The Disney Secret to Building a Community That Sells | Becky Pierson

[00:00:00] When I always say like don't build a fan club, what I'm really getting at is that you don't want to be the main stage performer of your community and bring people together like I am building a fan club of people that support me. At least when it comes to building a business, right? You're not the star of the show, you're not the main performer, you are the facilitator, the connector, the builder, and there's a really big difference. Your business becomes more like your personal brand, which is not something you can sell.

[00:00:30] What are your, I want to see the receipt. The number one way to grow a community is word of mouth growth. That comes from like this experience is incredible and I'm going to share it with my friends. Or I'm having this huge transformation in my life that everybody's asking me what I'm doing. No one makes magic and business like Disney. Join us as we hear from Disney cast members, influencers, and enthusiasts to uncover the secrets of what it takes behind the scenes to make Disney such a successful and well-loving.

[00:01:00] We will hear their journeys, inspirations, and have some good old-fashioned Disney fun along the way. So relax, pull up a chair, be our guest, and let's get down to Bippity Boppity Business.

[00:01:17] Welcome back to this episode of Bippity Boppity Business. I am so excited to have our special guest Becky on today. Becky is a community leader, expert, and you just may have heard right before the intro all the other awesome, amazing things that she's done.

[00:01:36] But right now we're really here to talk about the business side of really what creates a community that is authentic, real, maybe even giving results for businesses without having to fake it. So we're going to nerd out about that, then talk about tips for podcasters who are trying to build their own community and take it from there. So thank you so much, Becky, for being on the show. Thanks for having me. I'm excited.

[00:02:04] So we were chatting just a little bit before the podcast about this concept of not making a fan club. Like you can't just build a fan club. This isn't something you can manufacture and have happen overnight. And, you know, as people listen to this podcast or if they're a fan of Disney, they're probably looking at how the brand creates such a fan like IP.

[00:02:30] Like people are fans and they're like, well, how do I do that for my business? But I'd love to just like get it right out of the woodworks here and tell me, tell me why you can't just wake up one day and say, I'm going to make a fan club.

[00:02:45] Yeah. Well, when I when I share when I always say like don't build a fan club, what I'm really getting at is that you you don't want to be the main stage performer of your community and bring people together like in in like a Taylor Swift way where it's like I am like building a fan club of people that support me.

[00:03:06] At least when it comes to building a business. Right. So from a business perspective, what we want to do is instead of building a fan club, building a place where people actually learn and connect with one another. And we allow those conversations and connections to thrive and they're teaching each other. And yes, like there might be guided by your expertise or your frameworks, but it's not all about you.

[00:03:34] Like you're not the star of the show. You're not the main performer. You are the facilitator, the connector, the builder. And there's a really big difference. I love that analogy of the Swifty fan club, but because as a Taylor Swift fan and you know that her documentary was on Disney Plus, it was really cool. You know, you kind of the ego of the business owner, you look at that and go, well, what if everyone just like loved me like that and wanted to buy my stuff and like support me everywhere I went?

[00:04:03] And like kind of like be obsessed with me. And like that is such a dangerous mindset because it's that type of thinking that will do the exact opposite for your business. And there's so many people when they start out to build a community, they get that wrong from the get go. So you're destined to fail just by that thinking without even starting. What do you think?

[00:04:25] Yeah, I think a lot of the times like people, it starts that way. A lot of times it does start as a fan club and that's not necessarily a bad thing because that comes from people wanting to buy from people. And like they're, they're enjoy, they enjoy following a business owner because they're authentic and showing like what it really takes to accomplish what they're working toward. And so like that authenticity and that, that lifestyle they're displaying.

[00:04:51] I keep thinking about Grace Beverly in my head. Like she has all of these amazing businesses. Yes. Do you follow her? So her social is amazing and it's so much fun and she's giving lots of education and like has a lot of raving fans. I'm sure. And has a huge social media following. But like once somebody is like in her ecosystem, she has this opportunity to then create a way for her customers to connect with one another that are, that have these like shared interests and goals.

[00:05:21] And so I think a lot of times like we start to have that fandom that is like, okay, I am now, because in order to build a business in 2026, we're all creating content and like we're content creators, right? Right. And so then there's like this fandom element, which becomes weird and you have to be really careful not to let it inflate your ego. And then when you actually get people in a room, like it's not about you, you're the facilitator.

[00:05:51] And it actually takes like quite a shift. And the reason why this is important is because your business becomes more like your personal brand, which is not something you can sell, which is not something that is necessarily scalable. And so while your personal brand can kind of like fuel your business growth, it cannot be the like community driver forever, if that makes sense. No, it does.

[00:06:19] And I want to lean into that more because I don't think we've talked a lot about that, the difference between how a personal brand grows certain areas of the business. Obviously, personal branding is great for what you said, like the followers, the awareness, you know, it does build that weird parasocial relationship phenomenon thing that you need to be so careful with. But just because you have a certain amount of followers doesn't mean you could easily have a community. And that is such an interesting angle.

[00:06:48] From your experience, what have you seen is that key like beginning, starting border or indicator, transition, anything that takes the person from I just have a personal brand to oh, I have potential for community here. Yeah. It starts with actually connecting people. So like you said, it's very parasocial where it's like one to one many times over. Like we're having these relationships that are very one-sided.

[00:07:16] Like we're on a stage speaking, doing whatever. And then there's this audience of people that are like applauding. But like, are we actually- Like they're applauding in a different room. Then we don't know that they're applauding. Yeah, exactly. It's so weird. Yeah. They're like, they are potentially engaging on your content or they're, you know, sharing your content with friends, et cetera. But you're not necessarily in all of those conversations. And so I think what's important is that we start to actually be connectors.

[00:07:44] We start to talk to the people that are the fans and we're starting to connect them with one another. And so we, I think this also comes back to not chasing like vanity metrics because what really matters is building like real relationships with your potential customers and like recognizing when they should meet each other and helping facilitate that. Let's talk about that in a deeper level. You know, I definitely am not the community expert.

[00:08:14] I definitely made the easy assumption that like, oh, if you do content and build personal brands and do podcasting that you can help facilitate a community. No big deal. And then the reality is, like you said, if people are not talking to each other organically, there really is no way to have a community. Like you cannot put ad money into it right from the beginning or plant community discussion people to like start facilitating conversations.

[00:08:43] Like I think the, the, the level of fake that you can read from a community is, it's a lot easier to clock in for lack of better terms than something like social. So if you're working with somebody who wants to decide like they're ready to build that community, I'm going to use a really silly analogy right now. We're going to bring the Disney part into here. I want to pretend that Cinderella. Okay.

[00:09:11] She, she's like in her post, she's in her castle era phase and life. You know, she's got her followers. People love her. Cause they're like, wow, you had this whole life transformation. You were living one way and now you're doing this. You went from cleaning girl to like living happily ever after. And like, you know, we follow your reels and we're so obsessed with everything you say. And you know, like, how can, like, how can we be like you? And she's like, you know what?

[00:09:36] Like, I want to start a community of like these women who feel like they're in one point in their life, but they need to get to another. So if she's your client, right. She's come to you. She's got her followers. She's got connections to, you know, the fairy godmother, some mice, you know, all that. Where do you even begin? You know, this is a silly analogy, but I, I really feel like it's kind of like the starting point of like when somebody goes from, let's just create content and get business to build community. What's your first question to her?

[00:10:14] Sure. But like, you have, you know, what, what are your, I want to see the receipts. Like, have you done, have you done any like coaching training? Like, do you have any certifications? Like, what are you interested in? Do you want to work with people one-on-one? Do you want to work with people in a group setting? Do, are we just like bringing people together for like in-person retreats? I mean, there's a lot to uncover with like, number one, what is like the founder goal and intention?

[00:10:43] What lights, what lights up Cinderella? Right. And then the second category is like, what are your people actually need? So the first, the first thing I would do to honestly make sure I want to take her on as a client is like, just like, what are you, show me, show me your, show me the receipts. Yeah. Tell me what you've done. It's not just about like how successful you are or the followers that you have or the fame or the, you know, the street cred, the influencer vibe. Like what have you actually done? Right.

[00:11:13] Yeah. And so like, and I think a good example of this too is like, I work a lot with authors who have some kind of like transformational or educational, really like self-help style books that are, that have some core framework. So like they've done a ton of research they've put into building their framework. So let's say like Cinderella has a book. Okay. And she like has built this framework around her, her transformation journey. And now she helps other women.

[00:11:42] Like, okay, so there's some legitimacy here. Yeah. So now that, now that we have a legitimacy and I can move past that, the next, the next step is like, I want to do some research with her audience of women and understand where they're at. Like, like, where are they at in this journey? What are they struggling with? What, what kind of challenges are they overcoming? Tell me about that research process. Like, how would you go about understanding that?

[00:12:12] Is it like content? Is it emails? Like, what is it? Yeah. I call this scrappy research. And we do a lot of, a lot of, when I say scrappy, it means I used to work in tech and I'm not doing like $150,000 like research engagement to like, to go like really deep. Right. Like, I'm just trying to get some good data driven like indication where you can make some decisions based on. Okay. So I would probably run a survey to, let's say she has an email list.

[00:12:40] I would send an email list survey. To the kingdom. Yeah. To the, to the kingdom. Yeah. Yeah. Um, and I would write, um, probably ask some people to do some one-on-one conversations. Okay. These are called user interviews. So I would do some, you know, five to 10 interviews at least. And then I would look at analytics.

[00:13:05] Like, what do we know about her audience based on, like you said, the content, like what content resonates the most, um, demographic data we can get from social media platforms. I assume she's got like, you know, really popping off on Instagram. So like. She's like, like over like millions at this point. Yeah. Yeah. She's, she's, she's like word of mouth in conversations too. Like that. And so, so, but I love that because you said scrappy research.

[00:13:32] So it's like, you know, one-on-one interviews looking at the analytics and then, um. Survey data. Survey data. Okay. Yeah. And then, and then I want to understand, um, any, any data we have available to us. So let's say she sold, um, a guide in the past or like what freebies really get the most downloads. Like any kind of like marketing data we have as well.

[00:13:57] So we collect all of this information and then we're going to analyze it and look for what are the top themes. What are the insights we can pull from this? And based on that design, some kind of an experience that's community driven. And that could be many things, right? It could be a program. It could be a membership. It could be, um, a smaller group mastermind. Probably not for Cinderella. She has a huge audience, a lot of capital we can make here.

[00:14:25] Could be an app, a low ticket app experience because she has audience size that could warrant that. It could be, um, in-person retreats. Like it could be so many things. And so a lot of times people think I'm going to build a membership. I'm going to do retreats. They like jump to the end result. But if we actually do the research and look for the insights and have an indication of which product makes more sense for my audience, then they're more likely to be successful. I actually have never considered that because maybe because I'm chronically on LinkedIn,

[00:14:54] but I'm, when you say community, I immediately think of, oh, I'm going to pay for like a membership and be put in like some sort of online portal of sorts. And then like, that's the community. But what you're saying is you want to look at the data first, understand the audience, and then curate an experience that not only would be best suited to the audience, but also to the brand as well too, right?

[00:15:21] Because I guess like, you know, if your brand is more in-person and, you know, maybe hospitality or experiential, and you're just going to like only have a virtual platform, maybe that doesn't align as well too. I don't know. So I love that type of, that thinking that you're going into there. Yeah. My background is in like product development, product management, and user experience design. And so I'm always looking at like sort of a Venn diagram of customer needs and business needs.

[00:15:48] So what do we learn from what customers are looking for? What actually works for the business? And in this case, I would add like creator slash business. So influencer slash business. So what do, what are their interests and what are they excited about doing? Because that energy is important with sales, like, and for deliver, like the delivery of the product to make sure that they're excited about doing the work.

[00:16:14] Um, so I'm looking at that overlap when making any kind of like, what should we build decision? Um, something else I think about a lot when I think about community is the amount of work that it actually takes to maintain said community, right? So you've launched it, you've done the data, you're all excited. And then it's like, why isn't it growing? Like, like people immediately are like, oh, like within like a couple months, like this should be popping off or whatever. Right.

[00:16:40] Like in your experience, like if the product is, is, you know, well-researched, set up correctly, uh, framed in the proper context. What does growth look like for a community in a reasonable fashion? Like what are the signals of that? Well, the first signal is, are people sharing it? The number one way to grow a community is word of mouth growth. And so that comes from like, this experience is incredible and I'm going to share it with my friends.

[00:17:08] Or I'm having this huge transformation in my life that everybody's asking me what I'm doing and what I'm doing different and like how I'm evolving. And I say like, oh, I joined this membership or I joined this community. I think, um, you know, Cinderella's biggest challenge is like if she positioned it as a community, it probably wouldn't sell well because people are seeking a similar transformation that Cinderella had. And so that means they're looking for outcomes. They're looking for direction. They're looking for coaching, support, accountability.

[00:17:37] They don't call that community. Community becomes the element that makes it sticky, helps them see results. It helps them stick around. They don't know that that's what they need. And so we want to position it as like a transformational experience that they're going to get. And then community becomes more like the supportive tissue in the background that makes them successful. Wow.

[00:18:00] So even positioning and how you coin the term for whatever this ecosystem is, is equally as important too. You can't just like, I can't, everything can't just be called community. Yeah. But I feel like now we're in the era where everything is just called community, to be honest. Like, how do you feel about that? Yeah. I feel that that's a lot of the times the problem. They're like, hey, I can't sell this thing. My community is broken. And I'm like, what's your first time I want to see the data.

[00:18:27] So like they show me if their retention is good, meaning, you know, over 85% retention a month, then I'm like, okay, well, you don't necessarily have a huge retention problem. Maybe there's a little room for improvement, but that means that people see the value and they're sticking around. So the people you're getting in are enjoying it. And then I would want to do some research with current members, of course. But, you know, why did you join? And like most of them probably aren't going to say, because I wanted to be a part of this community.

[00:18:54] And so I would probably tell them like, you need to just update your positioning and try that. Yes, yes. And, you know, for me, something I see that's really helpful is like community that from my perspective, from a community that I'm part of is the annual passholder community on Disney. And so passholder is like, it feels like you're part of something special.

[00:19:20] Like, yes, you get the rate, like a discounted rate to go in, but like you're treated and communicated to like, you know, this is like just for you. Like you have priority or whatever. And then everyone is talking to each other about different things that to help their vacation or stuff like that. And you don't always see like somebody from the business come in and like try to change somebody's answer or like instigate, I guess, a little bit.

[00:19:45] So, you know, another sign of, in your opinion, what's another way that communities are successful? Like how involved do you have to be to kind of like moderate and make sure everything's good versus letting people just organically like have the conversations that they need to have? It's an interesting question because from a member journey design and structure design, community design standpoint, you need to do a lot in order to make sure it can be facilitated on its own.

[00:20:13] But from like a day to day Cinderella's in the community, like engaging with people that I mean, that that can really range. And it kind of depends on what the person, the creator, the influencer, the business owner prefers. So like I have one client who we like completely removed her from her membership. She's really, yeah, she's a huge influencer and people definitely want to join her membership because they're a fan of her.

[00:20:42] So she has built a fandom. Right. But when they join, when they're in the marketing funnel for this social media membership, content membership, we say, hey, she like there's literal videos of her saying like, I'm not the one coaching inside of this membership. I actually have my social media coach coach you. And then there's a video from that coach. So we're not we're not bait and switching. We're telling people ahead of time before purchase, this is who's going to be coaching you inside the membership.

[00:21:10] That's really important because we want the experience to be beyond what their expectations are. So if they're expecting this influencer person, they're going to be disappointed. So we want to make that really clear up front. So that that part matters a lot. But you can like she I don't I mean, in theory, like she probably like goes in and comments when she feels like it. But she doesn't ever have to log in. Yeah. No, but that's so important because you I love the way you are crafting these experiences

[00:21:40] for these business leaders, because it is assumed when you create a community that you have to be in there all the time talking to everyone and being so involved and whatever. And and that may not be what's best for the community member as well, just depending on what you can actually promise and deliver to to that community. If you're busy, like, you know, people there are people that think I'm too busy to even have a community.

[00:22:07] But in this instance, you were able to craft something that is best of both worlds for everybody. OK, I want to segue a little bit into the podcast side of things, because I had so much fun, you know, hanging out with you at PodFest. And as a podcaster myself and anyone who, you know, maybe already has their their business, but they want to do a podcast or they're just a podcaster. They want to have a community. Right. They want to know what that looks like, how to do that. Just give me a run through of some of some tips and, you know, the differences between between the two. So where do we begin?

[00:22:37] You podcast want to have a community where where is even the first thought? Where do we go? You mentioned parasocial relationships on social media earlier. And I think podcasting is like the most extreme version of that because we can't even see who's listening. Like, I can't go stalk the profiles of the people that liked my podcast episode. You know what I mean? Like, it's just so we're so blind in like who is actually listening to this thing. Right.

[00:23:05] The data is really hard to actually figure out who's actually listening, like person by person. Yeah. Yeah. Like I will get messages from people that are like, hey, I love your podcast. And I'm like, you listen, tell me about you. Yeah. Like where did you come from? Like how are you? I'm like reading everything they've ever done on their LinkedIn profile. I'm like, yeah, I'm like developing a dossier. Like I just want to understand. You just need to know. Yeah. I just need to know. I feel the same way too. Like I've had a couple of people DM me be like, I love your podcast.

[00:23:33] I'm like, where did you come from? I literally never see you comment on anything. Like, okay. Like I love you for this, but what's happening? Yeah. Yeah. And people are so different. Like the people that listen to the podcast are different than the people that read the newsletter and that engage on your social media reels. I mean, of course there's always like the super fans that do everything, but those are rare. And so, yeah, we really don't know. So anyway, I think there's a lot of opportunity here because it's so bad. Like the bar is on the floor.

[00:24:03] It is under the ground. Yeah. Yeah. But I think that podcasting is an incredible relationship builder at the same time. Like we are in people's ears for a long period of time and they're building a lot of trust with us, with our methodologies, with what we're sharing. And so they're also probably like our hottest leads as far as like who's interested in joining the thing that we're building.

[00:24:28] So it's super interesting because it's like this like dynamic of, of this parasocial relationship of who the hell is listening to my podcast. And then, oh, actually these are probably my hottest leads, but I don't know who they are. Yeah. It's what a dichotomy. And I tell people this too, like once you get to the point where somebody does listen to your podcast, they love you. Like they, they, they are locked in. They want to be listening. And at the same time, whoever you are, we love you. Tell us, I guess somewhere. And then, but yeah.

[00:24:58] So like what, for setting up a podcast community, um, I've seen all sorts of things. I've seen people where they use Patreon or, you know, they use circle or, or sub stack or like, I'm sure there's no magic way, but like from a foundational, like a structural nerdy setup, like what is the best or combination or to, to go with here? I don't know. What do you think? Yeah.

[00:25:26] I, I think it depends. Yeah. Um, but I will say like there, the best opportunity for podcasters is when, for like building a membership at least is when there is like a really clear shared interest goal. Like you have a really niche experience here where it's like business owners that love Disney, right? Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

[00:25:56] Yeah. And so, you know, there's, there's a shared interest. There's also shared goals. And so I think like, just to like play out and some for you, if you're, what you're, what you want to do from a research perspective is understand what the overlaps are in business because you, you already have the shared interest. So the shared goal is probably grow the business. Sure. But like our kind of businesses are listening, like what kind of business owners are listening to this podcast and what do they care about?

[00:26:26] And what are their challenges and what stage of business growth are they at? And what kind of support can you offer them? Yes. That is like also fun and whimsical and unique to these types of business owners that are like just trying to have fun out here. I literally, I keep telling people, I just want to do like an in-person mastermind on a Disney property somewhere where we bring all these business leaders in and it's like, you know, tips on marketing, tips on community, tips on this.

[00:26:54] And then we all get to write it off and get like, go to like Epcot later. Like, but at the same time, your questions are very reasonable because that does beg the question, like, well, at what point of business? And I don't know, because like you said, the data is very hard for, to figure out and podcast land to understand. Yeah. Yeah. I think this is something I haven't cracked yet. I want to do a little experimenting and I'm curious if you have, have you ever tried doing

[00:27:20] like a survey for a reward, like some kind of incentive in your podcast show notes? Not yet. No. I'm like, I don't know how good of a response rate they would get, but I think that that could be an interesting way to start gathering some data because I love your idea, like the retreat, mastermind retreat. And so my, my only like tip I'd give you is like, you need, you need to understand.

[00:27:44] And actually really what you could do is throw up a sales page and say like, Hey, if you want to join the wait list, actually not even, not even sales page, wait list, fill this out. And the wait list should have some questions like of these business questions. Like that's probably what I would do if I were you, because then you can understand how to, how to curate the programming. Like you don't tell people who's going to be speaking or what you're going to be focused on. I would actually leave that out. Like we're going to do a business mastermind on a Disney property is all you have to say

[00:28:14] because people are like, sure. Yeah. And so it's like, join the wait list and I'll send you more information. That wait list survey is going to give you the data you need to figure out what kind of experts you're going to bring in, what stage of growth people are at, what kind of trainings you're going to do. And then once they actually like that will give you a first indication so you can add more detail to your sales page. And then the next stage is like actually getting people to purchase and then your buyers, you're going to survey them to ask them what they want to get out of the retreat.

[00:28:43] And then that helps you design the programming. Well, you know, if we end up having a wait list in the show notes, we'll have to thank Becky for that. But my biggest takeaway from this conversation is you really need to understand that community isn't self-serving. It is a service that you are a relationship, an experience that you're providing. And you can't answer the question, what should my community be in one day?

[00:29:11] You really need an expert, just like someone like Becky to be your community fairy godmother and come in and be like, all right, let me sit you down and tell you everything we got not in the right spot right now. And then more importantly, if you're a podcaster, understanding what your show is as well too and having that right setup from the get-go so that the community isn't in an after, not an afterthought. I'm weirdly niched, but later that could help. Later that could help if we want to do other things. Yeah, for sure.

[00:29:41] Embrace your weird niche, I guess. Agreed. I also, I'll say like, I do think that there's a shift right now for podcasters and community because it used to be like Patreon subscription model. You're going to get additional content bonus episodes. And I'm not saying that that doesn't work anymore, but I am saying that I think we're going to see a shift where we need a little more than that. And so that's where I think there's a lot of opportunity for programming.

[00:30:08] So even like education content, course material type stuff, like resources, tools, and then programming as in like we're going to do a live Q&A in the community with so-and-so guests. Yeah. Like that kind of stuff because that's the difference, right? Like right now, like somebody might listen as a fan to your podcast and it's all parasocial one-sided.

[00:30:32] And so if we actually build a place where they can interact with you live, like that is really exciting to especially your super listeners. Wow. Well, thank you so much, Becky. This has been really, really great. I can't wait to add more in the recording. You know, we'll add more like little bits and gems of wisdom here and there. If someone wants to work with you because you're so good at what you do, where should they connect with you?

[00:31:00] Well, you're obviously a podcast listener. So check out my podcast. It's called Build With Becky. It's like a voice note style podcast. And so every episode is kind of like a lesson or a strategy all about community building. So if you liked this content, you'll like my podcast and you only need like seven minutes to try it. And then if you're interested in working with me and my team, check out affinitycollective.co. Well, that's a wrap for this episode. Thank you so much, Becky. Let's roll the outro.

[00:31:30] You've been listening to Bippity Boppity Business. Like what you hear so far? Leave us a review in Apple or listen to us anywhere you prefer listening to your podcast. Until next time, have a magical day.