Here’s what we’ll cover
Today I’m excited to be talking with Rural Business Coach, Tori Kopke from Big Ideas Rural.
We are talking about growing an online community. Where to start? How to build engagement? We talk through the importance of knowing and researching your target market and my favourite – pursuing goals with serious determination.
Tori is a Texan turned Aussie who has taken her years of business experience and is using it to help grow big businesses in little towns around Australia.
Tori is a rural business coach focussed on sales, strategy and systems. Her big driver is without a doubt her passion for growing rural businesses and communities and helping them grow, connect & network, despite their location.
She does this in a number of ways but it’s her community called Big Ideas Rural that attracted me to her. Whether you are a rural business or not – Tori has plenty to say and it’s definitely worth tuning in to.
Links and Resources
- Checkout the Simply Smarter Numbers website HERE
- Checkout the Podcast HERE
- Checkout the Instagram page HERE
- Checkout Big Ideas Rural website HERE
- Checkout Tori’s website HERE
- Checkout Tori’s Instagram HERE
- Checkout Big Ideas Rural Instagram HERE
Keep Listening!
Here’s the shownotes
Jen Waterson
Today I’m excited to be talking to Tori Kopke from ‘Big Ideas Rural’.
We are talking about growing an online community. Where to start? How to build engagement? We talk through the importance of knowing and researching your target market and my favourite – pursuing goals with serious determination.
Tori is a Texan turned Aussie who has taken her years of business experience and is using it to help grow big businesses in little towns around Australia.
Tori is a rural business coach focussed on sales, strategy and systems. Her big driver is without a doubt her passion for growing rural businesses and communities and helping them grow, connect & network, despite their location.
She does this in a number of ways but it’s her community called Big Ideas Rural that attracted me to her. Whether you are a rural business or not – Tori has plenty to say and it’s definitely worth tuning in to.
Tori welcome, tell us a little bit about yourself.
Tori Kopke
Hi, so I am based in the wheatbelt of WA, we’re on a family farm here. I am a business coach for rural businesses and I also have the amazing space of Big Ideas Rural which is a community for rural business women all across Australia. It’s just a great place to come together and connect, upskill and find a community. It’s a great space and has been around for about 12 months.
Jen Waterson
It is a great space, do you just take rural women? Rural businesses? Or is that the main business owner you have in your group?
Tori Kopke
100%, rural business women or we have a few women who are based in the city but their target market might be rural business women and they do a lot of client work with rural business women. It’s definitely a pretty specific space but it’s incredible. I think we’re pushing 70 members within the inner circle which is our closed group.
Jen Waterson
It’s a really great group, if anybody out there is from a rural area and you’re looking to be able to mix with other like-minded people, I hate using the word like-minded because I feel like that is a bit of a throw away term, but it is nice to be in a group with other country girls.
I am a country girl, I’ve always been in the country and as much as I would love to be in the city, I can’t hack the city and I will forever be a country girl and this is just a really nice place to get together and meet with other people.
Tori, tell me about your accent, you’re a Texan I believe, what was it that shifted you from America to here?
Tori Kopke
So I am originally a Texan, I have been here for 10 years now. I graduated from university in the middle of the GSC so there were not many opportunities for new university grads with minimal work experience. I thought I would go see the world so off I went, Australia gave me a Visa you guys speak English, it seemed like a good fit. Travelled around a bit and worked as a bar maid and eventually met my husband who was a farmer and drank beer and I was a bar maid so it was perfect.
Jen Waterson
Match made in heaven.
Tori Kopke
Yeah so it’s been 10 years now and I went into business by myself five years ago and haven’t looked back. It’s been the best decision.
Jen Waterson
Other than Big Ideas Rural, you’re a business coach as well, tell us a bit about that.
Tori Kopke
Yeah so I recognised that there was this gap between the city and country and our population out here in the country, the closest town to me is 25km away and there might be 400 people in the town so it’s not huge. Our population is much smaller, much more spread out, and so we can’t market the same as we can in the city.
I started recognising there was this huge gap between city and country and Facebook was out, Instagram was just starting, Twitter was out, but no one really knew how to use them for country businesses so I thought right this is my opportunity I need to start focusing on these people and serving these people because the city companies that would come out to try and help were missing the mark because they weren’t connected, weren’t living out here, they didn’t understand.
So I said look I’ve got to fill this gap so I started out specifically working with Wheatbelt businesses and it started mostly as marketing but my background is in production, manufacturing, sales processes and then marketing as well. So I thought right I’m going to take all this knowledge I have from a whole bunch of industries and package it all together and a business coach was just the best fit for all of the experience I’ve got.
Jen Waterson
Yeah, it’s probably actually a great combination because I think when you’re helping other businesses, as a coach or consultant you need to be very process driven, organised and systemised and be prepared to do the stuff and encourage other businesses to do the stuff that is un-fun, and there is a lot of un-fun stuff in business particularly if you’re looking to grow your business, if you want to take your business from ground level to the next level, to the next level, at some point you need to really dig in and do the things we don’t particularly love doing.
That’s where a business coach or consultant, someone coming in and giving you a hand with that who has that background in systems and processes, is really beneficial do you agree?
Tori Kopke
Absolutely, so I say growth isn’t sexy, the idea is ‘oh yeah bright shiny thing here I am growing and scaling my business’, but what gets us to grow is doing the same thing over and over again and then adding more on top of it, it’s not just this magical wand and here we are growing this business, it really is a bit boring, a bit of systems, definitely proven strategies I like to say a twist of innovation and creativity, we don’t have to do it the same way that everyone else is doing it, but you have to do it consistently.
Jen Waterson
You do and when you’re doing something consistently over and over again, at some point you’ll get so on top of it that you can go ‘okay I don’t actually need to do that one step, I can make it more efficient, or I can do this step but I can get somebody else to do it or find software to do it for me’.
It’s about getting better and better, tiny pieces at a time, whether it is from your marketing systems, sales systems, book keeping systems, whatever it is, the hundreds of things we do in business, the more efficient we can get at every tiny piece of it, then at the end of the day we can make more money and not be working ourselves into the ground, and that sounds like a pretty good goal to me.
Tori Kopke
I think that is the ultimate goal, make more money and work less, work less hard and I’m a huge fan of outsourcing so that’s why I think systems are so important. You do it yourself, you get it down pat and then outsource it, get someone else to do it.
Jen Waterson
I want to talk to you today Tori, about growing an online community.
An online community I can totally understand being a rural person, how important it is for us to do that because like you say, I’m only from a small town of 4000 people and I’m 3.5 hours away from Melbourne so I can go to the city anytime, I can jump in the car and go anytime it’s no problem for me, but it’s not something I want to eb doing all the time because it doesn’t really fit in my life schedule, I don’t want to be in the car all the time.
So as a rural person, I am reaching out to online communities all the time for a couple of different reasons. I was wondering Tori, if you could tell us, what would be the main reason you would recommend that someone grows an online community?
Tori Kopke
Yeah definitely, so my motivation for growing an online community was I was quite engaged on a physical level, as in I went in person to a lot of networking events and I was quite in tune with our local business community which was called the Wheatbelt business network.
Then I got pregnant and had a new born, and then from that point I was no longer free, my evenings and networking time and my time capacity changed completely and I was quite homebound. From that I realised just because I’m sitting here at home, I’m still running my business, I would love to be connected with other people in a similar situation.
I started looking and while there were some networks around, there was nothing that was going to let me connect with women in my situation on a national level in the way that I wanted, which was not reading a blog, not an occasional webinar, I wanted to be connected, I wanted to have chats, be connected on Instagram, I wanted a real community and couldn’t find it.
For me, it was a selfish need that I really wanted to fill the space no one else was filling. I think if you can do that in an online community it’s invaluable. If you can serve people and give them a space to connect and feel a part of something, I think that is the ultimate goal in an online community.
Jen Waterson
Yeah and I think it’s more so of an issue now, now that people are locked up at home in the year of 2020, we’re all turning to the online world for so many different reasons, and for those who have already got an online community up and running or we’ve had some experience at doing it, then I guess it’s a case of doubling down and working harder at it.
I would love to know what do you do if you haven’t already got one? How do you create it, where do you start if you’ve never had your own online community?
Tori Kopke
Great question. So where I started was with a podcast which is probably the backwards way to do it. Usually when you’re marketing something or building something, you start with a social platform and then build it from there but I started with a podcast, I had a co-founder and she was running an amazing podcast around rural business women.
So maybe pre-dating the podcast is knowing your target market, who you’re trying to connect with and serve, that’s probably the number one thing and then I would say market research, so how I found my wonderful co-founder is I was doing market research, I was looking to see who’s out here servicing these people that I want to service and be a part of.
I realised there was no one else serving, it just became a matter of identifying how do we want this community to look? We did start with all of the things, we didn’t start with courses and membership, Instagram and Facebook groups, email marketing and opt ins, so I think starting simple is really important.
Jen Waterson
That’s actually really refreshing to hear because it does feel as though that is the only place to start and there’s a lot of pressure for people to start which means you have to build this online presence and build almost an online community over on all your socials and have all the things working, before you can grow that community, but you’re flipping that on its head and saying ‘wait a second, think about who it really is you want to get in touch with, who is that one person you want to get in touch with’ and then create it from nothing for them. Is that kind of where you’re going?
Tori Kopke
100%, it was all driven based upon what this market was saying they wanted, and so it started out as a podcast, then an Instagram page, and I’m a big fan of the concept of stacking rather than shifting, so if you get one thing working really well, and then stack another thing on top so the next thing we stacked was a mini-marketing course, we got it going beautifully, and we had 50 women on the launch which was incredible for a brand new community, and the next thing we stacked was a Facebook page and then our website.
We did a whole bunch before we even had a website so for me it was really important to listen to what the audience wanted and needed.
Jen Waterson
That sounds like such an intelligent way to approach it because I think what we do as business owners when we first get into is, I think it’s so tempting to set the website up and go hard at it with the Facebook, less so these days, but the Instagram page, and blast whatever it is that you want to blast out there out the world. But it’s such as slow way to do it, whereas I love that concept of stacking what it is you’re doing, do something well, do it purposefully, do it properly and then start onto the next item.
I think that’s a really intelligent way to start growing a business.
Tori Kopke
Yeah definitely, because what I actually see a lot of business owners do is shift. So they’ll dabble a little bit in Instagram and it doesn’t really do what they want it to do, so they come over here and dabble in email marketing, and they don’t like that, so they’re shifting strategies rather than going okay I’ve got this, I’m nailing it, then adding something new to really build those layers.
I think that it’s really key especially because online you’re inundated with so much information, it’s everywhere so I think it’s important to build strategies that stick and that actually serve people and then lets add another strategy on top.
Jen Waterson
From there, building an engaged audience, so we’re talking about growing a community is one thing, but there is such a magical difference when you come across a community that has actual engagement, it seems to make all the difference for me on the receiving end, as a member of a community it’s all about the engagement that people have which is a tough gig for the people as someone running a community, it’s really hard to build that engagement.
Tori Kopke
100%, I would say it is a challenge that I have daily to make sure it is an engaged community. I made the conscious decision that I didn’t want to be a community all about Tori, it’s not about me, it’s about every women and every women’s journey.
I really wanted to make it a community about rural women in business so that’s why we have a weekly Instagram take over which you did a few weeks ago and you fantastic.
Jen Waterson
Yeah, that was so fun and I can tell you Tori that I am not into Instagram stories, that was massively out of my comfort zone. I barely slept the night before I was so worried about it, but I loved it. Once I got into it I really quite enjoyed it.
Tori Kopke
I find everyone says that, once they’re in there and they’re doing it, it’s pushed them out of their comfort zone and you’re talking to women who are exactly in your shoes, so I think that’s been a really fun thing, that Instagram take over.
Another thing is ensuring that we are serving. I always try to do check ins, like what sort of topics do you want to talk about, what do you want to do next? So that I’m not dictating what people need in their business because I’m not in 70 women’s businesses so I need that feedback and I think it helps with engagement, making sure we’re serving the need that they have.
Last month we did productivity, but admin productivity focusing on your inbox and your filing and to do lists, very admin specific things, which I guess on the surface sounds a bit boring but we got so much good feedback from that and so many people wanted that, so I think that’s an important part of an engaged community, is continuously checking in and making sure you’re still serving them.
Jen Waterson
Yeah and I guess the thing is you really need to have that clarity around who you’re serving, what their issues are and keeping in touch with them and keeping that communication open with them is the key to making sure you don’t lose track of that clarity, isn’t it?
Tori Kopke
Absolutely. I try to check in with as many of our members as often as possible.
Another thing we do in our community which helps with engagement, is we have things like hash tags, and this one’s a good tip if you’re looking to build a paid community, we have a whole Instagram page that is only following members of the community so you can see who all the other people are and go connect with them.
I think that is amazing as well, is that you know who your people are and you can connect with them, we also have a Facebook group, but I think it’s really important that it’s not just about you as a member, it’s about the whole community.
Jen Waterson
Yeah and I’ve actually noticed with your community that I’ve received whether it was from the Insta story take over, but I feel like a lot of my social followers have actually come from your group.
It does feel like that kind of group where people really want to get to know each other, they’re not just there for their own purposes and reasons, I feel like you’ve created this community of women who feel comfortable to share but comfortable in that they’re not just going to be sold too, or ignored, or whatever it might be. I feel like you’ve kind of just done it just right.
Tori Kopke
Thank you, that is my goal. I really wanted it to be supported and connected.
Like I said, it all just started because I was feeling disconnected on my own so I wanted to bridge that gap and create a space where you did feel connected and you did have someone supporting you and cheerleading you. That was my goal.
Jen Waterson
Circling back then Tori to what we mentioned earlier about getting crystal clear on the target market before you go ahead and start creating these communities. You mentioned that you did some market research, do you have any tips or ideas on something practical around what it is people can do to go and come up with who their real target market is?
Tori Kopke
I think it depends on who you are. For me, I chose to serve someone that was similar to me and I think that’s the easiest place to start, is serving someone who has similar drives, needs and desires to you. So that’s the easy place to start.
If you’re trying to serve someone who is polar opposite to you then I suggest market research is a really good place to start. Talking to your ideal customer, I know people say make your customer persona or avatar, I think pick up the phone or drop in in-person, actually speak to the person, I think that can just help you so much in making sure you’re designing a business or community that can serve a certain person.
You might have a fabulous idea in your head and then you talk to the person and they go ‘I don’t need that or I wouldn’t pay for that’, well obviously get a good market sample but if that’s the consistent feedback then it’s not going to work.
Jen Waterson
Yeah and it’s one of those uncomfortable things to choose a couple of people, come up with 4,5,6 people, I personally did this in my business before I got started because I had ideas on what I wanted to do but I wasn’t convinced that what I wanted for people wasn’t something they wanted for themselves. I really needed to find what it was that was going to be the thing that I can help people with but they also want help with.
I actually touched base with about 5 or 6 different people and did 40-50 minute interviews with these people and I recorded them on Zoom with their permission and I physically went through and transcribed our conversation so that I could pull out there words and get their feedback and use their words as I was trying to nut out myself, what is it that these people really wants. Because, even using their words, sometimes you don’t know what to ask for as a business owner, it’s about me really looking deep into, you’re saying this but what is it that you’re really asking for? So that’s really great advice, I found it really invaluable.
Tori Kopke
I think that’s such a great tip to go on Zoom, record it and go and find words because their words are going to be essential for your marketing, packaging, messaging, all of those things, taking their words and reframing them, that can help so much with actually making that connection.
Jen Waterson
Yeah it was a great experience but I can ensure you I was well out of my comfort zone. I feel like business for me is just one day after the next of doing something that’s uncomfortable for me. I think with every moment we go through that we’re like ‘I don’t really want to do this, but I’m going to do it anyway’, you do grow as a business person and you progress as a business owner. It is about doing those things that you don’t want to, they’re not sexy, not fun, they’re uncomfortable but we’ve got to do them.
Tori Kopke
I agree. It’s just like doing a Facebook live 5 years ago, that was the scariest thing for me but now, Facebook live, cool I’ll do it, it’s definitely that growing, the person you’re going to be in five years to the goals you want to achieve, is not the person you are today.
Jen Waterson
Exactly, and I think that probably fits really nicely into one of the other topics that we wanted to talk about which was pursuing goals with serious determination.
When you mentioned to me that was one of the things that really moved the needle in your business, pursuing goals with serious determination, I just loved to hear that you said that because it doesn’t get talked about a lot and I don’t really know why but I feel like it’s one of the most important things we have to do and it’s that determination that forces us through these uncomfortable moments, or doing the things we don’t love doing or we know we’re really not the best at.
I’d love to hear your take on that, what does it mean to you to pursue your goals with serious determination?
Tori Kopke
One thing I like to think about when I set a goal is it’s inevitable that I’m going to accomplish it, I will accomplish it. It’s just a matter of I don’t know the time frame yet, but for me setting the mindset that the goal is achievable and it will be accomplished, just that little mind set tweak alone I think just sets that determination from the start.
One thing I see quite often in businesses is not necessarily having clear goals because if you don’t have clear goals you can’t have serious determination and just assume that you’re going to accomplish that. For me I like to start with goal setting, you don’t need to have 25-30 goals, I think a handful of goals with a 3 month, 12 month and 5 year time frame is a good place to start.
Jen Waterson
Yeah that’s really good advice, I then like to break it down to what types of goals, is it clients or money. There’s one in particular that I love and try and encourage people to think about is, the goal around the number of hours we’re working per week. How can we reduce that down to somewhere we’re happy to do, that we love to do if we were only to work 20 hours a week then set that as a goal, and at some point, I love what you say, ‘I can do it but I just don’t know when it’s going to happen’, well set the goal to start with, I love that, it’s a great connection.
Tori Kopke
Yeah I think if you want to work 20 hours a week, only work 20 hours a week, don’t start working 60 and then try to reduce it down to 20, I think If we can achieve parts of our goals right away, those quick wins are just further proof that we’re going to inevitably achieve our goal because we achieved part of it.
That sort of mind set tweak is really important, I’m not huge on woo-woo stuff but I do like to do some mind set work around goals, visualising and manifesting so I’m not huge on it but I do believe it has a place in business.
Jen Waterson
It’s interesting that you say that, because I am the most non woo-woo person but there is this part of me starting to think, I ordered this book the other day and it just turned up and I’m starting to read it, and I’m starting to think I need to find out a little bit more about this mindset stuff everyone keeps talking about it, I need to get my mind set right about my mind set.
I feel as though perhaps that is something I need to look into a little bit myself because I keep fighting it because I look at it as though it’s woo-woo and I don’t do that, so yeah I’m very much like you, I feel like there is something there that can benefit me in my business, myself and my personal development but I don’t really know where to start because if I pick up a book and it’s super woo-woo, I’m going to throw it to the side. It’s hard to know where to start with the mind set stuff.
Tori Kopke
It is hard because I’m very much like, okay let’s do some practical actionable steps and strategies that we know work but I do believe that will only get us so far in business, so then when you start adding the mind set to it, I think that takes you to the next level in business.
A lot of people, like you Jen, that have solid mind sets that know what they’re doing in business and have innate confidence, the mind set stuff comes later because you don’t have any imposter syndrome that you’re battling with on a daily business. It’s just a later part of your business journey because you can get really far on strategies and those concepts that we believe in so strongly.
But yeah, manifesting and visualising.
Jen Waterson
Yeah, they’re tough for someone like me, I’m 46 years old, so I’ve been doing this stuff for a while now and I think it almost comes with age a little bit and I don’t know how old you are Tori, but I am wondering that as you get older you just become more chilled naturally with where you are in life and what you expect from life and if something doesn’t go your way, or you get a rejection, I feel like you just go whatever.
Tori Kopke
Absolutely, I think it just rolls off now, I’m 32, but I’ve got 15 years’ experience in small business so I feel like I’m better in small business, but I do think that it is something that can be a part of your business journey, and for me mind set is not a big scary thing, it’s just things like writing out my goals every day because if I write them out, literally the first thing I do, I have a goals notebook on my desk and it might only be four or five lines but I’ve got them written down and it’s just that reminder of that’s what I’m going after, so it doesn’t have to be huge mind set work it can literally be just sit down and write my goals out, if I ever have any mishaps in my business I like to do journaling around it and for me that’s what helps drive me forward towards my goals.
Jen Waterson
Yeah I love that you can take something that I shy away from and turn it into something practical, as in writing those goals down and having them there staring at you every time you sit down at your desk. For me, that sounds like, yeah I can do that, but I don’t do it as a mindset thing so maybe that’s the way for people like myself to start to warm to the whole mind set thing, is what are the practical things we can do.
Personally, when I sit down every day I write down three things that I absolutely have to get done today and I’ll write down the things that I don’t want to do, if I don’t write them down they wont get done. I tick it off the list and it’s just a way to make sure I don’t waste the time I spend sitting at my desk so I can actually get the things done that I need to get done so I can reach those goals we just spoke about. I love how you can take that mind set thing and make it sound like something practical, then why wouldn’t we do it?
Tori Kopke
Yeah absolutely, and I think in terms of visualising and manifesting, for me that just means I write down what my work day looks like, it’s not anything super woo-woo it’s just me crafting my vision, like this is what I want and this is what I’m going after and just being really clear and specific.
That for me takes this big woo-woo idea and makes it something I can swallow in terms of strategy because it’s taken me a while to warm to it as well.
Jen Waterson
I love it, it’s really practical and it feels like something we can really just do. Simple as that, we can do these simple things, anybody can do them and if it keeps you on track and it helps you reach your goals and you’re reaching them faster than otherwise, then it’s all up from here.
Tori Kopke
Exactly, and it’s just keeping it front of mind that they are your priorities, it just makes it so much more achievable because you’re constantly reminding yourself, that’s what I’m going after.
Jen Waterson
So Tori, is there anything you would love to add to this conversation?
We’ve spoken about growing an online community, why it’s important and you’ve given us some really great practical tips around what it is that we can do to make sure these people are engaged, I loved that, engagement is key, we’ve spoken about the target market and how to get that clarity around your target market, and how to really go after our goals.
Is there anything else you would love to add to the conversation before we finish up?
Tori Kopke
I think that we covered so much today and I’m so glad that we did. I guess my final parting comment is right now the online space if really full but I think there is still room to build more communities and for better connection.
I say better connection because there are a lot of communities that exist but are not necessarily engaging or serving their audience. So don’t be discouraged by the flooded market of the online space.
If you can have a fantastic point of difference and really serve those people then there’s 100% a place for you.
Jen Waterson
That’s such great advice and it does feel like that. It does feel like it’s flooded almost like it looks so hard, every body’s doing it but the other thing I’d love to point out with you and your community is you don’t have thousands of people in your community right?
Tori Kopke
No, we have 500 women in our free Facebook group which is so engaged and active, and then we have 70 members within our inner circle which is our small paid community, and I intend to grow that to bigger numbers, but you can start off with 10 people and that can still be a great community.
Jen Waterson
Yeah that’s a point I would love to be able to drill home at the end of all this, is you don’t have to go out with big grand goals of creating Facebook groups or communities with thousands of people because they’re actually not always that engaged, they’re not always the best communities to be a part of as a member. As somebody like yourself whose running these communities, how nice that you can actually start to know the people in your groups because you do have the sweeter, smaller numbers.
Tori Kopke
100%, so I actually have on my wall a sticky note with every members name, so I know all my members.
I’m actually connected to them, and sure we might one day reach bigger higher numbers but I’d like to think that along the way I’ve still got that personal connection because I feel like I’m quite invested in every one’s journey, I want to make sure they’re getting good things from the community that will continue to serve them.
You can’t have that connection with thousands of people, so small numbers are the way to go.
Jen Waterson
Yeah, I really love it. It’s a great way to differentiate yourself from everybody else who is doing it in this big huge world of the online at the moment, what better way to differentiate yourself then to target the exact people that you know you can make an impact with and keep the numbers sweet, small and engaging. It sounds like a great plan to grow a wonderful business as far as I can see, and you’re doing a great job so well done.
Tori Kopke
Thank you, I have to say it’s an absolute dream of mine, it is the thing that lights me up and makes me so happy is the inner circle in Big Ideas Rural, the feedback I get from members, I have the biggest smile on my face when I think about it.
Jen Waterson
Yeah I can hear the smile in your voice so I’m glad, she’s very genuine this girl.
Tori, thank you so much for coming on the show, I’m so happy to have had you here, it’s been an absolute pleasure, for anybody listening now and thinking this is a community I’d love to be involved in, where can they find you?
Tori Kopke
Yeah so you guys can find me at Big Ideas Rural on Instagram or you can head to The Hub for Rural Businesswomen and that is our Facebook group.
Jen Waterson
Great, I highly recommend you head over there and check it out. Wherever you might be listening in the world, I hope you’re having a wonderful week in business and we shall talk again soon.
