How To Make Money On Skool (Full Course)

We've seen a lot of stuff. There's 50,000 communities, over 15 million users, and more than a billion dollars in earnings so far. We've got a lot of data. We've seen a lot of stuff. And what we basically want to do is take everything we've learned from that, condense it down, and put it into really simple training to show you guys what's working. And instead of us trying to share our opinions like, oh, you should do this thing or that thing, all we're going to do is just reveal what is working and who is doing it. And I think you guys can learn a lot from that. >> Over time, it's become pretty clear the patterns between what works and what doesn't. And we just want to share what's working in this course. >> Yep. And lots of examples, too, because theory is boring. So why are we here is the first question and it's to build a successful community, right? That's what we're here for. That's what school's about. That's what schoolers is about. And there's two kinds of things people are generally trying to do when they're starting a community. The first one is just bringing people together around their passion, >> right? Like let's say you're really into, >> I don't know, rock climbing. >> Yep. and you want to hang out with other people that do rock climbing. So, you make a community about it and you want to bring people together that also like rock climbing so you can talk about rock climbing and go rock climbing, right? >> Y >> then turning our hobby and passion into a full-time income. >> And these two aren't like separate in a way. It always has to have this, >> right? >> This is always there. And sometimes this evolves into this. >> Yes. >> Right. And school's mission is to help 1 billion people find community, right? We believe something special happens when you find your thing in life. >> Y >> cuz when you find your thing, it's like you find your purpose, right? Your thing that you can be really good at and obsess about. And then when you find your thing, you often find your people because they like you really obsess about this thing. >> Yep. So that's what we want to do with school. Yeah. And the way we plan to do that is by empowering passionate people to build community and earn a full-time income. >> Right. >> Yep. And I would just say there's nothing more beautiful than building a community. There's a loneliness epidemic. Everyone is trying to figure out what their passion is, who their people are. And if you don't have those things, life is kind of difficult and it sucks. I've been there myself. But if you build a community, you bring people together and the best communities, people get married, people make friends, people find business partners and it really satisfies a huge part of life's passion and purpose if you have a community and you build a community. So it's really beautiful. >> Yeah, I agree. So how do we do it? Well, here's the big picture overview. We've found that every community that has members or that makes money has these core elements, right? Never is there a case where there's a successful community and these elements don't exist, right? >> So, you always need some way to get traffic, right? Well, actually, let's just start with the community. You need to build a community, right? So, you start one of these around your passion, right? Like in this example, let's say someone starts a gardening community, right? And let's say they're a beginner and so they make it free, right? Now, they need to get some members for their community. Well, traffic tends to come from these places. You've got like YouTube, you could make YouTube videos about it. You could post on Instagram about it. You could post on Facebook or run Facebook ads. >> Yep. >> You could post on Tik Tok about it. Go live on Tik Tok. Link in bio, whatever. You might have an email list, right? Um and so you could send emails to your your email list or you might even have a website, right? >> Yep. >> Um and you could, you know, send traffic from there. And then there's another source which is school itself. And school actually sends a significant amount of traffic to communities that are on the platform. Yep. >> From the data we've seen so far, it's about 22% of memberships come from school itself. >> Wow. >> And it's growing. >> Wow. >> Um and so this can be a traffic source too, right? And so you need a way to get traffic to your community. >> Yep. >> And then they visit your community and then if they join, they become members. >> Yep. >> Right. And so you get some members. >> Yep. And then once you've got some members, you can hang out with them, you can talk to them, get to know them, and you might find that people are willing to pay for a certain service. Or you might find that everyone in this community has this kind of problem and that might inspire you to >> sell something or make something or provide some kind of service. Yep. >> That then you're able to charge for and then that might translate into income. >> Yes. And obviously if you can earn an income, if it can replace your job, then you can make your passion or your hobby your full-time career >> 100%. >> And many people are actually doing this. So now I want to show you some examples. So this is the this is the diagram and we'll start with CubeCraft. It's a community by Misha and it's for DevOps, which is kind of like coding. >> Yep. >> He sends traffic from YouTube to his community about page and he makes $33,000 a month. >> It's insane and so simple. That's pretty much all he does. >> And his YouTube is about DevOps, too. >> Makes sense. >> So, here's a here's a YouTube channel. Here it is here. And you can see link in bio is his school community and he makes videos about DevOps which is his thing, his passion, his whatever. Um, and then he also includes a link to his about page in his description beneath his videos. >> Yep. >> And you can see sometimes he's even making videos where he brings up his school community and shows people what's inside. >> Yep. And it looks like he's recording with just some simple software. It's not even some complicated setup. Yep. So, that's one example showing you YouTube to about page to making full-time income. And Misha does this full time. Now, here's another example. Pickle Ball School. Uh they've got a community about how to play pickle ball. >> Yep. >> It's $39 a month and they use both Instagram and YouTube to get traffic >> and they make about $30,000 a month. Yeah. Right. Doing this. Yep. >> And you can see here's their like Instagram and again they just put the link in bio. >> Yep. >> So you can put your school link in your bio and you can also mention it when you're doing posts or stories or lives or things like that too. >> Yes. >> Now here's a slightly different example. Grow with Evelyn. So Evelyn actually gets most of her customers from Facebook ads. So she pays for traffic. So she doesn't have well she does have an audience but >> you know there you don't need to have an audience to succeed. You can buy traffic too and there's quite a few people doing that. So Evelyn runs Facebook ads and the ads link directly to her school about page. >> People click on the ads, they visit her community and then they join and she makes about $111,000 a month recurring. >> Very cool. And here's an example of one of her ads. And you can see that the link is to her school about page. And Evelyn's actually tested her typical funnel which was on custom software like I don't know ClickFunnels or something versus the school about page. And the school about page outperforms it. >> Nice. Let's go. So simple as well. >> Yep. And here's another example. Barber Accelerator. So, he goes live on Tik Tok and then tells people to go to his community and he makes about 15 grand a month. >> Nice. >> And on Tik Tok, you can have it link in bio, you can mention it in in your videos, but a a very popular one we've seen for Tik Tockers is live. Going live. Yeah. >> And throughout this course, we'll go deeper on like how to grow each of these platforms and how to get people from that platform to your school. This is just a high level overview. >> Yeah. Later on in this course, we'll actually when we get to like getting members, we're going to show you the best practices for each platform. So, if you've if you're on if you're big on Tik Tok, exactly how people are doing it there. If you're big on Instagram, how people are doing it there. Y >> Yeah. >> And then there's Calligraphy School and theirs is a little bit more traditional like um older school internet marketing. They've got an email list and a website, which almost seems like >> seems kind of crazy these days. Um, >> and so on their website, you know, they direct traffic to their school >> and they also send out emails to their email list and they direct traffic to their school. Their community teaches you how to do calligraphy. It's $9 a month. >> Yep. >> And they make about seven grand a month doing that. >> Yep. Very cool. And then here's a different example because you know all of these examples we've done so far, they're people that are making quite a lot of money, >> but no one starts like that. You can't just go like zero to like 100 grand a month instantly. >> Yeah. >> Um so here's a great example, uh Hazel. She's got a community called Crochet Creations where she teaches you how to do crochet. >> It's free, so she's not charging yet. >> Yep. She has no audience anywhere and she didn't even tell anyone she knows about her community. >> Yeah. No content, no ads. >> She's got all of her members from school and she's got about 126 members so far and how that works is people go to school.com. You know, it says discover communities. People are actually searching for crochet and you can see here that she's number two. >> Yep. >> So people are clicking on that and then they're joining her community. >> Yep. And this is delivering a lot of members to a lot of people. So there's many different ways that you can actually get traffic to your community and you can you can choose one of these or you can use a combination of these. >> Yep. >> But the school discovery will always be working in the background anyway. >> Yes. And I would say most people that have school communities don't have huge audiences. Most of the time if you have a passion, you've like say rock climbing, you've probably connected with people in real life about rock climbing. You've maybe made some Instagram posts about rock climbing and you have maybe 500 followers or a thousand followers about rock climbing. That's more than enough to get started on school. You don't need a huge audience. >> Yeah, you got to start somehow. And we'll cover that in the module coming up that's called like getting your first few members. >> Yep. because often it's just personal relationships where you get your first few. >> Yes. >> Right. >> Yeah. So those are the examples and we're going to try to do that throughout this course. Like we're going to show you a simple kind of visual and then show you examples to help you understand because I swear that's how you grasp things the fastest. >> Yeah. Now let's talk about like stages of evolution that we see on school because you might start free withund and something members but you can make quite a lot too. >> Yep. >> So this is how we typically see things evolve. So we've called this stages of evolution, right? >> And when you're a noob and you're starting out, the main thing you're trying to do is find your thing. >> Yes. like what is my thing? What what am I passionate about? >> Yep. >> Right. That's what you're trying to do. And that's the only thing that matters until you do that. >> And we're actually going to have a module on this specifically. It's going to be called like finding your group topic, right? >> Once you've got your thing, you're ready to start getting some members. And the first kind of milestone is your first three members. Three people that aren't you. >> Yes. >> That aren't fake. >> That >> then you've evolved. You've taken a step. The next step from there is 10 true regulars. >> And I'll tell you real quick what this is. So, >> it's 10 people that keep coming back to the community. They're like regulars. If you have a a bar or restaurant or something, you know, you've got your regulars. >> Yep. >> And they keep coming back and showing up. And just a lot of people think that you need like a thousand members to have a community. >> Yep. You could have a thousand people in a community but not much engagement. >> It's not the number of members. It's the the real thing that makes a community good and that makes it engaged is >> how tight the core group is. Yes. >> Right. Cuz if 10 people are friends and they keep coming back and showing up and talking to each other that can create the content for everyone else. >> Yep. >> Right. So, you know, to get 10 true regulars, maybe you need 100, 200, 300 members, right? And so you're trying to grow beyond three members. You're trying to grow and you're trying to find these 10 true regulars and you're trying to engage with them and build relationships. And we're going to have a module on this one >> because it's a big one. Just this will be a module. Just this will be a module. >> Yeah. Then once you've done that, you've got a this is a good milestone because you've you've got a successful engaged community that that people enjoy and keep coming back to, which is a an achievement. The next step is to start making some money. And you even if you don't know how you're going to make money in these earlier steps, once you have an engaged community, it becomes quite clear >> 100%. They tell you what they want. >> Communities have problems. They always do. >> If you don't believe me, you should go to your local city town hall and listen to what people say. I haven't been personally, but I've heard stories that there's constantly people complaining. >> Um, and so, you know, every community has problems. >> Yep. >> And if you solve one of them, you will have a business. Yes. You'll make some money. Y >> and it it's just right in front of you at that point. And you know, you might start out by just doing some services >> like helping people do something >> and maybe it's just coaching or some consulting or one-on- ones or >> copywriting or thumbnail creation or video editing. >> Yeah. And we're going to show some examples of these too actually. Um so you start making some money and it might be in various different ways, right? And that's a great milestone. And I think the example we have here is like Brotherhood of Scent. >> Yep. >> Because it's a free community, right? It's free. It's very engaged. It's got almost 7,000 members by Antonio. >> And you know, this is just a community for dudes that like fragrances. >> Yeah. It's pretty cool, >> right? And it's it's highly engaged. It's one of our top ranking communities. >> Yep. But how does this make any money, right? Well, you know, just having a community of all of these people together that like fragrances, they also like other things like watches. And he's got other communities about like watches, right, that are also free. >> Yep. >> But then what he has is he has this community of people that like fashion watches, fragrances, and then he actually sells physical products. >> Yeah. And so, you know, you can building a community, you can make money from it in various different ways. >> Yep. >> Uh there's another We've seen a few of these examples like the Midnight Monster one. >> Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. >> Yeah. So, it's free, but then they sell like >> stickers, right? >> Yeah. They sell other things. >> Um >> Yeah. So, that's that stage. >> And to get into this stage, all you need to do is really make your first $1 on school. >> Yep. Right. The next stage from there is going full-time. So once you've kind of proven you can build a community and get people together and get them to keep coming back. You've learned what people want. Now you're making some money. The next step is full-time. >> Yep. >> And if you want to know what that number is, just take your annual salary, divide it by 12. That's how much money you need to make a month. >> Yep. And there's a lot of people on school here. And it's a huge milestone because now you can spend all of your time on your passion. >> Plus, you'll get your community will get so much better if it's all you do. >> Yep. >> Um >> Yeah. So, full-time, we think this is five grand to 10 grand a month, depending on country and and you know, all of those things. >> Yeah. >> And all you really need to do to go full-time is just be better at like making money and growing your community, right? And then you can kind of make the jump. And a lot of people have done this. >> Yep. >> And I'll show you an example. The a great example we've got of this is Samuel >> Herp. >> So Samuel Herp is an artist, landscape artist, and he he used to be on Patreon and he, you know, he has an Instagram where he shares, you know, his his artwork and things, right? You can see some of his art. >> He's very good. >> Yeah, it's very cool. >> So, he had an Instagram where he'd post his art. He used to have a job cuz his art couldn't, you know, pay the bills. >> Yep. >> And then he created a Patreon and he got a few people to pay him a few dollars, >> but not enough to go full-time. Then he came on to school >> and he's actually done he's like a perfect example because he's done multiple of these, right? He found his thing. He was able to get members. He got regulars. He started with free painters hub. It's a free community, right? And there's $5,000 members in here. Yep. >> So, he proved he could build a good community. Then he started selling Sam's Art School, which is $29 a month, and he was able to get some people to join that. >> Mhm. >> Right. So, now he's making some more money, and he was able to make more money just doing this than on Patreon. Nice. >> So, he fully moved over here. >> Yep. >> Then he started noticing some people in here in the art school and in his free community were willing to pay him money for one-on-one coaching on how to paint. >> Cuz you know, some people are busy and they know I'll get way better at painting if Sam just gets on Zoom with me and shows me >> 100%. So he sells some packages like that to people just through DMs and getting on Zoom and things where they'll pay him like a thousand a month or more for so many months to just do one-on-one sessions with him. >> Yep. >> And you can see that kind of evolving into his mastermind thing. >> Very cool. >> So he's done the full evolution right in front of us. He's been through like all the stages. He's got his thing, 10 to regulars, making money full time, and school has enabled him to make his passion, his full-time income, and now all he does is paint and help other people paint in his school communities. >> It's like the dream come true. Very cool. >> Yeah. And there's many of these stories. >> So many. >> And so that is >> we got one left. >> Yep. Then there's one stage beyond which is like hardcore. >> The wizard hatut. >> Yeah. And so, you know, you don't even have to I swear most people don't even want >> Yeah. to do this. >> Yeah. That's pretty extreme. >> Yeah. >> 100k a month. >> It's like if you're fulltime and you can do what you love and it pays bills, that's great. >> Yep. >> But there's there's an extra level there for those people that are hardcore. And, you know, we've got many people on school making over $100,000 a month. We've got people making $300,000 a month, which is >> like almost $4 million a year. >> Yeah. Yeah. With very little cost. And >> Yeah. And so we'll show you an example of one of those. So, School of Hard Knocks, their YouTube channel is called School of Hard Knocks, but this community is called School of Mentors. So, you know, this is a $49 a month community. They've got like 5,000 people, right? And what they do is identical to what everyone else does here. They have a YouTube channel. The link in bio is school. >> Yep. >> The link under the video is school. >> Yep. >> They have an Instagram and they send the traffic to school, too. >> Yep. >> So, they have they've got got these channels. They send traffic to their community. That's 49 bucks a month and they just have a lot of members and that's how they make over a hundred grand a month. And we have like another example like our goat, the person who's currently making the most on school. Yep. >> Same setup. It's about AI YouTube channel straight to about page >> and they make what, like 300 grand a month. Yeah. >> Yeah. It's so simple. >> There's many of these stories. So this just shows you that you know the stages of evolution and you might aspire to be here or be here and throughout this course we're going to show you how to evolve through each step. >> Yep. >> Because really it is as simple as this big this is the big picture, right? You need to build these different pieces. >> And then once you've built these pieces, you need to evolve through these stages. And if you build these pieces and evolve through these stages, this thing will happen. >> Yep. Although you can if you want keep your group free forever and that's also cool. >> Yeah. >> This is just one template that we've seen many people go through, but you do what you want to do. >> Yep. So the simple way to think about it is just this is what I need and these are the stages I'm going to go through. And if you just follow those two things which we're going to show you how to do in this training, you will get to where you want to go. >> What are you doing? >> I'm putting on my winners's mindset. It's the it's the final ingredient for success on school. And there's this this popular saying in mountain climbing and it's don't stare at the summit, look at your boots. >> And I used to watch a lot of mountain climbing documentaries like K2, Everest, all of that. >> And it's a very common thing to not stare at the summit. It's just to look at your boots cuz if you stare at the summit, it's overwhelming >> and you can die like that. M >> and the same is true in business or with anything in life really. >> So when you're going through all of this training and building out your community and evolving through these steps, just one step at a time. >> That's good. >> And the other one is believe in your ability to figure it out. You don't need to know everything immediately. >> Yeah. >> Thing you only need to know how to take the next step. and these this training, this community and everything, it shows you what the next step is at each at each step. >> Y >> so just believe in your ability to figure it out when you get there. >> Yeah. Another thing is to trust the process and just follow the training. We'll walk you through the entire thing. There's no reason to get overwhelmed or panic and think you need to do some backflip. Just watch the training, follow the steps, the results will come. >> I see you have your winners's mindset on. See you in the next module. Okay, so this is number two, how to use this course. And there's basically like six parts to this. And we're going to go over each of them in this module today. Training, community, support, challenges, software, and fun. So training, this is what you're watching right now. If you go to schoolers and then classroom, you can see this course and you're watching, you know, number two right now, how to use this course. And what you want to do is you just want to start with number one. And then when you've watched it, you can just tick it off and then move to number two. And you should follow in sequential order. 1 2 3 4 5 and just work your way through the training. Then there's the community, right? So the schoolers community, school.com/schoolers, you get access to this uh because you're you're hosting your own group on school. This is a community exclusively for community owners, right? And in here there's posts which you can see like this. And to open a post you just click on it, right? And there's comments as well. You can like posts, you can like comments. Uh there's also school news. And so if you go to the calendar, you can see that we've got a weekly show called the school news every Tuesday at 10:00 a.m. Pacific time. And you can attend live on Zoom or you can catch the recording. And we put the recordings in the updates category. So if you click on this, you'll see here's all of the school news episodes and you can watch them there. This is a really good way to stay up to date with what's going on. It's only 30 minutes a week >> and you know it's only 15 minutes if you put it on two times speed and 15 minutes a week is >> not much to really stay up to date and learn what's going on with school. >> Yep. >> Then there's the member map. If you want to see where people are around the world, you can just click on the map tab and we've got 50,000 schoolers and you can see where they're all located all around the world and you can zoom in around you and you can see, you know, who's situated near you and you might end up becoming friends with them, meeting them for coffee or something like that cuz nothing makes something real like a friend in real life, >> right? >> Then there's meetups. So people are always organizing meetups all around the world and I'd encourage you to see if there's any meetups happening around you. It's a great way to make friends and to make this more real. Um you know often when you're doing something new on the internet it doesn't seem real or your friends might think like oh what are you what are you doing? But if you actually go to a meetup and you see these real people doing real things Yeah. It makes it more like concrete and then your belief in it can increase as well. >> And one of my favorite things about school is the community. People seem to be having fun. They're open-minded. They're doing meetups like you said, and they're all doing incredible things. It's actually a real great community. >> Yeah. And here's a post right here from Kelvin Hollywood, and he just did a meetup in uh Germany. >> What's up? What's up? Uh, greetings here. uh from another school festival. >> I'm going to skip forward. >> Too serious. What's up? >> Yeah. >> So Calvin, you know, organizes meetups in Germany and there's different people, you know, arranging meetups like this all around the world. So I'd encourage you to check those out, too. And then if you need support, the first thing I'd recommend is just searching. So, if you go to schoolers and you type in here whatever it is you're curious about, chances are other people have discussed it before, right? Then there's help docs. So, if you go up here to the user menu and then click on help center here, you can see all of our help docs. And this these help docs tell you like how to do different things and the very specific details about the different features on the platform. And so chances are the help docs, you know, can solve your problem too. Then we also have a support team. And to contact the support team, you just click on contact support here. And then you can select the group your uh you need help with. And then you can type your message and hit send. And we've got a team that has 247 coverage and we reply to people within 30 minutes on average. >> Yeah. So, you know, between the community and searching and the help docs and our support team, you should have all the support you need to achieve what you're trying to do with school. And then I'll also say, you know, school isn't just about schoolers. There's a bigger ecosystem around it. >> Yep. >> And there's a lot of people that are making YouTube channels or communities about how to succeed on school. M >> so you can also try searching in YouTube or you could look in school discovery at other communities too. >> Yep. >> And they all have their own specific like way of doing things, right? So you might find a particular style or personality that resonates with you. Then we've got challenges. And we call our challenge the school games. And Kirby's going to explain this one to you. But we want to start with a hype video. >> Yeah. >> So, let's pull this up. >> Welcome everybody and congratulations on winning the school games. School is about helping passionate people earn a full-time income doing what they love. Innovations come when you mix things from different fields. We've got sports, AI, cyber security, finance, so many different categories. Talking to other winners is going to help you unlock some things. Something very special happens when you find your thing in life and also when you find other people that share that thing. School's mission is to help 1 billion people find community. Passion is the core to that. It's always you go to school or you go to work and then outside of those hours you get to do your hobby. There's nothing better than when you can make your career your passion. If that's the way you make an income, like life is pretty good, especially if you get to do it hanging out with other people that share that passion, too. And then final point, let's have some fun. Let's go. That meetup was so fun. And that meetup was for the school games, which is a quarterly competition to see who can grow their monthly recurring revenue, their MR the most. You can find it by going to schoolers. Then at the top there's a button called games. And if you click on that, it takes you to the leaderboard where you see all of the different people competing inside of the school games. It's split up by category. So there's nine different categories. Hobbies, music, money, spirituality, tech, health, sports, self-improvement, and relationships. And the top five of every category win an all expenses tra played trip to LA where we fly you out, we meet together. It's so much fun. Alex will knows he's there. You mastermind with him and the other school game winners. And you win a trophy, which is a pretty badass trophy that every winner inside of the school games. >> Get a good shot of this, Johnny. This trophy is very heavy, very expensive, and very badass. And it comes in an even bigger, heavier badass box. >> Badasser box. It's pretty cool. Um, so yeah, it starts every quarter. It goes from the start of the quarter to the end of the quarter. And the caveat is that there's a $100 per month price limit to participate. What that means is that if you charge $200 per month, only $100 per month of each transaction is counted. And the reason we did that is because previously the main groups that were winning the school games were charging $999 a month. And for the people charging like $10, $20, $50 or $100, it was really hard for them to compete. So this handicap basically means that if you charge $50, all $50 goes towards the school games. But if you charge more than $100, then only $100 per transaction is counted towards the school games. And the final part of the school games is the status that you get. So if you want respect, if you want to be cool, if you want to flex on people, you can get an emoji next to your name for different things. The first one is the star emoji. So, if you get top 1% of discovery by having an engaged big group with lots of people that are active, you get a star emoji. You get a fire emoji if you're active on school for 30 days in a row. So, if you have 10 activities, you like 10 things, you comment 10 times on school for 30 days, you get a fire emoji. Then, we have our monthly recurring revenue related status with the main one being the goat. There's only one goat on school. The highest earner on school gets the goat status. This is the ultimate status. We have the Ninja at 300K, the Diamond at 100K, the Crown at 30K, and the Rocket at 10K MR. That's the status. >> Yeah. And to show you what it looks like, it shows up next to your name like that. >> Yeah, it's pretty cool. >> There's the rocket. There's the crown. >> Yep. There's the star as well. >> Yeah. Star emoji. >> Pretty cool. >> Yep. So, that's the school games. then software. So, as part of using school, you know, it's a it's a software platform and you have the training and everything else as well. But I just want to show you real quick the basics of the software. So, let me zoom out. So, when you first create a community, like let's say I've got this one here, $1 club. This is your community, right? like yours will be called whatever you called your one. And then if you click this switcher thing here, you can switch to schoolers. And schoolers is the community for community owners. And we're trying to lead by example by having a really good community and sharing things that are helpful for you to build your community. So you'll be flicking between like the schoolers community and your own community and maybe some other communities that you're a member of too, right? Then let me tell you about the basic features of your own community. So you've got the community tab here where you can write posts like this. And then you'll have posts down here too and you can open those, comment, do all of that. And you've got categories across the top too. Then you've got the classroom. And I might just switch here. So this is the community tab. Here's your categories. Then you've got the classroom. And this is where you can put different course content. And it looks just like this, right? Then you've got the calendar and you can host whatever kind of event schedule you want. >> Yep. Calls, meetups, anything. >> We do a once a week thing and then a once a quarter live event. So the school games is a live event in person once every 90 and then every week we've got this. And a lot of people record their calls and post them in the community, too. >> Yep. >> Then there's the members tab that just shows you all of your members. You've got the map tab that shows you where in the world everyone is in your community. >> And if you click on somebody's pin, then their profile pops up and you can message them. You can check out their profile. It's pretty cool. Hey, that's me. >> What are you doing out there? >> Um, they're swimming. Um then there is the leaderboards. So if I go to this group and click on leaderboards, these leaderboards aren't very populated cuz this is just a demo group. But here you will basically school has some gamification built into it and one like is one point and as you get likes you obviously get points and you go up levels >> and you can see the scale here. So to get to level two, it's five points. Level three, it's 20 points. >> Yep. >> And what this means is that you can level up inside of a school community by interacting and engaging with other people. >> And so this is a mechanism that makes school communities really engaged >> and really fun. >> Yeah. >> And what you can do is you can customize your levels by coming up with a name like I might call level one noob, right? And just like that, you can personalize your community. And you can also do things like uh unlock courses at different levels. So I might unlock a particular course at level two or level three or whatever. Yep. >> And that way you're creating a an actual incentive for people to level up, right? >> And then you've got your about page. And this is basically the landing page or sales page or funnel into your community. And you have this page just by default out of the box. And what you want to do is personalize this page to make it really compelling. You basically want to show people what the community is like on the inside, on the outside. Y >> tell them the main benefits. Tell them why it's unique. Uh you can include a video here. Let me give you a better example. So, if I go to discovery and then I go to this one, >> this is a great landing page or about page. >> You know, it's got a video. It's also got some screenshots. >> Yep. >> Testimonials and very clear and compelling writing that shows me what's inside. >> Yeah. And don't worry about making your about page. Now, in the rest of the videos in this course, we'll show you how to pick your group topic, how to make your about page, and everything. We're just showing you what you can do on school in this module. >> Yep. Then there's the group settings and user settings. So if I go to my group here, you just click this settings co the settings button here and you can see all these different things about your group. You've got your dashboard that shows you all of your stats. You can invite people. There's your general settings that allow you to like personalize your group, make it look and feel like yours. Payouts, which shows you the payouts that happen once a week to your bank account. Pricing, where you can set the price for your community. You can charge per month, per year, or monthly, annually, or one time. >> Yep. >> Affiliates. With one click, you can incentivize your members to refer their friends. >> Yeah, this is powerful. >> Plugins. There's a whole bunch of them here. They're awesome tabs. So, you know, you you don't have to have classroom. You don't have to have calendar. You don't have to have map. You can kind of personalize your group how you want it. Categories are here, too. Rules and some other things. Pretty straightforward. So, this is where your group settings are. And your user settings. You click on your user profile and then settings here. And this is where you can customize everything. You can see what groups you're in. You can change the order and you can also pin them to your sidebar like this, >> which is useful. You might pin your foremost used groups to your sidebar like that. >> Yep. >> You can personalize your profile. You can see your own affiliate earnings here. >> Yep. So, you can refer people to school, the platform, and earn 40% commission. And different communities set their own affiliate incentives. Y >> a lot of people make really good money just referring people to school. >> Y >> you can see all of your payouts. You can personalize your notifications per group and everything. And you know there's more personal settings. Pretty straightforward. And then there is user profiles. So if I hover over this guy's name here, I can see he's a full-time schooler. Kelvin Hollywood. And if I click on his name, I go to his profile. He has been active on school for a year straight without taking a break. Here's his own communities. Here's how active he's been on school. Here's some information about him. And you can click follow to be notified when Kelvin posts. So if I if you find someone really helpful, you might follow them. Yep. >> And you can click chat to be able to send a DM with that person. >> Yep. And yeah, that's user profiles. There's chat, which you can just click here and you can see all of your chats. Then you've got your notifications. Click here and you can do that just like most social media websites. >> Simple. >> Now, discovery, it's one of the things that makes school unique. So, if you go to the homepage of school, it looks like this where you can see all these different types of communities. There's like over 50,000 of them on school. >> Yep. >> And so with school, when you make a community and it gets a certain amount of members and engagement, >> it'll show on discovery. And the more engaged your group is, the higher it will rank. >> Yes. >> And when it ranks on discovery, you'll start to get members and customers >> for free just from school itself. There's loads of people that visit this page and they're all looking for communities either by clicking the categories at the top or by searching for things and we've seen people get hundreds and thousands of members just from school discovery. >> Yeah. And to put it in perspective like on average 22% of memberships come from school discovery. >> Some groups it's as high as 100%. Right. >> But there's many groups that get 50% of their members from school discovery. >> Wow. So, it's actually quite a big deal. >> Yep. >> And how you rank with Discovery in a bit more detail is if you go to your settings and then you click on discovery, you can see information here. You can see if you're showing in discovery or not, what category you're in, what your rank is, and there's some tips here that show you how to improve your ranking. I won't run through all of this now because you can basically just read it for yourself. Yeah, >> but you just want to make something good and you don't want to fake it. You just want to truly make something good. You want to be active. You want to have good artwork, a good about page, and consistent steady growth. >> Yep. >> And if you do that, you will rank and you will get members. >> Yep. >> And we've covered a lot there. We've just covered the whole entire school platform. So, if you're watching this and you're like, "Whoa, that's a lot of stuff." Play around with it. You'll explore it one step at a time and very quickly it'll all make sense. Whenever you start something new, there's a lot of stuff. It may feel a little bit overwhelming, but trust me, school is pretty simple. If you just spend some time playing around with it, it'll all make sense. >> Yep. And then we want to finish with the most important thing, which is to have fun. And this is something that we actually do inside school, the company. Whenever some we're doing something and if it sucks, we pause and we're like, why does this suck? And then we ask ourselves, how can we make this fun? >> Yeah. >> And often when something sucks, it's there's something there. There's something to it. >> And maybe we shouldn't just bulldoze through it. >> Maybe we should find a different way to do it. And often when that happens, >> it's a breakthrough. >> Mhm. >> So there's some intelligence there to making things fun. And so if you're if you find it a drag to build your community or to make your course or to whatever, then you should really ask yourself, how can I make this fun? >> Yeah. >> And one way to make things fun is to find a friend. So, you know, you can look in the school's community, look at meetups, look at the map, whatever, and you might actually find a friend that you can go through this journey with. And maybe you're just holding each other accountable on on daily or weekly Zoom calls. Or maybe you'll actually team up and build a community together. >> And you can see that me and Kirby are building this course and we do school news together too cuz I personally don't like doing anything really just by myself. I find it very hard. >> Mhm. >> And then when you get a sale on school, uh, it makes a kaching sound. and I'll show you what that's like. Best sound ever. >> So, if you're not so lucky that you are going to get real customers buying from you all the time, there's a little cheat code. You can just press controll + 4 on your keyboard. >> Yeah. >> So, controll 4. >> If you're ever sad, controll happiness instantly. Yep. And then you know visualization. You can visualize your school community and then you can play the sound. >> Yeah. >> And then we have cat codes. >> So what are these? >> Well, if you're when you're starting out on school to keep you company, we have a little cat. And what you do to activate it is in the search box up here, you type let there be cat and you hit enter. >> Yeah. So it plays different playlists. Gangster might play some funky. So this little cat can keep you company while you're going through the course, finding a friend, waiting for a meetup, or you know, building your own community, right? And to make this cat go away, you just type shoe cat, enter, >> keep the cat, >> and it's gone. A >> So this should give you absolutely everything you need to succeed on school. We've got the training, the community, the support, the challenges, which is the school games, the software, and the magic ingredient, fun, the cat. absolutely everything you need. So, go through this training step by step, module by module, and we'll see you in the next one. Today, we're going to cover finding your group topic, like how to find your thing, and it's really like the first stage of evolution on school. You need to find your thing so you can make a community around it and get your first three members. >> Yep. >> So, let's dive into it. How do you do it? Well, I think the first question and honestly the most important question is what are you passionate about? And why passion is important is you know business or making anything it you get exponentially better over time and if you don't love it you probably won't keep doing it. >> And if you don't keep doing it for a long enough period of time you'll never really do that well. So in order to do well, you need to do it for a long period of time, which means you need to love it. >> So it is, I swear, the most important thing. And that's why I would just start by asking yourself like, what are you interested in? And there's a few different ways to frame this question. You could also say like, what would you do for free even if you didn't get paid? >> Mhm. Yeah, that's a good one. Also, what do you think about when you're going to sleep or what do you think about in the shower where your mind just wanders? >> That's an indicator of your passion. >> Yeah. Yeah. Like where what is your distraction? >> Right. Cuz a lot of people think, "Oh, I need to be productive and do this thing, but I really just want to do this other thing." I've honestly found sometimes the distraction is the answer. >> Yeah. >> Right. Yeah. >> Um >> which is quite interesting. >> Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Um, and then yeah, where does your attention go in your free time? And if you're like, I don't know, well, look at your YouTube history. YouTube keeps pretty good history. Take a look. >> Yep. >> What kind of videos are you watching? What what channels are you subscribed to and do you keep coming back to, right? Then look at your bank statements. You know, where your money flows to and where your attention and time flows to. that's what you're interested in >> 100%. >> Then you could look at your calendar like what kind of events do you attend? What things do you make time for? Right. You can also ask your partner if you've got a husband, wife, whatever. You could ask your parents and you could even ask your friends like, "Hey, what is the thing that I just won't shut up about?" Right. >> Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. They sometimes you need to get outside of yourself to be able to like >> get a good perspective on yourself >> and sometimes it's so obvious you're all stuck in your head what am I passionate about and you ask someone they're like oh it's obviously this thing you don't stop talking about it you spend all your day about it that's the thing >> and I think this is what you need to do first like find out what you're passionate about and spend some time you know doing this kind of discovery process And to give you an example of this in practice. So I'll tell you a quick story about how we came up with the format for school news which is you know the thing you're watching right now. So we wanted to make a like a a weekly kind of show for the schoolers community but historically I really hated making content. >> Yep. Um especially those kind of talking head videos where you just have to like talk at the camera and it and you've got to come up with ideas. >> Yeah, >> they drive me crazy. Um and so obviously if we use that format that I'm not passionate about, we are not going to we're going to suck at doing this. >> Yeah. People can feel it. >> Yeah. So I guess there's there's more to passion than just like you doing it consistently over time. It's also there's something magnetic and contagious about things that people have passion for. And so if it's if it's a joy to create and you love creating it, then it's probably going to be a joy to view and >> and like engage with, right? >> And so if I'm in pain making it, then they're probably going to be like, "Whoa, this is this feels off." >> Yes. >> And also, I'm not going to be consistent. >> Yes. And if you think about how people consume content or consume communities, they're really consuming because they want to feel something different to how they're currently feeling. And if you're feeling super drained, they don't want to feel drained. They're not watching these videos or joining a community to feel drained. They want to feel passionate and excited. >> And if you feel that, they'll feel that. >> Yeah. And so with this example, so we kind of went through this process. I thought, well, what do I consume? And interestingly enough, I absolutely hate talking head videos. >> Y >> So like just watching some dude talk at a camera never. So it makes sense why I hate making them because I I would never watch one either. >> Yes. >> So I was like, "Okay, well what do I watch?" >> And it's podcasts, specifically podcasts with more than one person. I find it very weird watching one person talking to camera, but when there's two people doing something that's kind of natural, >> I watch that. >> The other thing is that it has to be quite natural. It has to unfold naturally instead of like being scripted. >> Mhm. Yeah. >> And the other thing is I really hate editing, >> so it has to just be like one take done. >> Yes. >> Then the other thing is I'm really I really hate the camera and I get all freaked out about it. So, but what I do every day is I sit and look at a computer >> just like this. This is the exact computer screen I look at. And you sit next to me and we talk about school. >> Yes. >> So, I'm like, "Okay, I like looking at my computer. I like talking about school." >> Having Kirby there to talk to about school, too. So, what if we just did that? M. >> And so instead of thinking, "Oh, I need to make my YouTube channel like this guy's YouTube channel or whatever, that's a that's a bad way to go about it because if you don't like doing that, people might not like watching it and then you won't be consistent." >> Mhm. >> So, I hope this example is proving this point for you. If you work with your the things you like and the things you don't like and you kind of navigate through them, what you end up with at the end is something that's actually unique. >> The school news is a kind of unique format. It's not just talking head like six lessons I learned. >> Yeah. >> Right. >> Yeah. >> And it's natural and it's effortless to make. >> Yep. So, you know, with your community, you should think about this, too, because you you want to be unique. You want to be consistent. You want to do it for the long term, and you want people to enjoy it. >> And this is the way to do that by working with the things you like and don't like. >> So, you can kind of create based on what you consume. >> What you consume is a great indicator of what you'll probably like to create, right? Yes. >> Um because you naturally understand the format. >> Yep. >> That's good. >> Yeah. Then scratching your own itch. So, you know, some some of the best companies in the world were just started by people that scratched their own itch. You know, they thought, "Oh, I hate this thing. I'm I hate this thing so much that I'm going to like just build a tool or build this thing to solve it for myself." >> Yep. Then it turns out a lot of other people have that itch too, right? >> Yeah. You can use yourself as a proxy for the niche. Like if you really want something, there's going to be other people out there that want that thing as well. That's also kind of how school started, right? You said that you were running a community business and there was loads of different tools and it was stressful. So you solved your own problem and then that was really valuable for other people as well. >> Yes. So I actually built my own software first, but it wasn't for anyone else to use >> and everyone wanted to use it. >> So I kind of had an early sign that oh people are interested in this thing if I if I make it. Yeah. But it started as me just scratching my own itch. >> Interesting. >> So yeah, build the community you wish existed. If you're using like let's say you're into motocross and you're in a few different motocross communities but none of them cover like I don't know technical details about how to do tricks or none of them have meetups. >> Yes. >> Right. >> Like or none of them are in Australia. >> Yes. >> So like maybe you've got you're in these different communities like around motocross but there's this thing that isn't satisfied. There's an itch there. >> Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Other people are probably feeling that too and so you could do that. >> Y >> like Kelvin's basically got the schoolers community in Germany. >> Yes. >> Right. Um yeah there's a lot of these and then like I said earlier the passion of the founder is the most important thing because it's magnetic and contagious. People I think more than anything want to be happy and have fun and feel good. And so when they see someone else that's feels like that, it's like, I want some of that, right? So they're just like, I'll get a bit closer to that and I'll stick around because it's I like it how it's kind of washing on to me. >> Yep. >> Um and so protecting this is super important. >> Yeah. And you can't fake it. You can fake it for a certain period of time, but then eventually it's very clear whether you love something or you don't. >> And I see this so much with young entrepreneurs. They've got this thing they love and then they're like, "No, no, I can't do that. I've got to do this other thing and that they're so militant about it and they hate the other thing. I'm like, well, yeah, logically that all makes sense, but >> you're going to quit that. >> Like, you're not even going to last a year. >> Yeah. >> Um Yeah. And it's not about finding a hot niche. It's about finding something you love. >> Yes. >> And you know, this is kind of this constant fight between like your logic and your emotions. Logic might tell you, "No, I need to build a community on uh on AI or something like that because that's a big market." Yeah. But, you know, it's also very competitive and there's a lot of people that love AI and if you don't love it and you're trying to compete with them >> then it's you're not going to do that well. >> Yep. >> So, here's some examples to kind of prove that you can make a lot of money doing like, you know, almost anything. I think a great example is Poop Scoop Millionaire. These guys have a community called Poop Scoop Millionaire and they teach you how to start a poop scooping business, right? >> And these guys make $60,000 a month. >> Let's go. >> In the poop scooping niche, right? >> That's definitely not a hot niche. >> That's what I mean. So, and how many people are passionate about scooping poop? Not many. So, you know, it's very unique. It catches everyone's attention >> and these guys are passionate about it to the point that they're willing to host meetups, conferences, all of this. >> And it's they make a lot of money doing it. >> Yep. >> Here's another example. Counterstrike improvement, CS2 improvement camp. So, you know, this guy teaches you how to play Counterstrike better. >> Yeah. >> Right. You know the game Counter-Strike. and he makes 11 grand a month just teaching you how to play better Counter-Strike. >> Yeah. And Counter-Strike used to be popular. If I'm not mistaken, it's less popular now, but he's still >> It's still pretty popular. >> Yeah. >> But maybe less than it used to. And either way, he's still killing it. >> Yeah. >> I think by the when something's hot, often everyone jumps on it. And when everyone jumps on it, it's harder to compete unless you're super passionate. So that's why doing something when it's not hot can sometimes be even better because there's less competition. >> Yeah. And also I swear when you just follow trends, so does like almost everyone else. >> Yeah. >> And when someone observes that you just drift from this thing to this thing to this thing to this thing to this thing. >> Yes. >> You lose all of their trust. >> They're like, "Oh, >> it's fake. that person did like I don't know the some of the big trends I've seen is um NFTTS then crypto now AI >> there's nothing wrong with any of those things if you stayed true to it the whole time >> yes >> if you were always doing NFTs then you'll probably still be crushing it >> always doing crypto always doing AI >> but when you drift around everywhere >> that's when you lose a lot of your credibility >> yep >> and here's another example 90s boom bap beat making. I love this group. It's called Bastard Crew. Bastard Crew. And it just teaches you how to make uh real '9s boom bap beats. >> That's crazy. I don't even know what that is. That's niche. >> Yeah. No fluff, no corny industry chips, just the real source. I love this group. >> What a hook. >> And look at like the video. >> Yes. I love when you can feel it. >> Like look at this. This is so authentic. >> Yes. You can't fake that. >> This guy's just making beats. >> Let's go. >> Yeah. That's cool. >> Yeah. And it's like genuine. Like if you check out his profile, he's very active. If you check out his YouTube, he again makes videos about making beats, right? >> So to go back to that big picture diagram, YouTube to school. >> And to make a YouTube channel about something, to make an Instagram channel about something, to make a community about something, and do it consistently over time. Imagine if you didn't like ' 90s boom bat beats. >> You're going to hate your whole life. >> Yeah. Or imagine if you didn't like scooping poop. >> Yep. >> And some people might think their video game is their distraction, but this guy's making 11 grand a month doing this. >> Yeah. Yeah. That's good. >> So, and you know, there's so many of these examples. We've even seen calligraphy like we've even seen horror film fans. They just they're fans of horror. >> Yep. We've seen like so many different things where people make serious incomes and the most important thing is you've just got to be passionate about it. And if you learn to follow what you like and what you don't like, you will have natural differentiation, >> which I swear is the most important ingredient in business is just differentiation. >> Not looking like everyone else, not feeling like everyone else. And it there the way to do that is by following what you like and what you don't like. >> Yeah, that is interesting because you are unique. So what you like is different. >> Yeah. Now let's look at how to get ideas. So, if you just look at school discovery, and you can do that by going to school.com and then navigating here to discover communities, you can just look at school discovery. You can scroll through different communities and see what they're doing, see what they're saying on their about page, see what they're charging, whatever. You can even flick through different categories like hobbies, music, money, tech, right? And this might start to give you some ideas. Another thing you can do is you can look at the school games leaderboards. So if you go to the schoolers community and you click on games here, you can see, you know, all the different um ranking groups and different communities. >> Yep. >> And different categories. Sorry. Um, and it, you know, one thing I always noticed is there's dog training. Dog training and languages always seem to be popular. Video games is always popular. >> Yeah. Musical instruments. I mean, you you'll start to just get ideas when you look at the Discovery and the School Games leaderboards. >> Yep. >> And so, look at these things and then look at what you're interested in from up here. And you might start to come up with some ideas and just start writing them down in a Google doc or on a piece of paper. >> Yep. >> Another thing I've heard people mention quite a bit is this II. I don't even know how to say it. >> I a Japanese concept on how to find what you love. Cuz the Japanese I I believe they have one of the longest lifespans and there's this book written where they tried to figure out why they live so long. And a large part of the answer was they put an emphasis on following their guy, which is what you'll explain. >> I think Japanese culture is very good at finding their thing >> because they've they're like craftsmen of of every different thing like whether it's making sushi, making knives, making, >> you know, video games or whatever. >> Yep. >> Like they treat it as a >> their purpose. Yeah. >> Right. >> Yeah. >> And I don't think there's so much bias about, oh, everyone should do this or everyone should do that. It's more naturally distributed between all the different things you could be interested in. Right. >> Yeah. That's interesting. >> Yeah. And so basically what this is is what you're good at. You can have in the circle what the world needs, what you love, and what you can be paid for. And so you could try this diagram out like maybe write down things you might get paid for. Write down things you're good at. Write down what the world needs. And then write down the things you love. And maybe there's some interesting >> like I don't know overlap of these things. >> Yeah. >> If this, you know, theory isn't always doesn't always translate to practice. So I wouldn't worry too much about trying to get this thing to to overlap. >> Yeah. >> Um but yeah, I guess if it was perfect, what's in the middle here would be your school community. >> Yeah. >> But this is just another thing that might give you ideas. You don't have to follow it exactly. >> Yeah. It's a tool. >> Yeah. And now just a couple of examples. So Kirby, why don't you tell us about your little story here just real quick? >> My little story is I built a YouTube channel and I was an educational creator and that was all I did full-time. And the whole time it was me on my own trying to figure out how I could grow this channel, what I should make videos about. And it sucked and it was lonely and there was no community about it out there. But I saw there was another community called Indie Hackers, which is a community for people who are trying to go full-time using code. They're trying to build little softwares and go full-time with that. And that gave me the idea, why don't I start a community for educational creators who are trying to go full-time, not through code, but through educational content. And that was the idea that birthed my community. It was something I wanted, and it was like something else that I saw, but there was a gap that nobody had created. and it ended up being something that people loved. >> Yeah, that's interesting. So, you could say it's like this but has this thing that's different. Yeah. >> It's like schoolers but for people that speak German. >> Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. >> Um and then Hazel has a successful community. We shared it in the first module. Um >> crochet. >> Crochet. Yeah. And so I DM' her and I said, "Hey, did a school community inspire you to make your community Her community is called Crochet Creations and she said, "Yeah, I was inspired by this community called Naughty Hub." Right. And it What does this community do? >> So, it teaches you >> designer. >> Yeah. Something about yarn. >> Yeah. So, I don't even know what this is, but it's something Oh, crochet lovers and yarn enthusiasts. So, you know, she saw there was a community on here and that and then she thought, well, I also like crochet and I could do my twist on it. >> Yep. >> And that inspired her to make her community. Another example is Nate Belmar. Um, he loves anime, but he also loves fitness and like biohacking. >> Mhm. >> And he made Anime Shreds. >> Yeah. This this crushes. And you know, sometimes in a crowded category like fitness or biohacking. >> Yep. >> You you need some differentiation, right? >> He just likes anime. >> Yeah. >> So, they literally have things in here that are about like that like the design and the aesthetic and even the way everything's like taught to you is in this frame of like anime. >> Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. He has these like PDF scrolls. It's not just like a fitness plan. It's like these ancient scrolls where you learn the fitness program in that method. It's so unique. >> Yeah. And so just combining passion for anime and fitness and biohacking creates this unique >> Yeah. >> unique thing. >> Yep. >> And I forget how much he makes, but he makes quite a lot. >> Yeah. 50 grand or something like that. >> More than 50 grand a month, I think. >> Yeah. >> Then you know this one's a big one. The key to all of this is to start first, like just do it and then iterate over time because people get stuck trying to find the perfect idea. >> Yes. >> Like they're just sitting at the starting line and they're like doing, you know, insane calculus trying to figure out like I need the perfect thing before I do anything. It never happens. >> Yep. >> Never. >> Yeah. and instead you'll just like overwhelm yourself and freak out and quit, right? Um >> yeah. >> So what you need to understand is the best group ideas came from iterating through like five wrong ideas. >> Yes. You can't get it perfect straight away. >> Just start and make it less bad over time. Even the school community school is now how many iterations has it been through to get to where it is now? Every community changes over time and gets better over time. You can't make it perfect from the beginning. >> Yep. And so really the key is to start and then learn by doing. Don't like learn everything you possibly need to know and then start. >> Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I think the analogy is like to build a successful community there's a hundred steps and most people are trying to figure out what's step 45. What do I do? How am I going to get my retention to be good? How am I going to keep my churn low? But you don't need to figure out the whole process before you start. Just take the first step, then the second step's obvious. You take that step and go about it that way. >> Yeah. I remember hearing when I was like a while ago an analogy that made sense to me. It was like when you're driving a car at night, the headlights only illuminate so much road in front of you. >> Yeah. >> And that's all you need to get to your destination, right? >> You don't need the whole path perfectly like illuminated. >> Value. >> Yeah. And then how to pick when you have more than two ideas. So you know sometimes at the school games someone comes up to me usually young person and says hey man what do you think I should do? I could do this. I could do this. I could do this. And I always just say to them what do you want to do? >> And they're like what? They're like that doesn't matter. And I'm like no that does matter. And they're like, "No, man. Like this other thing I I should do this other thing." And I'm like, "Well, if you think you should do this other thing so badly, why are you asking me?" >> Because they know deep down. >> It's quite an interesting experience. It's quite quite fun. >> Um, and then they stop usually when I say like, "Why are you asking me?" And they're like, "But this, but this, but this." And I'm like, "What do you really want to do?" M >> and then often they I think people confuse what they really want to do with what they think might work. >> Mhm. >> Yes. >> So they tell me what they think might work and they rationalize it based on oh this or this or this. But I can sense there's some >> Yeah. >> I can sense this unease. >> Yeah. >> Um and so I often say like if you were just if you were to just listen to your heart like what does that tell you to do? And they're often like, "Oh, do this." >> And there's like this sigh of relief. And then I'm like, "Why don't you just do that?" >> And then they're often like, "Oh, but" and I'm like, "All right, man. this." >> I think a huge distortion is people think that what they want to do, they can't make money from. And that's the pull. They're like, "Well, I want to make money, but I also want to do what they're passionate about." >> But I think when you go through discovery and you go through the school games, you realize that you can make money with any niche. If you just bring people together, >> money can be generated from that. No matter what the niche is, >> it might start a little slower. >> Mhm. >> Than just doing the thing that someone might pay you instantly for. >> Yep. >> But it will make you so much more money longer term. >> Yep. >> Because you actually love it. So it will be unique and it will compound over time and you'll stick to it over the long term. >> Yeah. >> And then honestly, if you're still torn and you're like, "Okay, there's these two ideas or maybe there's these four ideas and I can't decide what one." >> Yep. I want to introduce you to a tool that I use all the time. Actually, >> infamous >> and Kirby can confirm I use this almost every day for making decisions. If we're stuck on a choice and it we just need to make a choice. >> Yeah. >> Right. >> And it looks like they're both equal. >> Yep. >> Well, then the biggest waste of time is to just keep keep like wasting energy and time over it, right? You just need to decide. So, I use this this wheel. It's called picker pickerwheel.com, right? Yes or no wheel. >> Not sponsored. >> And all you need to do is just click it and it will spin and it will tell you what you should do. >> Yeah, this is good. >> Oh, I didn't ask it a question, so I don't know what this means. Um, and then there's even an op there's a version of this where you can like have more than two options, but I try to just keep it to yes or no. >> Yeah. Yeah. I think if there's a decision and it's really difficult to decide which one you should go with, it's probably because neither decision is obviously better than the other one. If one of the decisions was way better than the other one, you wouldn't be struggling to make the decision. So, this is useful because if the decisions are both roughly equally as good, then there's no point spending hours trying to figure out which one to do. just spin the wheel. >> I think the real beauty of it is is if this gives you the wrong option, you find out that it's wrong and choose the right one faster than you would have if you were still just sitting there trying to find the right one. >> Yeah. Cuz you feel it. You're like, "Oh, no. I didn't want it to say that." >> Cuz you sometimes the only way to find out what the right thing is is to do it. >> So the sooner you do it, the faster you get the real answer, right? But if you're still paralyzed there wondering what thing you should do, then you'll often move faster if you just use this yes or no wheel. >> Yep. >> Yeah. Use it all the time, honestly. And it funny story is I learned about this from a billionaire dude. He said he flipped a coin though. >> He was like, "When it's a decision like this, it's you don't waste effort on it. You just flip it." >> Nice. And then I learned that Magnus Carlson, like the best chess player in the world, uses this to choose his opening move for a for a chess game. >> That's so crazy. >> Yes. Someone asked him in a podcast like, "How do you choose your opening?" >> Yeah. >> He says, "It's random." And he goes, "What? You just choose?" And he goes, "No, no, no. I've got an app on my phone. It's truly random." >> Yeah. That's crazy. >> Cuz he has a set of good openers. And the most important thing is is his opponent's probably trying to guess which one he's going to open with. So if it's truly random, >> but this there's some real intelligence to using this wheel, I'm telling you. >> And yeah, that is really it for this module on finding your group topic. So figure out what you're interested in, scratch your own itch, start, then iterate, listen to your heart, >> and spin the wheel. >> Yes, definitely spin the wheel. >> See you later. Bye. >> The key to setting up a community and building a community from the very beginning is to think of it like starting a party. And we've got something to watch here. This is actually quite relevant and almost perfect. >> Learned a lot about leadership and making a movement. Then let's watch a movement happen start to finish in under 3 minutes and dissect some lessons. First, of course, a leader needs the guts to stand alone and look ridiculous. But what he's doing is so simple, it's almost instructional. This is key. You must be easy to follow. Now, here comes the first follower with a crucial role. He publicly shows everyone else how to follow. Notice how the leader embraces him as an equal. So, it's not about the leader anymore. It's about them, plural. Notice how he's calling to his friends to join in. So, it takes guts to be a first follower. You stand out and you brave ridicule yourself. Being a first follower is an underappreciated form of leadership. The first follower transforms a lone nut into a leader. If the leader is the flint, the first follower is the spark that really makes the fire. Now, here's the second follower. This is a turning point. It's proof the first has done well. Now, it's not a lone nut, and it's not two nuts. Three is a crowd, and a crowd is news. A movement must be public. Make sure outsiders see more than just the leader. Everyone needs to see the followers because new followers emulate followers, not the leader. Now, here come two more people, then three more immediately. Now we've got momentum. This is the tipping point and now we have a movement. As more people jump in, it's no longer risky. If they were on the fence before, there's no reason not to join in now. They won't stand out. They won't be ridiculed and they will be part of the in crowd if they hurry. And over the next minute, you'll see the rest who prefer to stay part of the crowd because eventually they'd be ridiculed for not joining. And ladies and gentlemen, that is how a movement is made. So, let's recap what we've learned. If you are a version of the shirtless dancing guy all alone, remember the importance of nurturing your first few followers as equals, making everything clearly about the movement, not you. Be public. Be easy to follow. But the biggest lesson here, did you catch it? Leadership is over glorified. Yes, it started with the shirtless guy, and he'll get all the credit. But you saw what really happened. It was the first follower that transformed a lone nut into a leader. There's no movement without the first follower. See, we're told that we all need to be leaders, but that would be really ineffective. The best way to make a movement, if you really care, is to courageously follow and show others how to follow. When you find a lone nut doing something great, have the guts to be the first person to stand up and join in. >> There's so many lessons there. >> Yeah. So, there's multiple lessons in there that we're going to cover, but the thing that I like the most is as soon as there's three, it snowballs. >> Yeah. Yeah, >> it's like that one guy on his own before he gets one person to join then one it's still kind of >> there's some inertia there but as soon as there's like three it just takes off. >> Yep. >> So yeah, we think that to start a community the right way, there's three things. Set the vibe, invite three friends, and show up and let things emerge. And we're going to cover each of these now. So the first one, so when you're setting the vibe, if you think about it like a party, well, you want to get the music right, you want to get the lighting right, you want to get the mood right. If you know there's super bright lights and no music, >> Yeah. >> then it's pretty lame. >> Yes. >> And you also need some beers and things. >> Um, so you want to do the same with your community. And I think the way you set the vibe is with the group name, icon, cover image, description, and about page. And to do this, you just go into your community, and you click settings, general, upload a group icon, image, a cover image. We give you the dimensions there. Add a short description. Can just be something very simple. And then you can go to your about page and just write a very short description here. And maybe just add one image here to start with. Keep it super simple. You don't need to over complicate it. And you can just go to Google image search. Like if I just Googled moon bathing, I could see a bunch of images. I could use one of those. Or you could ask chat GPT to generate an image of something. >> Yeah. >> Both of those tools are free. >> Yes. >> And available to everyone. >> Another one is Canva. I used to use Canva and create these complex images to do this sort of stuff and then I saw Sam just go to Google images, download an image and just upload that and I was like, "Oh, it's that easy." Really? >> Yeah. I don't even have Canva. >> Canva is cool though and it does work. >> Don't have Canva. Don't pay for chat GBT. You can always come up with some with this stuff. >> Yep. >> And yeah, really don't overthink it. Just make it feel >> like set the vibe. >> Yep. And it should instantly look and feel like it's for them. And them is your target audience with this community. And we've got some examples to show you. So calligraphy school, it's about learning calligraphy. It instantly feels you get the vibe pretty quick. That pickle ball school, I mean, you see pickle ball over here, that place for all pickle ball players. There's playing pickle ball. Pretty straightforward. The Lady Change. It's for women who want to lose weight from menopause. And you instantly understand what this is about. This one ' 90s boom b beat making. You instantly get what this is about. Yes. I think people over complicate this. It's like if you're teaching guitar, there should be a guitar in your image and in the video. If you're teaching pickle ball, go to the pickle ball court and make your video or get your images from there instead. Just like as simple as possible. >> Greg Lutzka, professional skater, was asking me like, "Hey man, what do you think of my about page?" And it was him sitting at his computer talking to the camera and I was like, "Dude, people want to see you grind a handrail. Like, what is this? This is a skating community and you're at a computer. Like what about all of the awesome footage you've got? Right. So like just get straight to it. Show some you know like this guy here. He shows him >> on a liong journey to master. >> He shows him like actually making beats. >> So cool. >> Yeah. And then here's the schoolers about page. You can see, you know, we don't even have a video here. It's just a single image of the office. Private club for school owners. Let's build communities together. Right. pretty straightforward. So, you don't need to over complicate it. And it's a good idea to state the purpose of the group. And this can be very simple. It's just who it's for. And maybe there's also a shared goal. So, like the pickle ball school, it says for people who want to get better at playing pickle ball. >> Yep. >> Right. Um the calligraphy school is like people who want to learn modern calligraphy. >> Yes. >> Yeah. So it just keep it very simple and straightforward because people do judge a book by its cover and they should instantly just be able to judge it and be like, "Oh yeah, this is for me." >> 100%. >> Yeah. Another thing to do is a pinned post so that when members come, there's something in there at the top of the feed that tells people, you know, it welcomes them and it gives them something to do, something simple. And I've got an example here that I've pinned. And I think this is a really simple way you can do it. You can just say, "Welcome, introduce yourself, plus share a pick of your workspace. >> Let's get to know each other." You can use this simple format. Hey, I'm from location. For fun, I like to do this thing. Here's a pick of my workspace. >> Yep. >> And then I said, I'll go first. Hey, I'm from LA. For fun, I like to stay in forest cabins. Here's a pick of my workspace. >> Boom. Simple. >> Very simple. And then Andrew Kirby added one for him. >> That guy seems cool. >> You're going to get a ban. >> That guy is funny. >> I think it's like just first impressions is the lesson here. Both with the pin post and with the about page and stuff. And also we look through a ton of different communities. Almost everyone encourages people to introduce themselves inside of their community. So, it's a good best practice. >> Yeah. I think the the real lesson here with this pin post is this vase. >> Whoa. >> Johnny, cut to this vase. Look at this thing. It's beautiful. So, so there's this like Zen proverb I remember reading and it said the reason why vases never get thrown out is because it allows the user to put a piece of them inside it. So, if it just was static and it was just it it had fake flowers in it, you would probably get sick of it and throw it out, right? >> But it's the fact that it's a container for people to put a piece of themsel in it. It's kept forever. And I think a good community is like that and a good introduce yourself post is like that too. Ask. So, it's very simple here. It's saying it's even giving them a template for them to put >> Yeah. >> themsself into it. Yeah. >> Including the photo and the you know there's a saying like a picture says a thousand words. I've seen this work so well because what people do is they spot the vibe of other people's setups. They notice the guy who has an electric guitar in the background and they end up DMing him and being like, "Yo, do you play?" Yeah. >> Or they notice the person that's in the snow or that's >> you can just see the different vibes and you can kind of tell if you're going to get along with someone by their workspace. >> Yeah. Very true. >> And so it you're immediately starting to connect people by just giving them something very simple that they can engage with. They don't have to think too hard about it. And then yeah, you're starting to like form this web of connections. So you want to think about your community like that, the vase example. And then a very simple thing is to put a weekly hangout on the calendar. And we've noticed that the best communities tend to start like this. >> There's something special about putting a face to a name to a voice. >> 100%. >> Like once you've seen someone on video and heard them speak, you know what their voice sounds like when you next see their post or their comment. Yep. >> It means so much more. Yes. >> And it makes the community stronger and richer and the people tend to overthink this and there's Hamza coffee hour story here. This is Hamza. He's got some communities on school and he he has a successful YouTube channel. He makes content and everything and he has a paid community and he asked his members like, "Hey, what do you guys want from me?" >> Mhm. And they were like, "Honestly, we just want to hang out with you on Zoom >> because we already get tons of content on your YouTube channel." >> Yep. >> We just want to hang out. >> And so he called this, I think he did it daily. You don't have to do it daily, but you can do it once a week. And he just called it coffee hour. And literally all he does is shows up, opens up Zoom, has his morning coffee, and just talks about whatever. >> Yeah. >> With his And they love it. It's one of their most favorite parts about his community. And to set up one of those, you can just click on the calendar tab. We even have a pre-built thing for you here that's just called coffee hour. >> Or you can click up here, coffee hour, and you can call it whatever you want. Set a time, repeat every week or or whatever. And then you can use Zoom or Google Meet. And soon you'll be able to use school's own live feature. Um, but it's pretty easy to use meet or zoom. I'm sure people can figure it out. Uh, and then quick description can just be like, "Come hang out. Let's talk about anything." >> Yep. >> And you don't need to have an agenda or anything like that. You can add a cover image. Um, >> who added those cats? Was that you? >> Uh, I can't remember. Um, but yeah, this way, you know, there's a there's this it's like setting the tempo of a of a group. You've got post and comments and they're kind of asynchronous, >> but some kind of synchronized like tempo like once a week live >> and then you can record that if you want. You don't have to in the beginning. >> Um, that's a really solid basic structure to build a community. So, it's just set the vibe, have an introduce yourself post that's pinned, and put a weekly call on the calendar, and state the purpose of the group. That's it. Everything else will form from there. >> Yep. And the second thing is to invite three friends. So, if you're going to host a party and people start showing up and they're strangers, it's going to be a weird party. They could be strange, they could be weird, they may not fit the vibe that you're wanting to have. So, the best parties that I've been to, and if I've hosted a party, you always invite a few people that you know are going to be great members before everybody else comes. >> You need a balance cuz you want a few strangers cuz it makes things new and interesting. But if there's no friends and only strangers, >> yes, >> it sucks. >> And you always start with friends. >> Yes. >> Maybe there's one or two or three people that even come and help you set up. So, the best communities we've seen start by people inviting a friend, a colleague, a customer, one to three people. And you can do that by looking through your texts, your DMs, your contacts, your emails, even people who follow you on Instagram or Facebook friends, LinkedIn connections, contacts, anything. You probably know these people. You know them very well. And you can just start by sending a casual message, inviting them to the group. Yo, want to join this new community I'm building? I'm sure you text in your own way. You don't need a preframed script. Just invite these people to your group and they'll help you set things up. They'll help you get out of your head. And we even did a data analysis on school and found that people that have three members in their group have twice the likelihood of having a successful group. >> Yep. Getting people in there. It What is a community without people? It's not actually a community. >> Yeah. One person's one person's lonely. Two is just a conversation. Like we're having a conversation. This isn't a community. Three people. Now the community forms. >> Yep. >> So set it. Set the vibe. Invite three friends the same way you would start a party. So you get some music going. >> Yeah. >> Dim the lights. Put on some music. >> Yeah. I think >> three friends over. >> That's it. There's a lesson like a lot of times when we're building an online community, we forget what we're doing building a community. But if you use an analogy of like real life like a party or bringing people together, then what you should do and how you should engage with the community becomes far more simple. >> Yeah. Do you know how you could have a lame party? >> How? >> Prepare a three-hour lecture and invite people over. >> Which brings us to point three. >> So the the third thing once you've done that is you just got to show up and let things emerge. I think people are too they're almost too like controlling and prescriptive. They want to like >> think through everything, design everything, build everything and then just force it upon people. >> Yeah. >> Instead of starting with very simple initial conditions and letting the complexity emerge from that >> naturally. >> Mh. >> And so good communities always emerge. >> Yep. >> That's how good cultures emerge. That's how good everything emerges. And I think a good example here is a lecture versus a party, >> right? Like no one really likes to be lectured to. >> Yes. >> No one really wants to attend a lecture. >> Yes. >> But everyone likes a party. >> Yes. >> And the difference here is a lecture is one person forcing like this stuff upon a bunch of people. And a party is people talking to each other and having fun. >> Mh. And so I think that, you know, letting and a good party always emerges too. Often the best parties are kind of spontaneous too, right? There's something to that. >> And you don't need to have everything ready before inviting people. Like you can get people in early even when you haven't fully formed the idea or the concept for what this thing is >> because they will help you find it. >> Yes. And the beauty of finding it together is that then they're way more bored in >> because they were there when it was in this stage and then that stage and then this other stage >> and so they they feel like they've been a part of it and they've evolved with it. >> Yeah. A good framing for that is calling it founding members as well. >> A good way to get people in before it's ready is to say, would you like to be a founding member? Because then they feel like they have some responsibility to like engage in the group and make the group good and they feel like they were there from right in the beginning which gets them super bored in >> and they also don't expect it to be finished because it's just a founding member. >> Yeah. And good communities are co-created with the members over time. So cocreation like learn what people want and then give them a little bit of that and then see what they like and give them more of that. see what they don't like, remove some of that. >> And it's like a it's like a dance between like, >> you know, you and the members trying to give them trying to craft the ultimate like experience. >> And a good way to think about it is push first pull. So I use this a lot and what I think most people do is they push or force what they think people want on them. Mhm. >> But when you do that, people are very bad at telling you, "I don't want this. Please take it away." >> They never say that. They just don't say anything. >> Yeah. >> Which is the worst. So then you end up with all of the stuff that you've put out there and you don't know what people like and don't like >> and they're not telling you. Whereas if you let them pull it from you, people tend if you learn what people want. And the way to do that is to kind of leave some silence. Don't give them too much. Cuz if you give them too much, they'll just be overwhelmed and bounce. >> But if you don't give them >> enough in a way, they'll kind of pull from you what they want. Then you give them a bit of that and that way what you end up with is something that they want fully. >> Yes. >> Versus and there's nothing there that they don't want. >> Yeah. Yeah. >> And that's how I think you make a good product and that's how you make a good community. M it's like it's better to have a few things that people love than a lot of things that people are just like meh. >> Yep. >> We've said meh a lot in this uh this video. >> Mhm. And then I think just showing up and keeping the vibe right, you know, if you don't show up to your own party, two things could happen. One is a bunch of >> random people would turn up and and um rams sack the whole place, which is funny cuz that actually happens to some communities >> on school. >> Um the other one is it just will suck and someone will come in and then leave and then no one else will come and it will just suck. >> Yes. >> So, you know, the first thing you need to do is show up. >> Yep. And then the second thing you need to do is keep the vibe right. >> Yeah. It's on you as the owner. That's your responsibility. >> Yeah. Like if someone turns up and they're spilling their drink all over everyone and then they put on some terrible music and they're like shouting, >> they're ruining the vibe. >> Yep. >> You need to sort that out. >> You do. >> And if the music gets really lame, you need to sort that out. >> You need to kind of like make sure that things are balanced. >> Yes. >> People run out of beer. you need more. So, that's really what all you need to do to set up your community and get the first three members. Think of it like starting a party. Set the vibe, invite three friends, and then just show up and let things emerge. And by show up, I mean like daily. Checking in on it daily. >> And so, that's it for this one. engagement plus 10 true regulars. So, this one is all about building a community that has engagement. Like, if you're we see posts and some people like, "Hey, why is no one engaging in my community?" Yep. >> And it's always the same thing that's h that's happening. >> And so, the big idea here is like a thousand strangers verse 10 friends. Good communities have friends. 10 10 true regulars is a good way to think about it. And bad communities are just a collection of strangers. >> Yeah. >> And no one wants to talk to anyone. >> And so there's three things that you want to do here. Don't lecture people, number one. Build friendships, number two. And then curate the culture, number three. We're going to run through these three things now. So I think there's a real problem with like lecturing people. >> And I've thought a lot about this problem. like where does it come from and what what's going on here? >> Yeah. >> And I think I've got a pretty good take on it now. And so it's thought leadership and value posts and I want to show you what the rest of the world thinks about this kind of stuff. >> Walk on stage. Walk on stage. Walk on stage. Walk on stage. I am a thought leader. You know that I'm a thought leader because I'm wearing a blazer. I have glasses and I've just done this with my hands. I will now walk over to my laptop. By doing so, I'm demonstrating to you that as a thought leader, I understand technology and that there will be slides because everybody knows that a presentation seems more legitimate than it actually is if there are slides. >> I'm now going to come. >> So, you get the point. You can watch this video if you want. It's got like 2.5 million views, which shows that, you know, by the time something is being mocked in on mass and the comments agree, >> it shows you that something's like weird, it's gone too far. >> Yep. >> And I think social media kind of created >> social media and TED talks and things, it created this whole idea of being a thought leader or an expert or having authority or something. Yep. And it makes people act really weird and it makes them do things that are known as value posts. And there's another whole like thing here called LinkedIn Lunatics which has like 815,000 members. And LinkedIn Lunatics is talking about the like insufferable behavior on LinkedIn. And I'm sure you've experienced it yourself. Let me just give you a perfect example of like thought leadership and value posts. So here this guy is saying, "I proposed to my girlfriend this weekend. Here's what it taught me about B2B sales." >> Oh, that's funny. >> I'm sure you've seen this. It's everywhere. We have to delete this every day. >> I'm just like delete, delete, delete, delete, delete, delete. Yeah, >> it's like insane. Honestly, >> it's one of the rules in school. There's no thought posts. >> And here's another image about it. Like LinkedIn lunatics be like, "What should I post about today?" B2B lessons from getting engaged. >> Why is it all about getting engaged? >> Heroism of hiring a pregnant woman. >> Increased productivity. That was my >> from working in the bathroom. I always see things about leadership and barley for some for some reason. >> But >> no, it's like five tips. >> Oh, this one. Career lessons from my kids lemonade stand. So, it's like these people wake up and they're like, "Okay, I need to get some cont. I need to post some value, right?" And they just post this crap and it's it's insane, honestly. But then, you know, they wonder why no one engages. So, we see this all the time. Someone will >> someone will start a community and they're posting value posts every day like 10 things from Bali. This this this this these articles, we actually call them thought leader articles. They're very similar to a Medium article. >> Yeah. >> Which is an insufferable thing. Um, and so they're basically posting thought leader medium articles into their community. >> Yep. >> And wondering why no one is engaging. >> Yeah. And the analogy is imagine going to a party and standing up at the front and saying, "All right, here's 10 ways that you can increase your engagement." Everyone's like, "Shut up. We're here to have fun." >> Yeah. You'd get booed. >> Yeah. Don't tell me what to do. >> Yeah. And so in like don't lecture people if you want them to engage. Don't lecture them. >> Yep. >> And the the key to this is like good communities emerge. So it you know it's kind of a dance or this thing that comes from the initial conditions by setting the vibe and the vision and the goal and then members coming in and there's a interaction there. >> Y >> so party verse lecture. Don't be a thought leader. >> Yeah. >> Think of it as building a party or a movement. And the key to doing that is to ask questions that give members an opportunity to participate. The key thing is give members an opportunity to participate. >> Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. There's a good story here. There was this cake mix that people would sell and it was a huge opportunity and if you just put it in the oven it makes this beautiful cake. The cakes were good. It was quick. It was easy. It was cheap. But it didn't sell. People weren't interested. So this company hired a team of the best psychologists in the world to figure out why nobody was buying this cake mix. And what they found was that people want to feel involved. So what they did is they had the exact same cake mix, but all you had to do was add an egg, but as soon as you added an egg to the cake mix, it felt like it was yours. Now you're proud of the cake that you've made and it started selling like crazy. >> So when you give people an opportunity to put themsel, >> they will love it so much more. >> Yeah. And again, it's this vase example that we've got here. Johnny, give us the shot. >> We don't have a vase camp. >> So allow like good communities have posts and questions and discussions that allow members to put a piece of them into it. >> Yes. >> Then it they're bought in. They're a part of the community. Y >> just like a vase its use is that it allows you to put something of your own inside of it. >> Yep. The other thing is participate in comments and replies more than you post. So when we look at these people that say, "I've got no engagement. What's going on?" 100 thought leader posts. >> Not a single comment. Someone else asks a question, they're like, "Fuck that. I'm not even I'm not even going to read that." >> So like, that's not cool. Imagine at a party just someone's speaking to you, you ignore them and you just keep talking to them. Everyone hates that person at a party. >> Yeah. But like there there should when I think about it as a ratio I spend it's like 9 to one the amount of energy I put into comments, replies, and reading >> versus posting. help >> because you don't know what to post about unless you've got like really listened and engaged with the community to see what they need and then you give it to them and you announce it in a post >> 100%. >> Right? So you should be participating in comments and replies. That's where you're actually talking to someone. Doing a post is like a broadcast to everyone. So you're not really talking to someone. >> True. >> You're talking to the group. M >> but when you're actually in the comments and replies, you're building relationships with people >> and you should do this more than you post. And you should also listen more than you talk. And listening is reading on school. So like you know I every morning I sweep the whole community. I go through everything since I basically went to sleep and I read everything and that it gives me a good sense and a good feel for like what the community wants. >> Yes. >> And then that's what I should be focusing on is delivering that. >> Yep. >> And you should ask for help solving problems. Like if you're experiencing a problem, don't just like sit with it. like you can involve your community in that. >> Mhm. >> And you can crowdsource solutions. It's a really effective way to to get ideas. School has basically been built from the community. >> They told us what we should make and then we did it. >> Yes. >> And you should ask for feedback. Like a lot of the time when I'm contemplating doing this thing or that thing, I'll ask the community. This can also happen through DMs, by the way. It doesn't all have to be posts. >> Yeah. and include your members in decisions. Let them co-create the thing with you and let them have a say in its future and its direction because that's how you will build really loyal uh relationships and and members. >> Yep. And it's just genuinely helpful to ask people for their thoughts >> that too. Yeah. >> And you want to I think a good a good leader they're passionate about the subject. they should be the most passionate. You want to like build in public like you don't have to have everything ready right away. You want to have a small amount and then ship it as you go the same way we're making this course right now >> and bring people with you on the journey. >> Yeah, that's good. So the first thing is don't lecture people. The second thing we've seen successful communities do is to build friendships inside of their community. So the good communities have strong relationships between the founder and the people and then the people itself. We have niche boom on the left which is the traditional way is an audience where there's just one person who speaks to everyone inside. And then on the right we have the community which is the new way of doing things where the owner is in the middle connected with all the other members but also all of the other members are connected with each other. And this is really cool because it means if you as the owner go away for a week, say you're on vacation, the community is still there. They're showing up not just for you, but for everybody else. So the community can stay super strong. And the best way to do this is to have a weekly hangout call. One simple call per week can be as simple as you getting together, sharing a coffee, getting together, hanging out, getting to know each other is a really good way to build that community. And a lot of people are like, "Oh, I don't want to do things that don't scale. I don't want to do it. I just want to build a course and leave it alone. I don't want to spend time doing something that doesn't scale." But I've seen that the best communities come from people building relationships one-on-one. Gary Vee calls this in the trenches. You have to get in the trenches and fight hand-to-hand combat. I mean, obviously, you're not fighting. you're building relationships, but you do it one- on-one instead of one to many. And you can really build great relationships by having deep conversations with people inside of the DMs. Also, connecting members with other members, like I said, is almost as important as you having relationships with people. It's the friends example, like in the TV show Friends, which is basically 10 friends hanging out, 10 true regulars. It's not just Joey friends with Chandler. They're all friends with each other. And it's the interconnectedness of those relationships that make for the interesting dynamic, which is why people love friends so much. So you can DM people, you can get on calls with people, and even meeting people in person is like the epitome of community building. You can meet up with your members. It builds relationships unlike anything else. Like I remember the first time meeting schoolers, it feels real. And even Zoom calls aren't the same as meeting in person. Yeah, I can say a little something here. So, I'm always on the lookout for people who like get it >> or who are really committed or passionate. >> And what I'll do is, you know, the first thing you got to do is show up and and listen and read, right? >> But I'll notice those people and I'll often it starts by me liking their stuff and then I might leave a comment and I might say, "Wo, this is really good." M >> and then if it if they keep doing that, I'll escalate it to a DM. >> Yep. >> And then I'll start DMing them stuff and I'll start asking them, "What do you think of this? What do you think of that?" >> And they now they feel like they're they're getting information that other people don't have and that I'm trusting them with bigger decisions. >> Yes. >> So now we're even tighter and then it escalates to Zoom. >> So I'll often just say, "Yo, you online question mark?" Yes. I just send them a Zoom link >> and then we jump on Zoom, not even scheduled, never met them before. And then I start showing them designs. I'm asking for their feedback. Now we're even closer. >> And then the next level from there is we meet in person. >> And often that just happens because they're in town and they they're like, "Yo, I'm going to be in LA on at this time. Will you be around?" >> Yep. >> And because we've already got a relationship, I'm like, "Yeah." >> Yes. >> And then and that's actually what happened with you. Yeah. You've kind of gone through this thing here. >> Yep. >> And then you eventually ended up joining the school team and sitting here, which I guess is the ultimate form, the the final stage. >> Yeah. So, if someone DMs you something cool, another little tip that is beneficial is often times people are scared to post things inside of the community and people will DM you and they're like, "Oh, I just had this win." people in school has messaged me and they're like, "I just got my first sale. I just got a hundred members inside of my community." And a really good tip is just to ask them to post it in the community because if they just DM it to you, only you see it. But encouraging people to post means that everybody sees it. And often in the beginning, it is work to get the community going and buzzing. You do have to ask people to post, you have to post, you have to engage. But then once it's going, it becomes less effort. >> Yes. Sometimes people will share a win privately and wins should be public. >> Yes. >> The other one is questions. Some questions you just best to handle them privately but some would make great discussions with everyone involved. >> Definitely. >> Yeah. >> And the final thing in build friendships is to check in with people. So just ask them how is school going for you? What are your thoughts on my community? What are your thoughts on this specific topic? How are you getting on? What problems are you running into? Is there anything I can do to help? And by checking in with people privately, they'll tell you what they want. And when you spot a pattern, like if a few people say, "Oh, I need this thing." Now you know what to build. Now you know what to add to the calendar. Now you know what to post. Now you know what course to build. Only once you've checked in with people. >> Yeah. And I think here people think like they they're just checking in on people and they're like, "Hey, is there anything I can do for you? Is there anything?" And that can get a little bit annoying, honestly. >> Yep. Um, you know, if that's the kind of group you're building, that's totally fine. But for me, a lot of the time, I'm not saying, "Is there anything I can do for you?" I'm asking for some feedback on something I'm doing. >> It's so much easier for them to like >> Yes. >> to to say something about that. >> They don't have to think. >> It still builds a relationship. It helps me >> and they feel a part of it. And then now they might ask me for feedback about something. >> Yep. Yeah. Then the third one is curating the culture. And this is really important. Once you've got, you know, a group of people there, you So good communities feel like cozy villages. They have culture inside jokes and stuff. Don't know if I was supposed to say, etc. Um, so one thing I've found very useful for this is to think about your model citizens. >> Model citizens. It's a very powerful idea. So you want to think who is the model citizen that you want everyone to like >> to be more like. >> Yes. Because if you if you're very clear about your community's model citizens, it sets the goal and standard for everyone and everyone's like, "Okay, I that's what good looks like." >> Yes, >> they need to know what good looks like. And that's the easiest way to do that, identify them and publicly praise them. You know, an easy way to publicly praise people is to pin their post. >> It's so funny. It's literally two clicks, but it signals to the entire community, we want more of this. >> Yeah. And there's a good example I've got here. So, when me and Kirby were like rearranging the schoolers community, Kirby was like, I think we should tell people what we want. >> And I was like, I think we need to let it emerge because I don't even think we fully know what we want. >> Yep. And so when it emerged like a person saying they got very low churn and they're exactly what they did with their community. We pinned that post. >> Yep. >> And then something very interesting happens. People start modeling that. >> Yes. >> People learn very quickly. Oh, low churn in a high quality group. >> If I build that, if I get these results, screenshot my dashboard and share my story, there's a high chance I'll get pinned, too. >> You've just given away the source. Yeah, but it works. We've without telling people what we want. We've noticed this when we pin stuff, people do more of that. >> 100%. >> And so it really works. And then when you find these model citizens, you want to build deep relationships with them. These are very important people in your community. And so you they shouldn't be treated like everyone else. >> Yep. >> You can do one-on-one Zooms with them. DM them, meet in person, all of this. >> Yeah. And a lot of communities have one guy at the top that's the guru and everybody else peasants. They're normal community members. But that creates such a weird dynamic where if you are not just the one person who's super cool, who's the best person in the community, but you bring people up, then it makes a better dynamic where it's less weird. It's more natural. Like at a church, there's not just one person that's the best. There's a lot of people that form the congregation and there's a lot of leaders inside of the community. It works really well. >> And then you want to make them stars. So, you know, really build up their status. We kind of have started calling it internally like a school celebrity. >> Like, oh, Misha is becoming a school celebrity. Um, another thing we do is we shout them out on school news. So, we pull them up as examples in school news. And you I'm sure you've seen that. Y >> we include them as examples in the course which we've done earlier today and we also when we do our school games events they're the people speaking >> and so you know and we feature them more so like we're really trying to like blow them up. >> Yep. We want these people to become super famous. >> And when you have a group of people that are like that, everyone will follow that. And then the community is a real community. It's not just one person lecturing. Yes. It's a you've got 10 true regulars, 10 model citizens, 10 deep relationships, 10 friendships. It's all kind of the same thing. >> And you want to think of the carrot and the stick. So you want to publicly praise good behavior. If someone does a good post, pin it. We in schoolers, we have a category called gems. >> Yep. >> And so sometimes when someone does a good post, we put it in the gyms category. We pin it and then we comment on it and saying, "Wa, this is amazing. I just moved this to gems and pinned it." >> Yes. >> So like the person feels very loved. >> Yep. Even a simple like does this. If you like someone's comment, often people notice the founder. Oh, I just liked by this person, it's a good way to praise good behavior. >> Yeah. And you've got to moderate bad behavior, too. This is the stick, right? So, there's got to be an incentive and a reward, but also some kind of punishment for bad behavior. >> Yep. >> So, I like to do most of this not in public because it's just not positive. >> Yep. >> So, I try to deal with it in the DMs and things. So delete something, tell someone, hey look, I deleted this because of this. >> Yep. >> But if it's a real problem for the whole community, it has to be addressed publicly, too. >> Mhm. >> Like sometimes you need to state, hey, I've noticed things have started to go in this direction. >> This is not what we're here for. And you So you've got to kind of learn when it's right to do both. But praise should always be public. >> Yes. Um, and then do something fun. So, challenges are a great way to build culture. Like we've got the school games. Other communities have all kinds of different challenges like weight loss crafting. Maybe this month everyone's going to craft this thing and take a photo of it and share it. Or everyone should learn this song on the guitar, record yourself doing it. Yep. Yeah, >> challenges are a bit of work to set up, but I haven't seen anything that increases engagement as much as like a 30-day challenge, a 7-day challenge, where you say, "For this period of time, we're all going to try and do this thing." It crushes >> themes. So, one period in school games, we called it the season of madness, and it was pretty crazy. >> It was crazy. And then we even had one month which was called the battle royale which was the peak craziness >> where people weren't sleeping for days. >> Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. >> Um but it still builds the culture. >> Yep. >> And then shared experiences. So going through things together. Uh some of the live webinars we've done for school when we launch a feature. Yes. >> If I made a mistake >> Yep. >> that's a good shared experience for people. they remind me of it forever >> and it becomes a meme and a gif and all kinds of things. Um, and meetups. So, you know, you can if you're go I know who does this well, AI Jack. >> Oh, yeah. >> AI automations by Jack. And he when he's going to a new country, he'll DM everyone and be like, "Hey, let's meet up in London or let's meet up in Australia or whatever." >> Yep. Um, but your members can also arrange meetups, too. >> Yeah. And the pictures from those meetups are like the best asset ever. Nothing feels more like a community than when you see real people meeting up in real life. >> Yeah, for sure. You want people to share photos of those things. It's really good for the community. >> Yep. >> And it doesn't all have to be on topic. That's the other thing. Like >> good parties don't just talk about like lead generation. um you know they talk about other things too >> and so that that should almost be encouraged honestly >> a lead generation party >> which is why in this previous module the introduce yourself part you can see for fun I like to yes >> I didn't even in this has got nothing to do with this community it's just for fun I like to >> Yep >> because this actually I noticed this when I ran my mastermind people when they said that they liked golf or cigars or like whatever the other people who liked golf >> Mhm. >> identified those people. They started playing golf together. >> Yes. >> The people who liked guitars or whatever. So like the fun question even though it has nothing really to do with your community topic. >> Yep. >> It will actually build community better. >> 100%. A good example of this is when my community got a thousand members. We all played Minecraft together and did a speedrun to kill the Ender Dragon. I don't have a Minecraft community, but it was amazing. Shared experience, completely unrelated, but it bonded people. >> Yeah. And jokes, like nothing bonds people together like jokes and having fun with your members. Even like nicknames for people. >> Yep. Um, memes can be very powerful and I want to show you some that have emerged from schoolers because these are pretty cool. So, this one here, my therapist. So, what's really bothering you? >> Oh, that is painful. >> And only school people would like understand this one. This is a good one. this one. >> Yeah. Relatable. >> And this kind of makes my point about someone likes your post, you feel a little something. People commenting on your post, people engaging in a discussion under your post getting pinned. >> Yes. >> So, like this just goes to show that when you do this stuff, it works. So much so that it someone made a whole meme about it >> and this one was good. >> Took us a while to ship our affiliates feature, >> but it's here now. >> It's here now. So >> delete the meme. >> It's still a good meme. >> And what happens is when an inside joke starts to form like you can't force an inside joke. You can't just be prescriptive and be like, "Oh, this is going to be the group culture. There's going to be this inside joke." It'll bubble up and then you can keep repeating it and keep spreading it so that it stays. But you can't force it. >> Yeah. I would say the best thing, the best culture has to emerge and then you have to find the things that are good that you like or the things that stick >> and you have to like pour gas on them. >> Mhm. Yep. >> And keep bringing them up. Keep bringing them up. And the things you don't like, you have to kind of like >> Yeah. Yeah. >> Yeah. >> And it's a you have to Yeah. really good culture definitely emerges 100%. And here's the another funny video. >> This is a good one. >> Let's go. This just started as a little Easter egg, that little cat. But you know, it's funny that a quick story on culture and the cat. So like we had a cat in school at one point. >> Mhm. >> But then we just removed it because it was causing some bugs in in the software. Then I we just forgotten about it. Goose, who won the school games one month, he showed up at the hormones event and he had made merch that had the school cat on it. And >> I was like, "Hey, how did you even find that?" >> And then I was like, "I'm going to bring that cat back." >> So, I bought the cat back and made it different and better with like playlist and stuff >> and then it like took off again and now it's become like now to show you like what's happened with it. >> I mean, it's literally on this monitor. It's like everywhere. >> Well, it's schoolers icon. >> True. It's everywhere. >> Like it is school's group icon. school is. >> Yep. >> And so, you know, it's that's how good culture emerges. Um, and here's another video that someone made This is horrible. I can't stand this anymore. We need to help him. >> Join us now on school.com. >> Let's go. So I think when memes, jokes, and like even videos like that as people start making them, that's when you know you've got a good community and a good culture y >> going. And when people make those things, you need to remember them and praise them and keep bringing them back. Then OGs/ elders like all good communities or villages, they've got the wiser elders and then they've got the newer people. >> Yep. True. >> So people that have been in there for a long time, >> right? And there is there should be some respect and status to being an OG. >> Yeah. Yeah. There's something a lesson in there that we haven't articulated about like the best communities are diverse. like a garden if there's just or a field if there's just one type of plant, one bug can come along and completely ruin the whole field. But the best communities have different layers, different people serving different roles, different interactions, different elements instead of just like, you know what I mean? >> Yeah. Natural complexity that's emerged. >> Yes. >> Yeah. >> Yeah. Yeah. >> Um like a like a garden or a >> Yep. >> Yeah. Um, and then stories, you know, good stories about different things. Like the season of madness is a great story that I keep bringing up. >> Yeah, we we g for people who don't know, we gave away $100,000 for the person who won this prize or a cybert truck. >> We gave away four Cybert trucks and everyone just lost their mind. Um, >> yeah, that was crazy. Then merch, like merch is a great way to build community and you know we've got school merch and you can see the cat is now included in our merch. It wasn't included before but people like the cat so much. >> Yep. >> And then we tried to even include community members in the photos of the merch. >> Yep. >> Another thing we can show you is over here in this like cover image. >> I bet you people don't know. >> No, they probably can't see it. But we photoshopped community members onto the friends people here >> to show like not only is this a community for friends, but it's about these regulars, >> not just us. We're not in any of the images. >> So it's Evelyn on the right, then Calvin, then AI Jack, then Nav, and then Hamza at the top. >> So we've mentioned AI Jack on this call. We've mentioned Calvin in previous Hamza was mentioned as well. Nav was in the merch photos. It's the 10 true regulates. >> Yep. And inside a joke, Hamza is talking to a woman, >> which is what he teaches, >> which is what he does a lot of. So, like there's these little things hidden everywhere. >> Yeah. >> Um, awards like it can be a great way to build community. So, we've got these school games awards. We've got a challenge and awards. We're giving people status. We're making them feel special and we're building them up. as an example. >> Yeah. A big thing here is we did not start with any of this stuff. Like we used to do our weekly calls just on a laptop with Zoom. We've only got to this set later on. Your community will start so so so simple. Don't feel like you need all of these things and it'll come over time. Years. It'll take years. >> Yeah. And you want to celebrate wins and listen and empathize during struggles. So when people are winning or when the community is winning, really make everyone celebrate. But when everyone's having problems, address it and listen. >> Mhm. >> Don't try to like not address it. >> Mhm. >> So when we have a problem, we address it and then we'll talk about it on school news and we're like, "Sorry, look, here's how it happened." >> Um cuz you're you're going to make some mistakes. The most important thing is that you would you fix them. >> Yep. >> Yeah. >> And then this one's a huge one. Gather, organize, and curate the best resources. Y >> so we've found that over time communities there's a lot of shared wisdom that that emerges from communities >> and you want to if you're reading and listening and paying attention you you can collect this stuff and then every now and then I think it's a good idea to curate the best of it in a course and this is what we're doing right now in the classroom. So, you know, we we've taken everything we've learned from doing this this far and we're curating it >> and putting it into this training here. And so, it's like we didn't get these lessons ourself. >> They came from the community. >> Yep. >> And I think this is how the best courses form >> when they're natural. It's like the best wisdom from the community from all time just curated into a small small few modules. >> Yeah, that's good. >> Community wisdom. >> And so yeah, this is basically how you get engagement and 10 true regulars is you've you don't lecture people, you let them participate and you yourself participate and listen more than you talk. >> Yep. >> You involve them. You co-create the community together >> and you consistently show up and you're passionate. >> Mhm. You build friendships and relationships. You actually become friends with people. I think business people are like, "What you mean?" But they're a customer. >> Yeah. Well, you still can be friends with people. >> Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. >> Um and so building some deep friendships, >> just 10 people that are friends will keep a whole community alive. >> Yeah. >> And make it awesome. >> Yeah. >> Versus a thousand strangers don't really do much at all. And it's way more fun to run a community when you actually like the people inside of the community >> 100%. And then curate the culture. This there's no end to this because the community is always changing and you need to show up. You need to find your model citizens, praise them, become friends with them, make them stars, and then you these other things will emerge over time. And it's good to be on the lookout for these kinds of things. And to kind of wrap this this uh module, the best leader has the most passion. They lead by example. They show up daily, listen, and does whatever it takes for their members. By being the model citizen, others are inspired to follow. >> Wow. >> So you are the ultimate model citizen. You should be the most passionate. You should show up daily. You should listen. You should make friends with people. And you should constantly aim to improve and share. And when you do that, other people copy. And then when you praise them, more people will copy. And that's how you build a culture and an engaged community. That's how you build a a movement. >> Boom. How to grow your school. So in this video, we're going to show you how to grow your school, how to get more members, how to make more money. Um, and basically growth is just a simple equation. >> Yes. >> It's like traffic times your conversion rate equals your growth. >> Yes. So if you want to grow, the only two things that you can change is getting more traffic, more people to visit your school and improving your about page to increase your conversion rate. That's it. >> Yep. And I will say most of the time it's traffic. >> Yes. because you can fairly quickly get a conversion rate that's decent and then it's just about traffic. >> Yes. >> Yeah. And then here's what that looks like, you know, in real terms. So, you could have if you got 100 visits to your about page and you had a 20% conversion rate, that would mean you get 20 members. >> Yep. >> And if that was per day and you did it consistently for a month, you could get 600 members in a month, >> which is quite a lot. >> Yeah. So, it is just math. And yeah, we're going to break all of this down today in this uh module. So we'll start with just the most simple thing, but it's still amazing how many people get this wrong. There's like three steps to growing on school. The first one is you put your school link in your bio and you do that like this. So, here is an Instagram profile, >> and you can see you just put it in here. >> Yeah. >> It's actually harder to do than it sounds. >> Is that a joke? >> On Instagram, it is cuz you've got to use the app. >> Oh, yeah. >> Yeah. I tried to edit mine once on the desktop app and I It was actually kind of hard. >> Yeah. >> Um but on YouTube and other platforms, it's reasonably hard. >> Yeah. And if you have the app, it's like 30 seconds. This is the best thing you can do in terms of time that it takes to do and benefits that it can bring you because you do it once and it takes you 30 seconds to do but yet from then on every single day you can get members just from making this change. So 30 seconds members every day. >> Yeah. And so if you're using Instagram, LinkedIn, Facebook, you know, all the different social platforms, YouTube, Tik Tok, you can just go ahead update your link and bio to include your school link. >> Yep. >> Then what you do is you post about your school on social media. >> Yep. And here's an example from YouTube. >> Yeah. So Misha has a um community on school and not only does he have his school link in his bio, but he includes a link to his school community in every single video he makes in the description. >> Yep. >> And he says here like want a DevOps career that plays. Join 600 engineers blah blah blah link. Then even this video he's making here, he's showing his community. So this is what we call like a native mention. Yep. >> So, you know, including links in your social profiles is important in the bio and in the descriptions, but then actually talking about your >> your community and even showing it and being like, "Hey, look at what's going on in here." >> Yeah. >> Cuz that way it make, you know, people are watching the video and they might be like, "Oh, this looks cool." And then they see the link click. >> Yes. >> Right. >> Yep. So you do that and then you just be consistent and don't give up. >> Yeah, this is the biggest mistake >> and this is a great screenshot here or image like you know when you get started it's hard like you you might kind of suck. Everyone everyone does when they start by the way. >> Yes. >> And you know not many people might view your posts or click your links or whatever. Y >> but each time you do it, you get better and everyone starts the same way, which is they suck and their stuff doesn't get much attention. >> But they eventually crack it and I swear the main problem is most people just give up too early. >> Yes, it's so hard in the beginning to find the motivation. You have to have some like faith deep down that it's going to work out. And what I found useful is like what's the alternative? you're just going to quit and just stop and go back to what you were doing before. That's not an option. >> Yeah. So, those that that's what you do, but we're going to give you a little bit more information than that. We're not just going to >> That's it. That's the video. Yeah. Like and subscribe. >> For those that want a bit more information, we're going to go a bit deeper. >> Nice. >> So, in terms of traffic, where does it come from? Well, traffic sources, there's only like a few main places where traffic comes from. Social platforms, like traditional methods, and school's network effects. >> Yep. And this is data backed. We had a look at where people were getting members from school. And this is what we found. >> Yep. And we're going to quickly run through each of these platforms now. Um, so YouTube is the most common way people come to school. >> Yes. And how people do it is they put a link in their bio. They have a link in their description and sometimes a pinned comment that has a link as well. >> And they also mention it natively. So they talk about it in their video. >> Yeah. >> And here's an example. Nick Sarrive and he >> is making like 290 grand a month at the moment. And basically all he does is he has a YouTube channel about AI automations. He has his link in his bio and you can see there in the description of his videos, he has his link again and whenever he makes a video, he has the link inside of the video description in the pinned comment and he talks about it in his YouTube videos. And that's the strategy. Yep. And he he's making like 300 grand a month and literally all he does is YouTube. So he just makes videos. >> Yep. >> Talking about his subject, which is AI. He has his link in bio. He has his link in his description. >> Yeah. >> And he talks about his community, too. >> Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. >> That's all he does. So you don't need to have You don't need to like be successful at every platform. >> Yeah. It's impossible. It's very difficult. You need a huge team to do that. >> He makes 300 grand a month just with YouTube and school. >> These platforms are so big. Like YouTube has billions of users that even if you just master YouTube, that can take you 10 years to do. So everything you want, you can get from just one platform. >> Yep. And then there's uh Instagram. So again, link in bio post. And what we see working quite well on Instagram is doing a post and saying comment if you want it kind of thing. like comment me or comment keyword if you want this thing and then you DM the people that comment. >> Yeah. And I think why people do this is if you drop just a link in a post on Instagram or on Facebook >> Yep. >> the algorithm doesn't like it and it doesn't really show many people your uh your post. >> Y >> so instead if you say hey comment on this and say give I'm I'm interested in this thing. >> Yep. >> Then it forces everyone to comment. Then the algorithm thinks that that's engagement. So it gives you a lot of reach. >> Yeah. >> And then you link. >> Yep. >> So yeah, >> there's tools that you can use for this as well. A popular one is called Many Chat. M A nyc a t.com. But there's different tools you can use or you can just do it manually. Get people to comment and you can reach out to them via DMs and send them your school link there. >> Mhm. And you can also do stories and you can include a link in stories. >> Yep. >> And then again a native mention like you can just actually talk about your community in your videos or in your story or in your live or whatever it is that you're doing. >> Yes. >> And here's an example of Instagram. So school of hard knocks. Um they've got a lot of followers. They're quite these guys are blowing up at the moment. >> Yes. But you can see advanced strategy >> link in bio. >> That is it. >> Boom. >> And then it goes to the about page. This is some >> I'm struggling to to grasp this. >> This is al algebra. >> Um yeah. So link in bio and post and talk about it. >> Yep. >> And do it a lot. Now, Facebook, what is this platform different? >> So, what do you do? Link in bio. >> Yep. >> Post plus comment if you want it. Y >> So, this here works on Facebook, too. >> Yeah. Basically, anywhere you can DM people, this strategy works. So, it doesn't work on YouTube because you can't DM people, but all of the platforms that allow you to comment and DM the people that comment, this strategy crushes. >> Yeah. When you have a link in the description on YouTube, it doesn't doesn't hurt your distribution. Yeah. So, >> yeah. Then, native mention. So, here's an example. Here's Doug Borton. He's a OG schooler. >> Shout out Doug. >> And here's his uh link in bio. He has a little bit of a headline, too. Come join the number one free community. >> Boom. >> Looking good. What? >> Well, I thought he looked pretty good in that photo. Um, then Tik Tok. Maybe this one's different. >> Oh, this one actually, to be fair, kind of is because you have the Lincoln bio, which are the same. You have the native mention that's the same. But the one thing that people on Tik Tok do that crushes is they do live streams. >> True. >> So, there was one school games event that we went to, and maybe like a third of the room said that they won just by going live every day. And I don't know why it's so good with Tik Tok, but for some reason Tik Tok lives crash. >> Yeah. I guess the lesson here is like each platform has its own slight nuance. >> Yep. >> And the thing that all of them have in common is link and bio >> seems to work well. >> Yeah. >> Um but yeah, the comment if you're interested thing, Facebook and Instagram's great for that. >> Yep. And LinkedIn and even Tik Tok. >> Yeah. And then, yeah, Tik Tok lives is what we've heard from people. >> Yep. >> And this is Stephen Pope. Here's his link to his group. It's an AI group, um, AI content creation group, and he won the school games at some point, which you can see him there. >> There you go. >> Yep. Then LinkedIn. So, link bio again, post plus comment if you want it works great. And native mention works great. Here's an example we found. So this guy here, >> NJ Park, it looks like he teaches Microsoft, some software in Microsoft. >> Yep. And then you can see here, learn to make my reports. There's a link. Oh, >> boom. >> School community, right? Um, >> so there's a pattern here. Very clear pattern. >> Yeah. which is >> link in bio. >> Yeah. And then make content, talk about it. >> Yep. >> Um and do it consistently. >> Yep. >> And so that's how you use social platforms to grow your community. >> Yep. And we will be going deeper a little bit lower down on like what do you post and what cadence do you do and that sort of stuff, but >> that's the high level strategy. >> Yep. Then there's some traditional methods too and these work great. So if you've got an email list like Mailchimp or whatever, um you can broadcast a link to your community. Yep. >> And ask people to join it. >> Um or you can build it into one of your automation sequences or follow-up sequences if you're doing that. >> So a lot of people have a welcome sequence. When someone subscribes to an email list, they get a sequence of five emails, one per day or something like that. You can include your school links in there and that's just like passive. Whenever someone joins your list, your school gets promoted. >> And then you can also include it in your email footer or like the PS section. >> And I've seen some people do this in every single email. It's not super like right hook. It's not an aggressive call to action. It's just a subtle I've got a school community. I've got a school community. I've got a school community. >> Yeah. Then website. Um, and I know a community that's using uh the email list very well is Calligraphy School. >> Yep. >> Got 1.4,000 members paying N bucks a month. >> Yep. Pretty good. >> Then website, you can if you have a website, you can mention your school community on there, too. >> Here's an example. Samuel is an artist on school. He does oil paintings and his community is called Sam's Art School. You click on art school up here and then it tells you like want to join this community. You click this and it goes to his >> his art school. >> But a little tip for Sam, I predict that you would get more people joining your school if you just linked directly from the tab at the top of your website to school because at the moment people have to click once then click again, which a small fraction of people will do. If you just linked people to your school directly, you'd probably get more sales. >> Yep. And so if you've got a website, you can utilize that too to like get traffic to your school community. >> Yep. >> Um podcast. So if you've got a podcast, you can have a link in your bio, a link in the description. And I think most powerful with a podcast is probably a native mention. >> Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Like how many podcasts have you seen where they say like >> this video is sponsored by >> my Patreon or something and they say like >> come help support me basically. >> Yep. >> And it's baked into the content. >> Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Cuz people don't see the description much on a podcast especially on Spotify. So if you call it out even if you call out the URL on the podcast that helps as well. >> Yeah. And I think one of the best things you can do to promote your community is learn how to mention it natively. >> Yep. cuz the the Patreon native mention works well because they it's like support me, >> help me keep making this thing for you. >> Yes. >> Um like you could mention your community in a similar way or if it's a free community, you might mention it a different way. >> Like you could say, do you want to hang out with other people who are into hardcore history or something or whatever it is you're into? Or how would you like to hang out with other people that love playing Counter-Strike as much as you do? Yes. >> How would you like to see where they are on a map? Attend meetups. Like figure out how you can natively mention your community in your content. >> Mh. >> And then it becomes quite effortless and effective as well. >> Yep. >> Um there's also Oh, and here's an example. >> So this is called School Magazine. This guy interviews schoolers, >> William Rena. And um you can see he's got a school link in his book. >> I really hope one day he makes a physical magazine. That would be cool. We'll see. >> Mhm. Um and then paid ads. So you can run paid ads and drive traffic to your about page. Yep. >> The most popular one is Meta, which is Facebook and Instagram, but there's also Google. You might have heard of them. And there they are search in YouTube. Um, and here's an example. So, here's Evelyn Weiss. She has a community called Grow with Evelyn on school. Her school actually teaches you how to grow your school with ads, too. So, this is kind of a an inception example. >> Oh, it's meta. And you're talking about meta. >> Yeah, that is pretty meta. >> Oh, my brain is broken. Um, so here's one of her ads and you can see it links to school. >> Yeah. >> And it's a, you know, a lot of people I think like the paradigm shift a lot of people struggle to make in the beginning is you don't need to create a custom funnel >> to get people to join your community. You know, in the old days, you used to have to make like a WordPress website or a funnel with all of these different steps. >> Yep. Now you can literally just point people to your about page and it works. >> Yeah, >> the tracking is better than you'll get on your website. The analytics and metrics are really good, too. And it actually converts better than most people's custom funnels and websites. >> Yep. >> Um, and it's so easy to do. So, yeah, paid ads works well, too. And so these are a lot of different traffic sources, but any one of these things could be the sole source of traffic to your community. >> You only need one. >> You only need a master one, but most people tend to have a blend of a few, but they're strongest on one. Um, and then there's school network effects. So one of the beautiful things about school is once you have some momentum you get like a tailwind basically. >> Yep. >> So here's an example like affiliates. >> So once you've got say 100 members and let's say you've got 100 members and they're paying you 100 bucks a month you could say hey if you invite one of your friends to join my community um I'll give you 30% or 40% or whatever. >> Yep. And this works really well. Like a lot of groups get 20 to 40% of their members from um affiliates. >> Yep. >> And this group here is a good example of this. It's called Sirius Circle. It's all in French, so I don't really know what's going on. >> And this is our new goat. >> Yeah. He's currently a goat >> making $360,000 a month. It's kind of crazy. >> Yep. And there's a few things that are super interesting about this group. Like one of them is that it makes $360,000 a month. The other one is I think like 50% of his members come from affiliates. >> That's insane. >> I think he has the highest skew of like >> That's a Yeah. And how he does it is really cool. So like they have a call each week where they show what the top affiliates are doing. >> Mhm. >> And so then other members are like, "Oh, that's what's working." >> Nice. >> So then they start doing it, too. >> That's clever. >> And so when one person has a breakthrough, everyone gets better. >> Yeah. That's >> And then they're having breakthroughs every week. >> And so they're using the community dynamics to actually be better affiliates. >> So cool. It's working really well. >> Yeah, that's amazing. >> Um, it's also one of the fastest ways that people can just get an ROI, right? Like if you join this thing and you're paying 100 bucks a month, then you only need to refer like what, three people. >> Yeah. >> And now you're making a profit, right? >> Yep. >> Um, >> oh, and the other cool thing about affiliates is school set it up so that you can only earn commission if you're in the group. So, if you refer someone to a group, you're not going to cancel because you could lose your commissions if you do cancel. >> The other thing that's cool about this group um is his conversion rate, you know, he his conversion rate used to be a lot lower like in 0.5% and then he added this video and it it bumped it to 2.2. >> Yeah, that's crazy. That's more than quadruple. Yeah. >> Yeah. >> Just with one video. >> Yeah. >> So, >> when we talk about conversion rates in a second, like sometimes one change can dramatically change the group. >> It was two tweaks he made. It was the getting the affiliates to like brainstorm together on a weekly call. Yep. >> And making that visible to people >> and also this video on their about page. >> There's another cool thing about that group. Do you know the nickname he goes by on the internet? >> Uh, I think it's Anthony. >> Um, and then yeah, so affiliates can be pretty pretty big. And just to tell you like school, you know, this platform like I swear like 40 50% of our growth comes from affiliates, too. >> Yep. So, you know, we're driving traffic, but also our affiliates are helping as well. >> Yep. It's like a snowball, right? In the beginning, it starts small. You have to put in a ton of effort to get it going, and then once the snowball starts rolling, your friends start referring people. It gets easier over time. >> Yep. Affiliates tends to always start a bit slow, but then it gets it really picks up momentum. >> Yeah. >> And then there is discovery. So when you make a community on school and it's good if there's engaged members in there, the better your group is, the higher it ranks. And when it ranks higher, you'll naturally get more members. >> Yep. >> And just to show you what school discovery looks like, you can navigate to it by going to discover communities. And so here you can see the rankings. So, you know, you can rank uh well by making a good community and getting members, growing it. Uh and we rank by category, too. But also, probably one of the main ways people join communities is through search. >> Yes. >> And so, here is an example. If I search for the word crochet, then I can see number one here is crochet creations. >> Yep. And this group here by Hazel, she said that she posted no links anywhere. >> Yeah. >> She got all of her members, 247 of them, uh, just through school discovery. >> Crazy. >> This this like school discovery works really well if you have something people are searching for. >> Yes. >> So crochet is very specific. Someone will just go here and search for that and then they find it, right? Um, so discovery can work in in two ways. One is like SEO. You want to have like clear keywords to make sure people can find your group. >> Yep. >> The other way is just by making a better community. >> Yes. >> And so the beauty of the the school network effect is as you build your group, you will naturally be getting a boost from members referring their friends, which is like affiliates and school discovery. >> Yep. Um, right now School Discovery drives 27% of all memberships. >> Wow. 27. >> Yeah. >> Some groups it's a lot higher. Some groups it's more than 50% of their members come from Discovery. >> Wow. >> So, when you think about it, like half your members could come from at least 20% of your members could come from Discovery. Affiliates can make up a good portion of that, too. Then you're not just on your own in driving the >> Yep. the members to your group, right? You can be posting content on social and you've got your members helping too and the school platforms helping you too. >> So cool. >> So boom, that is traffic. The second variable was conversion rates. >> Yeah. So we've looked at all the data across like platformwide and for free groups the average conversion rate is 20%. Now, some groups are higher, some are lower. This is the average, right? >> Then for paid groups, the average conversion rate is 4%. And these are very good conversion rates, by the way, um, in terms of like averages for the whole platform, which is why you can use the about page as your funnel and sales page. Um, now obviously if you've got like these can move around depending on your price and the quality of the traffic and how good your uh about page is, but at least there's some kind of benchmark here. If your group's free and you're not at 20%, there's probably things you could improve. >> Yep. >> And if your group's paid and you're not at four, there's things you can improve. >> Yes. And that example I talked about here, this guy was at 0.5 and then he got 22 just by doing um a video. >> Pretty cool. >> Yeah. And at scale that's good, too. The other thing is it's hard to hold a high conversion rate at a high level of scale. Yeah. >> Um, but yeah, then now let's talk about what makes a good about page. So, we want to show people what it's like on the inside. >> It's so simple compared to what I can remember my first about page on school used all of these copywriting principles, these copyrightiting techniques. It was so complicated. Took me dozens of hours. And over time seeing what works I'm like oh I just need to show people what's on the inside. Is that it? >> Well on Amazon have you seen that feature called like peak inside? >> Yes and stuff. Yeah. >> Yeah. So that's one of the things that helped check out conversion rates the most. >> Nice. >> And then you know when you want to buy a product like you like to look at the photos I'm guessing right. You want to see what what is it? What is it is the main question right? And so just opening up Loom or your screen recording software, whatever it is you use, and just clicking around inside and being like, "Look, here's the community. This is what people post about in here. Here's the map. >> This is Look, you can see where people are. You can find a friend near you. >> Yep. >> Here's the classroom. And I make these courses in here that show you this." Just show people what it's like on the inside, on the outside. >> It's Yeah. You want to be direct and clear, use simple language. >> Yep. >> And state the features and benefits. >> Yes. >> So, I think the easiest framework is if you just show people what's in the inside, and then you tell them the physical things they get, whether it's a call a week or a course or a map, and then you say, "And this will help you or this will get you." Boom. So, there's you don't just say there's a map. You say there's a map so that you can meet up with people just like you. There's a call once a week so that you can hang out with other people or achieve this outcome that you want to get feature and then benefit. >> Yep. And examples. So, let's pull some up. Oh, what do I do there? So, there's schoolers that you can look at. We've got a little video. And then here's how we worded ours. You know, sometimes like it's the word imagine is useful for explaining what something is. Imagine a place where top community builders hang out and share what works. Yes. >> Then here's what you get. Boom boom boom boom boom. >> And it's literally just feature training benefit. How to start a community? Feature weekly news benefit live calls featuring cool communities, spicy guests. >> Did I just say spicy guests? I mixed special and juicy. >> Thanks for that. Um, another common pattern I would say is using emojis as bullets. >> Like it can break up the text to just bring draw your eyes to like what the benefit is, right? >> Yes. >> Um, so just clear, right? Then there's photo project here. So they've got a video, they've got some images. So she's here. She's promoting her free trial. She offers a free trial. Um, some testimonials. This is another common pattern. >> And often you can just show posts from within the community instead of making a other testimonial. If someone posts a win in your community, just screenshot that and put it on the about page. >> Yeah. So, here, turn years of photos and video chaos into one simple safe system. Um, hi moms, I've got you. Does this sound familiar? So, >> and then imagine if you could >> So, you know, it's probably useful if you look around on Discovery and look at some, you know, if a group's ranking quite high on Discovery, chances are they've got a decent conversion rate. >> Yep. >> Because they've got members, it's growing, it's engaged. If they've got a good conversion rate, chances are they are able to explain what their community does. >> Yes. >> Right. So look around at some different about pages and kind of it'll get the it'll start like sparking some ideas in your mind for how you can explain what your group is. >> Y >> here's another one um the acting lab. And here you can see what you get bonuses. Boom. >> Another pattern is they call out who they're targeting. So this one says hello there. Dedicated actor 18 plus from North America or Europe. The one before said, "Hi, moms. Just call out who you want to join the group." >> This guy's from Stranger Things, right? >> Yeah, he's an actor in Stranger Things. He was at the last school games event. Shout out Tristan. But the one thing about about pages I want to say is that you don't need to get it perfect before you start trying to get traffic. I've seen a lot of people join school and then they spend weeks trying to improve their about page. I think that it's much better to spend an hour getting it as good as you can and then realize that the more people that join the group, the more you'll learn what they want and the better you'll be able to make the about page. So, it's not something you do once and get it perfect. You keep doing it continuously forever. >> And the other thing is that say you have a 2% about page conversion rate, you can't 100x your about page conversion rate because you get to 200%. Doesn't make sense. >> But you can 100x the traffic that you get. So, it makes a lot of sense to put a lot more effort on getting traffic instead of tinkering around inside your about page for days on end. >> Yeah. Yep. And then some of you guys might be wondering, okay, this is great, but what if I don't have an audience? Like, I get it. I put my link in my bio. >> Two followers. >> Um, what do I do? >> My one follower, >> my zero followers >> clicked it. Now what? Um, so what if you don't have an audience? Well, you should start. >> Yes. >> And you know, if you want to make money on the internet, which is pretty sweet, like is pretty nice, I will say. Um, it's very hard to do that if you don't make any content because that's what the internet is. >> Yep. >> Right. You need to have some stuff on there in order for people to notice you. >> Yep. And so you really should start if you want to do it. >> I think a good way I look at it is like where is attention going at the moment? You can walk outside. You'll see people on Instagram. You'll see people on YouTube. You'll see people on Tik Tok. And if that's where attention is in order for you to build a business on the internet, you need to get in front of that attention. And if all the attention's on YouTube and Instagram and Tik Tok or whatever, go there to capture some of that attention. >> Yep. And so you might be wondering, well, how do I start? >> Yep. >> So I think we've we've kind of broken this down for you. So I think the first choice is platform. And I think you should pick the platform you consume on the most because you probably already understand it naturally by being a consumer of it. >> Yep. >> So like I love YouTube. So you know, Skill News is on YouTube. >> Um but some people love Tik Tok and so >> or Instagram, right? Yep. >> Um, then format. So, you want to pick a format that feels right for you. And, you know, one format could be a tutorial or you could just do a screen share. You could do a vlog or a podcast. >> Um, picking a format is really um important. Mhm. >> Create the content that you want to consume because whatever you like to consume is probably the thing that you want to create. So just like what do you love to consume or what sort of content do you wish existed and then make that because if you wish it existed, chances are other people wish it existed as well. >> Yeah. And also the most important thing to making content is consistency. Mhm. >> Like in order to get in order to get good at something in in order to like really succeed, it's going to take some time. >> Yes. >> And most people fail because they give up. >> Yes. >> So you need to be very intentional with your choices here because you're trying to choose something that you're going to enjoy doing >> so that you do it consistently >> so that you succeed. >> Yep. >> Right. And so, you know, with school news, for example, we chose this format, which is me sitting next to Kirby looking at the computer talking about school. >> Yes. >> Because that's actually what I do all day. >> Yep. >> I sit at my computer and I even made sure it's the same computer. >> Yes. >> And Kirby even sits on that side of me and we talk about school. Yes. >> I also like onepage Google Docs. Yes. You know, >> and that's really important if we're going to be doing this consistently. >> 100%. The other one is a a schedule. >> Um, so you want to pick a schedule that feels right for you. >> Yeah. When I first started, I did daily videos and I think that can get you in the habit really quickly of creating cuz you wake up every day. You have to make something by the end of the day, which is really beneficial, but a lot of people do weekly as well. I'd say daily or weekly are the best schedules in the beginning, but you can just pick whatever you feel confident that you can keep doing for a long long long time. Mhm. >> Yep. And we have heard a lot of people when they say they went daily, they did grow a lot more. >> Oh, yeah. >> Yeah. >> Um ideas. So, what do you make videos about? >> I honestly think the best thing to do is to immerse yourself in the market to see what people want. >> Yes. >> So, you know, ask yourself like what is my market and where are they? >> Mhm. >> And markets are like communities in a way, right? like a community like schoolers where people are talking you can see what pe what schoolers want >> what topics like churn is a hot topic con about page conversion rate where where do you get your traffic from >> um yeah >> so you can see what people want um you can also attend the conferences like if you're into video games there's different video game conferences >> y >> um that's good to immerse yourself too and just following the podcast or the channels or the news of that industry. >> Yes, >> immersion is a great way to learn >> 100%. I think that in all niches there's two sides. There's the creators and then there's the viewers of the creators. And the more you immerse yourself in the market, you understand what the creators are making and you understand what the consumers want to see. And then what happens is you find like a gap in the market, you're able to think, oh, hold on a second. People really want to see this sort of content, but nobody else is making it. If I fill that gap, then I can really grow quickly. >> And then you also want to keep a list of ideas like a Google Doc or Apple Notes, whatever you use. >> Yep. >> And then when you have these ideas, you can just write them down and then when you go to make a video or a post or whatever, you've got a list of ideas. >> Yep. >> Yeah. Then video production, keep it simple. Most people start with their phone. >> Yes. Like you can actually fully succeed just with your phone. >> Yeah. >> Um even school news it looks fancy now but it actually started by just us doing Zoom and recording it. >> Yes. >> And so yeah >> and one tiny note like it says video production there but you can also grow on Twitter or LinkedIn and not make any videos if you don't want to show yourself on camera or a podcast if you just want to do audio. >> Yep. And I will say the secret >> to all of this is that everybody sucks on day one. >> Yes. >> And it takes a long time till it all comes at once. >> Yes. >> And here's an example. So the person who has literally got the most views on YouTube is like Mr. Beast, right? >> And so surely he's an exception. Surely when he made his first video he didn't suck. Well, surely when he made his first video, he got a million views. He got like none >> for like one, two, three, four, five years. >> In fact, you can do better than this. >> 100% better than this. >> You can do a lot better than this. >> Unlucky, Mr. Beast. >> Um, >> sorry, Jimmy. >> So, yeah, this just goes to show, right? Like, in my whole first year of entrepreneurship, I made no money. >> Flex. >> Yep. was >> and I didn't even have the bright idea to start making an audience. So, in my first year, I made no money and I had no audience. >> Yep. >> Um Yeah. And you know, I'm pretty sure Hozi didn't even make content for his first few years. >> Yeah. He said like you don't need it. You just need to run ads. >> Yeah. Horoszi didn't start making content till I think 2020. >> Yeah. Really recently. And now he's huge. >> Yeah. And so the secret really is is that you know you suck at the beginning and that's why most people don't even start >> cuz they think the people that do succeed don't suck at the beginning. >> Mhm. >> So they start and then you don't give up and then you get better better and then all of a sudden you have a breakthrough and it explodes. >> Yes. >> You might go from zero to like 100 grand a year to 300 grand a year very quickly. >> Yeah. Another thing that stops people that I think more people should talk about is like judgment of your friends and family. I know so many people that want to start creating but don't because of what their friends or family will think. And you just have to get through that and think I don't care what they think of me. You've you've got to break through that belief otherwise you'll be stuck for forever. >> Yep. And so that is the secret. So to recap this, to grow your school, you need traffic times conversion. It's going to give you growth. You want to put your school link in your bio. Post about your school on social media and share your links. And be consistent and don't give up. I swear most people give up just before they have that breakthrough. >> Yep. >> Yep. So that's it for this module. See you in the next one. >> See you later. >> Yes. So today we're going to cover Kirby's mullet, a road map update, and then we're going to do a little training on how to monetize your school, how to make money on school. So first up, let's rate Kirby's mullet >> priorities. >> Look at the sides out of 10. Zero to 10. >> Eddie from school support did my haircut. Don't >> Don't do that. >> Don't do what? I don't know. Just >> bias the results. >> All right, give them Have we got any other shots, Johnny? So they they can see it. >> We need a mullet cam, Johnny. >> Yeah, that's their side. Look, straightforward. >> Yes. Yes. All right, we can tick that one off. >> Thank you. >> We'll tally up their score later. Um, road map update. So, in progress, native live streaming. It's still in progress, but it's so close. >> Very close. We could have shipped it today without recording, but we're like, it's pretty important. Yep. So, by this time next week, it should be live. >> Let's go. >> Yeah, we're just getting those finishing touches, including recording, which is really important, I think. Um, and then subscription tiers, that's like end of September or early October. >> Nice. >> Um, >> but we got a teaser. >> Yeah. And we'll we'll give you a little like demo of this one today as well. And so that's the road map. So now let's talk about how to monetize your school. So this is this is going to be a course module in school 101. >> Yep. >> Yeah. So here we go. How to monetize your school. So, you know, there's over a hundred,000 community builders on school right now, and they're collectively earning over a billion dollars a year with their schools. >> Insane. >> And the incomes range from like 500 bucks a month to $350,000 a month, which is pretty crazy. That's like a lot of money to earn with a single community. >> Yes. >> And price points range from like $1 a month to $10,000 a month. >> Yes. And this module will show you everything we've learned from like doing this for years and observing all of this. >> Yep. And there's people from all ages, all categories. The variety is actually insane. >> Yeah. So, let's start with business models. So, this is probably one of the first choices you need to make if you're planning to monetize. So, there's these are the different ones that you can have. Like you can have a free community which is how almost everyone starts >> and it is the most common uh one and here's an example. It's called the Aspen way. It's by the UFC heavyweight champion Tom Espanol and it's just a free community about uh MMA. >> Yep. >> Right. Very common type of community. >> Then subscription which is just a single price paid community. Yes. Another very common one on school. Here's an example. Wealthy plumber. He charges 99 bucks a month. He's got 900 members. >> I think he's making like 60 grand a month with plumbing stuff, which is really cool. >> Yep. This is very common. A price point in between like 10 bucks and 100 bucks a month. Then >> these are two very common ones. Um, and then with these new features that are shipping very soon, uh, we're going to introduce premium and tiers. >> Hello. >> And I'll show you a little demo of what this might look like or what it will look like. So here, if you go to settings and you go to pricing, >> what's this? >> Right now, most people, you know, just have a free community. It's free by default. Pretty simple. But let's say you want to charge a subscription price, just one simple price. Yep. You can set your price. You can have a monthly price >> or an annual only price or a monthly and annual option. Yep. Right. >> That's what people have right now. Free and paid basically >> and one time. >> Yep. And we'll get to one time soon. But then soon you'll be able to do uh premium >> which is where you have one free tier. Yep. >> And up to like two paid tiers. >> So here you set your price. You can set monthly only, annual only, or monthly and annual. >> Yep. >> And you can have an optional VIP tier, too. >> And you add your benefits. Boom. Boom. Boom. Um, so that's premium. >> Yep. Most people will join for free and then you can upsell them to the paid tier. >> Yep. And this will be good because your actually I can probably just show you what this will look like. So if you've got a free group uh if you're using premium model your group will still appear as free >> right? So we'll show the lowest price on the about page. People when they click join group they can select their plan. >> Amazing. >> And so they could join for free, right? Or they could join a premium tier. >> Yep. Yeah. And then when they click on this, then they get the option to pay monthly or annual if you're doing both options, right? And join. So yeah, it just introduces tiers. And the difference between premium and tiers is simply like premium must have one free tier. >> Yep. >> And tiers is just three. It can be up to three paid tiers. >> Amazing. >> Yeah. And so these will become options very soon when we ship this uh subscription tiers feature. Um why this is good is you know we shared in the previous module that the average conversion rates for free groups are 20% on the about pages. Paid it's four. Right? >> It's really awesome to share your free link everywhere >> and get members with a high conversion rate. Right. >> Yes. >> But then when you go to paid, that conversion rate drops down. You get less members. But if you do premium, you basically can get the best of both. You get that high conversion rate with members joining. But then you can work on your mechanisms to get people to upgrade to >> uh to paid. >> Yeah, it's so cool. Also, at the moment, a lot of people have a free group and a paid group, which is great. It crushes, but it's quite a lot of work to manage two groups. This allows you to have both a free and a paid in one group so you only have to manage one community. >> Yep. Yeah. This is currently done on school actually. It's like people just have multiple groups. Yes. >> Yeah. And >> some people like it, some people don't. >> Yep. >> The people who don't will like premium. >> Yes. >> But some people will still want to separate and have two groups. And that's totally fine. You can still do whatever you want. Um, and tiers is cool because, you know, you might want a lower price point to get in. Like you you might want to let's say you're charging 99 bucks. You might want to add a lower tier like a nine. >> Yep. >> Just like what we did recently and then you might want to add a higher tier like 999 which is more like your exclusive coaching or mastermind or whatever, right? >> Yep. >> Um, so these these two new things will open up a lot of possibilities for people. Generally what happens in any community there's like different segments. So for us we had the standard people at $99 a month but we also had these hobbyists starting to use the platform where $99 a month was quite a lot. So introducing new tiers for different segments is a way to monetize every segment of the market and expand your reach if it's a lower tier. >> Yep. And I'll give you a little bit more of a a look at what tiers will look like. So then for courses and upgrades, when you have your courses in your classroom, you can make them unlock when people reach a level or if people pay a price or if they wait a certain amount of time or just members you select, right? >> But there will be this extra option or members on premium tier. >> Very cool. >> So you could make it so some course content is only available to people on the premium tier by selecting private and then premium. >> Yep. Or you could make it so that when members get to a level like level six or they're on premium >> which gives you this grind or pay mechanism which is like common in video games. It's like hey you can just pay and get it get this special tier or you can just like contribute a lot and grind your way there. >> So cool. And how this might look in the classroom is so this >> I just wrapped it. >> This is a um there's >> you should buy it. >> Who did this? >> Um it doesn't make any sense. There's Pikachu. There's this description. >> Sounds a bit strange. >> Anyway, um this is buy now or upgrade to premium, right? I don't know why you would do this, but you can. >> I think that's a flex because if your premium's like $20 a month, price anchoring it at a,000 a month or you can get it with $20 a month with premium, it makes the 20 a month seems so attractive. >> I shouldn't use that word when talking about nude pics. Um then in this option you can get to level six or upgrade to premium or the most common one you know the one that most people are probably going to use which is this which is just you unlock this with premium. So some free members might have access to some courses but then premium members might have access to other courses. >> Yes. >> So what happens when you click this? Let's say I click on this one. >> It would pop up like this. It would tell me more about the course. I click upgrade to premium. and it will show me what my current plan is and then I can >> change plans. >> Yeah, at the moment if you want to put someone from free to paid inside of the same community, you have to kick them out and get then get them back in. But this will mean that people can go from free to paid in one community without any weird leaving and rejoining. >> This is a generous tier too if you look at the benefits. >> Cooked breakfast. I will pay your mortgage. I will do anything you want. Um, and then there's the calendar. >> Yeah. >> So, >> it would convert. Don't mock it. >> Wait, wait, wait. To zoom out, basically you upgrade for a tier and most people will allow that tier to unlock calendar events and courses. >> Yes. >> Okay. So then here when you're like adding a calendar event, uh not only will you be able to do it on school school native live streaming, but then down here access, you can make it for all members, members at a level or members on a tier. And you could select you could click this and then select the tier or members that are in a course. >> Yep. >> Previously, we could do it through courses, but that seemed kind of messy, honestly. >> Yeah, >> I can imagine most people are just going to gate things by tier. Yes. >> Like, hey, this event on the calendar and these courses, they're available to premium tier. Yep. >> Right. >> Makes sense. Um, and then what would it look like on the calendar for people that aren't on the uh premium tier? Well, they'll still see it on the calendar, which is nice. But when they click it, it will pop open like this. Zoom link unlocks with premium and or school call link. Yep. >> And then upgrade to premium. Nice. >> They click that and then they see the same screen again. >> Let's go. >> Um, so this gives you multiple paths to get your free members to upgrade to premium or VIP. Or if you have a lower tier, like let's say it's standard premium VIP, >> it gives you a path to get PE, you could start lower ticket and get people to >> uh ascend up, >> right? >> So cool. So, this really changes the game on school, honestly. And yeah, that's what it it looks like basically. >> It's pretty cool cuz we just introduced our first tier and saw how valuable that can be and like pretty quickly everyone on school will be able to do the same thing. >> Yep. Then one time, >> so you can do this, too. So, here's this guy Eddie Abu who's like a professional weightlifter and he just charges 397 bucks one time. >> Yep. A lot of high ticket guys charge one time. >> Yep. Nothing wrong with doing this. I mean, I will say most people on school run memberships which are like recurring revenue subscription. >> Yep. >> Right. Um but this is an option too. >> Yep. Or this might be good for like popup kind of events. Like let's say you're doing just this little popup community. It's a one-off kind of thing. Hey, join this thing for 100 bucks. We'll do this this stuff. And then >> it's like a challenge or a cohort or something. >> Yeah. Um or you might just be selling a course honestly, but moving it onto school instead of on some other platform and you just want to charge a onetime price. Yeah. >> Um so those are the main models. You've got free subscription which is a single price which can be monthly or annual or both. Premium which is one free tier and up to two paid or tiers which is three paid or two to three paid. >> Let's go. >> And one time. So those are the the business models. >> Very cool. >> And on school you can also create a custom combination of any of these. >> Yep. So, like we said earlier, you can have two groups or many groups. So, you could have a free group, but then you could also have a paid group. Then you could have an even more expensive paid group. >> you could have 200 groups if you wanted. >> Some people have a lot of groups. >> Um, so you can do that or you can also use courses, right? Because with courses, if I go to the classroom, you can charge for a course. >> Yep. >> Right. Um, so you could have a free group with just one-time purchases inside. Yes. Right. >> Or you could have a one-time purchase group with some one-time purchase courses. >> Or you could have a subscription group with some one-time purchase courses. Or you could have a tears group with some one time like you can literally do anything you want. >> Yes. >> That doesn't mean you should. >> Yeah. Most people just do subscription >> and then soon with the option of premium and tiers, I imagine people will be doing premium tiers and free. >> That's like what most people will do. >> Yeah, I would highly recommend just keeping your model simple. >> Yeah, you probably just broke some people's minds right there. >> Well, I'm just saying that you can do whatever you want. >> You can't do whatever you want. Yeah. >> Yeah. Including like ruining your life. Um free trials. You can also layer those in. So you could have, you know, a you could have a subscription group. If I go to pricing, um, and you could have a free trial as well, right? >> Um, free trials are very common actually, and a lot of people use them cuz let's say you've just got, let's say you're using the subscription model and your group is 50 bucks a month. pretty simple, clean, but then you're not getting as many people join as you want. So, you're like, "Oh, what if I gave them a 7-day free trial?" >> Yep. >> This can work. I would highly recommend free trials if you want more people to join. >> Mhm. >> However, if you don't need more people to join, you don't need to do free trials. >> Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. >> Right. So, and some people try them and they're like revolutionary for like their their business. They turn on free trials, way more people join, they make way more money, right? >> Other people turn it on, >> their landing page conversion rate doubles, >> but their free trial conversion rate is like 50%. >> So, they're actually just making the same amount of money. >> Yeah. >> But they're cycling more people through the community. >> Yep. >> I do know, and this is an interesting thing, too, is like churn does seem to be lower on free trials for obvious reasons because the right people join. >> Yeah. That makes sense. >> But one of the trade-offs is that if you have quite a strong community culture, getting a lot of new people in can sometimes ruin the like Airbnb community feel, which is like no owners, only people passing through. And so you the me existing members don't know who they should be friends with because they don't know if they'll be here tomorrow. Right. >> That makes sense. >> Yeah. Um and then you can also do annual. I will say most people just have a subscription price and they have a monthly and annual option. That's probably the most common. >> Yep. >> Um Yeah. >> Well, free I guess is the most common but most >> of paid I'm talking about. Yeah. Cool. >> So business models that's that >> you can do anything and if you're listening to this and you're feeling stressed and overwhelmed because there's a lot of options. These are some stages of evolution that we recommend. >> This is what tends to happen. So people start free. >> Yes. and you're trying to figure it out. >> What are you trying to figure out? Well, what you're doing. Yep. >> Like, what is my group about? >> I saw a dude's group the other day and it was called I don't know what I'm doing, right? So, like that. We should really figure that out. >> You kind of kind of need that one figured out. >> Um then, so you're trying to figure out, hey, what the hell is this thing that I'm building? >> Yep. >> And who is it for? Why should someone join? And then you're trying to grow it like in the beginning you a lot of people are just stoked to get someone to join for free. >> Yep. >> That's actually a good milestone. >> Yeah. >> And then getting them to engage. Once you get them to join, will they like engage with your content? Say something. >> Yep. >> And then do they come back? >> Like do they come back tomorrow or like in a week or whatever? >> Yes. Once you achieve these things like you know what you're doing, you're able to get members, people are engaging, people are coming back. >> Y >> you have like the start of like >> well you've got like product market fit in a way. Now it's just like are people willing to pay money >> for something in here. Yep. >> Right. But this has to come first unless you are already established and you have an audience and you already know people are going to pay money. >> Yes. >> Yeah. So if you don't know, start free. And if you can just get a bunch of people together about a topic, then monetization becomes so much more simple because they'll literally tell you what they want. >> They'll tell you what they want. Yeah. >> Then with then I imagine people are going to go to premium next. >> Yep. >> And at this stage, you want to figure out what people will pay for and then you want to add a paid tier. >> Yes. >> So we've seen people start with a free group. they figure out what people want and then they create another group and they make it paid, right? But with tiers and premium, you won't need to do that extra group, right? You could just do it in the same one. >> Um, and then you can put those benefits on the paid tier. >> Mhm. >> And that way you still keep your free conversion rate, which is like, you know, 20% plus >> and then you still get your paid. So it's the best of both worlds. >> Yes. >> And there is some nice synergy between the two. >> Mhm. >> Yeah. And that's probably better than just flipping your free group to a paid group because then you lose your flow that's coming through the free group. >> Yeah. >> But you can do that if you want to as well. >> Yep. Then subscription. And this is when you don't want any free members. You only want paid. >> Y. So some people if they've like let's say you've got a million person audience or a huge audience even a 100,000 200,000 person audience you'll probably just go straight to subscription charge a price send people straight there and they'll buy and >> yeah fine >> your like YouTube channel is kind of like your free group that's the thing that you're using to warm people up get people to know you and you can go straight to paid if you want to >> yeah and sometimes when you know when you get bigger and more established you actually have the problem of too many members, >> too many people are trying to join my community, which seems like a luxury to a lot of people, but it happens eventually. So, that's when you might just go subscription, like you don't have a free option, right? >> Um, and then there's tiers, which is you have a ladder of three membership options. >> And I forget if I've got a like this one could be, what's a good example of this? So I could say like this could be 9.9 99 and then let's say this is 999, >> right? >> And this wouldn't say free, it would say like standard. >> Yes. >> And so here you would you would have some set up like this where people might get I think Samuel Herp's a great example of this actually. >> Yeah. Yeah. >> He actually has a free group. >> This is Samuel Her Sam's Art School. I don't have a link but people can find it. Um then so he has a free group. Then he has a low ticket group which is like 10 bucks. >> Yeah. >> And then he also does one-on-one coaching which is about a grand a month. >> Yep. >> And he gets on Zoom with people and he actually coaches them how to paint. >> Yes. >> Like he's like you know I don't know what he says like point paint point paint there or paint there or whatever. Um, and so, you know, he could achieve all of this in one, which would be pretty cool. >> Yes. >> Yeah. And so these are the stages of evolution we tend to see. >> Yep. One thing I will say though is that it's hard enough to just get one tier or one price working well. Don't feel like you have to go from zero to three tiers straight away. Like even school was just $99. >> It's hard enough to figure out what the you're doing, honestly. Yeah. Like that even took me a while like >> um like figuring out what you're doing >> and get like where do I get members from? How do I get them to join? How do I get them to say something? >> Yes. >> That's most people's first step. >> Yes. >> And that's a big one. Yes. >> And it all starts there. Then we'll your paid tier will come. >> Yes. >> And don't even worry about the other ones. >> Yes. Just start with one. >> Yeah. Unless you're more advanced and you're ready to go straight there. Yeah. So now people might be wondering, well, okay, cool. What should I sell? Well, what do people want? And you might be wondering, how do I know that? Um, well, if you have a community and you've figured out what you're doing and people are showing up and talking, it should be pretty damn obvious. >> Yeah. Listen to them, read the community, speak with them, you'll figure it out. >> Yeah. If you show up daily and hang out with this group of people and give it some time, it will be obvious. >> Yep. >> If it's not obvious, you're probably not doing that. >> Yeah. And then you can also get ideas by looking at what other people are selling. >> This could be in your particular market. >> Mhm. >> Like hobbies or music or whatever. But you can also look at other markets. >> Looking at other markets is really a good idea, honestly. >> And like stealing the insights and bringing them to your market. >> Well, yeah. just like, hey, look at these kinds of benefits that people are offering in finance and no one's doing that in music. What would happen if I did that in music? >> It's like a gap. >> Yeah. Well, it's just, >> you know, sometimes people get into like a little bubble or echo chamber and everyone in music is doing the same thing, but you can get these breakthroughs by looking at other other categories. >> That's good. >> Yeah. Um, and what we've seen is paid memberships typically include a combination of these things. So there's community and this is like an exclusive club or membership like hey if you uh pay n bucks a month you get access to this club basically. >> Yep. Higher quality than elsewhere. >> Yeah. And this alone is like can be a reason for joining a paid thing. >> Yeah. Some people have no courses and no calls just the community. >> Yeah. They only have that. >> Yep. >> Yep. And then courses. So, this is like tutorials that share how to achieve a transformation or something >> like how to play this slayer song or how to paint this mullet um whatever. Then calls and this is like calendar events. This could be to like hang out as a group and meet other people. It could be a Q&A session with the creator or maybe the >> maybe the group owner has arranged for some expert to come in. >> Yep. >> Right. That's common too. And everyone gets to ask the expert questions and they record it and stuff. >> Um it could also just be some fun hangout call. Honestly, >> drink some beers. >> I'm waiting for someone to do a happy hour call on school. That would be pretty fun. >> Yeah. um or access to >> experts or other amazing people. Yes. Or something else. Um I don't know what though. Then events. So this could be virtual or in person. Um, you could have a special event like you could show up and watch someone do something. >> What is happening this episode? >> Yeah, my example wasn't very good. >> You could have a mastermind. You could hang out and play football. >> Yep. Um, could be what's an example of a virtual event. >> Well, like some game that you play together. >> For doing some of these right now. They call like workshops or something like that. >> Yeah. He has like a presentation that you run people through. >> Yeah. He like teaches people for a few hours like here's how to solve this problem or here's how to do this. >> Yeah. People even call up and you can speak with them back and forth. >> Yeah. Or it could be inerson events. >> Yes. >> This is very common too. Like this could be really cool if you put this on like your VIP tier. >> Oh, inerson meetups. >> Yeah. Like once every 90 days you might get these VIPs together in person. People pay a lot of money for meetups. >> That that really differentiates a high tier. It's like, oh, I'll get to hang out with these people get to do something. >> Yep. And you can get pictures there and it feels real instead of just online. >> Um services. >> Yeah, this is a big one. A lot of people when they get started, if you're not able to sell like co like a course or something cuz a lot of people are experts when they create a course, you can just do work for people inside of the community. Like if you have a YouTube group, you can make thumbnails for people. Or if you have a knitting group, you could knit things for people. >> Yeah. This a lot easier to sell. >> This is common like with Samuel Herp, the Samuel Herps art school example, >> his high tier, which is like a,000 bucks, he teach he literally gets on Zoom and shows you how to paint. >> Or you can pay 11 bucks and look at videos of him telling you how to paint. >> Yes. >> Like it's it's a it's a coaching or >> Yeah. >> It's not quite done for you. He's not painting your painting. But >> yes, >> um >> although he could literally sell paintings and that is done for you. >> Yes. >> Like if people are in your group and they're doing something and they're struggling with that thing, they're not very good at doing that thing, you could just do it for them and charge for that. >> Yep. And that's very common actually. So like >> some people have training on how to run like ads like Facebook ads, but then there's a higher tier where it's like I'll do it for you or my team will make your video thumbnails or whatever. My team will actually clip your videos into shorts. >> Yes. >> Or we can teach you how to clip it into shorts. >> And when you're getting started, it's easier to do it than it is to teach it. People will pay you with less credibility to do the thing than to teach the thing. >> Yeah. Cuz often people that have the money, they're just like, "Oh, screw this. I'm not going to watch this video. Can I just get you to do it?" >> Yeah. >> Um, so yeah, you can come up with a nice kind of balance. You could just have you could have like free training which covers the basics, a paid tier that's lower ticket which shows you how to do it and then a higher one which is like I'll do it for you. >> Yes. >> Yeah. Um and then exclusivity. So, you know, you could get exclusive merch drops if you're on the paid tier. >> Um I've seen this with musician communities and music communities. It's like, hey, if you're in our membership, like you get access to exclusive merch. So, this isn't on our normal merch store. Like, you get access to this exclusive stuff. >> Y >> it might be physical products, too. >> Mhm. >> And concert tickets. So you get like you might get your concert tickets included or you might get first >> they you might be able to buy them days before others can to make sure you get it or you might get a discount or maybe it's a you get to sit in a separate part or something, right? >> Um these >> paid memberships typically include a combination of these things. You do not need all of them. Um again like we're trying to show you everything you can do. That doesn't mean you should do everything. >> Yes. >> Like just start with free and see what people want and then just give them that. Don't give them more than that. >> Mhm. >> Because you want them to pull it from you instead of you overwhelming them with they don't need. >> That way you'll end up with a really nice thing. >> Mhm. >> Yeah. Um and they will pull it from you if you're sparing in what you give to them. Yeah. But if you if you don't let them pull it from you and you just give them a whole bunch of you won't actually know what they like and don't like. >> Yes. And it's way harder to remove things >> and then you'll just keep adding. Yeah. >> Trying to fix the problem >> and then you get a migraine. >> Well, then it will just suck. Yeah. Um, so how much should you charge? Well, we can tell you that the average price for memberships on school platformwide is about 50 bucks a month, >> right? But some people are charging like 4,000 a month. Some are charging $1 a month. >> Yeah. >> Um, you know, so that that's interesting. Then generally higher price equals lower conversion rate on the about page >> and higher churn, >> but not always. >> So like luxury communities, the higher the price. Well, I've seen, you know, $100 communities have >> better conversion rates than $10 communities. >> Yes. >> And I've seen them have churn that's better than a $10 community. So, just cuz your price is a h 100red bucks a month >> and someone else is 10 doesn't mean your like their conversion rate will be better. >> Yep. >> But in general, we see this trend, right? >> Um >> Yeah. Because you know, like think about it. If you're getting this bill every month for like a grand, >> you're going to notice that. >> Yeah. >> And then whereas if it's like 10 bucks, Yeah. >> makes sense. >> Screw it. >> Um look at what other people are charging in your market. >> Yeah. And you can go to the school games and then click all time and you can see what the top earners in your category are earning. >> Yeah. There's a few things you could probably do if you went to like You could go and have a look at discovery. So you click this, you click discover, browse around here, like look at what people are doing in different categories. >> Yep. >> You can see what kind of things pe what kind of benefits people are uh offering on their about pages, right? >> Um then there's also within schoolers, you can go to the games, which is what Kirby was talking about, and you can look at the leaderboards. >> Mhm. And you can see the highest earners in different categories. And you can look at quarterly or you can look at all time. >> Yes. >> And get an idea of what people are offering. Like here's someone doing dog training, which is pretty cool. >> And I think the top earner, if you scroll down, is $97 a month, but there's also people in the top five earners that are like $30 a month, but there's also people that are like six grand. So there's a huge variety. You can make any price work. Yeah. Yeah. The number one and the number two. This guy's a 100 bucks. He's making 330 grand. This guy's a,000 bucks. He's making 300 grand. >> Yep. >> 10 times. >> Nick's 200. School of Hard Knocks is like 50. And then course is like six grand or something. >> 29. >> Yeah. So there's a huge variety. All crushing. >> Yep. And then you also want to think like how do you want to be positioned in the market? If you look at what everyone's offering, >> you could be the cheapest. >> You could be the same or you could be luxury, like the Gucci community, basically. >> Yep. >> Um, and then what feels fair? Like if you just sit down and just feel it. >> Y >> like I'm not even joking. This is like how do you come up with a price? Sometimes you just sit down. You're like, >> "Oh yeah, >> you have to guess. You just have to pick something." >> Well, you just feel it basically. I think >> it's been a weird >> If I told you a h 100red bucks for a sandwich, does that feel fair? >> No. >> Exactly. So, you know, you can feel it out a bit. 10 bucks. Yeah, probably normal. 20 bucks luxury. >> Ooh, luxury sandwich. I'm hungry. >> But 100 bucks. >> Oh, no. >> Yeah, >> come on now. Don't be silly. >> It depends, I guess. What's in that sandwich? Um, >> some gold flakes. >> I I don't know. Um, so you can start low and build up over time. >> A lot of people do this. >> The worst thing that can happen here is too many people join your community and you make more money than you thought you were going to make and then you just increase the price. >> Yep. >> And you've got a lot of members. You're making money. >> You ended up with the higher price and all of your legacy members will love you. >> They love you >> because they got a sick deal. >> And when they go to cancel, we have a popup that says if you leave now and rejoin, you'll have to pay a lot more. So churn is lower. >> Yeah, they're less likely to cancel now because we automatically grandfather everyone. So this is a good topic to cover. It's like if your price is 10 bucks and then you raise it to 100 bucks. Everyone that was paying 10 will continue to pay 10. >> Yes. >> Right. >> They're way less likely to cancel because they know if they want to join again, they got to pay 100. >> Yes. >> So that's good for churn. >> Yep. >> It also is just rewarding like your loyal founding members. >> Yep. Um >> this is an elite strategy. >> Yeah. And then with this new tiers feature um it also gives people the option like let's say you started free and then you moved to paid, it will give them the option to actually move up to a paid >> Mhm. >> like uh tier without having to leave the group and come back again. And also if you started on 10 bucks but now you're 100 bucks and you want to eventually move your 10 to your 100 >> with this t feature now they'll be able to >> which is >> like really like actually a huge deal for everyone that's been using school cuz right now they had to leave and join again >> now they'll just be able to click change plan and upgrade. Yeah. >> And then another thing just do the math like how much do you need to make? Like I don't know what your goals or aspirations are with your school, but let's say you want to go full-time, your job pays you like um I don't know 100 grand a year or something. Then if you want to replace your income, well, you know, if you have a 100 people paying you 100 bucks a month, that's like 10 grand a month. >> Yep. >> That some easy math. >> Yep. >> Right. And then if your conversion rate on your about page is like 2% or whatever, now you can figure out how many people need to visit that. Yep. >> To hit these numbers and then you need to factor in things like churn and stuff too. But that's what this next module is. >> Oh, the open loop. Wow, that was advanced. >> Yep. Thank you. Um, so yeah, that's it for this module. We'll see you in the next one. >> See you. >> Reducing churn. And the key with churn, I think, is to think of it as a leaky bucket, right? And so basically, just imagine your community like this if you're trying to grow. So you've got like a tap coming in. This is new members, right? And then you have your MR, which is monthly recurring revenue, your income level, and that's like the level of water in the bucket. And then you've got churned members, which are the members that are cancelling and leaving, right? >> Yep. >> And so churn is like having a leaky bucket. The higher your churn, the more leak leaks you have, the bigger the holes, right? And so if you're trying to fill up your bucket, which is like filling up your MR, there's really like two things you can do. You can like plug the holes or just pour more water in. >> Yep. Um, both work, but it really is hard to grow big when you have a lot of churn because you just need more and more traffic, more and more members all the time. And it eventually like catches up with you honestly. And so I'm going to show you examples of a group that's like growing, which is more new members than churned. And so here is a group that is growing, right? You can see their MR is going up month over month. Now the red bar is the red thing there that's churn, right? So that's like members that left and the green bar there is members that joined. >> Mhm. >> And you can see that consistently there's more members joining than leaving. >> Yes. >> Which is why MR is growing up, right? Um, so yeah, and they've got good retention, right? So that's why they're growing. Now, a group that's flat, you know, some people might wonder, hey, I I was growing, but now I'm just flat for multiple months. What's going on? Well, the same new members are probably joining as churned. Now, here's an example of that. So, you can see this group was growing when there was more new than churned, but then they kind of have been flat. >> Mhm. And if you look at the green bar and the red bar, they're basically cancel each other out, right? And so it's just, you know, what they add new is what they also lose. And so they're kind of flat. And then the third one, which is, you know, declining. So that's when MR is going down. And that's when there's less new members than churned each month. And so here you can see, you know, it's going down month over month. And it's because there's more red than green, which means, you know, more people are leaving than joining. And so MRI goes down. Leaky bucker, right? >> Yep. >> So that's how you want to think about churn. So what does good churn look like? You know, if you've got a paid community, you've got MR and you want to know, am I doing good? Am I doing bad? Like how do you know that? So >> there's two ways to look at it. You know, you might hear us refer to it as churn and retention. It's kind of the same thing. >> Yeah. They're opposite to each other. >> Yeah. Basically, you know, if your churn is like 10%, your attention's like 90. >> Mhm. >> Um so, you know, churn is what you keep, churn is what you lose. They're basically the same thing. >> Yeah. Retention is what you keep, churn is what you lose. Um, so average retention platformwide is 80% per month. That means that you could say that's churn of 20, right? >> So that's about average. So if you're above, if you're doing better than this, you're doing good. And if you're doing worse than this, you're not doing as good. So good retention, like some of the best groups, they're 90% plus, which means their churn is 10% or less, right? and bad or not so good um retention is 70% or less which means their churn is like around 30%. Right? >> Yep. So if you've got bad retention you'll get a lot of leverage by focusing on increasing your retention. I will say it depends on price. If your price is more expensive you can expect retention to be lower. These are just rough benchmarks. >> Yeah. And you don't need to panic because I've seen many people who have had 70% retention who have got it down to 10% or less. >> Yep. >> And so we're going to show you exactly how you do that. Yeah. So the first thing, and this is honestly so important that, and I swear most people don't understand this, and it's probably one of the most important things you could know about a recurring revenue business, especially one on school. The longer members stay, the less they churn. And we have all the data on this. We've been doing this for years. We've got like millions of people on school. And we've looked at it. And so months one, two, and three are the highest churn months. And you know, average churn for these months is about 20%. Across the platform, right? Month one tends to be high the highest. >> Month two is the second highest and month three is the third highest, right? But then if you can keep a member for 90 days, they are unlikely to churn beyond that. So at around like month three or day 90, churn is getting down to 10% or less on average, right? And then what's really cool to see is at month six onwards, churn is down to like 2% or less. >> That's crazy. So that means platformwide the average of all groups month six the average churn is 2%. >> Yes. >> That's insane. >> Yeah. So the biggest trap I've seen people make is they launch their membership community. They get a whole bunch of people in, then they see their churn for their first month >> and it's high like and they think, "Oh my god, >> like this sucks and I need to I don't know." They panic. >> Yep. >> Everyone's month one churn is high. So like >> you need to just stick it out. So like if your group is only 90 days old, your churn numbers will be inflated. >> Mhm. >> Right. Even if your group if your group isn't six months old, your churn is basically inflated. >> Mhm. >> Because you have no members that have gotten to the, you know, 10% or 2% zones, right? >> Yeah. So, the most important thing with a recurring revenue business, you know, churn is an extremely important thing in a recurring revenue membership business. And the most important thing with churn is time. >> So, the thing about time is you have to be patient. Right. >> Yeah. >> Um, and it's so important to stick with this for a while to truly understand your attention. >> Yep. >> Because if you only do it for one month, your churn is probably going to be 20 or 30%. Right? >> But a lot of things are going on there. One is that's kind of normal. You just don't have th those members haven't like matured yet and they haven't gotten to month three, month six. >> Mhm. >> And the other one is is this is brand new. You have not optimized anything. >> Yep. So, you know, that's why I think this is the most important lesson because even before you optimize anything, this is going on anyway. So, you might be panicking and thinking your churn is really high, but it just it's just not it hasn't been enough time. >> So, you might not even need to do anything. >> Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. >> Right. >> Generally, churn decreases as a group gets older because more and more people reach that six month mark. So, your churn decreases even if you don't do anything. >> Yeah. So, if your churn, These are good numbers, right? But these are also really good numbers to keep in mind. Um, but yeah, you don't need to panic in the first few months. I think you need to wait, you know, at least kind of 90 days. Unless 100% of people are churning, then you, you know, you've probably got enough signal to react now, right? But if your month one, two, three churn are around 20%, you don't need to panic. >> Mhm. >> Because they might just sort themselves out. Yeah. Yep. >> Now let's say you understand this which is very important. How to reduce churn? So now that you understand it like how do you change it? How do you influence it? Well honestly the best thing you can possibly do which sounds so simple is just to ask the members why they canled. >> Yep. And luckily on school when someone is cancelling you have some time before their membership ends >> where you can reach out to them and ask hey why are you canceling? >> So you can go to your members and you can go to cancelling. >> Declined just means that you know they declined. So they didn't do this intentionally. Um but cancelled. So here's Lily. >> Lily. >> Yeah. Why did you why did you cancel Lily? >> Leaving dollar club. >> I'm heartbroken. >> What a snake. >> Lily's a member of our team by the way. Um, >> so re you could reach out to her and you could ask her. >> Yeah, I could send her a chat and be like, "Hey, Lily, I see you are cancelled." >> Um, >> why? >> Yeah. What? Like, can you please let me know what happened? Um, and yeah, just listen, right? And you know, you don't need to react like a knee-jerk reaction to just one piece of feedback. like collect multiple pieces of feedback and then you can spot like >> patterns, right? The patterns are key cuz any like a one member might cancel just because it wasn't for them and that's fine. You're looking for the person that would have been your ideal customer >> but they cancelled for a reason. If someone wasn't your ideal customer and they canceled, well that's just normal. And then maybe you should adjust your landing your about page kind of copy or whatever or how you're bringing members in, right? >> Yep. >> But if they are your ideal customer and they canceled, well, >> you really want to know why for them. >> Yep. And that's part of the reason why churn in month one is so much higher because some people join and the group just isn't for them, so they leave. And I think that's a big thing. People think that churn is a bad thing. If you see someone leaving, it feels bad. But with these businesses, there will always be churn. It's not that you're doing something wrong necessarily. It's just a part of the business. >> Yeah. And you can even ask members that cancel their trial. Like if you're doing free trials, it's not technically churn if they cancel their trial, but it's kind of the same thing. Like they had an intention to join, but they decided to bail. That's the same kind of feedback, right? Yeah. And then, you know, the opposite to this is ask your best members why they stayed. >> Yep. >> So, you could, you know, look at the members that you're like, "Oh man, I love these members. Like, how can we get more of these members?" Or like, "Why do these members stick for a year or 6 months or whatever." >> Mhm. >> You could like look at your members and find the ones that have been in there the longest and talk to them and really start to understand why they stayed, right? And if you spot the same patterns between people that stay and the same patterns between people that leave, now you can start to optimize things a bit. So if everybody is cancelling for the same reason, like can you fix it? So um a good example here I think is price. Sometimes people say it's just too expensive. And two real examples of this is Evelyn and I'll pull this one up and Skate IQ. So I was talking to them at the recent school games and you know Evelyn had started her community at like I don't know 11 bucks or something and then she had her price had crept up to like a hundred bucks and when she when people were canceling their trials and when people were tuning she would ask them and they always said the same thing. It's just too much money. >> Mhm. So she decided to come out with a lower price that was 33, right? >> Mhm. >> So that was her way to lower the barrier of entry into her thing and then she got the features balanced right so that you know the she still gets the 99s but for the people that weren't able to stay and and this worked out really well for her. Um same thing happened with Skate IQ. So they have a skateboarding community and their price was 29 a month, right? And a lot of people were cancelling and they asked them why and it was the price. So they came out with a $9 standard. >> Lost benefit. >> I will love you forever. >> Yeah. So you know, and it depends if they're your if they're the people you want too. If they're people that you're not targeting and they're saying it's too expensive, well then that's fine. That's your intention with that. But you know, Evelyn and Skate IQ found that these were their ideal members. They were the members they really wanted, but they were still cancelling due to price. And so they came up with a lower tier. And honestly, this change really unlocked a lot of growth and improved retention significantly for Skate IQ and for Grow with Evelyn. Now the key thing there is they didn't just make a tear cuz they felt like it. They observed truly like a problem. They talked to their members. It was a common pattern and then they responded to that and that's how you make your best improvements and changes. Right? >> Y >> um but you know a lot of people might just say oh this takes up too much time. it's too overwhelming or I don't feel like I can utilize this fully. You know, a lot of the time when people are overwhelmed or they say I don't I can't utilize this fully or I don't have enough time, it means there's too much. >> Mhm. >> And so, you know, a lot a tendency a lot of people have is just to add add because you're giving value. You're giving more. >> Yep. >> That must be perceived as better. But if someone can't use or utilize what you're giving them, they feel bad because they're paying for it and they're not using it and so they feel like it's a waste. >> Yep. >> And they can't keep up. So by doing less, you actually can retain them more. >> Yep. >> Best example of that is the AI Jack one >> where >> his churn went from 30% to 5.2%. >> Yeah, this is a great example. He says it right here. >> You're not deleting enough. >> We took our turn from 30 to 5. So when I was saying before, don't panic when it's 30. You can bring it to five or less. Um, apparently I gave some good advice. And basically it was overwhelm equals higher churn. He assumed people would read everything they don't. Simplicity is good. Blah blah blah. He basically deleted lots of stuff. He deleted the stuff that people didn't really care about. and then his retention improved. So by doing less stuff, AI Jack was able to keep more people. Pretty straightforward. >> Yep. A good way to view it is it's not about how much stuff you have, it's how good the stuff you have is. >> Yeah. Yeah. And we did something similar to this with schoolers. There was like we were posting a lot like Kirby would post something and I would post something and there was multiple posts and I could tell like you know whenever a owner admin posts it like notifies everyone and if people are like getting too many notifications for the owner and it's like too much. >> Yep. >> They feel overwhelmed and they churn. And so now we only do like one post a week >> and we try to just roll everything up in one thing which is what we're doing right now. one call a week, one recording a week, one post a week, and it's all the same thing. And it we were able to bring, you know, churn right down. >> Yeah. People want to feel like they're able to keep up with everything, and as soon as there's too much stuff, they feel like they're not keeping up with it. So, they feel like they're not getting the value, so they churn. >> Yeah. I think a key, one of the key feelings behind retention is like belonging or feeling a part of it, right? You want to feel a part of something, a community, right? And so in order to feel like you're a part of it, you need to be able to keep up. You need to be on the same page. Cuz if you're behind, you'll never feel like you're keeping up. So in order to to have that feeling of belonging, you need to keep up. And in order to keep up because people are busy, you know, >> they've got families, they've got jobs and things, >> it needs to be palatable for them with a smaller amount of time. If you're full-time on this, then you you have a lot of time, >> but your members might not, right? >> Yeah. Your members are not full-time in your group. You are full-time in your group. Your members are not full-time in your group. >> Yeah. Yeah. And so one thing that's you know you want to kind of design for the extremes in a way and that is like you want to think about the person that's got a family that has a job that's super busy, right? Like imagine kids running around, chores and a job and everything and they also want to be a part of your community. They've got barely much time to to invest in your community each week. They should have a way to keep up just from like a a distance. Mhm. >> But then you want to have some depth too so that those hardcore people can be in there like 12 hours a day. >> And that's what I mean by designing for the extremes cuz when you do that you'll get the middle. You'll get everything basically. And so schoolers is like that. You know schoolers you can really >> you can spend all day in there. >> Yeah. You could spend your like your whole life in here. Um but you can also just keep up with 30 minutes a week which is school news, right? one post in 30 minutes a week and you have the same understanding as most of the other people in here. >> Yeah. Yeah. >> Right. That was a key thing we did this year. Um and then if people are staying for the same reasons, can you emphasize them? Right? So if people love the calls, how could you get more people onto the calls? or if there's a particular piece of training or insight that people have, how can you get them to >> Yeah. >> You know, and that's the thing when you find the the thing that makes people stick, >> anything that isn't that thing just reduces the chances that they do that thing, right? >> So, if you remove I think I always have thought of like snakes and ladders. You've played that game. >> A ladder is like a good thing and a snake is like a bad thing. M >> if you've got a lot of snakes in your community, like there's a lot of chances someone's going to like churn. >> Yeah. >> Yeah. So, >> that's a good analogy. And then if there is a really long ladder, you want to move it as close to the beginning as humanly possible. So, if everyone loves a specific training or a call that you do, put it into the onboarding as soon as someone joins, let them know about it. Put it earlier on in your course so that everyone gets the value as quickly as possible. >> Yeah. like a, you know, a pinned post at the top of the community can be a great, it's like, you know, they're probably going to see it as one of the first things. Um, yeah, maybe even an auto DM that just tells people like, "Hey, you should check out this thing." Um, yeah, like think about their onboarding experience. Like imagine you don't know anything about this. you just buy like what's the first thing you see and what are you most likely to do as your first couple of actions and are those the things that are probably going to make the person stick right uh yeah so there's that the biggest pattern that we've seen for reducing churn is simply just show up daily and care for your community if you're running a community and they don't feel like you're active in the community they don't feel like you care about them then of of course they won't stay. It's a community and people need to feel cared about in order to be valued in the community. >> Yeah. So I I do think that you should ask your members why they canceled and you should ask them why they stayed because that they will just tell you and that will be the best advice even better than what we say because that will be very specific to your scenario. But we can share some common things that we've observed across all these different communities over the years and just I've actually never seen a case where this doesn't work and it's always present which like Kirby said just show up >> and care show up daily. You know we've got this guy Nick Sar. He did this he was the goat for a while. >> Yeah. He was making 300 grand a month and everyone thought that he had some crazy tactics, some secret tips that got him to such a high level, but he made this post and the summary of this super long post is basically he just showed up every day and helped the people in his community. >> Yeah. And you can see it on his profile, right? He's got the fire. >> Yeah. >> And you can see he's he shows up every damn day. I mean, he's got a better activity chart than mine, right? Um, so yeah, like when the owner cares, the members care because you're setting the standard. You're leading by example, right? >> So that is just that goes without saying. Show up daily and actually care. >> Mhm. >> Um, honestly, everything flows from that. >> Yep. >> We've covered the next. >> Yeah. We said if price is the issue, consider adding a lower tier, reducing overwhelm by deleting things. >> Mhm. weekly call and recording can be huge because you know when you just read text content and you see an image, it doesn't have a whole lot of depth, but once you've been on a call with someone, you now hear their voice. >> Mhm. >> And you interact with them as you would if you kind of saw their face in in person. >> Yeah. >> And so now that that deepens the relationship, it strengthens it. And now when you see that face and name in text form in the community, it has more >> 100% >> meaning, right? >> It also adds a live element to things cuz you know sometimes if someone doesn't people like different formats, some people like to be all in the post and comments. Other people just like to show up live and do that and then honestly we've found most people just like the recordings of the live. >> Yep. Yep. Yep. Yep. Yep. >> Because they're busy, right? and you can catch up. >> Yeah. So many times we've heard people say that they had a weekly call, things were great, then they added all of this crazy other stuff, they added three extra calls a week, they added all this course content and churn went down and then they went back to just the weekly call >> and things went up. Yeah. Yeah. >> Yeah. And so in you know schoolers, we've been through this ourself like the course is super simple. It's just like nine modules. None of them are that long. >> Yep. And then the community always just has like a pin post and there's only one call on the calendar each um each week and then we record it. >> Yeah. And sometimes they're like 20 minutes long. >> Yeah. Now this is a this one's really useful. Adding annual option with a discount. So in general when people buy annual they churn less. Not just because they can't turn in their first year, obviously, but even when you factor that in, they still retain more. >> Yeah. >> So, because, you know, it's more of a commitment, right? Um, and one way to kind of think about it is the more like decisions someone has, the higher the odds of them like cancelling. So, like when you charge someone every month, not only could their payment fail or whatever, but it's like a they think, do I want to do it another month? Do but when it's once a year, that's only one. So, in general, the less choices, the higher the retention. And to do that, like I go into my test group here, when you're adding a price, right, you can just have a monthly price or you can have a monthly and annual price. And you know, standard kind of practice is about 17% discount. >> Yep. >> Which is what most software companies do. You know, if it's 10 bucks a month, it's 100 a year. But if you paid monthly, it's 120. >> Mhm. >> Just this alone, you'll find a decent chunk of people opt for the annual and that will help your retention a lot. >> Mhm. >> Just that alone could improve things significantly. >> That helps a lot. >> Just honestly, you do that, you might shave it, it could shave it in half. >> Yeah. And then if you do that, you can make a post announcing that you're doing this. >> Yeah. Like honestly, if your turn's 20, just that like could be could make it 10 if people are opting for it, right? Um if no one takes it, it won't have much of an impact. But yeah, and then building culture with one-on-one relationships, connecting people, events, and fun. >> Yeah. So like, you know, this is going more into that feeling of belonging, identity, like I've found my people, I've found my tribe, these are my friends, and and a good feeling. Like when people feel good in a place, they don't want that to go away. >> Mhm. >> And so, you know, the best communities have really strong cultures. They've got friendships and strong relationships. >> Yep. And the best way to do that, especially in the beginning, is just to build relationships with people one-on-one. Chat with them in the DMs, get on calls with them. Because when there's a lot of strong individual relationships, then there's a strong community, which is the relationships between everyone. >> Yeah. And we talked about this in a previous module called like 10 true regulars. >> Yep. >> Um it's the key to communities honestly. Like you should watch it again. But you know the basically a lot people think you need a lot of members to have an engaged community. The the secret is you only really need >> a tight group of 10. >> Yeah. >> And the key to that is to befriend these the most hardcore people that you think are the model citizens for this place. >> Yep. >> And then you know now they're going to keep showing up because they like you. You've got a relationship and Yeah. That's really the key. >> Mhm. Um so yeah that's it for reducing churn community management. So this is the last module in the course >> finally >> and the key to community management is to think about it like a garden. So good communities are like well-kept gardens. Right now this is not really a garden. is it's more of a tree, but maybe a tree could be a garden. A tree could be included in a garden. >> Um, >> bad community on the left, good community on the right. >> Yeah. Dead, alive. >> Yep. >> Now, when you don't tend to your garden/ community, it looks like this. When you do care to it, it looks like this. People like things like this. They don't like things like that. >> Um, so how do you how do you tend to your garden? Well, you remove the weeds. Yep. If you have a garden and you have a weed, a weed can quickly kill all of the good plants. >> And weeds grow fast. >> Yes. >> Yeah. >> So, get rid of the bad stuff like posts, >> posts, bad comments, and negative people. >> Yeah. >> Um cuz if you don't remove this and constantly tend to it, it will suffocate all of the good stuff. The good people will leave and then the bad things will fester and it will go downhill very fast. And there's, you know, something pretty insightful here called like broken window theory. And basically they found in like neighborhoods that have high crime when there's a broken window or graffiti >> Mhm. >> there becomes more broken windows and more graffiti. Because if you think about it, if you're walking down the street and you see a broken window, it what does that really tell you? tells you that like you can do that and it kind of prompts you and it makes you think that the place isn't policed. Yep. >> And then when there's a lot of that, you're like, "Oh, this place is a free-for-all now." Um, and so they actually found that it by fixing broken windows and cleaning up the neighborhood, it reduced crime. Yeah. So the same is really true in your community. You know, if if you let bad people constantly post, and if you let bad people constantly like ruin it, >> and if you let bad people keep joining and everything, it will just >> bring more bad people, more posts and comments and everything. >> Yep. >> And this refers to spammers, people that are clearly just here to negatively affect the community, but also to people that just bring the vibe of the community down. And those are the people that are harder to remove because you feel bad. But if you don't and they keep bringing the vibe down, they bring it down for everyone and can quickly ruin a community. >> Yeah, we'll tell you how to deal with these people soon. Um, so you need to remove the weeds and then you need to add water. And you know, really what that is in a community is new members, engagement, and things to do. Now, new members is really key. Like if there's not new people constantly kind of joining, it does kind of get stale. There needs to be new life. >> Engagement, that's you showing up, interacting with people, and other people showing up and interacting. And things to do could be things like a call >> or a challenge or whatever. >> Yep. >> Um and then very important, leaving room for things to emerge. >> You can do too much gardening in a way, right? Like >> if you >> if you are too like intense with deleting things and and banning things and blocking things and >> then no one feels like they can do or say anything. >> Yeah. Have you ever been to one of those gardens that just feel too neatly done? >> I'm thinking of a um bonsai tree. >> Yeah. >> Um which is why it's so small >> and it takes like a hundred years to grow. Yeah. Sometimes you go to these gardens and they're too neatly done and it doesn't feel natural and it ruins the vibe. >> Yeah, a little bit. And it it kind of depends what you're going for too. Like if it's too clean, it's kind of boring, >> honestly. Um you want a little bit of >> of like just a little bit. It keeps things exciting. >> Um >> and if you don't leave room for things to emerge, like the culture is going to come from the people, not just from you top down. A lot of things in a community are bottom up, not just top down. >> Yes. >> And so you need the culture is going to come up, >> new characters are going to come up and they're so important in the community. Like these are your 10 true regulars and stuff. Um, and you know, these people aren't you. And I think some people are like, "Oh, this person isn't me." And they're starting to be influential, so let's ban them. >> Yeah. A lot of people have that instinct. They're like, "I am the owner and they are the members. they are beneath me. But when you bring characters up, then it creates so much more of an engaging community cuz even if people don't like you anymore, there's still other community members that they like to keep. >> Well, a community really is people like multiple people, not just one. >> Mhm. >> And so, you know, it's like a lecture versus a party, right? We talked about this earlier, >> but like you know, one thing that we thought about when we were doing schoolers is we called it like community on every surface. And it was like we should never do anything alone. So even with school news, it's you and me. >> Yeah. >> Right. Like at the school games events, there's always more than one person. So, >> you know, when there is always like a group dynamic. >> Oh, it's way more interesting. >> It's more interesting. And it, you know, the best podcasts are like that too, which is interesting. Um, it's like a sitcom kind of thing, right? Yeah. >> Um, there's more complex interactions and stuff. >> Yeah. Imagine if Friends was just Joey. >> Yeah. Um, and so, you know, a good example of this in schoolers is like Goose. Like, he's his own unique character and he goes around the world doing all kinds of things. Um, and he brings his own kind of style to school and it's there's a blend of things like Evelyn, she does ads and she's got a very different style, right? >> Yeah. And you know, Matthew Thompson likes doing podcast stuff and you know, everyone has their own different kind of thing. And even Kirby, who's doing this with me right here, he was a member in the community. >> Mhm. >> And now he's here. Yeah. Um, rituals like you might see these things that start happening. A good example of this is recently everyone just started putting these damn Santa hats on. Honestly, someone bas I got basically got peer pressured to put this Santa hat on. Like six people DM'd me >> and then everyone started doing it >> and then even our app icon had a Santa hat on it. >> That's great. >> But it's kind of like a theme or it's these little things that really make people feel a part of something. >> Yes. >> Inside jokes, you know, that was like the cat, right? Um >> and just fun. Don't underestimate fun. It's not just about value and stuff. >> There's got to be some fun, too, I think. >> Yep. So, how do you put all of this into practice? >> Well, again, the number one secret is just showing up daily and actually caring. Um, now, how do you do this? Well, you visit your community. That's step one. It all starts here. >> That's kind of important, that one. >> Yeah. And then, you know, this is how I think about it. I visit the community. The first thing I do is like my chores. I'm like, I got to do this crap. So, I clear my notifications. I respond to my DMs. If there's reported content, I deal with that. Um, membership requests, you deal with those. You just get these things down to zero. That's what I like to do first. >> Yeah. People always think that your DMs are going to be like a thousand, but they're zero every day. >> Well, right now they're nine and nine. >> Slacking. >> Um, then once I've done that, I like to read the new posts and comments. Now, when your group gets massive, you can't read all of them, but you know, in the beginning, I was reading like all of them. Um, and it all starts really by just reading through them. >> And if you if there's something you like, like it. >> Yeah. Really, community management is like rewarding the things that you like and removing the things that you don't like. And just the like button is such a good way to say, "I like this thing." And when you show people that you like something, they're more likely to do more of it. But I think a lot of people think that the way you do something is by posting. >> But if I think about the action I do the most of, it's reading. >> Really, I read more than anything. Reading what other people are saying. And then when I likes when I I like something, I just click the like button. Don't underestimate what this does. Yep. >> People really notice when the owner likes this thing. I know because people tag me in social media posts and they're like, "Oh my god, Sam just liked my post." And I'm like, they they thought that was so important that they posted about it. Or if Forosi likes someone's thing, they're like they freak out. Um people pay attention. >> Yep. >> And then delete the things that ruin the vibe and we can show you how to do that. Um we'll show you in a second like the exact way to do that. And this could be posts, it could be comments, right? And then you join in the conversation where it feels right. You do not need to inject yourself into everything cuz that can get a bit weird and it's just like, oh, this is just a public customer support system. >> Yeah. >> Instead of a community. If you don't leave some things, then other people won't interact. >> Yeah. That's the other thing. If someone makes a post, you don't have to respond straight away because you think that that's great customer service. Sometimes by the owner responding too quickly, it removes the space for the other community members to connect by leaving comments. >> Yeah. So, I just there is no actual like logic behind this. I just vibe it. Basically, I'm just like I read through things, I like some things, delete some things, and then I join in. And sometimes all I say is congrats. Sometimes I just drop three hearts. >> Yep. >> It doesn't have to be like intense like an essay. And other times I might just say why question mark like. And then other times I actually answer someone's question if it's a question. But I'm just I'm I'm not just looking to answer questions. Sometimes I'm looking to explore what they're saying a bit more by asking why. >> Other times I'm just trying to say congrats or that I love what they just shared. Right. Like there's >> you're not just there as like this robot to answer questions. It's >> you know what I'm saying? >> Yeah. And then this one's huge. Like pinning great comments and posts. >> Yes. >> So if you see a good comment, you're like, "Damn, that one's a banger." You pin it. >> Yeah. This is one of the best things that you can do. >> Right now there's a pinned comment here. So how you pin a comment is you click on these and you go pin comment. You can only have one pinned comment. >> Yep. And when you do that, they get an email saying, "Congratulations, your post has been pinned." >> Yeah. they really know about it when they get pinned and then their likes shoot up >> because they're they're at the top. >> Yep. >> So, that's how you pin a comment. And then you can pin a post by um >> Hey, look. Look at this one. >> Show up every day. >> Yep. >> You just go pin to feed and it puts it at the top like this. >> Yep. >> People pinning is >> it's powerful. >> It's like a mega like. Um, so pinning does a lot of things. So first of all is if someone does something good, you give them a huge reward. >> Yep. >> And they're more likely now to do that again. >> Yes. >> They're also more likely to engage and retain and you want them to engage and retain because they're your ideal person with your ideal behavior. Right. >> But then this is the other thing it does which is even more impactful. >> Everyone else sees that and they think, "Oh, that's what good looks like in here." Yes. >> So, and they want to be pinned, right? So, they think, well, if I want to be pinned, I need to do that. And then, so the whole culture and behavior of the group shifts more towards that. >> Yep. There's been times we've pinned a post in schoolers and then the next day we wake up and there's like 10 posts exactly the same style as the one that we pinned. >> Yep. Exactly. So, now you might wonder like, how do you know which things to like, to delete? How do you know where to join in? And how do you know what to pin? Honestly, you you don't unless you actually read some stuff, >> which is why I think this is the main action, honestly. >> You should bold it. >> I'll do better. >> Ooh, the underline. Wow. >> It all begins here. >> Yeah. >> But I can't do this until I've done my chores, basically. And you can't do that until unless you visit, right? So, like this is how I I do it. Now, I think these are like the minimum kind of requirements for a decent community. >> Y >> right. If you don't do this, you're really going to suck. If you do these two, you can scrape by, but you're below average. >> If you do this, you're like >> you're above average. I think just above. But if you want to be exceptional, it's these last two things, right? So, the last two, if you've got time for these, and some days you don't, you know, some days all I can do is is this. >> Yeah. Or even none. >> Yeah. And you know, if it's the weekend, like on a Sunday, I don't even do any of it. >> But um then it's if you've got spare time, it's this building relationships with core members via DMs, one-on-one calls, meetups. Yeah, we've repeated that so many times in this course because it's important, >> you know, and sometimes when I notice there's a model citizen or something, it could be Evelyn or Kelvin or um Max Pers or whatever, right? Or you in the early days, I just send a message and I just say >> sup. >> Yep. >> That's more that's my style. >> You know, if that's not what if that's not your style, don't do that. But you don't need to say anything sophisticated. And then they might respond back and say, "Yo." And then I might just say, "How's school going for you?" >> You ask that question to everyone. >> Yeah. >> Cuz I'm like I'm checking in. I'm like, "How's school going?" And then they'll tell me. And then if the conversation starts going somewhere, I might be like, "Zoom, question mark." They're like, "Yes." And I give them a Zoom link. Now we're on Zoom. Um, you know, and sometimes through these DMs and stuff, I might find out that like, "Oh, Max P's going to be in California." I'm like, "You should come up to the office. You should hang out. We should have lunch." >> Yeah, we spent How long did you spend with Max Pen the other day? >> That was extreme. So, I'm not saying you have to do that, but you know, Max came over for lunch and then we talked about school for 12 hours. >> Meaning midnight. >> Yeah. He came at 12:00, he left at 12. >> And then the goat came, the new goat Spencer came on Saturday and we were here all day with him as well. >> Yeah. That's a bit too intense, I think. Um it was because my family was away and I was like yeah and it just kind of happened. I don't know how. Um but yeah, you build relationships with the core members and the ultimate relationship is when you know you get on calls, you're DMing and then you know you meet in person and when those relationships have matured a bit like we've known Max for years now >> and you for years, >> it gets even stronger. And when people join a community and see that there's deep >> multi-year relationships and friendships in there, they're like, "Oh, >> yeah." >> It changes everything. It makes it feel stable. As soon as you see that people have been in for a long time and the core trend true regulars haven't changed for a long time, you feel like, "Ooh, this is a real community. It's stable. I can make this my home and it's not just going to blow up one day and everyone's going to fall out." >> Yeah. Some of the best podcasts happen when there's more than one host >> and they've been friends for years before they made a podcast. So, it has that instant chemistry that people can feel. And you know what's funny? when the friends kind of drift apart cuz they get busy or whatever and the podcast starts to decline. A lot of people say it's cuz they're not spending as much time together. >> Interesting. >> Same thing happens with bands, by the way. Like >> they can't even make good sound unless they spend a lot of time together. So like that's what people notice and feel when they join. And that's very like magnetic. That's what makes it feel like a good place to be. >> Yep. >> Yeah. And that's the I guess this brings this last point home, which is get a feel for the community and ask yourself how you can make it better. >> Yeah. >> This is not a metric or a um it's it's a feeling. >> Yep. >> And when you do something a lot and you care about it, you can start to feel it. >> Yep. You get an intuition for how the community is going. Are people happy? Are people sad? What are they feeling about this trend, that trend? >> Yes. Sometimes I check the community and I'm like, "Damn, this place is buzzing. Everyone's like super like hyped." >> And there's been times in the past where I check it and I'm like, "Oh my god, there's I got to fix these problems." And it's so obvious I'm actually in quite a bit of pain. >> Yeah. And you can't do that without number three. Like, how can you feel the community if you're not in the community? >> Exactly. So, yeah, these last two are how you make it exceptional. This is how you're just This is how you survive. And this here is how you are a little bit above average. Right now, this is really common like dealing with trouble members. Everyone's going to get their first one of these at some point, right? >> Yep. >> So, there's different kinds and flavors of trouble members. There's the easiest one to deal with is just straight up spam. >> Yes. Like if someone just spams some it's so easy to deal with. You just ban and delete the last seven days. >> Yeah. >> So, I'll show you how you do that. >> And this is more likely to happen in free groups. >> This is definitely not acceptable. So, let's >> delete and ban user. I'm not actually going to do that. I was hoping there was this extra step after I clicked that. Um, so you click delete last seven days. And what that does is it gets rid of all of their posts and all of their comments in the last seven days and it bans them. This is the ultimate muke if someone's a true spammer. >> Yes. Because they might have done more than just one post or comment or whatever. And if you want to see if they've done like more than one post or comment or whatever, you can just view their profile and like see all of the stuff, right? >> Yep. >> Um, and that's a great way to get rid of everything with one click. Um, so if it's clearly spam, easy. Ban plus delete last seven days. >> Yep. >> You don't even need to give feedback. Honestly, you just doesn't matter cuz they know what they did. And yeah, if it's this is where it gets more tricky when it's like more this gray area. So, it's against the rules or this is not what you want in the community. It's not spam. It's not obvious, but you can tell it's not it doesn't have the right intention. >> Yeah. It could be like self-promotion. It could be low quality. Like if someone just types in and then clicks post, that sort of thing. >> Yeah. And so, you know, this is what we do. You can do whatever you want, but we don't like to when it's, you know, spam, we don't care. We just ban and delete. But if it's just against the rules, you know, people can make mistakes if they're new. they might not understand the space. So if it's like first offense, we just delete with feedback. How you do that is you um you go to like this and you can go like delete. And when you click delete, it asks you what rule did they break. You can select it like whatever the rule is. Yep. >> You can add additional feedback if you want and click delete. >> Yep. and they will get an email explaining which rule they broke and any feedback that you left them to understand why their post was deleted. >> Yeah, it's this is a really nice feature because you know if you can't give feedback and you just delete something and then they're like what happened to my thing then they're in this weird situation cuz they're like did I even post it? Was it a glitch? Am I crazy? Like >> yeah and they can't learn. >> That's the other thing. Yeah. um they might just think it was a glitch and post it again. >> So if you click, you know, around here, give some feedback, then delete, they'll get an email, and the email even contains a copy of their post. >> Yes. >> So they didn't they don't lose their whole post, which makes them feel better, too. And then they can see their post or comment and compare it to the rule you said they broke and they can course correct, right? So we highly recommend this feature. Um so first off, delete with feedback. Second offense, delete with feedback plus probably a DM. >> Yep. Sometimes people don't check their emails, they miss the post, so you can DM them to let them know why their post was deleted. >> Yeah. Yeah. This is key. Sometimes, you know, once they see that it's a bit more serious or they might have missed the feedback then or they might have a question and then they course correct. Um, and then if you know they do it again, I mean, you can just delete with feedback plus ban, right? Um, unless you're feeling charitable. >> Yeah. Honestly, it's a vibes based approach. Like just take all the context you know about this person. If someone just makes a mistake, they didn't understand. You don't have to ban them. This is just like rough principles. And honestly, what's happened to us like actually a few times now, which is probably worth mentioning, >> is we've banned some people before and then they've been like upset about it and we've DM'd them and stuff. >> Yeah. >> And then I they wanted to come back and they promised they would change. >> Yep. >> And I said, "Well, we're just going to keep you out for an extra 30 days or something just to, you know, like So, it's still a ban, but they're able to come back, but it's an extended period, so it's kind of like a suspension or something." >> Yep. And then you let them back in. >> Yeah. >> And honestly, those have become some of our most our best members. >> Yeah. Literally. >> Literally. Some of some of these people have gone on to become ambassadors and power users. And some of our most engaged people ever. >> Yeah. If someone's continuously posting, they clearly have some passion for the community. Sometimes they're just getting a couple things slightly wrong, so you have to ban them or give them a suspension. But when they come back, the passion's still there and they become a great member. >> Yeah. >> Sometimes. Not always though. Sometimes people are just menaces. >> Yeah. So, I'm all in favor of letting people back. Honestly, I think a lifetime ban for something can can be pretty rough on someone if they really want they really care about the space, right? Cuz what are you supposed to do? That's like pretty harsh. >> Um, so yeah, I'm all in favor of letting people come back, but not instantly. I like to have a time period. It makes it more serious. >> Yeah. >> Um >> and they they can become super good members. >> Yep. >> Yeah. I think some people are just not forgiving at all once people are banned and that Yeah. Um and now you know you can set rules for things you don't like, right? And that helps when you go to delete things because the rules will show here, right? These are our rules that we have. How we came up with these rules is we were deleting things and giving people feedback and it most of the time fell into one of these categories. >> Yeah. >> Like one of them is just don't post too much cuz if someone's just post post like four posts in an hour, it's like >> this this is a good one. >> Yeah. >> Um so you get you come up with your rules by actually deleting and moderating for a while. Once you know what they are, you can go to your um settings. You click on rules and then you just click new rule and you type in your rule and you can adjust your rules as you go based on how moderation has been going right >> now. You can do this by yourself in the beginning and it's honestly not much of a job at all um when you're smaller. >> Yep. >> Like and if your group is paid and not that big, you don't even have many trouble members. You generally have more trouble members and problems like this in bigger free groups. When a group's small, it's generally pretty clean. When it's paid, it's pretty clean. Yeah. But when your group does get big, you do need moderators to help. Like if you start to feel like totally overwhelmed doing all of this yourself, you're like getting burned out. >> Yep. >> Which happens eventually. You need help. So, how do you get moderators? What do they do? Honestly, make your most hardcore members moderators. >> Yep. You can just look at your leaderboard and oftentimes the most active people, they're already doing the moderator role to a huge degree. Like a good example of this in schoolers is Jenna, who was like the most engaged person in schoolers. As soon as we shipped an update, she would notice it straight away. So, we reached out and we were like, "We love what you're doing. Please can you be a moderator in schoolers?" >> Yep. and you know, they already know what to do. Basically, they're already a member. They're already doing it and they like that extra status because they care about the space, right? >> Yep. >> Leaderboard's a great place to look. Um, >> and you want to recruit people that aren't just active, but that you can tell get it. Like they really understand what you're trying to build and they understand the culture and what is allowed and what isn't kind of thing. >> Yep. Um, and the most important thing here is that they're already online and reading it like all the time. >> Mhm. >> Yeah. And they already are, so it's just pretty straightforward. Then you want to just tell them how to do what you've been doing. You know, you're going to probably start out doing it yourself, and then when it gets too much, you find someone from your group, you make them a mod. How you make someone a mod is you go to members, you find the person, you click membership, you change their role to moderator. Done. >> Simple. >> Moderators can do these things. They can approve and decline membership requests. They can delete posts and comments, change post categories, turn comments on and off. They still get points on the leaderboard, which is important because that's what they care about. If you take that away from them, they're not happy. They can still earn affiliate commissions, but they can't do some of these more critical admin things that are dangerous like removing members, changing their roles, email broadcasts, pinning and unpinning posts, um, seeing members emails, billing info, locked courses. Yeah. So, a moderator is a nice safe role. It gives them what they need, but not the things that can go quite quite wrong. >> Yeah. Perfect for power users that aren't officially on your team. >> Yeah. Um, tell them how to do what you've been doing and then, you know, they're probably going to do these things, membership requests, content reports, deleting stuff, banning people. >> Yep. >> And they can even become a part of the culture by like building relationships with people. And >> yeah, I would say removing the bad stuff is like the very basic moderator role. They've got to get rid of the bad stuff. But then a great moderator doesn't just get rid of bad stuff. They encourage more good stuff by building relationships with people, reaching out to people, telling people this post was good, pinning stuff, etc. >> Yeah. What's funny as we're talking about this is like Jenna was the one that sent me all of these. >> Oh, she made them for you. >> She's So, you know, she was not only did she make them for me, she was like kind of >> peer pressuring. >> Yeah. So, in a way, she was kind of contributing to the culture, not just doing the um >> deleting of bad stuff. Yeah. Yeah. That's cool. >> Because that's someone wouldn't do something like that unless they cared, right? >> Yep. >> Yeah. So, that's when you know you got a good moderator. So, yeah, that's basically how you do community management. And the most important thing, if you only take one thing away from this, it's just show up daily and care. Yes.