How to Build Community and Cultivate Customers

“I define community as an intentional space where people show up with a shared purpose to connect and co-create a collective vision to move us forward,” Ana Flores explains. Community has always been central to the content creator. She spent more than 15 years working at Spanish-language television networks for U.S. Hispanic and Latin American audiences before striking out on her own to create the award-winning bicultural parenting site, SpanglishBaby. In 2010, Flores went on to found #WeAllGrow Latina, the first network for Latina digital influencers, bringing her community-first approach to connecting content creators with major brands.

In a webinar moderated by our COO Gabrielle Raymond McGee, Flores outlined her seven principles of community building in the online space. She recommends beginning to create your community on Instagram, but says Facebook groups, both public and private, are a great tool as well. As Flores has found in her career, an engaged following can easily become loyal customers.

Flores says building your community begins with identifying your purpose. “Ask yourself, how do I want people to feel?” she explains. Your purpose informs everything you do: the products you create, the content you share and the other brands you choose to work with. Business owners need to be transparent about their purpose. One way to do this, Flores advises, is by creating a community mantra. It tells your followers how they should feel as they interact with you.

Patience

Flores’ network of over 200,000 social media followers didn’t appear overnight, and neither will yours. “Just like any true relationship, it takes time to build trust,” she says. Flores also warns businesses and content creators against purchasing followers because it undermines the community aspect of your brand (while also bringing down your engagement stats).

Watching your numbers grow is just the beginning; you have to develop a strategy that keeps their attention. “It’s not only building the community; it’s nurturing it,” affirms Flores.

Deep Listening

Remember that, even as the business owner, you are still building a community with others. That means listening to your followers’ concerns and understanding their values.

Social listening tools or a platform’s analytics can tell you a lot about who your followers are, but the “deep” part of deep listening comes from actual two-way conversations with followers. Listening can be as simple as posing a question to your audience. “Maybe just ask them, what can I do for you?”

Engagement

Once your followers have told you what you can do for them, it’s then your job to go above and beyond to provide value to your following. “Give more than you get,” counsels Flores. “It can look like free webinars, it can look like the content that you put out, it can look like inspiration, it can look like connections, it can look like networking.”

Connection

Not only do you want your customers to be connected to you; you want them to be connected to each other. Flores emphasizes that people want to be emotionally invested in communities and, yes, products. “You can be that bridge that creates an emotional connection to your brand and to others,” she says. Having a community mantra is a great place to start, but there are other ways that your followers can connect.

Flores uses Oprah’s “aha moments” as an example. Oprah explains the magic of the “aha moments” she’s shared with famous guests in the past as something more than a sudden revelation:

“You think you’ve never thought of it that way before…But you can’t have an ‘aha’ unless you already knew it. So the aha is the remembering of what you already knew, articulated in a way to resonate with your own truth. So the aha isn’t somebody teaching you something; the aha is somebody helping you to remember.”

Watching two people share the moment of connection is powerful for the audience as well. “[Oprah] allows us to see ourselves in different ways,” Flores continues.

Alignment

Alignment is the pillar that supports the entire system. How can you make sure that each product, service or piece of content serves your purpose and your community’s needs? Just as community members need to be able to rely on each other, so do each of Flores’ principles. “These are not linear. They’re more like a spiral.”

Anti-Racist Resources for You, Your Family & Your Business

The Tory Burch Foundation’s Embrace Ambition initiative was established in 2017 to explore implicit bias and shatter stereotypes. Following a year marked by widespread anti-racism organizing and an increase in violence against communities of color, we’re more resolute in our commitment to having difficult conversations, internally and with you, our extended family. We understand that addressing racial inequality requires change at a structural level, as well as education and changing attitudes on a personal level.

Heeding Mellody Hobson’s call to be Color Brave, we’ve curated a list of organizations and resources that tackles issues facing communities in the United States. There are so many excellent antiracist organizations and resources, and we are always looking for more tools. Please drop us a note at info@toryburchfoundation.org if you know of an organization, tool or campaign we should be aware of.

Organizations Creating Change

These organizations advocate for change and put funds directly into impacted communities. Learn about their work – and if you are able, donate to support their missions.

The ACLU
The American Civil Liberties Union works on federal advocacy, Supreme Court cases, and court battles to protect freedoms and human rights.

Black Lives Matter
Committed to the ongoing fight to end state-sanctioned violence, liberate Black people, and end white supremacy forever.

Stop AAPI Hate
Reporting center that tracks and responds to incidents of violence and discrimination against Asian-American and Pacific Islander communities in the United States.

Equal Justice Initiative
Committed to ending mass incarceration and excessive punishment, challenging racial and economic injustice, and protecting basic human rights for the most vulnerable people in America.

Southern Poverty Law Center
A catalyst for racial justice in the South and beyond, working in partnership with communities to dismantle white supremacy, strengthen intersectional movements, and advance the human rights of all people.

Muslim Advocates
Giving American Muslims a seat at the table with expert representation so all people may live free from hate and discrimination.

UnidosUS
Advocating for Latinos in the areas of civic engagement, civil rights and immigration, education, workforce and the economy, health and housing. The United States’s largest Latino nonprofit advocacy organization.

Native Ways Federation
Founded by a group of seven national Native-led nonprofit organizations to activate and expand informed giving to support Native communities.

Grassroots Law Project
Grassroots organizing with legal expertise to radically transform policing and justice in America.

BEAM
A training, movement building, and grant-making organization dedicated to the healing, wellness, and liberation of Black and marginalized communities.

Mutual Aid
A resource to find Mutual Aid Networks and other community self-support projects near you.

African American Cultural Heritage Action Fund
An organization dedicated to preserving and sharing African American history and the important role it plays in the fabric of American society.

The Harriet Tubman Collective
A collective of Black deaf and Black disabled organizers, community builders, activists, dreamers, lovers striving for radical inclusion and collective liberation.

Third Wave Fund
Dedicated to ensuring young women, queer, and trans youth of color have the tools and resources they need to lead powerful movements.

Equity in Business

Organizations that support people of color and women in the business, entrepreneurship, and technology.

TIME’S UP Foundation
Working to shift the paradigm of workplace culture toward one of safety, equity, and dignity for women.

Black and Brown Founders
Community, education, and access to Black and Latino entrepreneurs to launch and build tech businesses with modest resources.

Asian Pacific American Labor Alliance
First and only national organization of Asian American and Pacific Islander (AAPI) workers, most of whom are union members, and allies advancing worker, immigrant and civil rights.

Labor Council for Latin American Advancement
Leading national organization for Latino(a) workers and their families working to impact workers’ rights and their influence in the political process.

EnrichHer
Connects companies led by women and founders of color to capital, coaching, and community so they can take their businesses to new heights.

SoGal
Supports the mission to close the diversity gap in entrepreneurship and venture capital.

Black Girls Code
Dedicated to increasing the number of women of color in the digital space by empowering girls of color ages 7 to 17 to become innovators in STEM fields.

Educational Resources

We begin dismantling racism when we understand how our lives are affected by the systems that uphold white supremacy.

Toolkits and Primers

Implicit Bias Test
We all have biases – being aware of them is one of the critical steps you can take to understanding and creating change.

Anti-Racist Resources
List of reading resources to learn about dismantling unconscious biases and action plans for equality.

How Studying Privilege Can Strengthen Compassion
Watch Peggy McIntosh at TEDxTimberlaneSchools.

Asian American Racial Justice Toolkit
An online toolkit for organizers and educators to teach social justice intersectionality as it relates to the Asian American community. It is a project of Grassroots Asians Rising.

Film, Podcasts and Videos

Mellody Hobson’s Color Brave
Challenging the idea of color blindness, Mellody Hobson encourages us to be Color Brave. Tackle issues of race head-on, to show courage and be bold.

13th
Watch director Ava DuVernay’s stunning exploration of how the Thirteenth Amendment of the Constitution led to the mass incarceration of people of color.

How to Citizen
A podcast by activist and writer Baratunde Thurston that reimagines “citizen” as a verb and helps reclaim our collective power.

Revolution Playlist
Spotify playlist by Rachel Cargle featuring icons of the racial justice movement.

Seeing White
Radio show that asks, where did the notion of “whiteness” come from? What does it mean? What is whiteness for?

Yo! Is This Racist?
Answering questions from fan-submitted voicemails and emails about whether or not something is, in fact, racist.

Asian Enough
From the LA Times, this podcast sets out to expand try the ways in which being Asian-American is defined.

Tamarindo
Latinx empowerment podcast discussing politics and culture.
Resources for Families

Embrace Race
Resources for parents educating children on race.

Safe Space Radio: Can We Talk? Talking to White Kids About Racism
Provides tips and strategies for starting this critical conversation.

Why All Parents Should Talk to Their Kids About Social Identity
Focuses on the importance of talking about race and other social categories with kids and provides some helpful strategies.

The Race Card Project
Honest and open conversations about race. Create your Race Card today.

The Conscious Kid
An education, research and policy organization that created and manages the Anti-Racist Children’s Books Education Fund to counter racism and racial bias, and inspire youth activism in classrooms across the country.

Stand Out Through Relationship Building

The average professional spends 31 hours per month in meetings, and receives more than 100 emails per day. With heightened professional demands and the constant pulse of social media, we’re all being pushed to the information breaking point. Amidst all that, it’s your job as an entrepreneur – somehow – to break through and get heard, in order to ensure your product or service succeeds.

That’s why I wrote my most recent book, Stand Out. I interviewed more than 50 top thought leaders in a variety of different fields – everything from business and tech to genomics and real estate – to understand how the very best in the world develop breakthrough ideas and get recognized for them. In the process, I learned three important lessons that women entrepreneurs can apply to stand out in the marketplace.

It is essential to develop a core group of trusted advisors. In Stand Out, I profile a woman named Kare Anderson who has maintained two mastermind groups for more than 20 years apiece. In a world where so many people lose touch with each other after changing jobs, or maintain their connections only haphazardly, her deep and long-standing relationships show what’s possible.

What would it mean for your business and your professional development if, instead of just responding to people who invited you out for coffee, you were deliberate in determining who you’d actually like to spend time with?

It can be a powerful exercise to think about the people you’d most like to learn from and emulate, and find ways to get to know them better. It doesn’t have to be a formal group at first; in fact, it’s often better to test the waters with some quality 1-1 or small group time. But as you begin to get to know each other better and build trust, making a concerted effort to deepen your relationships can help take your self-knowledge – and your business – to the next level.

Making a concerted effort to deepen your relationships can help take your business to the next level.

One of the fastest ways to build rapport – whether it’s with potential clients, business partners, or new friends – is to rapidly identify shared commonalities. It enables the other person to start thinking of you as “one of us,” and encourages them to invest in the relationship. The commonality doesn’t have to be profound – it could be a shared love of dogs, or kids the same age, or carrying a handbag by the same designer. But it begins the conversation on a positive note.

Someone who’s harnessed the power of commonality very well is Robbie Kellman Baxter, a consultant I profile in Stand Out. She now draws more than 50% of her business from fellow alumni of the business school she attended – which is no accident. She’s invested a great deal of time over the years in alumni activities, using it as a focal point of her networking. From writing class notes for the alumni magazine to organizing a breakfast speaker series for her local alumni club chapter, she’s been active and visible, and that’s made it easy for her to make connections with fellow grads. Whatever your shared experience – being military veterans, graduates of the same school or program, members of the same gym, or residents of the same neighborhood – it can be a powerful way to build relationships that pay business dividends.

Many people think of charitable involvement as a great way to give back, separate from their business efforts, but it can also be a major tool for business growth. In fact, if you view charity as totally separate from your business, you’re likely to limit the time and money you spend, because it’s “a nice thing to do”, but not essential to your core business development activities.

If you expand your frame, however, charity work can become a vehicle for professional development – you can volunteer for projects, such as social media or event planning, where you’d like to hone your skills, networking – you can form deep connections with others involved in your cause, and branding – because you’ll be recognized as a socially conscious business owner, and many consumers would like to support that ethos.

In Stand Out, I profiled Thalia Tringo, a realtor based in Somerville, Massachusetts who serves on three charity boards and is known in the community for donating $250 to a local charity for each transaction she closes. That’s become part of her brand, and clients, including me, often choose to work with her because it sets her apart from other practitioners.

We live in a world where it’s increasingly difficult to get noticed and stand out. But through smart, thoughtful relationship-building, it’s possible to build deep connections and ensure your true talents are recognized.