Transition Alongside Your Community

0:00That's why it's so important to start investing in People Magic now. because the people who are starting now and are really getting good at one transition and now are on to their second, third, fourth, fifth transition, those are going to be the people that are going to build the most sustainable, most valuable businesses. And I would argue the most valuable and important, not just digital businesses, but businesses over the next five, 10 years. Starting today does matter.

0:41Hi, I'm Gina Bianchini, and this is People Magic, where I am showing you the absolute easiest way to create a$1 million community. So with that, let's dive in. Hi, Gina. I'd love to get your take on the long game of transitions. My community fits into the model of an ideal member going through a transition, but I don't foresee people going through the same transition over and over again. So how do you keep people engaged when they're no longer in need of your community? I love this question because what it says is, number one, you're focused on the transition. And that is literally going to be the thing that is going to make building a$1 million community easy.

1:25or if you don't do it, impossible. So the fundamental question of, wait a second, am I following people through one transition and then starting with a new group of people who are in that transition? Or once somebody gets out of that transition, am I sticking with them? Is my community sticking with them as they level up to that next level? So for example, if we take one of my favorite examples of a First time engineering manager sitting here in Silicon Valley. Let's just think about that. Well, at a certain point, you're no longer a first time engineering manager. You're leveling up to the next group that you take on or the next group after that, or scaling from having individual contributors to having manager, basically managing managers.

2:15Here's what I would say. This is an opportunity to do both. So following your ideal member to their next transition is natural. It's easy. You already have people there. So thinking about that level up, that level up. I like to think about it as your level it up offer. Go with them. Follow them on the next set of transitions. And it also means you've helped people get through that first transition, that first-time engineering manager, which is your intro or core offer. So you have your intro or core offer. You also then have your level-up offer. They represent different stages of your transition.

3:05So I would strongly suggest making sure that you've got that level-up offer. You've got that next transition that you're going to help your members through. At the same point in time, don't lose the entry point, that intro or core offer where you're bringing in new people at the beginning of their transition. Now, if you are like, oh my gosh, Gina, that sounds overwhelming. I just want to stick with one. Here's the good news. You can stick with one. It means that people will graduate out of your community and you can graduate them in the same way that we've all graduated, hopefully from various things in our life.

3:45You can also hand them off to another community depending on what the transition is that you have taken people through. The alternative is that you're like, okay, I wanna go through life. I wanna go through the set of transitions with this cohort of first-time engineering managers. So we're gonna go level up together. That's an alternative as well. But to reduce the number of options to a recommended path, I would say do both. Do the transition that your members are graduating into next. And at the same point in time, keep open that initial transition that brought your members there in the first place.

4:29The beautiful thing about all of this is that you can also then start having your members who have graduated to the next set of transitions help the members who are starting from scratch or in their initial transition. It creates incredible communities. So imagine a magical first experience where there's a set of people who are the welcome committee. And they've been through that transition and they can welcome in a new member and let them know you're going to be okay. You're going to make this. You are in the right place with the right people, people who are a little bit ahead of you, people who are a little bit behind you, and people who are at the exact same moment.

5:15This is one of those moments as well with People Magic where so much of what we are doing is cutting edge. It is cutting edge to be able to use software to make these connections between members, to help people who are on different journeys, who are a part of different transitions at different points in time. To keep all of this stuff organized actually does require automation. It requires AI. And those are things that we've invested in because we want to support this ability to start with a single transition and then evolve. It's also something that is absolutely core to our human experience.

6:01People have been going through transitions since the dawn of time. They have gone from point A to point B. So what's really fun about what you are building with a People Magic business, what we are building with a People Magic platform is this ability to go and look at historical references of communities and things people have built together. And then to be able to apply it at this moment with increasingly sophisticated technology behind the scenes that are making the experiences of your members who are on the same journey, going through the same transitions, feel normal and natural in a way that as human beings, we're going to increasingly not be able to scale manually.

6:53So we're going to be able to get more value in the things that we're creating with People Magic, more value in that community or that subscription or that course or that challenge or that event that you are choosing to raise your hand and say, I'm going to lead this. I'm going to organize this. Doesn't mean you have to have all the answers. Doesn't mean you have to be an expert. But you are the person that's saying, I want to be the host. And that's really profound. That is, I believe, going to be the most important and most indispensable role of the next decade. It will not be replaced by software.

7:34It's only possible as a human being. And a human being that is leaning on PeopleMagic software to be able to do all of the manual work and all of the logistics that are making so many of us exhausted today. as we are not just building businesses or building communities, but also just living our lives. Like the fact that it takes 30 text messages on average to get multiple people to the same physical location at the same physical time, that's just unsustainable. And we're gonna lose our ability to connect and build relationships with each other if we don't lean on software to automate more and more of that.

8:17So what we get to do as human beings is show up, share our stories, our experiences, our ideas, our creativity with other human beings. And out of that, innovate, create, celebrate, feel, and ultimately build things that haven't been built before and build relationships that haven't been built before. Not just how to manage multiple transitions in one community, but the fundamental essence of people magic. Here's the secret. For every transition, you are expanding who your community can serve. And so you move from one transition to two transitions to three transitions from your core membership or a course that then once someone masters that, they are hungry for that next course, that next membership, that next group of people that they want to meet, or that next challenge that your cohort is going to go and take together.

9:38All of that is inherent growth of your business, of your community that you're monetizing through courses, through memberships, through challenges and events. So not only are you going to be able to add more transitions for your starting ideal member who comes in with one transition. But you're also going to be able to continue to bring in new people with the first transition that you invested in, the first transition that you really fleshed out and that you learn from that first cohort what works, what doesn't work, where your next set of workshopping is going to go. So now you see my grandmaster plan.

10:24By starting with a single transition, you lay out your growth plan. You give yourself and your members more and more to do together. That's why it's so important to start investing in People Magic now, because the people who are starting now and are really getting good at one transition and now are on to their second, third, fourth, fifth transition, those are going to be the people that are going to build the most sustainable, most valuable businesses. And I would argue the most valuable and important, not just digital businesses, but businesses over the next five, 10 years. Starting today does matter.

11:13It gives you that opportunity to figure out where those transitions go. and which ones you want to expand into. I'm going to add one final note, because I think this is a really important point, and it comes up a lot in my conversations. So one of the questions I get from people who are heavily invested in a worldview built around content is, what the heck is someone paying for in a community if the value is meeting other people? To me, the question is silly, because we have always paid money. We have always invested in relationships. So this idea that the value of a course or a membership or a challenge or an event is the content is laughable because we have all sorts of history that shows people paying for relationships, paying to meet interesting people, paying to be in the room with other people that they're going to be able to get out of those relationships, not just value, but the stories, experiences, and ideas that are much more likely to happen in a closed room where people feel really comfortable sharing than is ever going to happen on the public internet, on public social media platforms.

12:38So whenever you find yourself thinking that the only value that you could possibly sell is a physical product or content, I want to offer a reframe. And I want to offer that you are creating the framework for people to go and apply together. You are creating experiences for people to go have together. You are using the opportunity to create your community so people can find each other who are navigating the same transition. And as they are navigating the same transitions, they are sharing their stories, their experiences and ideas, which is the essence of a relationship. That is the value. And we have, as human beings, always paid to be members of communities.

13:34We have paid for faith-based communities, also known as tithing to church. We have paid for clubs. We have paid for guilds. We have paid always for relationships with people who are on the same path. And I believe that not only will that continue, but it is going to absolutely usurp people paying for content, especially in a world of AI. I'm Gina Bianchini, and this is People Magic.

14:16Thank you for being a part of People Magic. If you want more of a deep dive in any of these topics, but certainly having the framework of People Magic Profit, head on over to the website. The link is in the show notes. Have your own burning question about creating People Magic? Well, I want to answer it. So here's what you're going to do. You're going to just drop your question in the review section wherever you're listening to this podcast, and keep tuning in.