Most leaders treat community as a marketing channel. They're leaving the real advantage on the table.Chris Catania , Head of Community at Esri built community from a love of live music. Lately, he wrote the playbook. In this episode he joins Erica Kuhl, who scaled Salesforce's legendary Trailblazer community, and Josh Schachter to make the case that community isn't a nice-to-have. It's a strategic operating system competitors can't copy.From Lego's near-bankruptcy turnaround to Marc Benioff, CEO of Salesforce, demanding harsher feedback, this episode reframes what community can do for a business.---Want the playbook, not just the conversation? Subscribe for deep-dive, actionable breakdowns from every episode at unchurned.substack.com.---What You'll Learn- Why community is a service to every team, not a marketing channel- The importance of speaking each executive's language- The "fake flowers vs real flowers" test for authentic community- Why community-driven companies build an advantage rivals can't catch- The three E's: enablement, experience, evaluation- How to set a North Star while delivering ROI in small wins---Timestamps0:00 - Preview & Intro1:56 - Meet Chris Catania6:27 - Three founders, one music origin story10:17 - The Lego turnaround that saved the brand14:25 - Fake flowers vs real flowers17:28 - Why nobody likes the word "community"22:05 - The Marc Benioff feedback story (CEO of Salesforce)24:24 - Is Voice of the customer underleveraged?31:47 - Erica ran Salesforce's first Twitter handle33:22 - Community as a service and the unfair advantage37:20 — One takeaway: the three E's---Josh is writing a book on building customer relationships. Follow his journey and insights at www.joshschachter.com---Where to Find the GuestChris Catania: https://www.linkedin.com/in/christophercatania/Website: https://chriscatania.co/---Where to Find the Hosts: Erica's LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/ericakuhlJosh's LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/jschachter/Unchurned Substack: https://unchurned.substack.com/

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“What did the council decide on item 42?” — answered with the speaker and the moment.

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