Anatomy of a Presales Community – a Preview of the DEMOFEST Community

Manny Corlew, the community manager at Consensus, explains the importance of community in the pre-sales industry. He emphasizes building communities from the bottom up, starting with safety and modeled values, and creating a success path for members. Manny discusses the value of in-person events like DEMOFEST and highlights the benefits of attending upcoming events. He also explains how the presales community uses Discord to build engagement, including a book club, tailored success paths for members, and interactive experiences with presenters and speakers. Manny stresses the importance of networking opportunities and encourages members to connect with others in the industry.

• 00:00:00 Manny Corlew introduces himself as the community manager at Consensus and shares some exciting announcements. He talks about DEMOFEST t 2023, the largest event in presales happening on May 23rd-25th, and encourages attendees to submit presentations for the virtual stage before the deadline. Manny also mentions Consensus’ plan to take their events back to in-person format soon and announces DEMOFESTx West Coast on March 29th 2023 in San Francisco. Before diving into the presentation, Manny gives the attendees some housekeeping tips, including posting their questions in the chat and utilizing the QA box for technical difficulties.
• 00:05:00 Manny introduces himself and talks about how he got into community management. He mentions that he used to manage a summer camp where he learned the importance of community and bringing people together. He also talks about how the pandemic presented a unique opportunity for him to transition from in-person to online events and webinars, which led him to become a community manager. Manny asks the audience to share their thoughts on what community means to them. The responses include words such as connection, tribe, unity, like-minded, and trusted circle.
• 00:10:00 Manny Corlew discusses the importance of community in the online space and how people gravitate towards communities for a sense of belonging, familiarity, trust, and shared interests. He points out that 76 percent of online users are in online communities, indicating a desire for community. To make communities successful, he emphasizes the importance of building them from the bottom up, starting with community safety and then moving into community modeled values. He also stresses the need for a success path for communities, which he breaks down into three stages. The first stage is community safety, where people feel secure in their interactions with other members and the moderators are engaging and present.
• 00:15:00 Manny Corlew discusses the importance of making a community safe for its members and defining the values of the community. He emphasizes the importance of clearly stating the rules and guidelines before the community launches, as well as championing the values of the community by encouraging the members to flourish and not allow any form of bullying. Furthermore, he stresses the significance of a success path, where members have tailored experiences to give them a sense of belonging and where there is a clear direction on how to engage in the group. The funnel starts by onboarding everyone with a verification process, connecting them with someone within the community, and showing them the platform. Lastly, he discusses the enablement of members who have been onboarded so that they can engage most effectively with the community.
• 00:20:00 Manny Corlew discusses the importance of setting up rules and values in a community to show members that it isn’t a free-for-all. He stresses the importance of Championing things when they’re tough to make the community more sticky and nurturing, thereby encouraging people to stick around. A success path is also crucial in allowing for personalization and scaling, thereby providing a tailored experience for individual members of the community. Manny then talks about the three ways in which their community is planning to show up for presales this year, such as DEMOFESTx  West Coast with networking opportunities, electric speakers, and a countdown. Overall, the success of a community lies in creating a safe, nurturing environment.
• 00:25:00 Manny Corlew talks about the value and impact of in-person meetings and events in the presales community. He discusses how these events allow professionals to come together and talk about difficult topics and share their failures, which is not a common practice in everyday meetings. He shares pictures of past events and explains the benefits of having diverse speakers, such as the CEO who wrote the book on buyer enablement. Manny also mentions the upcoming DEMOFEST 2023 event and encourages professionals to consider speaking at the event or attending other upcoming events, both in-person and virtual.
• 00:30:00 Manny Corlew discusses building a community using Discord for Presales and DEMOFEST. The decision to pick Discord over Slack was made with the aim of using a platform that was more future-focused and disruptive, in addition to providing the necessary connection from presentations and live events. The Discord community also features a book club that allows for live sessions with authors and an opportunity to ask them about their research and development strategies. In addition to the book club, there’s a tailored success path for each presales member, from individual contributors to managers. The community’s social media handles are the best way to stay informed about DEMOFEST and potentially upcoming European or East Coast events.
• 00:35:00 Manny Corlew discusses the importance of community and networking for presales professionals. He emphasizes the value of connecting with others who are just starting their presales journey and encourages established members to take these newcomers under their wing. In addition to regular webinars, the community also offers lunch networking events and opportunities for members to share industry information and case studies. Manny demonstrates how the Discord platform allows for a more interactive experience, providing the ability for attendees to connect directly with speakers and presenters. He stresses the safety precautions in place to ensure security, and provides a link for interested individuals to join the community. Overall, Manny emphasizes the importance of community in the pre-sales industry and encourages members to reach out to one another for support and networking opportunities.
• 00:40:00 Manny Corlew talks about the differences between Slack, LinkedIn groups, and Discord when it comes to building community engagement. While Slack has huddles and LinkedIn allows for groups, Discord allows for tailored forms and voice-only sections. Additionally, multiple screen sharing at the same time and setting up listening rooms are other features unique to Discord. Customization within Discord allows for multiple Bots to set up engagement tracking and prune features to retain group morale. The speaker encourages people to join Discord and benefit from its unique features to build a great community.