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Starting an online business can be an exciting but also challenging journey. It can be easy to get lost in the many details like streamlining your services, developing your marketing strategy, or building your website (which, if you need help with that, just let us know!). However, one of the most important factors that can often be overlooked is the power of connection.
As we celebrate our 9th business anniversary, we looked back at the things that have helped us forward, and have made a mark in Stargazed’s business journey. And making connections was at the core of it all!
As an online business owner, it doesn’t take long to feel isolated and alone. Without the daily interactions and support of colleagues and coworkers, it’s difficult to stay motivated and on track–and that’s why building connections is so important! Connection can provide support, accountability, and more.
As we enter our 10th year in business and we reflect on our brand, messaging, and services, I decided to invest a bit on resources to help us get where we want to go. And those investments all had one thing in common: connecting us to people who can help us get to our destination!
So let’s dive a bit into how I’ve made those connections, and how they have helped me and my business throughout this journey.
How we’ve made business connections
There are a lot of different ways, but today I want to cover three simple ones that will allow you to meet people you can relate to and thus, connect easier to:
- Through free communities
- Through paid programs
- Through coffee chats
These three ways work at any part of your business journey, but they also can build on each other. So let’s dive a bit into each one. And because it’s our anniversary, we also want to go through memory lane and show you some specific examples of how we found support and connection through specific ways!
1. Make Connections through Communities
When I, Sara, first started freelancing in 2016 (Stargazed Studio was officially registered early 2017), Facebook communities where a BIG thing. And even though social media has changed a lot since then, communities are still relevant and can provide you a lot of support and connection.
In the past year there is also a new website and app called Skool on the rise that specializes in communities, and some of the people I’ve been following have moved their community over to Skool. So I’m including those now as well in my list!
Here are a few examples of free communities we are part of, that still exist today, and that might interest you too:
- Embodied Leadership Collective by Sumaya Owens
- Bossminded by Marci Barker
- Marketer’s Heart – Rise of Integrity & Purpose in Marketing by Funnel Gorgeous
- Digital Nomad Girls Community by Jennifer Lachs
- Quietly Ambitious Business by Ruth Poundwhite
Another place to find communities that apply to your needs and interests is to look at the people you follow on Instagram or the newsletter you read, and see if they offer any type of free community. I follow multiple business owners, for example, that offer a Facebook or Skool community to their clients. But to be considered a client you don’t necessarily have to spend money on their paid offers, just downloading one of their free lead magnets gives you access to their community! So look around to see if the businesses you follow already offer a community where you can create connections.
Lastly, look for your local communitites. I am part of several business communities that are local to Utah (my state) or the Wasatch back (the area where I live) and they are great resources to learn about local events that you can participate in.
2. Make connections through Paid Programs
Cameron often jokes that I pay to make friends. But you know what? There’s nothing wrong with that! After all, people often pay to be parts of clubs or take hobby classes–so paying to be in a membership and making friends in there is not that strange.
There is a huge range of paid programs: from 10 USD / month membership, to 1:1 coaching programs in the thousands. So you don’t necessarily need to pay a lot of money to get access to a paid community. And the thing about paid programs is that everyone is paying to be there, so everyone is more committed to be there! That means more people show up, more people want support, and more want to stay accountable. So there is usually more engagement in this type of communities.
Here are some examples of how we made great business connections through programs. These are not all the programs and communities we have been in, but they stand out for particular reasons we list below.
- Jana Works – Mentorship
A few months after starting my business, I was accepted into this mentorship. This program was my first experience with connecting with a mentor, surrounding myself with people that were in similar spots as I was (just starting a business), and receiving support for a lot of steps that were ahead of me, but that I wasn’t sure how to navigate. We had 1:1 sessions with Jana to go over our individual business progress, and group sessions as well to go over topics that applied to all of the mentorship participants. Later it also provided work opportunities for us, as Jana would contract us to do work for her clients, that way we’d get experience, testimonials, and paid clients–things that motivate you a lot when starting.
*I actually didn’t have to pay for this mentorship, but depending on the type, some mentorships are paid. In this case, I received the mentoring sessions in exchange of work I did for Jana. - The Inspired Pro / The Inner Circle – Membership
A year and a half after starting my business, and after having worked a lot as a sub-contractor, I decided I wanted to get more control of who I worked with, and what type of projects I did. I decided to join the Inspired Pro, a program specific for designers, where we were trained and mentored by Cathy Olson (nowadays one the Funnel Gorgeous founders). Once the Inspired Pro program was finishing, Cathy created a program to follow it up: The Inner Circle, which I joined as well. It is massive how much you can learn when you can have a role model in your industry. Thanks to Cathy my perspective of what I could achieve as a designer went beyond anything I had imagined. Besides, it was great to connect to fellow designers and learn more about collaboration over competition. The Inner Circle also provided me with my first-ever in-person design retreat, which was amazing! - Jennica Collado – 1:1 Coaching
One of my Mentorship sisters became a coach a while after our mentorship together, and her specialty was helping highly sensitive introverts in business. I was in the middle of discovering the power of being a INFJ and highly sensitive, and it was great to have her support me during a couple of months while I figured how to implement my new superpowers into my business! She also offered a free Facebook community that I was a part of, and from there I decided to hire her for more in-depth, personalized work. - Streamline. Design. Profit. – Program
This program is self-paced nowadays, but back when I joined it was a live program with not only a ton of guidance and resources to streamline your business, but also a community and weekly calls with Erin Flynn, the founder. Once again, it is so great to have someone in the same industry as you to learn from! They have often been in the exact same situations you have been, and can help you get out of where you are. Also, connecting with other web designers and working on collaboration vs competition applies here as well! For a long while it was my go-to place to find web designers for other platforms. - Use Your Voice – Mastermind
Early 2020 I joined this mastermind, led by Cassandra Le, knowing I wanted to play bigger that year with my business. But as the world took a weird turn because of the pandemic, this mastermind became even more than a place to learn about our brand voice and using it in our business. It became a sort of support group while we were all living through new and strange life experiences, while also working on our business. We had our regular business-minded sessions, but we also started having “off the clock” meetings to socialize, play, and learn together about issues outside our businesses. And being in this mastermind started the big business redesign we had in 2020, which ended in a much more aligned business. I also became close business friends with Cassandra, and we have collaborated and worked with each other many times ever since!
>> Click here to see us dancing together for a reel in the middle of Madrid a couple of years ago. - Done in a Day – Program
After working so hard on redesigning our whole brand message, we shifted our focus to bringing our work systems to the next level as well, and that’s when I joined this program I had been eyeing. Done in a Day by Jordan Gill had great content, but again, we were in it for the community as well. Weekly calls, access to multiple coaches with different specialties, and a community to connect with others–and even after the program was over, I got to be part of multiple events for a few years as an alumni. The community is amazing, and I am still in touch and collaborating with people I met through this program, years later!
Current communities we are in
- Introvertpreneur Club – Membership (one-time payment!)
I mean, there is one obvious reason I’m attracted to this membership: we’re all introverts here! Tara provides lots of resources and a monthly call, but what made me renew this membership was the community. It’s just a great place where you can relate easy to people, receive advice that usually feels applicable (you know, with extroverts sometimes the advice does not work…), and it is just a nice, chill vibe while you learn marketing that feels relatable as an introvert. - Digital Nomad Girls – Membership
This community is a great space, especially if you’re looking to connect with more multicultural backgrounds! I joined this community in the summer of 2021, and have made great connections there, like an accountability partner that I meet up with every month for over a four years now! And it provides a space to experiment with fun stuff, like for a while I got to host a co-working session weekly focused on doing “scary things” we’ve been procrastinating–and that co-working session helped me meet and connect with other members as well! So there are multiple sessions every week for co-working, learning, celebrating, and more. It’s just a great place in general for people working remotely. - The Progress Lounge
Ever since the Use Your Voice mastermind, I’ve been part of whatever membership or program Cassandra is running, since I love her content and marketing takes, and I know I vibe with the type of people she attracts to her programs. The Progress Lounge specifically is a low-cost membership to help you stay organized and accountable. It’s simple, but I absolutely love it, since we provide each other with support as we are working on our goals. Last year, as I was having awful health issues and only working a few hours a week, this membership is what kept me moving forward towards my goal, even if it was a slower pace. It includes monthly journaling prompts, monthly system calls, quarterly planning sessions, and bi-monthly book club–all around organizing ourselves better so we can move on forward with our goals.
3. Make Connections through Coffee Chats
As introverts, big groups are not easy for us–we rarely actually make lasting connections that way. Yet I attend multiple networking events a month when possible–why?
Well, because after being part of a community event or conversation, I try to follow up with a few of the attendants and offer to have a coffee chat together. Coffee chats are simple meetings with no pitching or no brain-picking, so you can focus on actually connecting! And even though you can do them in person, since we connect with people from all over the world, we usually offer to host these via Zoom.
It’s a great way to actually meet people!
We reach out to people and invite them to coffee chats after having met through one of many different ways:
- People at online or in-person networking events (conferences or summits!).
- People in paid communities we are a part of.
- People we are collaborating with, like participants in a bundle.
- People on free Facebook groups–you can literally just write a post inside a community saying you want to connect! Make sure to include that you don’t want to pitch your services, or get pitched. And offer a link to a scheduler, so other people in the community can make an appointment with you online and get to know you.
- People on social media–there’s someone on Instagram you resonate a lot with? Send them a DM, tell them why you resonate with their content, and ask if they’d like to have a face-to-face conversation via Zoom to get to know each other and your businesses better!
Really, you can invite anyone to a coffee chat! And this way of meeting people is way more memorable.
So, we hope this gives you some ideas of how and where you can find support and connection for your business. Whether it’s a community, a coach, a mentor, an accountability buddy, or just other business owners who get it–look for a place that provides what you need!
We truly believe that behind each great business owner, is a great support system!
And that’s why these investments of time, and sometimes money, are important for us.
But remember you don’t always need to invest money in order to find connection! If you are just starting out, you can focus on creating connections through free Facebook or Skoll communitites, through the people you talk to the most on Instagram, or see if the people with newsletters you enjoy have some sort of free community. The important thing is that you are open to connecting!
Looking to dive into your head and figure out what type of connections you need right now?
Check out the Connection Insight Toolkit: it includes six prompts all around connection to help you determine where you are in your business and what type of connection will help you get to where you want to go next.
Want to join a community where you can receive support and guidance as you build your online presence?
Check out the Online Presence Library, our cozy cafe-inspired membership where we provide you with resources, guidance, and our expert insight on building your website and a website-centered marketing strategy.
