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THE LOTTIE UNWIN THE POWER OF COMMUNITY INTERVIEW

Why Did You Start The Community?

I founded Up World many, many years ago in its first ever format, because I had just moved from big corporate company portrait gamble to the head of marketing and startup, and I loved the energy and the speed and the like genuine requirement for me to use my brain to think about how to do marketing better that I saw in a startup.
But I was so lonely, and I had so many situations where I felt really at my depth, and I didn't know where to ask for help, and then I asked around lots of people to, like, see if they knew somewhere, like, where they went for advice, and it just felt like there was a massive gap. 

So I started a supper club and introduced lots of people who I'd met on this journey, kind of trying to upskill.
And they loved it, too. And then turned out that they really wanted the forum, and so everyone was kind of piling in my inbox the next day to say, like, Tell me more, when the next event? Can I bring this person I know? And so it sort of snowballed from there. And the group up Club is A, we call it, curated learning and community for entrepreneurial marketers, so that can be anyone in a marketing position, you don't necessarily need to have marketing in a job title. You could be in sales, or you could be a founder, but anyone who's been tasked to think about marketing and entrepreneurial in the sense of like they're under pressure to get more done with less. So often, this is people in a startup that doesn't need to be.

What are my top three goals for the community?

Every day I speak to someone who says, I wish I find out about you earlier, like I really need you in my life, and as long as long as I keep hearing that, I'm going to keep doing this, so I don't have any goals specific to like changing what we do, but I just want to impact more members.

Was there a light bulb moment?

Was there a light bulb moment? I just solved my own problem.

And then turned out that other people had the same problem.
I owe a lot of my kind of commitment and scale to COVID and because I think, as the world changed overnight, in a way, we'll all remember, I really saw the industry come together like a huge number of people lost their jobs, people were put in incredibly difficult situations, and there was just a real need to create a support system and to connect people.

That felt like a really motivating moment.

And I'd say since then, I've kind of been pretty single-minded about the goal.

Events are a key part of your community. How do you see events shaping community members’ successes in their career? 

Yes, events are a key part of our community, and they are run in a number of different ways. So we've refined the way we think about events a lot.

There are parties and in real life networking events, and there's a pub meet up once a month, which is just about having fun and having a nice time.

There are then events called up talks which are like sessions run by high profile speakers. In the way I describe it is like people whose whose job, people with a job you wish you had, and they run great sessions on like their expertise and what they've done and their roles.

And then we have sessions called huddle ups, which are intimate roundtable discussions, cat to eight people on a specific topic, which are really immersive and about bringing real areas of development to a very tailored forum.

How have the events helped members in their careers? 

Many ways, like from inspiration to building partnerships or connections that either build your confidence or unlock some commercial goal for you, and then very specific upskilling. What is the best part about being a community leader?
The best part of being a community leader is that you are so
there's two.

One is that you're so close to your customers. So I don't like their friends. I don't see them as customers. They're members. I talk to them all day, every day.

My job is so clear, which is just to give them what they want. And I love the simplicity of that. I love that I never get distracted by any other goals other than them. And the other thing is that you solve your own problems all the time. So I really needed this community, and so I built it, and I still really need this community, and I use it, and it makes my life easier a lot.

What is the hardest part of community leadership that members don't see? 

I think trying to make it commercially viable like I have no ambitions for this to ever make me rich, but I do want to run it in a way that's self sufficient, and we give 2% of our revenue to charity, and I want the team to be well paid for their work, and I want us to be able to afford to bring in great people to help make our work better. 

And community is not something that we're used to paying for, because community, historically, has been like the church has been your village, it's been your neighborhood, like this should be built into the fabric of society, and it's not anymore, but that makes the value equation quite complicated. It's not something we're used to having a transactional relationship with. 

So, I think keeping the wheels on and making the whole thing work is the hardest bit, particularly hard moments. Yeah, we just made mistakes. 

We moved all of our members to a really terrible membership portal that was shit and didn't work, and that gave them a terrible experience. We lost lots of members as a result of that, and then we had to build a new one, woo everyone back, and convince everyone it was a good idea. And then there are times where you just really need more people to sign up, because our membership fees are what keep the lights on. And sometimes that feels really challenging. And so like cost of living, when lots of people had to make tough financial decisions, was a really hard time. It was a really hard time for us, because we're very much a just kind of discretionary spend. You know, we're not your food shop where we're an extra and so for businesses, for individuals, where their company weren't paying for their membership fee, people had to ask them really hard questions, which was challenging for us to

How has running the community helped you as a marketer? 

Oh, in so many ways, I've made incredible friends, like genuine friends for life. I have been able to attend talks and be round the table in conversations that I should not have been in the room before. I have had answers to my own questions solved immediately, I have hired the normal people I've met amazing freelancers like
I owe my whole career to the result of a community I built.

How do you see the role and influence of communities changing?

Oh, in so many ways, I've made incredible friends, like genuine friends for life. I have been able to attend talks and be round the table in conversations that I should not have been in the room before. I have had answers to my own questions solved immediately, I have hired the normal people I've met amazing freelancers like I owe my whole career to the result of a community I built.

» Connect with Lottie on LinkedIn or go deeper on her community here and read more about her offerings below:

Up World is the place for start-up marketers:

• Community of over 1,100 brilliant marketers who support each other daily

• Weekly huddles with other members

• Mentor matching service

• Jobs - our matchmakers put top marketers in brilliant brands

• Actionable courses that will supercharge your business and your career

Up Talent connects start-ups with top-tier marketing talent:

• Experts in finding exceptional marketing leaders for growth-focused start-ups

• Specialists in team design, hiring, onboarding, and ongoing performance acceleration to help your marketing team thrive

• Whether you’re building your team from scratch or strengthening an existing one, we’re here to help you create a marketing function that drives results.

Brand Hackers provides fractional marketing teams for ambitious brands.

• We know there are infinite things a brand could do to grow, but the hard part is deciding how to allocate precious time and money.

• We slot in seamlessly, providing just the right experience and energy at just the right time.

• At Brand Hackers we prioritise what’s going to deliver results. Through our Progress Loops process, we get to results faster than an agency or small in-house team could.»