do that. Think about it: you have like-minded people in the same virtual space, talking with one another, thinking about their mission (the individual mission & overall mission).
The best way to learn is to teach
To really learn something, to deeply understand it, you should try teaching it to someone who doesn’t know much about the topic. Don’t hide behind business jargon. Simplify and simplify again. Go back and forth to fill in the gaps in your explanation. Rinse and repeat… These concepts ar summarized neatly in this article.
We went through that process when we created the workshop. As a result, we learned how to build our own brand in a much better way. Suddenly, we had frameworks to explain what we do and how we think. Immense value.
Summary- The workshop eventually took place and was a success. It was a new source of revenue for us. It was a great way for us to get to know our audience, to learn the material ourselves, to build our platform, and to raise our own standards. I highly recommend it to any founder. Yes, it takes a lot of time but the benefits outweigh the ‘costs’ by far.
