TCC Podcast #102: Building better communities with Harmony Eichsteadt

Community manager Harmony Eichsteadt is the guest for the 102nd episode of The Copywriter Club Podcast. We chatted with Harmony about a wide range of topics related to connecting with clients to building communities for both customers and peers. Harmony knows a thing or two about building healthy communities—she’s done it with groups like The Good Life Project and NationBuilder. We asked Harmony about: •  how she became a community manager (with stops as a dating coach and cancer survivor along the way) •  the first steps to take to build a community around ourselves •  who is better for community building: introverts or extroverts •  the biggest misconceptions around building a community •  where you can build a community and how (it’s not just online) •  some of the benefits of building and belonging to a community of copywriters •  how to connect with others within communities you don’t own •  whether there’s a growing hunger for new communities today •  why everyone is already a community leader and how to get better •  the differences between online and offline community interaction •  how to connect with people in the real world •  how copywriters can build deeper connections with other writers We also asked Harmony for her advice about when you run an event (we’re starting to think about round two for TCC IRL) and what it takes to win a poetry slam. She let’s us in on the fact that we probably won’t win one. Maybe we’ll have Harmony to our next event to perform a bit of her award-winning poetry—yeah? To hear this one, simply click the play button below, or download it to your favorite podcast app. Want to read it instead? Scroll down for a full transcript. The people and stuff we mentioned on the show: Inward 2019 Event Kira’s website Rob’s website The Copywriter Club Facebook Group Intro: Content (for now) Outro: Gravity Full Transcript: The Copywriter Club Podcast is sponsored by Airstory, the writing platform for professional writers who want to get more done in half the time. Learn more at Airstory.co/club. Kira:   What if you could hang out with seriously talented copywriters and other experts, ask them about their successes and failures, their work processes and their habits, then steal an idea or two to inspire your own work? That's what Rob and I do every week at The Copywriter Club Podcast. Rob:   You're invited to join the club for episode 102 as we chat with professional community builder, Harmony Eichsteadt about what it takes to create strong communities, how to work a room online and off, what she does to land and rock a speaking gig, and writing poetry good enough to win a poetry slam. Kira:   Welcome Harmony. Rob:   Hey Harmony. Harmony:     Thanks so much for having me. Kira:   We’re excited that you're here so we can talk about something that we really haven't covered on this podcast. All about community development, community engagement and relationships. So, why don't we kick it off with your story. How did you end up as a relationship and community expert? Harmony:     It's such a good question and I think for many of us we can start the story at a lot of different places. So, the more deeply I get into my work, the more I can see tendrils from even my childhood of like, ‘I've always been very fascinated about connecting people.’ So, I think there's some thread that was maybe there from a young age, but how it crystallized for me was actually I started out as a dating coach, which I think is, now I think is very funny. I spent a few years working with people on writing dating profiles, on how to flirt, and think about developing relationships. That morphed into this current career for a few different reasons. One is that I got diagnosed with thyroid cancer when I was 29 and that was not what I was planning to do with my 29th year on the planet. I had other items on my agenda, but it threw a monkey wrench in things. As is the case for lots of us when we have a big surprising life change, it forces us to look at our priorities, what we care about and who we really are. Part of what emerged for me in that process was that I noticed I was really gathering all these people around me. That seems very obvious and normal in that time, but I started to see other people going through difficult circumstances alone. I realized that there was some combination of having already built a really strong community and then knowing what to do with it. I started to reflect back on the dating coaching that I was doing, and so much of that was actually teaching people how to build communities, and how to have a lot of rich relationships, many of which, or some of which would turn romantic, but not all of them because we have a lot of friends, it's easier to meet someone to date. So, I started to really refine like, what I care about is actually just teaching people about connecting. I want everyone to have the kind of network support that can uplift you so that when life takes a left turn, it's there. It became just like a really personal passion and, which then turned into this career path, which has been just like really a fun adventure to see that unfold that way. Rob:   Okay. So, I have a whole bunch of questions that flow out of your story. But, I want to go back to the beginning where you are a dating coach, teaching people how to flirt and connect. What's involved in that? I mean, I'm thinking about myself and I have a relationship so I'm not really interested in learning how to flirt for romantic purposes, but obviously connecting with people and getting people interested in you, like how do you teach that? Harmony:     Right. I think that's a great question. Actually a lot of flirting that you might do with a romantic intention is also like if you take the romance part out is really great for just connecting with people. So, giving someone a lot of eye contact and being really curious about their life, and what they're interested in is very attractive and engaging whether you want to date somebody, or you're just having a conversation with a colleague. So, thinking about those elements, I was like, what makes us just feel really good and want to get to know somebody better? That's the whole point of flirting really. It was like, ‘This feels nice. I might want to have another conversation with this person.’ Kira:   So, is the key to growing our businesses to flirt more? Do Rob and me need to start flirting more? Harmony:     I mean, I don't know if it's the key, but especially if you're interested in building more relationships, I think it's a pretty good tactic. Kira:   So, I want to hear more about when you had cancer at age 29, how did your community help you? Can you provide some specific examples? Harmony:     Yeah, so I actually had teams of folks, so I had a finance captain who's in charge of helping manage fundraising because I couldn't work for part of that time, and I had several people who were coaching me around stuff like grappling with my mortality, and thinking about what that meant, and who I was going to be in the face of this big change. I had folks organize teams so that I always had a person with me at every doctor's appointment. It was really funny being a young adult with cancer is really different than how most people experience it. It's usually either pediatric cancer or folks who are older, so you tend to either have a spouse, or children, or parents there as a consistent support figure. But, I was divorced, I wasn't living near my parents but I had this great community, so I had a rotating band of friends. My doctors never knew who was going to show up with me. There was always some person there. I lived with some friends for a little while, so it was really a wide range of ways that people showed up, which I think is actually a real key for community. So, I think of it like stone soup, or I might bring a carrot, and you have a potato, and there's somebody else who has celery, and you all just pitch in the thing that you have, and if you have enough folks who can do that, you end up with this really rich result, and nobody is having to really extend past what they're able to offer. Rob:   So, before we jump into the business applications of this kind of a thing, a lot of copywriters, myself included, are a little bit introverted and so connecting with people, especially in real life is difficult. What are some of those first steps that we need to take in order to build communities around ourselves like what you're talking about? Harmony:     I love this question. I actually do a lot of work with introverts, and I've gotten like a little obsessed with thinking about introverts as community builders. I actually think in some ways introverts can be even better community builders than extroverts because ... I know, it's like plot twist. The reason being that, obviously I'm painting with a broad brush, but the often for introverts, each relationship they build takes much more energy, and so they tend to be much more invested in and hold the relationships as really precious. If it's very easy to make lots of relationships and everyone's a new friend, then it can be ... you might forget or be a little more flippant about the relationships. So, I think that, ‘Okay, this relationship was painstakingly one, and I'm not going to lose it because I'm not doing that work again.’ actually can be like a great asset for community building. But, then obviously there is like if you're building a big community, a lot of relationships so that that can be taxing, and if you're someone that doesn't draw your energy from that. So, I think some, some tips is like, one, don't have to be extroverted. So, not trying to be something that you're not. A few really quality deep relationships that last are better than a bunch of superficial relationships.