Top Five Reasons to Start a User Group

Has someone in your small company ever said if we want to grow our company we need to exhibit as RSA or AWS re:Invent?   If your marketing budget for the event is less than $150,000 I think those conferences are a royal waste of time and money.   Unless your company raised $100 million and the plan is to become a unicorn software company fast, there are several alternatives with a better ROI (Return on Investment).

It is possible to start a Podcast for less than $10,000 per year.   A blog can cost less than $1,000 per year.   Starting a user group requires a budget of less than $5,000 per year.  While Podcasts and blogs are great to reach a national audience a user group is the best way to form deep relationships with a local audience.

 Below are the top 5 Reasons to Start a User Group

  1. Brand yourself as an expert

  2. Find new customers

  3. Recruit Top Tech Talent

  4. Build Industry Relationships

  5. Make sure you continue to be an expert

For about two years I co-led the Reston SPUG (SharePoint User Group) with Dan Usher.   The group was started by Scott Hoag and Dan User but when Scott moved out of the area I saw an opportunity to help Dan lead the group and he graciously accepted.   He worked for Booz Allen Hamilton and I worked for Xgility.   We were friendly competitors.

The Reston SPUG met in the Microsoft Offices so we had a free meeting place.   Often we had vendor sponsors for lunch, but when we did not Booz Allen or Xgility paid for the Pizza.  The group met monthly and used Meetup.com to organize the event.   At first, the Meetup site was free, but organizers now have to pay a small fee.   Meetup helped us track attendance and was also a way for new members to find us (Google or Meetup Search) and stay in touch.

Leading this group helped me brand myself as a SharePoint and Microsoft consulting expert.   I prepared a technical topic several times, which forced me to go deep.   Just listening to all of the expert speakers every month kept me sharp.

Customers found my company through the user group.   Other customers used the user group as a way to judge my company's expertise.   I hired several consultants because of the relationships we built as the user group.   My company signed new partnerships because of the user group.   It has been about 8 years since I was involved in the SharePoint community but still consider Dan Usher and others I met through the user group to be friends.