Community vs. Followers with Brooke Summer Adams

[00:00:00] Andréa Jones: Welcome to episode number 353 of the Mindful Marketing Podcast, where I am determined to help you create simpler, smarter marketing solutions. And today I have Brooke Adams on the show to talk about a conversation that's near and dear to my heart, community versus followers. What's the difference? Why should we care?

[00:00:21] And more, we're gonna get into all of that in a moment, but first, a word from our sponsor. Riverside is the All In One podcast recording and editing tool that I use for this ride here show. I use it to edit not only the audio and the video, it is like chef's kiss magical making the entire process so, so easy.

[00:00:41] Plus, I love their magic AI clips, their little. AI robot in the background pulls out the most impactful moments of the episodes without me having to comb through and do it myself, resizes them for social media. So those vertical videos you see on TikTok and Reels, those all come [00:01:00] from Magic AI inside of Riverside.

[00:01:01] It's literally one click. It spits out 10 clips. I pick the best one and away I go. Saves me so much time. If you wanna get on the Riverside train, check it out today. The links in the show notes. And make sure to use my code, Drea, DREA at checkout to get 15% off your membership. Uh, Brooke, welcome to the show.

[00:01:22] Brooke Adams: Hi, Andrea. I'm so excited to be here. I absolutely love this show. So it's like full circle, well-rounded moments to actually be on it as a guest. I'm so excited.

[00:01:33] Andréa Jones: Yay. I'm excited to talk with you as well. We've collaborated on a couple things now. Uh. Thing that I taught in your group, and so I'm really excited to just like bring your expertise and your perspective to the podcast today.

[00:01:45] But let's set the stage. Let's set the tone for our conversation. Can you tell the listeners a little bit the five minute version of your business journey?

[00:01:55] Brooke Adams: Ooh, okay. Challenge. Let's do it. So, hello listeners. Um, as Andrea said, my [00:02:00] name is Brooke. I have really spent the best part of the last seven years helping new and aspiring coaches specifically create a full-time income in their business so they can hand in their notice for their nine to five, never work a day in their life again.

[00:02:14] Um, and if they wanna go off traveling, they'll go off traveling. But ultimately. Location freedom, time freedom, financial freedom to go ahead and do the life's best work, which is actually wild for anyone who knows. Uh, my story, you could probably hear a British accent here. Uh, but I grew up on a council estate in the uk, the eldest of 10 siblings with not a single working role model.

[00:02:35] Um, I think in the states you would call this like, uh, on welfare, we call it in the UK lake. On, on, on benefits is how we were raised. So the jump from where I was to where I am without doing. Boring hero story is pretty wild. But yeah, it was a journey. Very much fueled by a mission to do more with my life than work a job I hate and pay bills, uh, which is what [00:03:00] led me in to coaching.

[00:03:01] And the journey really unfolded from there. So we are a very freedom centered, uh, business in what we do is all about creating freedom for obviously us ourselves, but our clients as.

[00:03:12] Andréa Jones: Yeah. I love that. And I love that journey that you shared with us as well. And today we're talking about this idea between, uh, community versus followers.

[00:03:21] So let's just define it for everyone. What is a community? What is a follower? What is audience like? How do you view all of these terms?

[00:03:29] Brooke Adams: Oh, I love it. So something I think you guys will pick up from me today pretty quickly. I tend to avoid your typical like professional jargon and I just kind of explain things in my own layman terms.

[00:03:41] So for me, and I think you'll hear a different answer from everyone depending who you ask. I see a follower as someone who is literally their, they're following you like they hit. Follow. Right. But I don't see it the same as community. Like I have people following me who aren't, aren't part of my community.

[00:03:58] Like my mom follows me, but [00:04:00] she's not buying my stuff. Right? She's not live. Person that we're trying to build a community around. So I see my community members like, yes, they may be a follower, but they're a part of it. They join in, right? They engage. They're not always necessarily have to be paying me money, but they're part of the, the free stuff.

[00:04:20] They're a part of the conversation. They're a part of the bigger mission. Besides just watching me on Instagram has always been my feel for it.

[00:04:29] Andréa Jones: Yeah, I agree. I always find like followers just are there to observe and community members like participate, like you said, they, they join the conversation. I think that is a, is a big part of it.

[00:04:40] And we see this happening a lot right now. There's a lot of people who have big following, big followings, right? They have large number of people following their accounts and they post and it's a ghost town. So what are some of the signs that you see of a difference between like a really good community versus a large follower number?[00:05:00]

[00:05:00] Brooke Adams: What a brilliant question. I think there's, there's a lot of things that'll signal to you if you have a great community versus if you have just a great following, you know, like a large following. I think the biggest and most obvious one is your sales. Um, if you've got a huge following, but you don't have a community, you'll.

[00:05:18] Notice that in, in your bottom line, like I've had clients come to me who, um, you know, have maybe been on social media a a while, maybe they went viral in the past, did some influencer star things. I've had people come to me of literally hundreds of thousands of followers, but crickets. When they post and talk about their offers versus, um, like actually LA last week I had a client, she's got 300 Instagram followers.

[00:05:41] She had her first five figure week, right? And that's from, actually those 300 people there may not sound like a lot, but they all wanna be there. They're all a part of it. So I think sales, sales is a big, a biggie will tell you, um, you know, if your audience is actually part of a community, part of something with you, they [00:06:00] wanna be there, they're part of the conversation.

[00:06:02] Or if they are just, you know, a number. And in that following list, I think as well, your obvious ones, the engagement, just the amount of. Response is coming back to you. It's that, it's the two-way conversation. Like if you feel like you're speaking to a wolf, um, and no one's speaking back to you, probably a good sign that there's a bit of community building to do that.

[00:06:23] Right. A little bit of, uh, deep deepening that connection between you, you and your audience.

[00:06:28] Andréa Jones: Yeah, I love the example that you gave to the, the coach with 300 followers because I think, you know, part of us is like, we look at that number, we go, oh, only 300, but 300 is actually a lot of people. Like, I feel like social media has warped our perception of numbers.

[00:06:42] Sometimes like 300 is still very significant. So I wanted to ask some follow up questions, but, um, stop me if anything is like too far or too personal, um, for that particular coach. Um, but I'm curious. Um, about taking those 300 people and getting them into a program. So [00:07:00] in a hypothetical scenario, for instance, so five years ago, I would've said, oh yeah, totally easy.

[00:07:05] 300 followers, book out your program, no problem. But I'm finding here now and today in 2025, that's a lot more challenging. So I'd be curious to hear more about some of the strategies that you recommend to coaches, especially those who have smaller, tight-knit communities. How do we make sure that they are profitable?

[00:07:24] Brooke Adams: What a fantastic question. I think that there's, there's a lot I could say here. I think one of the things that are gonna be most impactful for anyone trying to make a good living through their business when they have a small audience or a small community, is gonna be the actual products that you are, that you are selling.

[00:07:42] So this. Women in particular with the size of her audience, it wouldn't make sense for us to try and sell digital products and courses and things that cost $20, $30, $50 because the volume isn't there, right? We don't have enough eyes to buy things at that much volume, at that much [00:08:00] repetition to actually create, uh, an income that's sustainable.

[00:08:04] So in this example, we've actually focused on selling very high ticket. So that we don't need a huge volume of sales. We need one or two people that week, or even for some of my clients that month. We need one or two people that are ready to move that, that are ready to, to dive in. So if we are gonna think down that path and that's always going, has generally been my, my best advice.

[00:08:27] Like my. Thing is getting people full-time in their business. Right? So it's always where, where do you start? And I say, wherever you can pick a model that requires the least amount of sales, that's a great place to start. 'cause a, a sale is a sale, whether it's $1 or a million dollars, it may not feel like it, it's, it's the same thing.

[00:08:45] You need one person. Yeah, so going for the one action that creates the biggest reward always makes the most sense. So when you're selling high ticket, the focus is gonna be very much on building a deep connection with your audience, so they [00:09:00] trust you enough. To hand over that, that sum of money. So there's gonna be a lot of storytelling there.

[00:09:06] There's gonna be a lot of building authority there and really showcasing to a, a particular kind of person, letting yourself stand out to a particular kind of person as the best, most obvious solution. And when you pick a model that needs a little volume. You can do that with a, a relatively small audience.

[00:09:25] And I agree with what you said, Andrew. You see 300 people in a room, you'll be like, it's still a lot of people.

[00:09:32] Andréa Jones: Yeah. Yeah. This is why I'm so much a fan of services. I know people kind of like dog on surface based businesses, but honestly for anyone starting out or even anyone who just needs a, like cash injection, cash flow, when we think about services, um, people always need support.

[00:09:50] And you don't need as many sales. Like you just don't. And so smaller audiences are prime for that. I love that. Um, okay, so talk to me more about this [00:10:00] idea of community and how strong communities lead to sales. So you talked about the product itself, but what else can we do as business owners to really help convert that small community into a paying client or customer?

[00:10:15] Brooke Adams: Amazing question. So there's a, a, a few stances to this. There's creating those original customers in the first place, and then there's also the benefit of ke keeping those customers around. So something that. I don't think this is an original thought. I'm fairly certain I've picked this up from somewhere, so apologies.

[00:10:35] I dunno who to credit this to, but whoever said it is great is that people will turn up for the value, but they will stay for the community. So when we think about, when I think about my business as well and my client's businesses, what makes income from that business so reliable, so consistent that we can, you know, hand off everything else and, and go full time in it is quite often repeat.

[00:10:59] Like [00:11:00] a, a lifetime journey of that customer where people don't just buy from you once they buy from you again and again and again, and again and again. So we can put out, you know, this valuable free content that will cool in your people, but once they've got that value, they have no reason to stay. Unless you, you give them one.

[00:11:18] So when we think about community, for me anyway, when I think about community, this is about letting your, your people, your tribe, become a part of something with you that is bigger than you. So there's a, a, a group of people here with a shared mission, shared values where they feel seen, they feel heard, they feel validated, and they want to keep coming back to that.

[00:11:40] They want to stay a part of that, which means not only does this help get people, you know, those customers in New World in the first place, it helps to keep them there and they will, you know, birds with forever flock together. They will bring their people. This space is amazing, become a part of this space, which means as you build and grow your business and the things that you have to offer.

[00:11:59] Community [00:12:00] can grow and build with you.

[00:12:02] Andréa Jones: Yeah. Have I

[00:12:03] Brooke Adams: answered your question? I feel like I start somewhere and go somewhere else.

[00:12:06] Andréa Jones: Yeah, no, you've highlighted a really good point, which is what I call advocates. 'cause I feel like we spend so much time getting new clients and customers when, to me, in my humble opinion, it is more important to keep our current customers because they then become marketing for us.

[00:12:22] Like they bring in the people for us and they go out and spread the good word of our business. And so I definitely agree with you there. Um, I think one of the challenges. Though that a lot of businesses have and coaches is finding new people to bring into their community. So what do you think about that?

[00:12:40] What are some of the things you're seeing your coaches do to bring in new people into their communities?

[00:12:45] Brooke Adams: Ooh, fantastic question. So this here, that attraction piece, like you wanna become that. Magnet, right? If you like, that, that calls in your ideal people, the, the people that you, you really, uh, wanna, wanna see inquiring on your offers and jumping into your [00:13:00] programs.

[00:13:00] And that is where I think that initial kind of value comes in. Like, it's not here where we're gonna be like, ah, you know, this is an amazing group of people. You wanna be a part of this. Like, they don't know that yet. So it's not so much the community stance. I. Gets 'em there in the first place. That keeps 'em there and it keeps them going on that journey.

[00:13:18] And it plays a role in the nurturing piece. But this quite often I see is where, like I said, that value comes in and, and showcasing and demonstrating that value. So with a lot of my clients, for example, we may create. Freebies are a really nice way to do this. This could be, um, your more typical kind of lead magnet, like a masterclass or an ebook or even like live events and free challenges and things that you are putting out there that you know.

[00:13:48] Anyone who asks to join are your people, right? So for, for example, if anyone does a quick little bit of digging into my world, it won't take long before you stumble upon my lead magnet, right? [00:14:00] So we have a very, very popular masterclass that shows people how to sign clients through their social media content, and it's worded specifically for new and aspiring coaches.

[00:14:09] Now, I know if you've downloaded that. You're a new or aspiring coach. You wanna sign clients through your social media content, you are probably a perfect fit for our community, as best as I can get from one little title. So actually making these things available and getting that word out there. Can attract, attract that person into your world.

[00:14:30] Um, and from that place, it's nurturing this person to a point of becoming a customer. And that's where I think the community comes in, giving them something to keep coming back to, right? Keep being involved and keep joining in the conversation. Keep engaging, keep seeing that value, ultimately, intention being.

[00:14:48] Know, like, and trust factor, right? Which we all all know to death. Using it to help that that person in particular feel like they know you, like you, trust you, and that's when these people or these followers [00:15:00] or these community members will start becoming customers.

[00:15:03] Andréa Jones: Yeah. Awesome. Love that. Thank you. So one of the things too that I hear a lot with communities is when communities kind of fade or fizzle out, it's a, it's a challenge that happens a lot.

[00:15:15] So, for example, one of the coaches that I work with, she's a, she's um, more of a coach for new moms. And so they naturally fizzle out as their kids. Get older, right? Like they don't need that support anymore. And so for her, she's constantly bringing in new people. Um, but for other people it could be, you know, for a vast number of reasons, people just lose interest or the algorithm doesn't show their posts anymore.

[00:15:40] So what are, what do you think about this kind of like ebb and flow of communities as they grow, or especially as they fizzle out? How would you support your coaches and what would you tell them if they came to you with this challenge?

[00:15:54] Brooke Adams: Fantastic question. I feel.[00:16:00]

[00:16:01] I am gonna give a response that I don't think would be the response most people would expect. I have noticed with the amount of people I've worked with, you'll get results relative to how you show up. So what I mean is if you are showing up and giving your all to your community and you are not feeling like you're getting much back.

[00:16:22] It won't be long. Even if you are the the best, you have the best intentions and you carry this, it won't be long before the action you're taking stops making sense. And you will, whether you haven't noticed it yet, start to die down the amount of love and effort and attention that you are putting into your community.

[00:16:40] And what I would always say to my clients is show up relative to the results you want. Not relative to the results you have. So a really tangible example I'll see of this is a client will come to me and they'll say, no one is responding to my questions that I post. No one's engaging. So they stop [00:17:00] asking questions because they're embarrassed about the fact no one's responding.

[00:17:04] But if you don't ask questions, no one's gonna answer. So what I quite often find when people tell me their communities are fizzling out is because they. Have been fizzling out with it. Right? So there's, it would be a a, a person specific. Like if someone came to me and said, this is the specific problem I'm seeing in my community.

[00:17:25] Maybe there's a re-engagement strategy, or maybe there's something we could do to actually work on that directly. But on the whole, this is usually a case of you leading. To create the results you wanna see, like I remember when I created my community, there was four people in the room at first one was me and one was my mom, and two I think were actually other coaches on my cohort.

[00:17:46] But I showed up and I delivered live trainings. Like there were thousands of people in the room. Like millions of people were gonna hear my stuff. I posted questions every single day, like thousands of people were gonna answer even when no one did. And eventually [00:18:00] the results started to capture. With the action that I was taking.

[00:18:04] So it won't be for everyone. Like there will be people out there listening to this, like, Brooke, what the hell? I'm, I'm doing everything. And it's, it's not going anywhere. And, and that, and that happens. And, and maybe there's, um, something strategic you wanna look at there. But usually in my experience, nine times out of 10, if a community's fizzling out, it's in response.

[00:18:23] To how you've changed the way you are showing up and with reflection and dropping a little bit of pride, you can normally clock that yourself.

[00:18:33] Andréa Jones: Yeah, I see that happen so many times too. I think people think the timeline is gonna be shorter than it is, you know, they're like, oh, I posted for a month and no one's responding, so I'm gonna stop posting.

[00:18:43] But sometimes this stuff takes a really long time to build up and, um, I always try to remind people like, you know, I've been filming videos online since 2007. I've been blogging since 2000. For, um, so I've had, like, I've been doing this like online content creation thing for a long time and for a long [00:19:00] time I got crickets.

[00:19:01] Like there was nothing there to see, but to be honest, I didn't want people to see my early days stuff. It was not good. It was basically me just practicing like it publicly practicing. And I'm glad for the, you know, two people who saw those early day videos because it helped bolster my confidence enough to continue making videos.

[00:19:19] And the same thing goes for everything else like. There's a question I get a lot too about, um, guesting on podcasts that people always ask, like, you know, oh, I pitched to these big name podcasts and I didn't get accepted. And it's like, okay, well, you know, start with a smaller podcast. They're like, oh, but this podcast doesn't have the, the listenership.

[00:19:35] And I'm like, I don't care if one person's listening, like, that's one person more who never heard of you before, and maybe they won't reach out today, but you could make the smallest little bit of impact just by. Showing up and being present. And so I like that you mentioned that too, because I think it's a, a thing that we don't think about a lot, especially when we look at the people who we admire online and they have, you know, hundreds of thousands of comments and we get zero.

[00:19:59] [00:20:00] Uh, but that, that stuff takes a lot of time. It really does. Um, okay, so I wanna talk about time transition. I'm gonna pat myself on the back for that transition to every hear that that was unintentional. Beautiful.

[00:20:11] Brooke Adams: A

[00:20:11] Andréa Jones: beautiful

[00:20:12] Brooke Adams: segue.

[00:20:13] Andréa Jones: Segue into the time. Okay. So. I gotta talk about time because a lot of what we bump up against, especially now when I think about the people listening to this podcast, they wanna market mindfully.

[00:20:25] They, you know, they have kids or they have aging parents, or they're going back to school. Or like you mentioned, they wanna travel and so. Community building can take a lot of time. So what are some of your ways that you nurture your own community without being overwhelmed by all of the, all of the things that go into running a community?

[00:20:44] Brooke Adams: Oh, brilliant question again, Andrea. I think this, how I answer this would depend so much on where, where you are at in business. So present day, there's a lot of things I do that make this. Not just manageable, but [00:21:00] enjoyable to manage. And a lot of that centers around delegation and maybe more sophisticated apps and tools and techniques and, and I will come back to those, but I wanna make this point first because I know that people will hear that and be like, oh, I can't, I can't delegate yet.

[00:21:12] I can't do that yet. And a lot of the time that's not the case. But, but sometimes it is, especially when you're new. And just with my expertise being, you know, in business owners that are new is to make a point that creating a whole new. And for us listening here like this involves building a community and an online platform, right?

[00:21:33] It involves hard work there. There's a reason why most people out there are settling for a life that they do not enjoy, and that's because creating a new one. Is tough and it's challenging. I'm not an advocate of hustle culture. I believe that you get to succeed and live mindfully and with ease. I believe they get to coexist, but I'm also a realist and I know that at the beginning, if you are [00:22:00] working and building a business and doing life and all these other things, you're gonna get overwhelmed.

[00:22:04] And I wanna make a really important distinction between that overwhelm meaning. You can't do it or you're struggling or you're not good enough, or you should be finding it easy and just a very obvious evidence that you are doing it because you're building a business and a community and there's a lot involved in that, and there's gonna be times where it feels overwhelming.

[00:22:26] Things that I have found help. Myself, myself, and my clients, scheduling can be really, really helpful to take your take down the amount of daily time you're actually spending in a platform or in an online community. And this does very much depend on your, your personality. I am. The living embodiment of structure.

[00:22:47] I am, I know where I am in like six months from now. Like I am very structured, very strategic, very step by step. That's just my personality style. So I love to bulk create [00:23:00] schedule, and I don't really even have to go. On my platforms each day unless I want to because it's all taken care of. But I have clients who can't conjure up with that level of creativity all in one go, and they actually find it far more enjoyable to show up each day and you know, share from that place.

[00:23:19] And that for them is less overwhelming. So how you actually create. In terms of your personality style can be a big influence. There's obviously a lot of apps and tools and tricks and things out there that make it easier for you, but honestly, as soon as you can, de delegation is gonna be your, your best friend here.

[00:23:37] Like you are building something that is bigger than you. So running it is gonna be bigger than you. You are the leader of this space, but you are not also the caretaker and the housekeeper and all the other roles, you know that come inside. If you think and kind of picture, picture this, this. Not being afraid to let people help you, [00:24:00] let people in, um, and take some things off your plate, particularly the comments and, you know, the messages and the, the, the, the daily things that just will never end.

[00:24:10] They just never end.

[00:24:12] Andréa Jones: Yeah. That was gonna be my follow-up question is what is the first hire that you recommend for, um, someone who's looking to get support with their community? So would it be like a community manager role?

[00:24:22] Brooke Adams: Brilliant question. I would say the first delegation that you make wants to be profit generating, so it's very easy to see.

[00:24:34] Delegation as an expense. A lot of new people will see delegation as an expense. They go, okay, well now I have this extra X amount of dollars to afford each month to to serve this person. But delegating should always actually make you more money than your spending. Like that person should always kind of pay for themselves in terms of its getting you back your time.

[00:24:55] So like I have a client, for example, if we, we don't do our hourly rates, [00:25:00] um, is, isn't, is not a, a way we like to package up coaching, but if we were to figure out her hourly rate for her at this point in time, she's sitting at around 250 pounds, which is about $300 an hour. So when she was saying, oh, I'm wasting all this time on, um, replying to comments and, you know, audience building and, and outreach for collaborations and so on.

[00:25:23] She was losing like two hours in a day, right? We could pay someone $10 an hour, not even. She could get those two hours back and make an extra $600 because she can see two more clients. So it is not even necessarily, who should you hire? I would be thinking, where is your time going? Where it's stopping you from putting that time into things that actually make more money and whatever that thing is, it's different for everyone.

[00:25:52] Like I have clients who, it, it's a cleaner. They need a cleaner because they spend so much time cleaning. You know, it's not always, um, the obvious thing in, [00:26:00] in your business, but wherever that person can get you your time back so you can either see more clients or chill more or whatever, right? Is, is whatever you wanna do.

[00:26:10] That's what makes the most sense early in the game, in my opinion.

[00:26:14] Andréa Jones: Yeah, good. I love that perspective. It's just like a little bit of a mindset shift on how to delegate. Um, and you're right, it's so different for everybody. I think every business has something that they delegate for me, that is my accounting.

[00:26:27] I cannot, QuickBooks and me are not friends. Uh, every time I go in there, I'm like, what is happening? Uh, so I'm, I'm very shout out to, uh, my bookkeeper for keeping me. All, all the way together. Yeah.

[00:26:40] Brooke Adams: I I never even attempted it. One of my first delegations was being, Nope,

[00:26:46] Andréa Jones: not for me. Not for me. Okay. So for those people who are listening who are like, I need more Brooke in my life, tell me about your free Facebook group that they can join.

[00:26:56] Brooke Adams: Yeah, so I have a free Facebook [00:27:00] group, and I very rarely describe it as a Facebook group because I think when you hear that, you're like, Ugh. More notifications. Um, this isn't a group, that's just a group. It is a space that hosts our community, right? And the center of our community, the heart of it, we actually meet every single week.

[00:27:15] Live it is me, the real me. Um, and we go deep into topics just like this. So different topic areas that I know will help new and aspiring coaches go full time in their business sooner. I show up live in there every single week. Free to deliver everything I know about it, and you guys can ask your questions, I can answer them.

[00:27:36] Um, and that is what we host in inside that space. There's a few other little fun things that go on in there as well. Um, but it's probably not the typical Facebook group that you guys are used to. It's, it's a great place to be. I'd I'd recommend coming and joining us if you're hearing that and thinking.

[00:27:50] Yeah, that sounds valuable to me.

[00:27:52] Andréa Jones: Yay. Awesome. I'm gonna put the link to that in the show notes online, drea.com/ 3 5 3. Brooke, thank you so much for coming on the [00:28:00] show today.

[00:28:01] Brooke Adams: Thank you so much for having me. I've loved it. Honestly, I could have gone on and on and on.

[00:28:05] Andréa Jones: I love it. I love it. And, uh, thank you dear listener for tuning into another show, another episode of The Mindful Marketing Podcast.

[00:28:12] If you wanna go even. Farther on this topic, you gotta join us in the Mindful Marketing Lab. We have our monthly co-lab sessions, which are part brainstorming, part collaborating, where you get my brain and my eyeballs on your work, and we help come up with content ideas. It's honestly a lot of fun. So come on into the lab.

[00:28:30] You can join us there online, drea.com/ 3 5 3 4, that link. And if you wanna give us some love for free, I mean, we love a five star rating on Apple Podcasts and Spotify. It's the way you help keep us in the top 100 marketing. Podcast. That's all due to your support. I'll be back next Tuesday with another episode.

[00:28:48] Thank you so much for listening. Bye for now.