Building and growing community with colleagues and clients
Posted on August 11th, 2010
I just finished reading “Delivering Happiness” – Tony Hsieh’s story of how Zappos, the large online shoe store, is pretty amazing. I was lucky enough to get the book for free. The Delivering Happiness campaign were giving the books away for free off of Twitter and I couldn’t resist.
One of the biggest messages I got from “Delivering Happiness“ is how to build community. The author Tony talks a lot on how he built different communities throughout the process of Zappos and some of the relationships were pretty intimate. Building community helped the company weather different phases of the companies’ growth, as well as provide a place for people to be themselves and encourage a great customer service model. I love how they (Zappos) are know to upgrade a customer’s shipment from ground to overnight delivery, just randomly. They’ve also been known to randomly send flowers to customers too!
Overall “Delivering Happiness” was an inspirational book and it got me thinking how much community plays a role in how we live and work. How can we build more community with our clients, colleagues and all those in-between ?
Recently, Keith Ferrazzi made a few suggestions on his blog on relationship/community building:
*Host a monthly dinner or happy hour
*First thing every day after you turn off your computer, ping one friend and one acquaintance.
These are simple yet powerful ideas. When you reach out to people, there’s this amazing energy that builds and grows. People feel special and want to return it. Bringing people together can be as easy as inviting them into your home, at a bar or restaurant or even a walk or hike.
One experiment I’ve decided to try is personally writing a note to past clients and colleagues, 5 times a week. Many of my clients aren’t in the Portland areas, so a note seemed like a great way to reach out! I decided to send a funny or cute note and in the note, I don’t talk about my business. I ask them how they are doing and ask specific questions about their lives, about their family, their business, etc. It feels really amazing to do this every week. And the response I’ve gotten has been great.
What’s one thing you can do to build your community? What’s working for you now?
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I'm Nedra Rezinas:a Portland women with a background in web design, project managment, E-commerce, and providing green web hosting. Join me on my journey as I explore different marketing and e-commerce strategies that can help your business! 
