Build A Tribe
You can’t Transmit Your Value to everyone in the world. You can’t please everyone. Even if you have a global vision and you want to operate in several countries, you have to start small and grow big.
The beginning of this is choosing a starting place. You need to first sufficiently engage a handful of people to always want to listen to you and interact with you on your cause and/or your business. This specific handful of people is what is called A Tribe.
According to Oxford Advanced Learner’s Dictionary, a tribe is a social division in a traditional society consisting of families or communities linked by social, economic, religious, or blood ties, with a common culture and dialect, typically having a recognized leader.
In 2008, Seth Godin released the book Tribes: We Need You to Lead Us and the term has been coined in this way ever since. In the book, Godin describes a tribe as “a group of people connected to one another, connected to a leader, and connected to an idea”. He further suggests that there are two requirements for any tribe: a method of communication, and a shared interest.
Experts say, forming and cultivating a big tribe is the secret to prospering in business in the future. Your tribe could be drawn from your family, friends, fans and followers.
You can’t build might in one day but you can build momentum one day at a time.
It is okay to dream big but you need to start small and grow consistently towards the size of your dream. One of the catalysts for this growth is a Tribe.
It is well documented that Facebook started out exclusively for Harvard university students to share their drunken photos; they then expanded to allow all university students.
Building a tribe means creating a following of people who not only respect you, not only believe you know what you're talking about – but support you, want you to succeed. Or more exactly, they want what you stand for to succeed. You see, creating a tribe is about more than you. It's about a cause, a higher purpose.
Building a tribe is about building a community of like-minded people who will look to you (and one another) for leadership, support, collaboration and encouragement when they share and celebrate wins among other things.
Building a tribe is capturing and captivating an aligned audience.
This is the reason many people follow specific religious leaders, celebrities and sport icons. This is the reason many people are sold out to some household brands.
When you have a tribe, loyalty and customer retention.
To build a tribe, provide answers to the following questions:
A. What problem am I trying to solve?
To build a tribe you have to stand for something; champion something. This may be a specific unmet need, a common frustration or problem for a specific group of people.
B. Who has the problem I am interested in?
Creating a tribe is about more than you. It's about a cause, a higher purpose. You need to know exactly who you are trying to serve or the problem you’re out to solve. Your demography might be a gender, an age group, a location, an ideology or a socio-economic group.
C. What is the best way to communicate with them?
Will it be online or offline? Will it be one-on-one or in groups?
D. Where do they hangout?
A relaxed environment to build a friendship with them.
E. What other interests do they have?
Possible ways to collaborate with existing tribes.
If you are not passionate about a product or a service or a cause, don’t make it part of the problem you are trying to solve just because you think it makes business sense or because it sounds popular. You will either get found out as a hypocrite, a pseudo, a problem to be solved or you will end up as a Very Disgruntled Personality because it’s not a good fit with who you are. Choose a problem you identify with personally. Choose a problem you have genuine concern and interest.
You can’t Transmit Your Value to everyone in the world. You can’t please everyone. Even if you have a global vision and you want to operate in several countries, you have to start small and grow big.
The beginning of this is choosing a starting place. You need to first sufficiently engage a handful of people to always want to listen to you and interact with you on your cause and/or your business. This specific handful of people is what is called A Tribe.
According to Oxford Advanced Learner’s Dictionary, a tribe is a social division in a traditional society consisting of families or communities linked by social, economic, religious, or blood ties, with a common culture and dialect, typically having a recognized leader.
In 2008, Seth Godin released the book Tribes: We Need You to Lead Us and the term has been coined in this way ever since. In the book, Godin describes a tribe as “a group of people connected to one another, connected to a leader, and connected to an idea”. He further suggests that there are two requirements for any tribe: a method of communication, and a shared interest.
Experts say, forming and cultivating a big tribe is the secret to prospering in business in the future. Your tribe could be drawn from your family, friends, fans and followers.
You can’t build might in one day but you can build momentum one day at a time.
It is okay to dream big but you need to start small and grow consistently towards the size of your dream. One of the catalysts for this growth is a Tribe.
It is well documented that Facebook started out exclusively for Harvard university students to share their drunken photos; they then expanded to allow all university students.
Building a tribe means creating a following of people who not only respect you, not only believe you know what you're talking about – but support you, want you to succeed. Or more exactly, they want what you stand for to succeed. You see, creating a tribe is about more than you. It's about a cause, a higher purpose.
Building a tribe is about building a community of like-minded people who will look to you (and one another) for leadership, support, collaboration and encouragement when they share and celebrate wins among other things.
Building a tribe is capturing and captivating an aligned audience.
This is the reason many people follow specific religious leaders, celebrities and sport icons. This is the reason many people are sold out to some household brands.
When you have a tribe, loyalty and customer retention.
To build a tribe, provide answers to the following questions:
A. What problem am I trying to solve?
To build a tribe you have to stand for something; champion something. This may be a specific unmet need, a common frustration or problem for a specific group of people.
B. Who has the problem I am interested in?
Creating a tribe is about more than you. It's about a cause, a higher purpose. You need to know exactly who you are trying to serve or the problem you’re out to solve. Your demography might be a gender, an age group, a location, an ideology or a socio-economic group.
C. What is the best way to communicate with them?
Will it be online or offline? Will it be one-on-one or in groups?
D. Where do they hangout?
A relaxed environment to build a friendship with them.
E. What other interests do they have?
Possible ways to collaborate with existing tribes.
If you are not passionate about a product or a service or a cause, don’t make it part of the problem you are trying to solve just because you think it makes business sense or because it sounds popular. You will either get found out as a hypocrite, a pseudo, a problem to be solved or you will end up as a Very Disgruntled Personality because it’s not a good fit with who you are. Choose a problem you identify with personally. Choose a problem you have genuine concern and interest.
