10 Things YOU NEED to Monetize Courses & Community—Nicolas Cole Breaks it Down

One of the mistakes that people make is thinking, well, I'm going to put together a text and video course. But and it's always one or one or the other. It's either I don't think I can charge more. So they're like afraid to even price it at $50. It's a, it's a self belief issue. Or they think if I price it less I'm going to quote, unquote, undercut the competition and then more people will buy it. And the reality is neither one of those is true.

Woo. I am so excited to have this conversation because you just announced your landmark $10 million lifetime lifetime sales.

Yep.

That's incredible. And what I loved about what you wrote is that you had the seven principles which I'm hoping you'll take us through. And they are really provocative. Some I think are completely consistent with the things that I've seen and what we've seen in the data at Mighty. And there's one area that I think will be super fun to tackle together because I think you have a very valid point of view specifically around memberships. And we're seeing some other things that I'm really curious, you know, like how you react to them. So maybe with that you can like take us from the top. How you guys like how you put together these seven principles and what they are.

So. All right, let's start at the beginning. So first of all, I actually wrote out 10. Only 7, only 7 fit on Twitter. So I don't know if you saw but at the end there's a. Read the full post. So there's three more after that.

Okay, well I didn't get that far. I only got, I only got two. I was like, this might be the longest tweet I've ever read.

Yeah, we, we had to cut it off because we ran out of characters. So.

Well then we're gonna get all 10 of them here. This is gonna be great.

Perfect. Okay, so a little context. So I like to clarify because I notice entrepreneurs have a tendency to round up and call lifetime revenue like yearly revenue.

Man has done a 10 million dollar ARR. Business.

Yeah. So years I will say our goal, I hope that this year is actually we cross that milestone by the end of the year. I hope that we cross 10 million ARR. But this post was based on over the past three and a half years, we recently crossed over $10 million in lifetime sales for specifically for digital products. So this includes things like cohort based courses which for US was ship 30 for 30 higher ticket training programs. We have our premium Ghost training academy paid newsletter. So we have. Right with AI and also like sporadic one off things like for Black Friday or for other periods, like we might do a three day quick launch like a live paid webinar or something like that. And so I basically wrote up this post just going, I've played with just about every business model, you know, even books. I've self published 10 books. We also have a SaaS platform called Typeshare. So we've also monetized with SaaS. And just after doing all these different business models and selling a meaningful amount of these products, here are the high level conclusions that we've come to. And so as we have this conversation, I do want to add the asterisk. Like you will always find success stories that contradict the things that I share. So I'm not saying this is the only way. These are just a lot of the things that we've found.

Oh absolutely. And in fact, actually I think the one place that I would offer a different point of view has everything to do with changing software. And not that the way that you structured it and the way that you are thinking about it is in an like it is is wrong with what we have today.

Yeah. Yeah. So I mean we could. Yeah, I'll take it from the top if you want to. And then I'd, I'd love to hear your POV on each of these too.

Yeah, for sure. So I'll chime in as you get, as you, as you finish each one.

Okay. So these start very like high level and simple and then they get more advanced as we go. The first one is really, I just open with people drastically underestimate how much work these types of products take. And in the post I sort of, you know, laid it out. I've created probably 10 different curriculums at this point. During. While we've been building all of these, I've also self published probably another five books. I've rewritten these curriculums. Who knows how many times I've written, you know, for the first two and a half years, I wrote all the emails, I wrote all the funnels, I wrote all the social media copy. Like when you add all of that up, you're looking at millions of words. This isn't like I did it on a weekend and now I have quote unquote, passive revenue forever. Like this is millions of words. And in the beginning I didn't know that. I didn't know that's what I was getting myself into. And so I. The reason that I sort of wanted to open with that is I see this trend of other creators that are like, especially on YouTube, where it's like, I make 800 grand a month working two hours a day like that. No, you don't. That is A, not true. B, I know all those people. I know that's not true. C, those people are stressed out of their mind. Like, they are not working two hours a day. And the reason I take issue with it is because I think it sets this faulty belief or faulty expectation for the next generation of entrepreneurs who are like, I worked 90 minutes today, and I'm not making a million a month. What's going on?

Right. And then. And then do I quit because maybe I'm not good at this or, you know, what am I doing wrong that all these other people are doing? Right? I thought that was so. First of all, I was nodding vigorously at this point because I was like, yeah, that's about right. Oh, yep, I've done that. Yeah, I've written. I've written a lot of content at this point. Especially, like, for me, it's content to try to convince people to not actually spend so much time writing content. What I thought was actually so. So interesting is. And I. I'm curious to get your reaction to this is, for me, at least, the way that I feel comfortable rewriting things when I rewrite them is because I'm learning. Like, sometimes I really find that, like, okay, wait a second. I'm gonna just, like, tear it off, start. Start over again, hit the reset button. Because it's the kind. It's. It. It gives me those moments to be able to take and absorb that input that I'm getting and make it even better. And so I saw that a number of times in your writing where you're like. And I did it again because I saw this opportunity to improve. So for me, it's been less about. The. It's been less about. I want to rewrite it for rewriting its sake or that I feel like it has to be rewritten and much more about. I like actually doing that work because it. It gets me that high that I have of. I want. I want people to have aha. Moments. I want people to be able to see something and just be like, holy shit, that is awesome.

Yeah. Or you're.

I don't know if that resonates with you.

Yeah, I mean, I would. I almost. I have the same point of view. I like saying it maybe a little more overtly, which is. I actually believe that the first draft of anything shouldn't be edited. Because part of the realization, and I only understood this after years and years of doing it, but the first time you write something, if you sit there and you start going, okay, I wrote it. Now time to edit it. Well, the problem is you don't know what you're editing for. It might already be super clear, so why would you need to go back and start cleaning it up? Right? And so a big aha for me is as we build these products and programs, or even as I write books or whatever, the first time I write it, I don't edit anything, and I literally just put it out there and then go, I need a hundred people to go through this because I need some signal to, where are you confused? Where do you have questions? Where are you stuck? And then the customers tell you all of the things that need to be edited, and then you go, edit.

Yeah, yeah, I've done that through live stream. So the. The first course I launched, which has, you know, continued to evolve, I launched live in live streams that I had never done before. But what was so great about doing it in a live stream, and it still is, what I love doing, is I know immediately if something resonates or if people are confused. And that instant feedback from a live stream has made it so much easier to produce that volume of content that certainly on the marketing end, on the core side, is absolutely, absolutely needed.

Yeah, this. It's an awesome segue into the second point, which is this idea of there's no such thing as passive revenue. This is a painful lesson. Everyone in every industry has to learn in some different way. But, for example, if you have any interest in building digital products or building courses or programs, you don't start with the product. You start with, let me write a tweet about it, or let me write a short piece about it. Let me get it in front of people. Let me see if that answers their question. Let me see if it's helpful. Let me do a live stream with 20 people. And just what do they ask? Do they appreciate it? Right? And so there's all these steps that come before you actually go, all right, now I know what to create. And I think the faulty belief, especially in this world, is a lot of people will. They're, you know, they sit at home and then they watch a YouTube video about how some person makes 800 grand a month working two hours a day. And then they go, oh, I just need to build a digital product. And then money will rain from the sky. And so they don't start with any of the learning, they just start straight with, I need to build the product.

And.

And then the faulty belief is compounded by going, well, once I build the product, it sells itself. I don't have to deploy any more energy. And I think it was really important for me to demystify that in the beginning and go, you know, an example that I would use is I wrote this book called the Art and Business of Online Writing, self published it, and that book probably makes three to seven grand a month in royalties. On the surface, someone looks at that and goes, that's passive revenue. But it's not passive because the reason that book sells is because it's in all of our funnels and it's in all of our programs and there's all of this active energy being deployed that continues to bring people to it. So this idea that you make something and it sells itself is just completely faulty.

Yeah, so I would take and tweak that one.

Please do.

Of. Of a degree. Because the reality is that content does not sell itself and that if this idea of passive income from content does not work. So if, if we think about what a membership, for example, I know you get there, what a membership has meant over the last, call it five to 10 years, it has meant setting up a website for a specific niche and charging access to the content on that website. And that is what a paid membership is, or obviously a paid course. Now, the reality is that there are ways of taking and extending digital products into networks that actually do run themselves and therefore do create passive income. But it doesn't start there. And it doesn't, it doesn't come from watching a YouTube video, going for even just the basic what everybody says to do, which is, number one, find your niche. It's like, no, actually, you do this so well in your essay, which is figure out what people want. And from where I'm sitting with, with the things that we've seen over and over and over again, it's like, you know, you, you want to create passive income, bring together a group of people who are going through a transition. You bring together a group of people going through a transition. They want to go from point A to point B. That is going to be so much less work for you than anything you can do in content and with content alone. But again, you kind of need like all of these things are sort of evolving right now in some really interesting ways.

Yeah, I think you're, you're saying it. Maybe, maybe we should give a name to it, which is, I don't think that passive income is the accurate word for, for what's happening? I think, I think the accurate word is leveraged income. There's a, there's a big difference between, you know, Tim Ferriss four hour workweek. I sit on a beach and money rolls into my bank account versus building things that get stronger over time or get more lucrative over time or get easier over time. You know, and so I think that should be the goal. But I think a lot of times people are deterred because they're like, well, where's the passive part? It's like you're always going to do.

Something, it's just going to like, where's the leverage part? I love that.

Yes.

Well said.

So principle three, lesson three, not all digital products are created equal. So what I mean here is that a lot of times people lump all these different products and business models into one term. So they think selling an ebook is the same as selling a course, or they think selling a $300 course is the same as selling a $3,000 course. Or they think, you know, a book is the same as a paid newsletter. And what's hard, there's a nuance here, which is what's hard is from a creation standpoint or from a writing standpoint, a lot of them are extremely similar. Like the way that you would write a course module is actually the same way you would write a nonfiction book chapter. So that is true. The problem though is each of these have very different context wrapped around them and there's very different purchase decisions that go into them and there's very different business models associated with each one. So this lesson was sort of me priming and going, okay, no, they're not all the same. Now let's get more specific and understand what makes each of these different. So lesson four goes into these three different tiers of selling an online course.

Now I think, I think this was not only so well articulated, but it is absolutely backed up by the data we have at Mighty Networks and how you set this. I like, I got to that point, I stopped what I was doing. I sent it to everybody I know and especially the people who, who work at Mighty. I was like, this is the best articulation for what we are actually seeing in the data related to what people are doing at different points. And I'll share with you, like the way that we've seen it and you, you've used, you use the terms, what was it? Price. Price. Anchored outcomes. Yeah, I think about it as like results. What are you replacing and how do you Price for respect, your respect for the program that you're building and their respect for what it is they're taking and investing in. And I just, I thought you got to go through it, but man, this was fantastic.

Okay, well that makes me really happy that this is backed up by data because this, I mean, yeah, we have our internal data, but a lot of this is just our hunch. So that's cool.

That, yeah, totally spot on.

Okay, so to, to preface. Right. So the three tiers that we sort of came up with are tier one would be a text and video course priced 350 or below. And the way I like thinking about this tier is we would call this an impulse buy. So the same way that you're on Amazon and you're like, I need a new blender, it's 1 99, sure, I'm going to get a new blender. That is how most people view info products at this tier. And as long as your text and video course helps a specific person solve a specific problem or unlock a specific outcome, really all they're looking for is information in that price point in that tier. One of the mistakes that people make is thinking, well I'm going to put together a text and video course. But and it's always one or one or the other. It's either I don't think I can charge more. So they're like afraid to even price it at $50. It's a, it's a self belief issue. Or they think if I price it less I'm going to quote unquote undercut the competition and then more people will buy it. And the reality is neither one of those is true because $150 course is the same purchase decision as 250, which is the same purchase decision as 3 50. And so when you price yours lower, all you're really doing is saying I actually don't want to make as much money because the person would buy at 350 or 250 or 150.

Well, especially if, if the result that they're gonna get for it is tied to value like it's tied to, oh well, if I'm going to get a thousand dollars worth of value or $5,000 worth of value and again, not from, not from the content of what the quote unquote, the content is worth, but rather what will you be able to do after you have this knowledge that you can't do today? Then you're, you're absolutely spot on in terms of what and how, what and how you can charge. And the other thing I would say is we see this all the time where somebody believes that they can't charge before a certain number of people have gone through it or validated it. And my, my reframe of that is. Well, except why are you putting that in a different bucket than for example, consulting where you're working with one person and you're charging, you're going through it the first time with them, but you're charging them a lot of money. So the idea that you wouldn't charge actually at a premium the very first time you go through something, whether it's at that 350 or below or whether it's in the other tiers is something that I'm not trying to get ahead of our, ourselves in terms of the other tiers. But that to me is one of the most. That's where I start to see light bulbs go off for people.

Yep. We could have a whole separate conversation on all the faulty beliefs that are under all of this. I mean, and again, I'm, I'm, I'm not sharing that as like a, I'm this guru and I have all the answers. Like I've lived that I, I was that same person with that same faulty belief. So I understand where it comes from. Right. But, but yeah, a lot of. And we'll get into it as we go on, but a lot of this game is about. It's funny, people associate quote, unquote copywriting with almost like you have to sell people or you have to trick people or you're using some mechanism to get them to buy. And really the, the whole art of copywriting is showing improving your level of empathy for the other person. And when you successfully empathize with the other person and you truly understand what their problem is and where they're trying to go, that is what rationalizes the price. And it doesn't matter if it's a hundred dollars or a thousand dollars or $10,000. It's the same mechanism. So with text and video, tier one, 350 or below tier two, once you start getting above around 350, you have about 350 to around $1,000, we'll say. And what changes between tier one and tier two is it goes from being a product to being an experience. So what the person is buying, yes, they are buying the information. But really how they rationalize that different purchase decision. Is there some other element that there might be a community element, there might be a live component, There might be a, like I do it with my friends, we sign up together like for ship 30. This was a cohort based experience. And it was really interesting to look back at our data because ship 30 started at $100. We learned that was way too low. We were providing an experience. We were in the wrong tier. Right. And then ship 30 notched all the way up to, I think the most we ever charged was 899 for a cohort. And that is right about where we started to see the metrics start to fall, where the opt in rate was lower, the purchase decision was starting to change. And so we learned, you know, there's this kind of weird ceiling around 8, $900, $1,000 where if you go above that, the expectations which go into tier three, we'll talk about it in a second. And then if you go too far below that, you're like over delivering for not enough money. Like you shouldn't charge a hundred dollars for a cohort based experience because you're providing something so much more than what tier one does.

People pay attention to what they pay for. And with digital products or digital experiences, the price point, again, this is why I think about it as respect. The price point tells you how valuable something is. Yes, this is, and this is true for us. You know, as a SaaS company as well, there was a period of time that we really thought we were like, we thought we were like doing the right thing by charging lower, charging a price that was lower than what they were getting elsewhere. And it's how I learned the lesson of replacement, which in hindsight is super obvious. So I'm sort of embarrassed to say, like, yeah, I kind of learned that one the hard way that I should have totally known. But when you price too low, people just don't think it's valuable. They think you as the host or you as the instructor are mailing it in.

Yep. Yeah, exactly. I mean, the price in many ways, assuming that the content is great and the product is great, the price is the differentiator, right? Like oftentimes people don't realize that if you're looking at two competing products or programs, if one is priced at $800 and the other one's priced at $80, the customer immediately and very intuitively comes to the conclusion that the $800 one is better or more valuable. So that's another thing that you don't really understand in the beginning, right? And so then, you know, tier two has this sort of hypothetical ceiling. And then what's interesting is between a thousand bucks and two thousand and about three thousand. Is this really weird no man's land where it's too overpriced to be tier two. You know, very few people, like, it's hard to sort of rationalize spending 2 grand on a cohort based experience that maybe isn't as like one on one, for example.

That is not what our data shows.

Really?

Even close.

Okay, I would love to know more about that.

No, totally. Sorry, I didn't mean to interrupt but I was like, wait, hold on. That's actually not, that's not been our experience or what our data shows.

And I think so, yeah. On stuff like that, what's so cool about this game is like I do believe that there are ways to make just about any combination work. And I, I also like taking the POV of if something's not working. I don't think it's like a blame the market, blame the niche, blame the customer. I think it's always like we're clearly missing something. So this might fall in the bucket of like we've missed an opportunity there. But broadly I would say what makes tier three, whether it's two grand, three grand, five grand, eight grand, whatever, as soon as you get into multiple thousands of dollars, the expectation goes from not just product and not just experience, but actually some sort of skill based training program. So someone wants to acquire a skill to unlock some sort of specific outcome.

Yeah, so we, so I think what is shifting is.

Educate me, please.

Yeah, yeah, yeah, no, and I'll, I'll. One of the things that we are seeing work extraordinarily well is a six month experience where for $997 you are getting the, you're, you're getting a scaffolding or a structure of monthly themes, a weekly calendar and daily polls and questions that are all automated. And the whole goal is for you to meet other people in the program or in the membership community and build relationships with them towards those goals. So at the, at the core of all of this is still, and this is why I think it's just so much easier instead of again picking a niche to focus on a transition. People in a transition are the most motivated, they are the most excited to meet other people. And when you can, when you can structure something for those people to much more easily meet each other, build relationships, share their stories, their ideas and experiences. Not advice. Advice shuts a conversation down. And whereas people sharing their stories totally expands it and just contributions and engagement just explode. So that has been a model. We're seeing work extremely well. And if anything, the hardest thing we have to get people's mind shifted is if you come out of content is king and queen and you know, prince and princess, then you do not believe what I'm saying right now. Like, and you're like, oh well, if it's, I've got to offer more and the community is, yeah, yeah, yeah, whatever. Like that's just like the thing over here. And there's some reasons I believe that is true for a lot of people in terms of that, that false belief. But fundamentally, if you can create the conditions by which people meet each other, you can absolutely charge more money without having to offer yourself or going live or consulting or one on one coaching at all.

Yeah, I would, I would definitely agree. We've learned a lot of the same thing. I, I do think that it sort of goes back to the, the passive revenue. Faulty belief is like people think that this game of info, products or education is about the education. And it's, it's actually not. It's like a lot of the people who are most successful in this space either get really, really good at building community or they get really, really good at building coaching one on one, like true in depth support. They get really, really good at facilitating some sort of like not just relationship, but we almost think about it like recruiting now, where one of the benefits of being in our premium ghostwriting academy is, well, when someone starts to be successful, they want to find another ghostwriter. Well, now you're in a community of 800 other ghostwriters, you can pull another person. So all of those little compounding benefits are really what the game is about. And the, the quote unquote content is one of the most subjective content parts. It's like 50% of people might go, this is the best curriculum I've ever gone through. And 50% might go, yeah, the content's okay, but I'm staying for the relationships. So it's almost, I think of it like, or both. Or both.

Yeah, yeah.

Or both.

That's what so many of us are like trying to get to is that combination of both.

Yeah. So I almost think of the curriculum as like, don't obsess over it. It's good enough. But a lot of your effort does end up getting better. Deployed in the community, building the relationship building the serendipitous opportunity building. Right, for sure. For sure.

These are great.

I love these side rabbit holes too. So lesson five, and this is a very painful one for me because I, you know, my dream as a kid was I want to be an author. I want to Be a serial author. I want to write 100 books in my lifetime. I love the craft of writing books. But a very painful conclusion for me as I've built all these different products and programs is that books are probably the most inefficient vehicle for monetizing your knowledge. And what I mean by that is if you have domain expertise, if you have what I like to call an information advantage, and especially when that information advantage is anchored to, I can explain to someone else how to do something. So how to that information monetized in a book. Okay, so you're, you're price capped because you picked a book. How much can you charge for a book? $20, $30. Right. You can't charge $200. But what's really fascinating is if you take the exact same content, you literally don't change a single word, but you drip it out into a paid newsletter or you put it into a digital product where you add videos to each chapter, people will spend 200 bucks for a year for a paid newsletter like it's nothing, right?

It's it, it. You put yourself and your content in a different, a different line item or a different budget.

Yes, exactly. And people rationalize that purchase decision totally differently.

Totally differently, yeah.

As where I've gotten to and it's taken me writing 10 books now to understand this. Where I've gone to is if I'm going to write a non fiction book, I want it to either fall into one of two categories. I either want it to be a very thinking that's interesting type of book. So think Malcolm Gladwell, the Tipping Point. You're, you're like, oh, that's interesting. I never thought about it that way. But you don't read the Tipping Point and then go, now I know what to do. I don't, you know, there's nothing actionable about it. Or you write something that leans more entertaining, which is Mark Manson Subtle Art of Not Giving a fuck or Ryan Holiday the obstacle is the way. Right? It's like let me tell you a story and then let me extract some insights. And you read it and you're like, that was fun. But again, there's nothing for you to do. And I think those two categories for nonfiction are where you get the most out of it. Whereas if you have really actionable how to insights, you're leaving a ton of money on the table thinking the best way to monetize that is with a book 100%.

I think the only place where a book makes sense is if it, if you're using it for entry level lead gen, meaning you can get it to be so short and so pithy that, and, and you can reach a much broader number of people to be able to bring them into those experiences. The, the challenge, though, and this is exactly what you've just a complete bullseye is today that is so much more effectively done through a podcast, a newsletter, anything else, you know, just writing on social media than a book. But I do think that the, the, the one place that a book really does seem to still have a, and I'm curious what, what you think about this seems to at least have an ego element to it is, oh, well, if I write a book, then I'll be able to do speaking and people will take me more seriously. I'll be able to build a following on social media. And I, I just don't think that that's true. I just don't think that's true.

None of those things are true. I mean, it's, it's one of those, like, does a book help you or hurt you? I mean, it certainly helps you, but it's not keeping you from doing any of those things. And I also, this is a side rabbit hole. But I just think it's so funny how many people, even really smart entrepreneurs, are like, I want to write a book so that I can unlock the business model of getting on a plane and go speaking in front of audiences in person, sleeping at a hotel and then flying and doing it again.

I'm like, my idea of a good time wasn't, wasn't the whole point exactly. My, my, my definition of freedom is not that.

Yeah. I just don't, I really do not get it. And the only conclusion that I've come to is that it, There are some people who, they really want the status element. They want to stand on a stage and have a bunch of people clap for them. And like, I've done that and it's cool for about 20 minutes. And then you're like, well, now I have to stay in this hotel and I don't get to see my girlfriend slash wife or partner or whoever for another three days. Like, it's like, why? That's so stupid.

Right? It has to be the right set of people. And then at that point you're like, how do I learn from you guys, too? So I, I think that's, I think that's spot on. Okay.

Okay. Lesson six. This is where things start getting more advanced and a little tactical. So if your digital product isn't selling, we have found that there's almost always two reasons why. The first reason is that it is not successfully price anchored to a valuable enough outcome. So I'll give you a great example. Let's say in the beginning we said, hey, do you want to come join ship 30? And someone goes, what's that? And we go, ship 30 helps you write. The person's going to go, okay. Writing isn't even that valuable of a skill. I don't really know why I should. You're charging $100 for that. That seems really overpriced. There's no context to make that decision. Right. But if I go, hey, you've been watching a lot of people create things on the Internet. And all those people are able to build these audiences that allow them to leverage all of that attention to then launch products that allow them to have more profitability and a higher pricing potential in their life. And they don't have to work as much. And some of them even quit their jobs. And now they get to do what they love and they've built this amazing community. The person's like, I would give my right arm for that.

Right?

You're like, great. Well, that's everything that we cover in chip 30. And it's, you know, 500 bucks or 800 bucks for, for this four week cohort experience.

Right? So that is spot on. What, after teaching this to like 10,000 people, here's what I figured out and it's you, you have it in there. And I don't know if this is helpful, but I'll share it anyways. And then you can basically just smile politely and be like, oh, that's very helpful. But pick a person in a transition. So for the people, why are they writing? They're writing because they want to get more attention, because they want to get that freedom, that joy, that, that wealth that is really important to them. So pick a person in transition, figure out what would make it their best year ever. Their best year ever. And you start to then just brainstorm the number of benefits or the results and transformation that that person wants, and you pull it together in the pitch sentence of I bring people together, you know, in your case, aspiring writers, so that we can. And then you just articulate what that best year ever is and you got there probably through a lot of practice and also having a real passion for it. I have seen this formula work so well in so many different ways so fast.

That's a great framework. I love that. And what's, what's funny is whenever I, I find, whenever you help beginners through that, you go, start by going, you know what would make this person's year the best year ever? And the first thing they say is, I don't know. But then if all you do. And I learned this ghostwriting, I learned this ghost writing for high power CEOs, all you have to do is just ask again and go, well, what do you think would make for their best year ever? And then all of a sudden they're.

Like, oh, like, this is great. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

So all so much of this is like people sitting there going, the very first thought is, I don't know. And I just decided not to ask myself it again. And it's really that simple. And I do this. You know, we have like live calls and everything each week in pga, and I will do this live with people. And it never ceases to amaze me how they go from I don't know to I suddenly am telling you all the answers when all I did was just ask twice.

I. I'm totally taking that. I'm going to just start asking people this, the same question twice.

Yeah. Well, what do you think?

Right. Right.

That's it.

Yeah. Yeah, yeah, yeah. That's awesome.

So that's the. The first one is it's not price anchored to a valuable outcome or a valuable enough outcome. The second reason, though, it is. It is like the plague. Everybody is afraid to pitch their list or everyone is afraid to go, yes, I actually have this thing for sale. And the way I like articulating this is I go, okay, so let me get this straight. The number of people on your email list not paying you is a more valuable metric than the number of people paying you. And I just don't understand. It's like everyone wants to go, oh, I have this huge email list. I have 30,000 people on it. And then pretty soon I can start running sponsorships and I can plug my athletic greens affiliate code. And it's like, you do realize that's not the game that you want to be in, Right?

Right.

Yeah.

Well, I. When you first wrote that tweet about the number of emails that you guys have sent and kind of how you think about them, that was another one where I was just like, oh, my gosh, that is spot on. And we started. When I saw that, we started experimenting just with more emails than, you know, what anybody was sort of comfortable with. Completely worked.

Yeah. There.

That point about being reminded as opposed to sold, like somebody needs to be reminded more than they need to be sold, was. Was spot on.

Yeah. And it's it's one of those things like you just, you don't know until you start doing it. But as a general rule of thumb in info and education, the more emails you sell, the more money you make. You, you can back into it however you want, whatever napkin math you want to do. But more emails equals more money.

So I, I also found that it was helpful for people to feel like and is helpful for people to feel like they are, they are bringing an idea to somebody and an opportunity to somebody and a value to somebody that they're waiting for. And I certainly know when, when I'm thinking about putting myself out there that when I think about it from the perspective of we are building something or I'm offering something that people want and need and people pay attention to what they pay for. So if I want to help them get results, then I have to charge and I have to charge the most I can charge to be able to attract the people to pay attention to it. That has been I think a really helpful framing for how to get over that hump of like so many people have this, just this, this really negative view of sales and the reframe is sales is all you're doing is helping people see something that they're, they're searching for.

Yep. Yeah, I totally agree. Well, number seven is my point of view on monthly memberships. I almost want to start with what do you think? Because I honestly, you probably know better than we do. I mean your business is an amazing example of this.

Yeah. So I think memberships and subscriptions are different than monthly memberships. And I think that you are spot on that there is this, there's this wave of folks that are basically saying, hey, instead of selling a one time course, I'm going to go sell it as a monthly membership. And then they throw a bunch of content at it and then that content is devalued. Totally agree. So we see two models work really, really well. Number one is a high ticket annual membership. So almost like a, you know, joining a country club or joining a membership club. And that mental model works extremely well. We have also seen that that membership, when you are focused on how someone achieves their goals through the relationships that they're building and that the value of you as the, as the host of that membership is to structure. This is really like using your content to structure the relationships. So it might be different small groups or different masterminds, but you're talking about things or you have sort of a shared understanding of what the, what the culture is and what the norms are and what you're actually helping people achieve together, that works extremely well. So that's the price point. That price point can be anywhere from like $1,999 or higher. So we've seen anywhere, you know, from 3,000 to even 10,000 a year. So it's definitely high ticket. Now again, that doesn't mean that we haven't seen success with lower ticket. But if you. I like to basically in the data supports me on this. If you have your choice between doing an annual membership or a monthly membership, do an annual membership.

Yeah, you always make more money, right.

And then what actually we see really works is if you do an annual membership with what we call paid plus paid, so with paid, additional paid programs within it. So that might be a, you know, level two, level three certification, level four, and that, that then comes back into the membership. But that works extremely well. The one model that does not work at all relative to the amount of work that you have to put into it is a freemium model. So that would be you have a free community and then you have paid programs within that free community. That does not. The, the conversion rates on that are significantly lower because a lot of people are like, I'm getting what I need out of the free, the free community. But that paid plus paid model works extremely well, but it's not more and more content. And that is where people get really nervous of the memberships. And I think this is changing in part because the software is actually getting better and better and more intelligent in terms of like, hey, here are the people you need to meet. Here's what you guys can do together. And, and then we see just extraordinary engagement rates with some of the things that we, you know, certainly at many networks we've been rolling out only because we are paying attention to what's working. And the more that we see what's working, the more we're like, let's go. But that's the shift from where I see it, moving from digital products to digital networks. And that shift means the like, more and more people are actually bringing the value to the network that you're building. And that is a different. That's a different animal.

Yeah, it's great languaging too. Yeah, this is, that's what's so interesting about stuff like this is like, for example, our flow for getting people into pga, which is our higher ticket training program, is we actually have a free school community and then we give a ton of free assets in there and then we will set people in There in onto enrollment calls that get them into pga and we've actually found that that's worked really well. So what's funny about like the, the thing and this I was trying to price point for PGA it's 6800.

Okay.

And it's like four months. But you also get like, if there's one on one coaching, there's a bunch of live sessions that you can join. Like it's very, very hands on and the community element and meeting other people is part of it. But that is not the primary benefit. The primary benefit is like we are going to train you on this skill. But the thing I was trying to communicate in this post is there are unbelievable success stories in every combination of all of these different things. And so there really isn't a this is the right way and this is the wrong way. I just, I do think that broadly the skills that come with building and launching a membership, a monthly membership slash, any sort of community are typically harder skills than in the very beginning of like I'm just going to sell a text and video course. And so my recommendation, I tend to be like maybe get your feet wet and then move into that. But I also know that as I say that you've had a gazillion success stories and school has had a gazillion success stories. And so like that is a very subjective, personal belief that I don't think that that's fact.

Well, it also speaks to where you, when you started. So you know, you've now been doing this for a while.

Yeah, A decade.

Where that was the right model in many respects for a paid program and where your focus and mandate is, I'm going to teach people how to do this. So what I would say though is. Building a community was a more challenging skill set to have three years ago. And certainly now with what we're seeing on Mighty, is that because the software is making connections between members, starting conversations, surfacing people to each other and maybe when we're done recording I can just show you a couple of these pieces because I think they're helpful to kind of visualize. But this is not a pitch for Mighty. But when you have those things, the community piece or that network building piece is going to get easier and easier. When you can do that and combine it with a $6,800 program that's, I mean I just, I think this is, this model is going to just completely change people's career trajectory. Like no question about it, because they're just so powerful.

Yeah, that is, that's a really funny part about this is I look back on. I launched my first digital product in 2014, and I remember back then first.

What, what was your first one?

It was a, it was an ebook that I wrote because I was into bodybuilding at the time. And so I wrote an ebook called Skinny to Shredded and that's how I made my first five grand on the Internet. And I remember, like, I just. The tools back then, like, were so antiquated compared to what we have now. And I remember doing my first video course. Like, teachable had just come out.

Right.

Right. And it's just fun. Like, I very much agree, like, we take for granted how easy payment processing is now or how easy it is to paywall content now. There was a point where that was a very difficult problem to solve. And so I'm sure all these things will continue to change. Yeah.

But I think what's been so great about you sharing so generously what you're learning as you are going, it offers a snapshot of where we are right now and allows for these conversations around where things are going.

Yeah. And like, I'm a firm believer, especially for any beginners listening or anyone who hasn't done any of this yet and wants to get started, the, the most honest answer is step one is literally just pick it. Just pick something. Because in the beginning, there isn't really a wrong answer. You're going to learn either way. It's. You're going to be challenged either way. And so posts like this are really planting the seed for, hey, if you stick with it for a year, two years, three years, these, these are some of the things that are going to come up later. I'm just going to plant the seeds and they will bloom three years from now. But I would not encourage any beginner to sit there and be like, you need to understand all this stuff before you take step one. Because.

Well, and this is, this is why as a beginner, the one thing I would offer anybody is just start with, how do you serve people in a transition? Because they are going to be the most fired up. Because the thing I see the most when something's failing, the, the primary reason I've seen something fail is people are just too generic and too general. And I think you actually alluded to that in what you, what you wrote. And in general, you know, you guys do such a fantastic job of making it super clear, super actionable. And really, I, I think take that and make the challenge aspect something that is just so, so effective. And it's Just fun. It's fun to watch you evolve the business from here. So congratulations. This is so. This is so great.

Well, thank you. I'm. I'm happy to share. I enjoy sharing it because it crystallizes all this stuff for me, you know, but I'm also very aware that, you know, I remember studying RUSSELL BRUNSON STUFF 10, 12 years ago. Like, a lot of this is new variations on old ideas. And so I'm, I'm aware that, you know, a lot of people came before me. I'm not necessarily reinventing the wheel here.

Well, and all of his stuff came from the first generation, and he would be the first to acknowledge the first generation of direct response and direct mail. Yeah, you know, this is, this is what makes it fun, though. And we're at just such a fascinating moment in time for where software is going and what businesses that we are in the process of unlocking right now. And, you know, certainly my, you know, my passion around the thing that all the Silicon Valley guys and all the Silicon Valley companies know is the most valuable business asset any of us can build is not an audience. It is a network effect. It is the ability to create something that gets more valuable with each new person who joins and contributes. And that's why, you know, a lot of these guys did not actually write as much content as you or I have written in the time frame that we have, because they've actually built the network effect that takes off. And every creator is going to have the opportunity to have their own network effect over the next two years. And who seizes on those opportunities is that. That is going to be the thing to watch. So, anyways, I love that. I'm so appreciative of you taking the time. And where can people find you?

The Internet. You know, type in my name and you'll figure it out. I always am. Like, if you're hungry enough, you'll find.

It well, and we will put it in the show notes. So thank you so much. I really appreciate you taking the time. Whoo. Thanks for listening to People Magic. Want more of a deep dive on today's topic? Well, check out People Magic Profit, my nine part free masterclass on how to launch your own wildly profitable, paid membership and community. Do you have your own burning questions you'd like me to discuss on this podcast? Well, I want to hear them, so leave your questions in the review section and keep tuning in.