I’ve never made a secret of it, but as I look to what I want to gain both personally and professionally from my business, what I’m absolutely sure of is that I’m not here to ‘grow’ my community as part of it.

Well, not in the LinkedIn love-in definition of the term, at the very least.

Do I want my community to evolve, and thrive, and bear fruits of an impact-making fashion? Of course I do! But big business doesn’t care about that kind of sap, does it? Real growth means money, and riches, and being able to post on LinkedIn about your six-figure months (and how influencers can teach you the EXACT same process they followed to get you there…)

Yeah, all a bit bollocksy, that stuff.

I love my community, and I’m thankful every damn day for the gifts it gives me. Sure, it’s a bit of extra revenue to keep the roof over my head, but more importantly, I get to feel like I’m doing something meaningful. I get to support people every single day to improve their writing, whether it’s for profit, purpose, or pleasure. And on top of that, I get to share my personal and professional life with a group of bloody wonderful people who are up for conversations about anything and everything (and all bring a great sense of humour to the calls and chats as standard).

But ‘growth’ of this group in pure business terms is not on my agenda, and here’s why…

Growth implies more members, and more members of course equates to more membership revenue being generated. More members, more money – facts.

But more members requires more work (because they bloody deserve it). There’s no getting around the issue of spreading things too thin and dipping the quality as a result. A case of one-to-many can easily turn into one too many, in my view.

Plus, I’ll be honest, I cope better when my circles are small. Everyone gets my full attention, and, dare I say it, the most beneficial version of me in the time I share with them. I think people want that. I mean, imagine if your kid came home from school and told you they were being taught in a class of 300. It doesn’t sit well. I used to be a teacher, so this is a fair analogy for me to use, I reckon.

Now let’s be real. In no way am I claiming that large or expanding communities are a bad thing! People have a right to run them and members have a right to leave them if they don’t benefit. I totally understand and respect why people create a community in order for it to generate revenue and serve as a solid income stream all of its own. Why the hell wouldn’t you implement that into your business or lifestyle if you had the means, motive, and opportunity?

But there are also a number of reasons in my mind that actively prevent me from growing my community through increased numbers to move that monetary needle…

One. A large membership contingent doesn’t work for what I want to achieve. I always want to truly know everyone in my community. And I want everyone in there to know everyone else, too. This isn’t just about supporting people each day with their words and helping them to improve their writing. It’s about everything else that everyone brings to the table. The highs and the lows, the good and the bad, the serious and the silly. The help with the writing and the words for profit, purpose, or pleasure is all just a nice little by-product, by this point. I’m okay with that. My GDI-ers have got me for the words, and have got everybody else for everything else.

Two. A large membership contingent doesn’t work for the people who are already in the membership contingent. That’s right, it’s not all about me. It’s about the people who pay me. In a large group, members are often a number, not a name. In my micro-community, people have often been in other communities before, and have felt like they’re in competition with cliques in a popularity contest at best, or that they’re not being seen or heard at all at worst. My dad used to say about the same faces in all the same places… “They all piss in the same pot”. It’s a line that stays with me, and a situation I can’t stand. I want my community to be a place where everyone matters, where there are no strangers, and where everyone always feels seen and heard – even if they only show up for a bit of company on a call or share a cursory update on our platform every now and then.

Three. I don’t have the popularity to pull the numbers. How’s that for honesty. I’ve got a fairly large ‘audience’ on LinkedIn, but how many of those good folk are able or even willing to hang on my every word on this heavily saturated platform AND find themselves in a position (or a want) to sign up to having me in their lives full time? And look, I know I don’t exactly make it easy for myself… I mean, for a start, I don’t put myself out there at events or attend envelope openings. The stages I speak on these days are small and usually in-house. And to top it all off, you won’t find me “just jumping on” a video any time soon in the vapid quest for visibility and value-giving. That stance makes me much happier as a human, but as someone who might want to use their popularity to get people through the door of an offer (ie, for a membership), it’s a non-starter for this sofa loving introvert. I’m okay with that.

Four. I don’t like it when things are too peopley. That is all.

Five. It’s my safe space. There’s a belief in the world that I very much say what I think on social media. I really bloody don’t. I say what I think up to a point of it being far enough to make an impact, but levelled enough to keep it professional (by my own standards, admittedly). In short, I need a space online to be fully myself, and a place to share stuff that I don’t want (or feel the need) to share anywhere else. That space is a small circle. That space is TeamGDI.

TeamGDI is a wonderful addition to my business, and something that contributes to what I hope is a fantastic complement of offers and services I have for different people who want different things from me as their copywriter. I hope you’ll chat to me about joining. If there’s space!

Of course, this whole standpoint…  I’m aware it’ll be laughable to some, and YES, I get that I’m leaving money on the table by limiting numbers. One fellow (yet significantly more prominent) community leader even passed comment a few years ago that I was “killing” my community by capping the numbers.

I hadn’t seen a reaction that strong since the cat got sick from eating dandelions, but whatever.

I set up TeamGDI in 2020.

It’s now 2026. As you know.

And though numbers in my micro-community have never purposely risen above 40 (currently at 36 at the time of writing), the people in the group and the purpose of what we do are still absolutely and positively thriving.

Either that, or everything’s merely enjoying a very long, very elaborate death, obviously.