Val Selby [00:00:06]:
Hey, this is Val Selby and after over 20 years online, I can track where my mindset has blocked me. If procrastination, impostor syndrome and a lack of focus have been blocking your biz, then Val Full Volume is here to help you see choices you are making. Get ready to use your expertise to collaborate like a pro as you create the business of your dreams. Now is the time to make changes and live your best life. Let's get to it!  

Val Selby [00:00:36]:
Hi. Welcome to Val Full Volume. I am Val. This is an absolute wing it for today. I had, a guest, and we're gonna record. They just had to move their time. No big deal. It happens. Goodness knows I've rescheduled enough things that I'm just like, alright. I've actually had some guests, and we have moved dates.

Val Selby [00:01:04]:
My strategy coach and I, actually, I believe she and I moved dates 4 or 5 times to record. So I know 100% when that happens, it's okay. Today wasn't the day. But when we do meet, it's just gonna be like fireworks. And especially because I'm, like, looking at her information, of course, getting ready today, and I'm like, oh my god, I can't wait for this conversation. And then I'm like, oh, reschedule. I was so hyped for the conversation.

Val Selby [00:01:38]:
So now I just get to wait a few more days and get even more hyped for that conversation that we're gonna have, because I know I'm gonna learn a lot from this myself. You do know why that that's a big reason why I have people on. Right? Me me me. I mean, that's the whole reason I have the podcast anyways. Right? Is to like get these words out of my head, so I don't explode. And I just bring you along with the journey, and thank you so much. So I'm coming in without really any thoughts. So, we're gonna see where this takes us.

Val Selby [00:02:13]:
I haven't done that in a while. I've been doing more of this strategic thing going on, and today is just kinda like, whatever pops out of my mouth. Let's just roll with it. And I know one big thing that's gonna come out. We are gonna talk about community. And why are we gonna talk about community? Because some of you are gonna think, oh, Val drank the Kool Aid. Uh-uh. Val's mixing her own Kool Aid.

Val Selby [00:02:39]:
I'm fed up. Well, no. No. No. I have been fed up with book face. That's what my husband calls it book face. I have been fed up with it for a long while. So many reasons.

Val Selby [00:02:51]:
I don't wanna go into the negative. So many reasons why. And if you wanna have a conversation with me privately, let's go into it, and we'll just rant and rage together about all of the reasons why, why the book face drives us insane. But it's been the best place to have groups. That's where the engagement is. That's where the mass people that we're engaging were. And then of course, every time we get more active, we get more penalized because you never know who's going to see your posts. Are they going to see your posts today? You know, and I'm talking specifically groups, you know, building communities.

Val Selby [00:03:30]:
Are they gonna see your post today? Are they gonna see it next week? Maybe they'll see it next month. Who knows? Unless they specifically go to the group. And I am talking, I go to my own groups because I won't even know that people have posted on there. And I have it set. I constantly reset it. It's the algorithm. They don't give 2 fucks, single fuck about us because they're making money. So as long as they're making money, then they're fine.

Val Selby [00:03:58]:
Okay. End. End of the book face rant. So there's been a consistent issue for me. I've tried other platforms, hung out on other platforms, even hung out at places like Heartbeat. You know, when Heartbeat first came out, I was super excited. I was like, oh, this could be it. This could be where the move happens. And I was working on a different site at that time, and it just didn't do the same thing.

Val Selby [00:04:24]:
There's just - it's - it's - okay. Let's do it this way. It's similar to running your own shop versus being on Etsy. Etsy has its own traffic that it brings to your listings versus if you have it on your own site, which a Heartbeat would be your own site or, you know, a few forums on there. I'm just pulling Heartbeat out because I just joined a new community, and it's super cute. And I can't wait to learn all the changes that have happened in that, but I digress, which could happen quite a bit today. But versus having your own platform, that's not in a more public space. Right? You have to bring the traffic to it.

Val Selby [00:05:07]:
100%. Nobody's gonna find it unless you are reaching out to them. And then, we have Skool. For sure, it came on my radar and I was paying attention towards the beginning of the year when Evelyn Wise switched and started being more active, and then she won Skool games. And I follow her. And so it was on my radar, and I checked it out. And I had a couple of groups that I was in, and they were really - that was not my vibe. And, you know, it just wasn't my vibe.

Val Selby [00:05:45]:
Totally cool. Right? Just not my vibe that was there. So I'm like, ehh, you know, what everybody's saying, it's a bro marketer and this and that. I'm like, I'm not feeling it either. Flash forward. Flash forward to Friday 13th, actually, October, Friday 13th. And I already had a couple of days in, Mimi oh, gosh. Is that Ramsey? Oh, I have to look.

Val Selby [00:06:14]:
In Mimi's group that she had created, I'm not even quite sure how I ended up being connected with her, but I connected with her. I vibe with her. I'm gonna have to do a recording with her. I don't know how we're gonna make that happen, because she and I are on crazy bad times to do anything live. Like, I'm constantly doing the okay. As I'm DM-ing with her or messaging with her, I'm like, alright, lady. I gotta go to bed. She's like, okay.

Val Selby [00:06:39]:
Well, I will be, like, sleeping when you get this. So I'm not sure how I'm gonna do a podcast recording, but I'm gonna make that shit happen. And I got fully in her circle. And when I mean fully in her circle, I mean, like, I loved what she was creating. I loved how much she was sharing from the get go. I felt instantly safe, and I am absolutely gonna use that word safe because I've been looking for some places where I feel safe and comfortable sharing everything, good and bad. I need to share when it's not a great day so that I can have people that know what I'm talking about. Lift me up, give me ideas to get out of it.

Val Selby [00:07:24]:
You know what I mean? It's like, I just needed that safe place. That's not in my community. You know? I do share. I'm not pretending that nothing bad is happening or everything is going perfect. Lord knows you know that, especially if you've been on the podcast for a while. I'm definitely in it. But sometimes I just need to get, like, more nitty gritty and not even contemplating that somebody could be looking at it, like, unprofessionally. I don't know.

Val Selby [00:07:52]:
I think I'm talking myself in a circle here of justifying why I needed a space. I don't have to justify why I needed somebody else's space to go to. I'm over there learning, and then I went all in on her yearly membership that she has as well. So I'm, like, all in. I'm about ready to go all in on Evelyn's too. I want to learn from these women. I am absolutely feeling their vibe and loving the groups that they have created. I am in one of Evelyn's group that she's walking us through her journey with Skool.

Val Selby [00:08:25]:
I'm finding that hugely helpful to follow along. I love that her and Mimi are sharing their good and bad, and things that they wish they had done first, because they did just didn't even know, because then this happened and they changed and they worked and bla bla bla. Breathe. Anyways, watching them and being in their groups has made me look at it and go, oh, I am understanding that this community is different. For one, if you're thinking it's all bro marketing, it's not. Even when you're in the Skool games area and the Skool community, it's not like a locker room. I don't know where that is coming from that people are feeling that vibe. Maybe because it is so many guys there. Maybe that's it.

Val Selby [00:09:17]:
I don't know. But I don't feel locker room-ish in there. I don't feel hardcore sales in there. I feel authenticity. And that's not bro marketing. Okay? That's my opinion. That's not bro marketing. When you're being authentic, you're no longer bro marketing just because you're a dude.

Val Selby [00:09:36]:
Just because you're a dude does not mean that you're bro marketing. It's not the same thing. Not the same thing at all. So I'm feeling comfortable in there, and I'm liking it. And as I'm engaging in other groups, I'm realizing, oh, look it. Okay. I instantly go to somebody else's profile when I've had a little bit of conversation and go see, okay. What groups are they in? What do they do? A little bit more information about them.

Val Selby [00:10:05]:
Do they run groups? You know, what are their groups that they're in there? I'm connecting like crazy. And I don't mean I'm connecting as in I'm joining a ton of groups. I'm being hyper vigilant about not joining a lot of groups. And all of the groups that I'm in are any of the free ones. I even know any of the pay ones. I haven't paid that much money for some of the groups. I'm hyper vigilant about, okay, this has to be a good use of my time. I have to feel connected.

Val Selby [00:10:35]:
I have to feel however I want to feel. I have to have good feelings and good vibes about it when I'm in there and it needs to be active. And if it's not, I'm just gonna quickly move away. And then I'll find more. And I'll keep being able to find more. And guess what that means for my community? And I only have one right now. I'm gonna stick to just one right now. Guess what that means for my community? Other people can find me that way through the platform as well.

Val Selby [00:11:02]:
So when I am going and being active in the Skool games, in the Skool community, those are 2 specific groups, by the way. In other people's groups, women helping women, I believe they've got their Skool group over there as well now. They're still on Facebook. I'm still on Facebook as well, but I believe they're in there. So I've joined that one because I knew the vibe already from Facebook. But I'm gonna be hyper vigilant about these are places that I'm going to go and connect and I want to be there. I'm coming in differently than how are your Facebook groups looking? I mean, not the ones that you're running. I mean, how many are you in? I don't even know.

Val Selby [00:11:47]:
Because all of a sudden, a post or a notification will pop up, and I'm like, what group is that? And then I'm like, looking at it going, when did I join that? And why would I have joined that? I don't even remember joining it. So how long has it been since I've gotten any notifications? Which means, how long has it been since somebody has seen any notifications from my groups? You know? And I don't wanna have that frustration anymore, and I don't have to. That's the beautiful thing. That's why I went all in, and I will be moving over to Skool. The group is already open. You can join it. Let's see. I think when this goes out, it'll still only be $11 a year to join.

Val Selby [00:12:36]:
So jump in on that. I don't know when it's gonna change. We're playing this by ear, new community. So I don't know when that's gonna be changed, but as of right now, when you are listening to this, when it launches, it'll at least be live for $11 a year for a week after. At least. Okay? At least. I don't have a deadline plans for when it's gonna move out, but it could. I have to wait for the stats and the feedback and see what's going on.

Val Selby [00:13:06]:
Anyways. Anyways, anyways, I had coffee this morning. Can you tell? And I'm hyped because I launched my Skool community today and launching it feels very old school in a fabulous way. Fabulous, like F-A-B. I'm not gonna spell it all out because I'm probably gonna screw it up. It's one of those words I'm gonna have to write down. But it feels so wonderfully old school. For one, I feel like I have control of my group. I know that everybody's gonna be able to see all of the posts, all of the comments.

Val Selby [00:13:47]:
You can either run it through your notifications, or get an email sent to you. You have control over that, or you're gonna go specifically to the group. And you can see what's new in there. But you're not gonna have some other bot, other computer entity telling you this is what you deserve to read, and this is what you need to read right now. You're going to be able to be a big girl or a big boy, and pick and choose what you want to see and when. Yay. Yay. And I also really like it because one of the things in Facebook that drove me bonkers in the groups was that there's no categories.

Val Selby [00:14:31]:
And I went to a, gosh, what was it? Like a 5 hour workshop. I don't even remember how long in Seattle. I went to a huge workshop where there was a bunch of us that had big communities, and we were there meeting with the developers, in that do the groups. Like, the actual people coding. Right? And I managed to end up in a group where there was no other group people. I was the only group person in this area. It just happened that way.

Val Selby [00:15:03]:
So I had 4, I had 4 developers and then one like more admin type. I don't even know what she was, her role was, or her title was. But, you know, she was the one that was really taking notes and managing how we were gonna have our conversation. And categories was one of the things that I had brought up. There was a few things. And, again, I don't wanna bash, but the fact that it blew their minds that that stuff would help and improve was just like a, hmm, alright. There's no - they're out of touch. They're out of touch.

Val Selby [00:15:39]:
And I know - wait. I don't know. I assume it's because they were too young to have done forums and known what wonderful categories and how things were organized coming from forums previously. So that's one of the things that I really love about Skool is I've got categories in there. And so, you can come into Collaboration HQ. The link's gonna be right down there, but it's Skool Collaboration HQ. And there's going to be celebrations, of course, because y'all know I wanna celebrate any and all things. Big, small, minuscule, ginormous, I don't care.

Val Selby [00:16:25]:
I wanna celebrate your positive. So share in your celebrations, but then I've also got categories that are broken up for, you know, the bundles, the events, speakers. You know, bundles and giveaways, speakers, so summits, on stage, on real stages. Oh my gosh. That sounds so wonderful. It's on my schedule for 2025 to find a place to go and be on stage. So throwing that out there. Throwing that out to their to the universe.

Val Selby [00:16:50]:
And if you're listening, if you're hosting a live event, retreat, big conference, little conference, I'm looking for speaking engagements for next year. So there's that. There's speakers. There's podcasts. So you can put in that you want to be a guest or you are looking for guests. You better believe I'm gonna have mine in there because I want to be both. Also, point taken. I'm looking for 5 more podcasts to be on, by the end of the year.

Val Selby [00:17:16]:
So, hey, hit me up. If you've got a podcast and my topics would be good for you, hit me up. I love, love, love to chat and then do some sharing and collab with you. And other collabs are gonna be on there. I do have a general collab for, like, if you wanna do, you know, find affiliates, if you want to do some kind of freebie swap, any of that kind of stuff. If that gets bigger, I'll make new categories. And then just a biz talk. I kept it a little bit simple, and because we can always add more categories.

Val Selby [00:17:48]:
So just keeping it simple right now. We are all about every piece of collaboration there. Any way you can collaborate? Let's talk about it. I've got a Collaboration 101 course that's partially done in there, so you can already jump into that. I'm also doing a journal. I'm doing air quotes if you're not watching the video. I also am doing a journal in there in the courses section that you'll immediately have access to of how I'm collaborating this week. So you'll get to follow along of, look at this amazing way that I was collaborating in, how I talked to these people, and how I found it, and, oh, shit.

Val Selby [00:18:27]:
Yeah. There's my human brain, and I dropped the ball. This is how I dropped the ball this week on this. I will be real. I'm gonna share collabs. And it's actually really, like, a big celebration for me as well because I look at it and I'm like, oh, wait. Damn, girl. You do and do a lot of collabs. You do.

Val Selby [00:18:46]:
You're walking the talk, which is my favorite thing. I dislike hypocrisy. So doing that is just a big, like, woo in my face. It's like, you're doing exactly what you're talking about. Good job. Good job, Val. And the new one that I'm adding is, for those that might wanna create their own Skool community. I'm just journaling my journey as I learn things.

Val Selby [00:19:12]:
And I'm doing that specifically because I've learned from 2 others. Both Evelyn and Mimi are being super transparent in their groups about how they've been building and changing and adapting as they go, as they learn. So I just find it, it's just gonna be a journal. I'm just - I love reading their journals of what's going on, what worked, and what was like, yes. And what was, whoo, shouldn't have done that. I'm just loving that. So I'm just gonna do the same thing.

Val Selby [00:19:42]:
Because if somebody was to follow along, cool. If they don't, it's still just a journal for me to go in there and pat myself on the back and track my own progress. So feels good. Anyways, I hope that you will jump in there, join the group, join while it's only $11 for the year. I don't even know where this is going to blow up and lead. I don't have lives created yet for it. I'm open to it. I am creating the community with the workshops in there.

Val Selby [00:20:17]:
There will be different levels and different workshops as it goes, but I'm just creating as we go. I'm not overthinking it. I just want to bring people together, my community together. The people that are serious about collabs and growing their businesses through collabs. I just want to bring them all together in a place that is safe and that we're actually gonna be able to communicate and see each other's posts and comments. And this is gonna be so much fun. I'm so all in right now. So all in right now.

Val Selby [00:20:55]:
And I do have one little offer. If you do decide that you want to start your own Skool community, there's a lot of people out there to use for mentorship. You know, I mentioned 2 people, but if you want to do that and you want my help, I am offering 30 days of email or Voxer coaching as you're setting it all up. You know, the goal for Skool is always to get you a community that's rolling in those 14 days that you have as a trial, that 14 day trial. So 30 day that offer is for 30 days to get you set up, feeling comfortable, enrolling, and launched. Let's see. So I created the community on 13th. Today, I'm recording, and it's the 25th. 25th.

Val Selby [00:21:50]:
I dragged my feet a little bit. Why? Because I had a big cart launch that ended on last Friday, so I was a little bit preoccupied with that. And I'm coming up on another launch that's coming into next month. So I was being super smart with my time and only doing it as playtime after work. I know. Nerd. What nerds doing that? Okay. No. You know, because you're a nerd too.

Val Selby [00:22:21]:
I love you, you silly nerd. I'll have the links down there for that. Join me in the community. Let's collab. If you wanna create your own community, I'm here for you. I believe that community is everything. Community has helped me be a company. Absolutely.

Val Selby [00:22:43]:
100%. I don't think if I hadn't had community all along the way, and I'm not speaking just my own personal community through my business. I mean, my entrepreneur community that I've had over the years in various stages from various circles, all beautiful because it's brought me to here. And I know that the power of community is everything. We are not meant to be solopreneurs. Yes, we're in business by ourself. Yes, we get to make all of the decisions, but we don't have to be completely alone and that's what the Collab HQ is for. Come there, join, find other people, you know, maybe find an accountability buddy.

Val Selby [00:23:29]:
Who knows? But just come on in, get engaged, go all in, find the collabs, and grow your business. Alright. I will see you. Talk to you next week. Bye.