Then you finish up with a client and realize you have no one new lined up and no income next month so you scramble to send out a bunch of emails after ghosting your list, create some posts for social media (or, worse, send some cold DMs) and cross your fingers, hoping somebody bites.

I know what it’s like to juggle client facing work, admin, marketing, and all the other things you didn’t sign up for when you started your business but I want to share with you today why focusing on continuously building and nurturing a tight knit community is going to make a huge difference to your business.

Prefer to listen to this instead of read? Check out the podcast, or listen below:

What is an Online Community?

At its most basic, an online community is a group of individuals who come together virtually to share common interests, goals, or experiences. It’s like a digital clubhouse where members can connect, collaborate, and support each other.

Let’s add a little more depth to that—online communities often center around a specific topic or niche, and they can take many forms, including forums, social media groups, and membership sites. They thrive on engagement and interaction, fostering a sense of belonging and shared identity among members.

And finally, for those subject matter experts among you, an online community is a complex adaptive system that exhibits emergent properties, influenced by network effects and community dynamics. It’s a fascinating field of study that blends sociology, psychology, and digital technology.

If you’re only at the first level of understanding, rest assured, you will become an online community virtuoso in no time.

Do you want to learn more from me? Check out my Cozy Community Creator Hub for in depth training, tools, resources, and coaching to build your own community.

Why Should You Care About Building a Cozy Community?

I’m all about doing what’s best for you, and I can’t make you care about building your own online community, but let me give you some compelling reasons to make growing and nurturing your own community of dream clients your focus this year.

Community is important because:

• Reason #1: When you have a group of people who know, like, and trust you suddenly you have a sustainable business of dream clients right in front of you.
• Reason #2: Since the pandemic, people have been more online and yet more disconnected than ever.
• Reason #3: The rise of AI generated content means that social media is about to get even noisier than it’s ever been. Having your own tight knit community takes a lot of pressure off needing to cut through the noise online.

Important: Don’t think that the things you’ve been doing in your business are going to continue working the same way, everything is changing in the online space.

The truth is, community has always been important, but it’s about to get more valuable than ever.

A Cozy Community in Context 

How creating an online community affects you and your business is just as important as understanding what exactly a cozy community is and why it’s essential.

Let me give you a real-world example:

Have you heard the 1000 True Fans concept by Kevin Kelly? What about the 100 True Fans by Li Jin? The idea is that you don’t need to have millions of followers to have a successful and sustainable business when, in fact, you can create a tight knit community of people who have shared values, aligned interests, and are part of a movement they can get behind.

In fact, last year I remember seeing a TikTok creator with over 5 million followers ask for just $10 from his followers to support his film. Nobody paid. 

And yet, every day, people like you and me with just a few thousand followers can build businesses that support us.

The reality is that it’s not about numbers at all, as much as every industry has become fixated on those follower counts. What we can do by building genuine connections with real people, sharing ideas, and being in community together is so much more powerful than how many followers we have.

One of our members applies the cozy community concept through her Instagram “close friends” stories. She didn’t even realize how deeply she was connecting with her community and creating that inner circle of dream clients by sharing special behind-the-scenes thoughts and snapshots with them.

Check Out: This video I did recently talking about why you need a tight knit community to cut through the noise online, especially if you’re a solopreneur.

3 Tips for Building Your Own Cozy Community

Raise your hand if you don’t know where to start growing and nurturing your cozy community. Be honest! 🙋‍♀️

That’s no problem; here are some extra hints and tips to get you on your way:

• Tip #1: Get really clear about what you stand for, who you want to be in community with, and where you are going to be able to show up consistently to grow and nurture your people. 

• Tip #2: Remember to be patient. It can take time to find your people and it might feel like you’re connecting one person at a time to start with. That’s why your bigger mission needs to be SO good so that you’ll keep showing up even before anybody else does.

• Tip #3: Check out the Cozy Community Creator Hub. I’ve broken everything down into simple steps, created some super helpful resources, templates, and tools to get you started, grow and effortlessly invite your community to take the next steps with you. It’s just $7 a month (cancel anytime)

Not even sure who your audience is yet? Don’t worry! People worry about having a niche figured out before they start, but I have a theory about that. You can check that out here.

Key Takeaways

Let’s wrap this up, shall we? The key takeaways to remember from this post are that building an online community is how you can cut through the noise as a solopreneur and really connect with people to build that know, like and trust with them.

It’s my mission to support solopreneurs to build sustainable businesses that play to their strengths and I personally prefer connecting with a tight knit group of likeminded souls than focusing on platforms where only a small percentage of people see my content and don’t really care. 

If you would like to build your own cozy community of dream clients, feel free to check out the Cozy Community Creator Hub. It’s such a steal for just $7/month plus you get monthly Q+A, and you get to connect with a community of likeminded souls (and you can cancel anytime if it’s not for you).

Not sure you’re ready for that yet?  Check out the Community Building Toolkit I put together with some key parts of the Cozy Community Hub philosophy in it by getting the FREE Cozy Business Loot Chest.