Growing Your Financial Capability Community Online

Expanding your one-to-one client relationships to a one-to-many online community gives your clients the chance to grow and learn from each other, and you might benefit from it too.

Hello, Talking About Money Community, how are you?  And just as important, do you have a voting plan in place?

If you are like the financial capability professionals that I get to talk to on Zoom calls (I see you!), you have re-established yourself to be working in the virtual space.  You are meeting with your clients by phone or Zoom to provide financial counseling that solves their pandemic-exacerbated financial woes.  You might be helping your clients fill out assistance applications.  You might be a friendly shoulder to lean on.  Hey, you might even be meeting your clients in an empty parking lot – masks donned – to take a peek at financial documents that they have questions about. 

And most, if not all, of this work is being performed one-on-one.

Are you feeling burned out?  Do you have that hamster-wheel sensation each time you open your laptop?  I know that I have been feeling a bit fried at the edges these past few months.  If this is you and you need a dose of wellness, check out this post:  Self-Care for Financial Capability Professionals: Friends, This is a Marathon, Not a Sprint

Another way to fight burnout is to begin to do your work differently.  And one method to do that is to pivot from a one-to-one format to a one-to-many approach and create an online community for your clients.

I know what you are thinking.  You are saying to yourself, “Are you kidding me?  I can’t get my clients to come to live workshops…and we serve them pizza!  How would I ever get them to join an online community?”

While this might not be an easy task at first, creating an online community for your clients might be what the doctor ordered (no pandemic pun intended).  By bringing your clients together in an intentional community, you are giving them space to teach and learn and lean on each other.  And by doing this, everyone wins.

Now that I have piqued your interest, what are the first things that you should think about when attempting to establish an online community?  Here are three thoughts:

Figure out what you clients need (and want) from an online community

Up until now your client has had one point of contact in your organization:  you!  When considering setting up an online community for your clients, first take into consideration what they might get out of it. 

Do you answer the same questions over and over again?  Would you (and they) benefit if you created and posted a FAQ in one central location?  Do you think that they would benefit from hearing from others within your organization – either from a different department or even from your organization’s leadership?  If you had previously run workshops where you facilitated group discussions, do you think that they would enjoy the comradery of getting to know each other in an online space?

Many people join communities to seek out the answers to questions or to develop a sense of belonging.  An online financial capability community might do just that for your clients.

Decide what platform you will use and how people will interact on it

Ah, the ye ol’ Facebook group…  That is so 2018, or is it? 

When considering where you will meet with your community online, you need to figure out the most logical place for your clients.  Which social media platforms do your clients normally use?  If the majority of them are already on one particular platform they are going to be more likely to “stop by” your community when they are already there. 

After you have chosen the most appropriate platform where you think that your clients will show up, determine what will be deemed as acceptable and unacceptable behavior in your community.  Much like generating a “Ground Rules” list in your live workshops, you will want to come up with some “rules for the road” for how your clients communicate with you, and communicate with each other.

Create content and engagement that lets you do your job more efficiently

If you are still with me and reading this post, you may still be feeling some apprehension about making a leap into online community building.  I hear you when you say to yourself, “There is no way that I have time to set up and manage an online community when I have so many daily fires to put out!”

I get that, and there are only so many hours in the day (18?  24?  30? I can’t keep track).  But hear me out.  Are you providing the Same. Exact. Service. to your clients one, after the other, after the other?  If so, then setting up an online community might provide you with an economy of scale that frees up some of your time and brain space to do other things. 

What might you do in your very own online community?  In addition to that FAQ document I mentioned above, you might post a question to your group about a specific aspect of their financial problems or goals and let your other clients comment to their peers (this, of course, requires that you insure that the information shared is true and accurate).  You might even post live events (similar in content to your workshops, but shorter) where your clients can write in with questions that you respond to in real time.

In thinking about the old adages of “It takes a village…” and “We’re all in this together,” I believe that bringing your clients together into an online community can be a win for you and a win for them.  Once the structure is up and operating, you will be able to create efficiencies in your work.  And just as important, you will be providing your clients a space to teach and learn from each other.  You will provide them with a forum to share their wisdom with others, and with the strength of numbers, everyone wins.

What do you say, Talking About Money community?  Do you think that creating an online community for your financial capability clients would amplify your work?  Do you agree that providing a platform for peer support and accountability among your clients would get them farther along on their paths to financial security?  Or does this sound like too much work and you’d rather take a nap?  Please share your thoughts with this informed and supportive community.  And if you enjoyed this post, please take a moment to subscribe to our mailing list.  Then forward this post to one or two people who you think might enjoy it too.  Thanks and be well.

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