There are two types of Facebook groups you can utilize for your business as you sell and launch your offers.
A pop-up Facebook group is used solely for your launches. You open it for the launch, close it after the launch, and you’re done.
A long-term engagement Facebook group is exactly what it sounds like: a group that’s there for the long haul, where you hope to have consistent engagement with leads and clients.
Depending on your business goals, there are pros and cons to each kind of group.
When a Pop-Up Facebook Group Makes the Most Sense
If you’re looking to grow more of a boutique business where you have a goal of a couple hundred thousand dollars a year and aren’t concerned about selling outside of launches, then a pop-up group is what you need.
You don’t need an open-ended long-term group. If you’re not planning on building a staff to eventually take over the management of the group, it will most likely become too much for you to handle on your own.
When a Long-Term Engagement Facebook Group Is The Way to Go
If you know you plan on having a sales team, and you will eventually transition out of the selling role in your business, then I recommend a long-term Facebook group. If your vision for your company is that you’re going to have a self-led business at some point, where the social selling is primarily done by your team instead of you, there’s a lot of value in having that open-ended engagement group.
I personally don’t do consultations any more. I don’t do sales. My team leads most of our programming. Our company is moving toward a self-run organization.
Why does it make sense for us to have a long-term Facebook group? Because it is a community that all our sales reps can run and lead. It’s a place where they can store all of their leads and engage with them on an ongoing basis. It’s a central hub for all their team members to bring leads back to.
Over time, as you elevate your team leaders and progress through the different stages of your business, you will get to a point where you play a smaller and smaller part in the Facebook group, and yet the value won’t decrease.
The Pros of a Pop-Up Group
The biggest benefit of leveraging pop-up groups is the sense of urgency they create. People come into the group knowing it’s a short-term thing, that “this opens, then closes” and they only have a limited time to get in on the deal.
Urgency works when you are in a launch.
And, if you’re good with just running a couple of launches per year, and using alternative methods outside of that, then pop-up groups are likely the way to go. It all comes back to personal choice and what your vision for your business is. Where is it going and why?
The Cons of a Pop-Up Group
When you close a pop-up group between launches, where do all those leads go? You lose a lot of value when you don’t have a container where you and/or your social sellers can come back and engage with your leads between launches to do those daily consults.
A lot of people are closing in round two, three, four, or five. They’re not buying in the first round. So, if you only open up a pop-up group, they have to find you every single time you do a launch instead of already being in the group.
You’re potentially losing valuable sales.
The Cons of a Long-Term Engagement Group
A long-term group is a lot of work—way too much to do on your own. You’ll get burnt out so quickly.
But if you have a team?
The Pros of a Long-Term Engagement Group
If you have a team to manage a long-term group for you, then it’s a no-brainer.
In the beginning, you might have to do more work, but after a while, you could be popping in for just 30 minutes a week like I do.
As a business owner, you want to be the face of the brand and build your brand on your external platforms. You want to go live in your group and live on your public platforms consistently. You can pre-record content to get ahead of the game, so you don’t need to be spending time in the group every day. There are so many ways to be creative with this.
I always come back to alignment. It’s so important that you come up with a strategy for your group that’s in alignment for you. If too much of the Facebook group management is on your shoulders right now, and you’re feeling drained, how can you hand off some of that management and change your energetic feeling about the group?
The lesson of the day: you didn’t get into business for yourself to have a job that you hate. Take time every week to assess how you’re feeling and why you’re feeling that way. Make decisions in alignment with your role as a CEO and what you love, so you’re enjoying what you’re good at energetically.
How you feel is as important as what you do.
Take some time this week to assess how you can feel better and get more excited about your business. What sets your soul on fire? What makes you come alive? What do you need to do to take you back to that place?
Give yourself that gift today.