Community-First Go-To-Market
Invite people to a community, not to your product.
- Difficulty
- Moderate
- Time to result
- ~months to results
- Steps
- 2
- Confidence
- 72%
Fechter argues the first move for any new company is to invite people into a value-providing community rather than pitching a product or service. Once inside, you educate them on what you do, respecting the real sales cycle. He quantifies the difference: automation asking people to join a Facebook group might get a 50% reply, while asking the same people to hop on a sales call gets around 5%. Taking it slower and educating raises the share willing to talk from ~5% to ~20%. Getting people somewhere is worthless if there's nothing of value waiting for them.
Origin
Fechter repeatedly saw that outreach worked to get people somewhere but failed when there was no value at the destination; his own group thrived only because he'd honed marketing tutorials and tips so members had a great time once they joined.
Core principles
- 01The main goal when starting out is to invite people into a community, not pitch product or service.
- 02Inside the community you provide value, then educate them on what you do.
- 03Asking for a sales call too early collapses your conversion rate.
- 04Slowing down and educating multiplies the share of people willing to talk to you.
How to run it
- 1
Lead with a community invite
Make your first ask an invitation into a community that provides value, not a pitch for your product or service.
Watch out If there's nothing of value at the place you send people, getting them there doesn't matter.
- 2
Educate, then sell within the cycle
Provide value and educate members on what you do, understanding this may be step one of many before they become a customer.
Pro tip Map where an ask sits in the full sales cycle so you don't expect a high-price sale from a first touch.
Watch out Front-loading a hard sales-call ask drops your conversion from roughly 50% to roughly 5%.
In the wild
Fechter found that automated outreach asking people to join a Facebook group drew about a 50% reply, while asking them to hop on a sales call drew about 5%.
→ By educating first, he estimates the share willing to talk rises from ~5% to ~20%, recovering a large chunk of otherwise-lost prospects.
Common mistakes
Pitching the sale before providing value
Asking strangers to book a call or buy immediately ignores the sales cycle and collapses conversion, losing most potential customers.
Is it for you?
Best for
Founders and agencies selling higher-priced offers that need trust built over multiple touchpoints.
Not ideal for
Impulse, low-price transactions where a community and long sales cycle add needless friction.
From the transcript
“the main goal of every company when they're starting out is to invite people to a community not telling about their product not telling about…”
“if I ask them to hop on a sales call I make it you know five percent now the problem with that is all I'm…”
From the episode
Josh Fechter: Growth Hacker Marketing Secrets
Josh Fechter