Bri Leever: Okay. So next, the fun part, conducting the interviews. And again, I, I am refining my skills here. I like to think I've come a long way, but I still have much to learn.
So other marketing experts out there, maybe Alex, if you have other questions that you think are great to add to this, I'd love to hear them. But within this, within the content, okay, so let's, let's work through some of the questions here. I like to start with within the context of this space, how would you identify yourself?
What is the title that you give? And what's so funny is we all really struggle with this. We're like, I don't really know. I'm kind of figuring it out. I think I'm a consultant, but I'm also a strategist, but sometimes I'm like a coach. So that's okay. Just absorb it all. Oh, one other important thing for this, record these.
Meeting something like something like a fathom note taker so that you're not so that you can watch the person that whole time is really important. Second question is what's the biggest challenge you're facing in this space right now. Now I left like in this space because I recognize there's like quite a range of different communities.
So For me, I would say within the context of community building, how would you introduce yourself within the context of building your community? What's the biggest challenge that you're facing? Cause if you keep it too broad, I don't know. Somebody might start talking about like, well, I'm really struggling with my relationship with my husband.
And you're like, I'm so sorry, but that is not what we're here to talk about. Make sure you guide guide the conversation appropriately. What are your goals and aspirations for building your community? How would your work or life change? If you hit those goals. What have you tried already? What does this, what does community mean to you?
And how could community support you in hitting your goals? I like how open ended this question is, what does community mean for you? Because you'll be able to pick up on some of the subtleties of what they desire. What sparks curiosity, your curiosity the most? Is it a rich and engaging conversation? Is it a well articulated article or a meaningful event experience?
Now this, this question is designed to help point you towards what type of programming is going to be the most impactful to start with. Don't get so I like to keep, especially in the beginning, your community experiences and your ecosystem of experiences really simple. And starting with just one type of experience.
So you need to figure out, are people going to gravitate most towards a place where they can be in conversation? Do they just want like more resources and a place where they can interact with others around those resources? Or are they interested in something like an event? Yes. The body language on calls and people's eyes light up.
Yep. So I, I did not do a great job of this with my first round. I was like more concerned about my own delivery. And so luckily I have all the calls recorded and I can go back through and watch their body language and watch their reaction to the questions and see when they start talking. Now, one little caveat here, if you feel what's really tricky and the ideal version of this is actually, honestly, somebody else conducting these interviews, because I've noticed, especially people who I do know.
They will, they really want to please me, and they really want to tell me the answer that I want to hear. So, if you ever feel like your members might be doing that, the best question you can ask to help peel back the layers and get to the root of it is, tell me more about that. Hope, tell me more about how that word made you feel, or what made you feel uneasy there.
Alright, let's keep going through. Okay, reading the member narrative, asking what stood out to you, and then in the wrap, can I keep you updated on my progress through my newsletter? I love this, these member interviews are, I love it. Such a profound space for it's a great type of content for building in public.
So you're going to be learning so much actively. And as much as you're willing to share that with your list or with your audience I think that's a great idea. Okay, let's see. UX researcher to help me craft questions and mitigate bias. Awesome. Glenn Ellis. That's amazing.
Murtaza Bambot: And then one question we had from Anna, which is why do you choose to run interviews as opposed to like focus groups?
Is it beneficial to have focus groups to see how people interact with each other during the discovery? Or is it better to just do that one on one call?
Bri Leever: Great question. I don't want people to have bias when they hear somebody else talking. When, when people are just one on one, there's even still bias because again, they're like considering me and sometimes trying to like please me.
I think keeping people all together just creates more like group think. So I like to get people one on one. I think you're going to learn more. It's also really hard to like Watch everyone when you're in a focus group. And I've conducted a lot of focus groups, but I, I really prefer it. I think you get better data when it's one on one
Murtaza Bambot: love that.
Bri Leever: Yeah. Oh, the other caveat here is do not wimp out and send them these questions over email. You will, you don't, you don't want to send them these questions. Before your interview, you want this to be as genuine and authentic of an immediate reaction as you can get. So I wimped out a couple times when people had trouble scheduling and I sent it over email and I, I don't do that.
It's not, it's not as helpful. It's, it's not it's not unhelpful, but you, what you want here is live interviews with you because you're also honing your skills on being able to read and understand your members. And that's only going to happen on a live call.
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