Pro Tip of the Week

Here is the first post where we explained that we’d be launching the pro tip of the week: https://www.facebook.com/groups/howtoadu/posts/2209830812505680/

I want to give a big thank you and an update to the group.

A big thanks to everybody for the incredible posts and updates!

Whether we’re seeing your projects move forward, or sharing information with each other, this group has become better than I could have ever imagined.

The collective knowledge of the group is VERY impressive, and even I get to learn something every time I come in.

This group has become the largest Facebook group devoted to ADUs, and it’s full of real people who are openly sharing with each other every day.

But there are two things I wish I could improve. And I think we found a way to improve both things in one fell swoop.

The first thing is I wish we could help people find quality professionals.

The second thing is I wish we could compensate the volunteer moderators (and me!) for running this group.

More about the first thing:

Every day, somebody asks for references to a contractor, an architect, or another professional. And every day, I get messages from professionals asking why we don’t allow self-promotion and why we don’t help people find pros.

Here’s the deal. I think the reason this group is so different from every other facebook group is because it’s not overrun by pros pitching their services. But I also recognize that this rule is getting in the way of common sense sometimes. So I want to improve on this…

A lot of pros have taken to posting helpful educational content in the group. And they sort of awkwardly aren’t allowed to say what they do or who they are because of the rule against self-promotion. I acknowledge this is clunky and counter-intuitive! We can do better…

More about the second thing:
This group is free for you, but it has a cost for me and the mods.

The group would not be as good as it is, without the countless hours the mods put in to keep the group awesome.

I don’t want to be too dramatic, but on top of the typical work you imagine needs to be done, we deal with real-life harassment, blackmail, and threats on a regular basis.

It means the world to me that the mods continue to donate their time in the group, and I want to give back to the people who make it possible. I also wouldn’t mind covering some of my own expenses!

So I’ve got an idea…

We’re going to start a thread for “Pro Tips” - advice from professionals. This kind of content has been successful in the group in the past. This thread will be pinned to the top of the group, and pros will be allowed to link to educational material on third party sites. Even if that educational material is slightly self-promotional. Pros will also be allowed to describe themselves and their services in this thread, and reply to questions openly when people ask them. We will also ask for a pro to sponsor that Pro Tip thread.

We think this is a great place for pros to show off their expertise in the group.

We are going to keep the ground rules in place, but make an exception for this thread.

We’ll do a trial run for a few weeks and I’d love to hear your feedback. Feel free to message me directly or to post your feedback in the comments right here.

If you’re a pro and interested in sponsoring the Pro Tips thread for a week, please let me know by emailing ryan@how-to-adu.com

The Rules are evolving!

I’m writing this on August 21, 2022 - and the first pro tip of the week is going live TODAY.

The rules for this one thread are not written in stone yet.

I’ve asked the first few sponsors to be a bit flexible while we work out some of the details and test out different ways to run the thread.

I’ll also be working with the sponsors on which comments they want to keep up or want to remove.

For now, I’d ask you to treat the pro tip thread as you would treat an open house or other professional event.

You’re welcome to come, and you’re welcome to strike up a conversation. But if another realtor showed up and set up business cards, people will be understandably upset!

I’m hoping that we can have a chill conversational vibe in the sponsored thread.

We’ll be experimenting with a lot of different ways to moderate it, and I’ll update this page as we develop the way that works best for the group and for the sponsors.

Cheers!

Please send feedback to ryan@how-to-adu.com