Skool 101 Q&A: Is it worth it for your coaching business?
Mary Schiller, who has spent 25 years in online education, walks through Skool's platform for coaching businesses. She covers community design, pricing tiers, webinars, automation, and admin tools, then discusses real use cases like free lead magnets, paid workshops, and one-to-one coaching.
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Hello and welcome to this call, which is called School 101 and Q&A. I am Mary Schiller. Of course, I am the creator of the Coaching Freedom Collective, and I'm happy to welcome you to this chat all about our school space. So welcome if you're watching this on the replay. I see Jacqueline has joined live, so thank you, Mama J, for being here. And if anyone else jumps in, that's awesome. If not, we will just go for it ourselves. So I thought I would start this call by telling you a little bit about my background, and it's important because it will explain why I'm even using school. So I'm going to sound ancient when I share these dates, but I actually received a master's degree in education related, related to online teaching and learning back in 2001. I started teaching online in, I think it was around 1999, so a long time ago. And back in those days, we were using fairly rudimentary platforms, although there was one back then that I liked called Blackboard. I have no idea if anyone remembers that platform, but it was actually fairly advanced. Hi, Sharon, thanks for jumping on. So I have been engaged in the online teaching world and space for more than 25 years, 26, 27 years, something like that. Long time. And over all of those nearly 3 decades, I have seen a lot of platforms come and go. Let's just put it that way. And It's been frustrating for me because I have searched and tried and paid money for lots of platforms since ever since then. I have taught people in other settings using other platforms, like in my work in other institutions. I was setting people up on different platforms. And then, of course, when I became a coach in 2016, I was looking for platforms. So I've literally been on the hunt for something that I really liked for almost 30 years. Hi, Anne. Thanks for joining. And so I came across the Skool platform. I think it was a little over a year ago, and I can't remember exactly how I found it, but I was— I joined a group that was free. Related to writing. And then not too long after that, I purchased a program that was hosted in school or is hosted in school. It's not a coaching program, but it was more like a product, almost like a course, but not exactly. It's hard to explain what it is. But anyways, it doesn't really matter. But I was interested by the fact that school was not only hosting communities, but was also able to host something like a course or a program. And I thought, well, that's really interesting. I didn't really think that much of it after that. I kind of just, you know, was in these groups, but I really wasn't paying that close attention. Oh, I remember now. I remember what the first one was that I got into school. It wasn't the writing one. It was a free training that went on for about a month. And then at the end of it, or towards the end of it, she was selling her paid version of that program, and I didn't purchase it. That was the very first time. That's it. And then I joined the writing one, and then I purchased this other one. So I started to see, at least in the beginning, a little bit of the versatility of school and what it could be used for. But then, like I said, I kind of didn't really think much about it after that. And then a few months ago, I was looking around and I joined a couple of other school communities that had to do with AI and particularly women using AI in their businesses or in other ways. And I just started to see how easy this platform was to navigate it. When I joined those groups, for example, I finally downloaded the school app. And I started trying out the Skool app on my phone, which I thought was incredible, the best app like that that I had seen. And then I started spending some time in those spaces on my computer as well. And I recognized the absolute— and I don't use this word lightly— genius behind the design of Skool. Now, just to give you an example of my frustration in the past, was I had tried things like Teachable, Thinkific. I don't know. I can't even think of all of the different online course platforms. Kajabi. And most of them, if not all of them, Systeme, which I still use for some things, they didn't have a decent community aspect. Like it was impossible to have any sort of community environment while having your course at the same time. There was really no seamless way of doing that. I remember I looked at Mighty Networks and thought it was really difficult and expensive. And I was just like, there's gotta be something else coming along because these are just not cutting it. But for years and years and years, those are the only ones. And if you've been in this space for a while, I'm sure you can relate to what I'm saying. And so when I started to see what school actually was and how it was organized very easily for not just the users, but then I saw behind the scenes for the admin, I was like, wow, whoever designed this really understood that when you are— and this is appropriate for anything you're coaching people in— but when you are coaching people or teaching people something, they need support. They just do. It's a fact. And I know that people try to say, oh, you can sell a course and you don't really have to do any sort of support for it. It's just not correct. When I was getting that master's degree all those years ago, I remember our lead professor was so adamant. She was saying, because then we started teaching people online, of course, and she was saying, people need a lot more support than they think you do. They do than you think they do, especially in an online course environment, because usually they're at home by themselves or working somewhere by themselves. And it's very difficult, if not impossible, for most people to go through any sort of program on their own. And so when I came across school and I started to see how it was organized, I realized that they understood that, that the primary driver was the community aspect of whatever else was going on in the individual school space. That was very exciting to me because I thought, okay, now if I want to put up a program or some kind of course or series of courses, I've got a space where it's all there together. So I can put everything into the classroom that I want into the classroom. But the focal point is not just on that, it's on this community, these people who are in here and my ability to support them through the community discussions and obviously live events like this one or the recordings afterwards. This is honestly— Skool is honestly the first platform I have come across in almost 30 years that gets this right. And that's why I pay the $90 a month or whatever it is for the upgraded version because A, I wanted a couple of the features that, that offered as opposed to the $9 a month version, which is the starter version if you're an admin. But also, frankly, I want to support them. I know that they've got thousands and thousands and thousands of users now, not just people who are joining schools but who are running schools. But it's been such a revelation to me to see someone finally get this right that I'm like, take my money. You deserve it. Take it. So that's a little bit of my background and history and why I really love this school platform. From the admin side, it's incredibly simple to use. From the user side, I'm going to open it up to you in a second. You can tell me if you find it easy to navigate. Really, there's only 3 places to go, which is the community, the discussions, the classroom and the calendar. That's basically where you're hanging out all the time. And there aren't a million tabs for you to look at. And so from the admin side, it's the same. I can put trainings in the classroom, I can have the discussions, and I can host events and put them onto the calendar. So it's very, very simple. If you are following the school news, which is released weekly, And they are really working hard on bringing more and more improvements to this platform. They seem very dedicated to listening to what people want and need. So for example, as I'm talking to you, they just recently included tiers in a membership. So prior to the tiers, if you were an admin and you wanted to offer a paid group and a free group, you had to set up two Google Spaces, whereas now it can all be in the same space. But you can have different tiers. You can have a free tier and 2 paid tiers, or you can have 3 tiers at different prices. So it's up to you how you want to organize it, but you're not then running 2 different spaces on Skool. So I thought that was great. And that's why I set up a free tier to invite people into this community. So let me pause there for a second and see if anyone else has anything they want to say or ask a question. And then I can do a little behind the scenes tour and tell you a few other things, but I'll open the floor if you want to unmute yourself. Please feel free. I'm curious if anyone else has had the same struggles that I have had when it comes to finding a platform, because I'm telling you, it has been a struggle.
I can share, Mary. I haven't had the extent of difficulties that you had, but similarly, I, I ran my program the first time on a variety of using different things. So they get the resources here and they do the chat here and Um, when I came to run it the second time, having, having it all in one platform was the main pull for me, is that my people didn't now have to write to me and say, where's the link again? Or, you know, I, I forget to remind them or whatever. Um, it's all there in one place, really easy to find. So that was my main thing. I followed you on school. I was already thinking about it, but I followed— I go where Mary goes. Innovative, and I always— and I, I actually was looking at Circle, for instance.
Yes, tried that too.
But I thought, well, if Mary's chosen school, it must be good. So, um, so that's one of the reasons why I came here. And, and the same, I, I pay for the top version with my main school. I've got a, I've got a hobby school as well, um, And it's wonderful. It's wonderful to have all of that stuff there.
Yes. And you pointed out something important, which is a couple of things. One is I got really frustrated by people, you know, losing the link to what they needed. And that wasn't their fault. You know, it wasn't my fault either. It's just the way these other platforms have been designed. And it's been very challenging to cobble things together, like using a Facebook group, for example, for a community or something like that. I've tried Slack. I've tried all everything you can think of pretty much, and nothing really ticked all the boxes. And Skool was the only platform I found that ticked all the boxes. I will tell you another box that has been exceedingly difficult for platforms to check, and that is handling the value-added tax. So if you are at all familiar with that tax, it's a pain in the you-know-what, uh, and I don't really want to go into it because I'm not an expert, but, uh, I have searched for platforms that handle the value-added tax for me And the only ones that have done that are Payhip, Gumroad, FourthWall, and Teachable. Those are the only 4 that I am aware of, and I have searched high and low. But those are not platforms that are good for communities. They are not horrible for delivering something, although FourthWall is really just for It's either for physical goods that you sell or for an instant download. It's not, it's not a course platform. Gumroad and Payhip are okay in terms of a course platform, but there's no community there. And Teachable is exceedingly expensive and doesn't include a good community aspect to things. So I have been frustrated for many years because I don't have the bandwidth to handle the VAT myself. It's just way too complicated. I don't want to deal with a gazillion different countries' rules and things. And so when I saw that school handled that, meaning school is the merchant of record, so when you paid to join, if you paid to join this community, you did not pay me, you paid school the $997 for the year, and then they paid me. So they go through their process of clearing all the payments, and then you— then I receive the payment from school as the merchant. So Therefore, they are collecting and remitting the tax for me, essentially, and then paying me what's left over. That was a massive plus for me— was, uh, hi Louise— was recognizing that I did not have to deal with that VAT at all with Skool. I think it's another reason why Skool can be a good platform I have seen people doing this where they almost set up a school space like a community plus a shop. So they have the community going, but then in the classroom, they have various things that people can purchase as a one-off. They may get something free to start with, but inside the school classroom, you can make something available to people at a certain tier. So at a free tier, for example, or paid one, you can make something available once people are at a certain level on that leaderboard. So if people have had some good interactions, if people liked your comments, you start to move up different levels. So you can unlock something for someone at a certain level, or you can just set a price for it. And you're going to see that after I'm done selling this take my offer, excuse me, take my money offer kit for coaches to my email subscribers, I'm going to add it into the classroom as something that can be purchased on its own. So people in the paid tier already have access to it and I make a note of that. But if you're in the free tier and you want it, you can purchase it from inside there. I think that is great because that gives us as coaches and solopreneurs a lot more flexibility about how we can offer things to So the way that I look at it is if you have people in a space that you are facilitating and they're enjoying the discussion and they're coming in there and participating and they're seeing you posting things, it's a lot nicer to sell something from inside there and say, hey, based on your feedback, I have created something for you. If you're in a paid tier, it's part of your membership. But if not, you can purchase it right here. And so I really like that. And that's a fairly new thing that the school people just instituted. So I'm going to start using that. And I've thought about off— excuse me, opening another school space that is more like a shop plus community that is really mostly things that I sell that includes that community aspect. So lots of really creative things are possible with Skool, and that's why I'm so impressed by it. And I'm really happy that the people behind it are so inventive and listen to what people are asking for. The other thing that I wanted to make sure and mention is that Skool has a very generous affiliate setup. So that means that you can share your affiliate link to school and get paid if someone opens a school on a paid subscription. So you get money every, every month from that. That's one way. You can also get an affiliate payment from my space, the one that you're in right now, the Coaching Freedom Collective. I set it up so that you could earn a 40% commission on every person who comes in and purchases the paid tier. Not everyone who runs a school does that, but I do. And I think most of the groups that I'm in, the paid groups that I'm in, they do offer that. And all you have to do to get that link is when you log into the school space, there's a little button there that's kind of flashing that says invite. All you have to do is click that and your affiliate link pops up and you can share that link with anyone. And just so you know, inside the school space from the admin, I don't want to pull this up because it's a little bit proprietary. I don't want to share details, but in the admin side, when I go to the members list, I can see who has invited people. So if you're inviting someone using your affiliate link, it will show me that, that I can say, oh, Louise brought this person in, cool. If they upgrade, then she'll get the 40% commission for, from that sale. So I can see, you know, who's inviting people, and that's really exciting to me because, you know, we can build this community together. It doesn't just have to be me, it can be all of us, and I want to share the wealth. So I'm happy to give you that 40% commission payment if you, if someone upgrades to the paid tier. So let me stop there again and see if there are any comments or questions about what I was just talking about. And then I'm actually going to try and share my screen. I've never done that on one of these calls in here. So I kind of want to test it out. But first of all, do you have any questions about like the affiliate setup or that tax thing? Anything? I'm happy to answer or chat about it.
So I take it the affiliate is automatic as well from Skool. So Skool take the VAT off you and then the, the 40% for all the different people and then they send that.
Yes, that's correct.
That's really helpful, isn't it?
It's super helpful because that's one less thing for us to do because paying affiliates by hand is time-consuming. And they handle all of that. They handle all that.
I was going to ask you because I know that I, I'm not used to affiliates at all, um, but I know that you use a lot of affiliate links and various things that you've done. Uh, so just does Skool compare highly to all of those other types of affiliate?
I think so, yes, because I'm always looking for affiliate programs that have monthly income. So it's not just a one-off payment necessarily. Sometimes those can be good, like in this case, if you refer someone and they pay $9.97 and you get 40% of that, that's a pretty hefty affiliate payment. So that to me is a good one to look for. So I personally always look for affiliate programs where I can make a good chunk of change you know, right off the bat, like $200, $300, $400, or $500, or something that is monthly. Even if it's $5 or $6 a month, you start to get a few people in there, it adds up very quickly. So if you're sharing your link to Skool, generally speaking, you can start to make some decent money from that. One interesting thing too about offering an affiliate program is this is something that I'm looking at for the rest of this year and definitely into next year is providing the people in your community with things to share. So for example, anytime I host a free event in here, let's say I will make a point of saying share your affiliate link to this community and invite people to come to this event because this is something they might be interested in. And this is a way to invite them in and associate them with you so that if they upgrade, you get that affiliate payment. Inside the classroom, I have started a space for affiliate resources that I've already made, some sales pages and things like that. I'll share my screen in a second to show you where that is. And I have some more ideas for how to do that. I'll give you an example, which was Jacqueline and I recently did this event in here together, and she invited her people to join the collective and to enjoy that live event. So that was one way that we collaborated, and she was able to share her link with those people. So if they upgrade to pay, then she gets the affiliate commission. So that's something I'm going to make a training about, about collaboration opportunities with me so that you can invite people in and we can do a joint event. That your people can enjoy. And then again, they're here through your affiliate links. So they're associated with you if they decide to upgrade. Yeah.
What another cool side effect of that is like the gift that keeps on giving, because I know there's someone here that I invited and then they invited other people.
Yes.
It's like everyone's winning down the line.
Exactly. Yes, exactly. And so, you know, that I personally have had great success being an affiliate for other people over the years. I am very, very choosy about what I represent and what affiliate links I send out. I literally will never send an affiliate link to something that I don't use myself currently. Or have not used in the past and really gotten great results from. And, you know, for example, I used to share Jeff Walker's, uh, launch, uh, Product Launch Formula because I did really well using those techniques and I made a lot of money from those affiliate, um, contest sort of things, you know, several thousand dollars I could make, uh, just from one of those per year. So, um, and then for things that I have monthly, I get these payments that come in and I'm doing nothing for them now because I shared the link to something that I found valuable. So that's something else I want to add into the affiliate training area is— and this may sound self-serving, but this isn't how I mean it. I hope you take it in the spirit in which I mean it, which is if you don't know what to sell right now, then sell this space, sell this community. If you're like, I don't know what to talk to people about. Well, if you're seeing the value of this space, then about it and bring more people in, not just to benefit yourself financially or me financially, but just to grow this space with really awesome people. I feel like the, the, the best affiliate programs that I've been in where I've been sharing a link to something are places and people and services that really care about what they are giving people. In return, not just the money, but really showing appreciation, sending thank you notes to people and just really showing their appreciation for bringing other people in who can benefit from whatever it is, a service or a product or a coach or a program. And also, I will say this. Oh, quite a few of us have shared Insight Timer far and wide with no payment. I know. I've thought about that, Jacqueline, that I wish they had an affiliate program, even if it was a small one, you know, like just 10% or so. I mean, I don't care, just something. But it's something that in this day and age of technology and things, you know, having an easy link to share is just awesome because you can literally just send it to your subscribers. You can share it on a YouTube description. You can put it on anything that you are putting online. You have to be careful about some things like Amazon has rules about putting affiliate links inside your books and things like that. But most places you can share an affiliate link without a problem. I know people who have YouTube channels where all they do is talk about something that they're an affiliate for and they have the link in the description and that's how they make their living, which is pretty awesome. So don't— I guess what I'm trying to say is, even if that's not something you have done before, it doesn't have to be difficult. It can be very natural. And as long as you say, this is my affiliate link and I'll earn a commission if you decide to upgrade, then you're following the, the law, which we want to make sure to do. All right, I'm gonna just see if I can share my screen. Let's, let's try this, shall we? Okay. All right, we can see it.
Yay!
Okay, so this is kind of fun, and I love this feature that when you go into a school space and there's a live event going on, you can just click this red button that says it's live and you can be taken right there. That's one of my favorite things. And I also like, you know, leading up to it, it sort of jiggles a little bit so you know that it's starting soon. I love that feature. So let me show you a little bit about the classroom. So this is what it looks like from my side of things. So I can see everything no matter who it's available for. I have a couple of things that are here in draft form, but I can also do this. I can also see view as member, and now I can see, okay, if I'm a free member, these are the things that I see, and these are the things that I see, you know, that need to be unlocked with a premium membership. So if I were to click on one of those, this is what it would do, and I would click that and it would take me to the page where I can select the plan that I want. So if you can, if you're sticking with me here, you can see that the way that they have done this is actually quite effective where it's not hard to have someone upgrade or take the next step because it's very clearly laid out to them. It's not something like they have to jump through a million hoops. The answer is right there for them, which I really like. The calendar is super easy to use from the admin side. Again, I can view the calendar from different membership levels, but to add something, all you do is click this little button, you title it, you put the, the date, etc. They now have something called a school webinar. We are on a school call right now, so I can see everyone and we can speak and unmute ourselves. A school webinar is more like an actual webinar where you don't have the ability to interact with people verbally, but you are on camera and they are in a chat. I haven't tried that yet. And you can see here that you can decide who has access to this. It's either everyone, or I found it better actually to use the members on or above and pick the tier. So the standard tier is the free tier right now, and then a premium and VIP I could select. Or you could have members in a particular course. So that's another way that you can choose who gets to come to an event. So for example, if I had a school set up that was more like a shop with a community, I might wanna host a call only for people who had bought a specific course. That was in the classroom. So I could actually do that by choosing it there. And in the community, as the admin, you can decide what the different discussion areas are called. You can have just one or two, or you can have several like I have. If you decide you don't want one of them, that's fine. You can just go and delete it in the admin area. It's really easy to set all of this up in any order that you want them in. And so on. All right, let me go back here, see where we are. Okay, so, um, one of the things that I like particularly lately is this ability to see what each member sees depending on what level they are, because when they first introduced tiers, there was no way to do that, and I wasn't sure if I was setting it up correctly. I was like, oh my gosh, are free people gonna come in And then they'll have access to everything. I was like really kind of panicking. And because I was like, you know, not that I don't want people to have access, but, you know, if people have paid money for something, I want them to get it exclusively. And so then they, they showed us, yes, we just fixed this because I think people were like me and panicking. And so now you can see what every member at each level can view. So let me see, is there anything else on my list? I think that's it. One thing I do, I do want to mention for sure, because this has also been something I've searched for ever since apps became a thing, is I have never found an app for any platform that works better than Schooled app. I don't know how many of you who are on this call right now have used the school app on your phone, for example. Okay, a few people. Yeah, definitely. If you haven't, check it out. I use it frequently, and even as an admin, I find it very easy to use. I don't think that I would do extensive work in there, but I definitely respond to people's comments, and I respond to direct messaging and things like that. When you are paying for the higher level as an admin, the $90 a month or $99 or whatever it is, you have the option of having an automated message go out to someone when they join your school. So everybody who joined, you got a message from me right in your little direct message. That's an automated message that I've set up to go out. And I really liked that. So I thought that would be fun to set up. It's not automatic. So you have to actually go in and and choose it and select it. But that was something that was important to me. And also, let me see if I can share this. I'm not sure if I can. Let me see if I get it on my screen first. If I go here— one second. Yeah. Okay, so let me show one other thing here really quick. So there's these different plugins you can use. So you may decide that you want to ask a few questions when someone joins your group. It can be anything from, you know, how did you hear about me or this group? Or, you know, what's your biggest question or problem that you're coming to this group for, etc. There are different things you can do. This is the auto direct message new members. I used to have an onboarding video and it was out of date, so I need to redo it. But with this onboarding video, that means that anyone who comes into the group will see if they click, you know, watch a video, there's this little checklist of things to do if you're a new member. They will see me on screen. So I'm working on that shortly. You can also integrate Skool with other things, like if you have an email list that you use, like Zapier, or excuse me, like ConvertKit or MailChimp or something like that, you can integrate it with your members list here. There are several other things in here that I don't use, but I may investigate. So they are again really thinking about what is beneficial for admins and you know, what's really important for us to have in terms of tools to make things easier for us. You've been gathering email addresses with that questionnaire. Yes. So I have considered putting that questionnaire on there, but I haven't done it yet. So, you know, yeah, I haven't, I haven't done it yet. Another thing, a feature for an admin is that you have the option of sending a message out to everyone in your school once every 72 hours. So if I make a post that I believe everybody really needs to see, like it has some important information in it, or it's, you know, it's really inspiring or whatever it is, if I, I have to wait every 72 hours, but I will, I always use that feature. I will come up with something so that people do see me in their inbox every 72 hours so they know that I'm here. And of course, as users, we can decide how often we want to get— excuse me— updates from communities that we're in. So you can select daily, weekly, never, you know, whatever you want. You can set that up so you can decide how often you want to hear from certain groups. So for me, there are a couple of communities that I really like to get a weekly digest from. And so I do that. Most of them I just go in and check manually because they're not like super crucial. They're more like things I'm kind of doing on the side. They're not crucial to my daily life, but I still like going to check in there. So lots of different ways for you to control how you are receiving messages if you're in a school community and how you are sending out messages if you're an admin.
Mary, I was gonna add as well that I haven't done this yet, but I can see that other people have. I'm in a few communities myself, and, um, but it's this whole idea that if you're running a school, you can run webinars in a bit like you said about the affiliates, you can invite people, but as yourself. You can invite your list to a webinar that you're running in the school.
Yes.
Which gets them in the school. In the school.
Yes.
It's so easy to gather people and I haven't done that yet, but that's something I'm going to be trying next because I've got all people on WhatsApp and this group and that group and I just want to gather them all in one place. I can nurture them all without having to keep getting to all of these places. Yeah, it does seem to make it easy. So you can have a lead magnet on there, or you can run a webinar on there, or you can do a collaboration or whatever. There's so many ways of getting people into your community.
Yeah, that's very true. I'm really glad you mentioned that. So thanks, because you know I'm a big proponent of coaches offering a masterclass as a way to build authority and, uh, and really connect with people in a meaningful way. And it's very easy to do that when you have a school space. You, in that case, you wouldn't be charging for it, which is fine. You don't have to charge for it. I was also thinking, though, that there could be a way that I haven't figured this out, but there could be a way to maybe offer a paid one somehow in there. Like, through the, through the classroom. If I offered something that was paid and I said this is a special workshop that's included for premium members, but if you want to attend, it's $30 or something and have it in the classroom. That's something you could do as well. But I do think that if you have struggled to find ways to connect with people meaningfully, if you struggled with getting a lead magnet, quote unquote, put together, a school space kind of solves that for you because the school space itself can be a lead magnet because it's free. And also, like you just said, if you host live events in there every so often that are free and you share the link, then people will join your space in order to attend. And, you know, to me, honestly, you've heard me say this if you've been around me at all. Nothing has worked better for me than live events in terms of every single time that I have run a live event, whether it's been free or low cost, someone has signed up to a higher priced offer. Like literally every time, maybe not during the call, but like very shortly afterwards, at least one person who attended will, will sign up. So They are really powerful and they're great practice. If you're not used to doing that sort of thing, this is a great way to just get your feet wet. You don't have to do them for an hour. You could just do a 30-minute one or something if you wanted to, or just do a Q&A. You don't even have to have a topic. Just say, bring your questions about, you know, whatever it is you're coaching people in. But I do think school is great for this. And as Jacqueline and I were saying just before we went live, before I started recording. The way that you get the recording of these is very simple. You get a little alert and it says your recording is ready and you can literally just share it inside a discussion area. It's very, very simple. And/or you can download it. I forget how long they keep the videos. It's like, is it 14 days? I thought it was like a week or two. So you can always go back to it. I always download and keep them and put them in my Dropbox just so I have them for safekeeping. But you will see this recording appear in a discussion post shortly after we conclude. So again, they've kind of thought of everything, you know, and you, right, they continue. If you, if you want to join another community and is, I don't know if the schoolers one is open. Is that open to people who don't have a school? Yet.
No, that's just for school.
But you could, you could follow the Schoolers, uh, YouTube channel because they do share these weekly updates on their YouTube channel, and you can see their roadmap and things that they have worked on and delivered and things that are coming up and bugs they're trying to work out. And they're very— at least from my perspective, they're probably the most transparent company I've ever seen. In this regard. And that's saying something because, you know, a lot of companies want to keep things behind closed doors, and they just don't seem like they care. They, they actually want people to know what they're doing and why they're making certain decisions, and, you know, why things are taking longer, for example, than they originally thought. They're just very open about that.
I wanted to share a couple of things.
Please.
One was that I— how useful it is to have your school, because on a call today with somebody where my premium program wasn't the right program for them, I was then able to say, well, look, join, join my school, try it for free, upgrade to the premium of the school if you, if you want to, if you're getting value from it. But it meant that I'm keeping that person in the loop.
That's right.
And they get to, they get to experience me and how I answer questions and what I'm providing and everything. So it's going to be much easier if, if my work is a good fit for them, for them to be able to buy later. Yes, because they're in the school. So that, that was one thing I wanted to share that I thought was amazing, um, to be able to do that. And then the other idea I just had when you were talking was I like to do live coaching sessions. Um, and what I was thinking then was the live coaching sessions can be like for premium members or you can buy. So, so that the premium members get something, you know, that's really valuable to them. Um, but you often people like to see live coaching.
Yes.
So that's a great one.
That's a great one. Uh, I really like that. I actually wrote that down because I was inspired to do some one-to-one coaching recently because of something I ran across, and I was trying to figure out how I would do it. That's a great idea. One other thing I wanted to mention about pricing inside School as an admin, when you open a school space, you can price things in a lot of different ways. You can have, like I said, different tiers. You can offer a free trial. And then, you know, after 7 days, I believe it's just a 7-day trial is the, is the standard that you have to do. And after that, people can join or not. So, you know, you can have any price you want. You can have a very low-cost one for just a few dollars a month and have people also have the option of buying an annual version. In my case, I decided against that because in my experience, it takes people about a year to really get what I'm saying and put it into action. And so I just said to myself, well, then a monthly is not helpful to people. It just isn't. So I'm just going to do an annual. Like, you have to commit to a year. That's it. And so, but your situation may be different. You may find that a monthly works really well, or, you know, have people have the option to pay for a year and maybe save 1 or 2 months of payments or something like that. So they do make it very flexible as to how you can set your school up in terms of pricing. And I've seen schools charging several thousand dollars per month. So don't think that this is just for inexpensive memberships. It is not. It's for free up into the thousands per month. Let's see, anything else on my list? I don't think so. As a personal note here, another big reason that I am touting school, I'm going to do some YouTube videos about school, is because I really respect the fact that they seemed to, from my vantage point, look at what was out there and figure out what was missing. And then they fixed it. They didn't just do the same old, same old. They really tried to, I think, do a ton of research. They must have done a ton of research and taken a lot of time to figure out what people were actually looking for. And they've created it with Skool. And I'm really excited to see where they're taking this platform. As I said, as someone who's been in the online education space since the late 1990s, it's been a really interesting experience to watch this industry shift and change and grow. Any questions or comments? Has this been helpful? To you? Are you excited about not just being a member of a school community, but, you know, thinking about maybe starting one for yourself or just joining some other school communities and seeing what they're doing? You know, that's been fun for me.
Yeah, yeah, it's been really helpful. Thank you, Mary. But I, I mean, if I hadn't come to the last one, I wouldn't have known this was on because I just saw you a few minutes before this.
Yes.
Um, but, and I, I already, as I said before, I already belong to, you know, I'm already in some school groups, but I had no idea it did what it does. You know, I've, I've only been in them for a short time, and I've, I've just joined one which is a paid one, uh, which is a course on, um, uh, something completely different, and, and that I'm learning from that. Oh my goodness, it does this and it does that, and you know, wow. Um, but, but, but even then I hadn't realized what you could do with it. And, and I was looking up just before we came on, I— because I had a few minutes before we came on, I was, I was looking up, oh well, what about this topic? And that's like, good grief, there were like, um 11 pages of them for this one topic or something.
I'm like, oh, that's another thing I needed to say. Thank you for saying that. So when your school group— I don't know the exact numbers, I'm not even sure they've exactly shared the numbers, but when your group gets to a certain number of members and a certain level of activity, you start getting shown in the directory. So that's another reason why I decided to offer a free tier was not just to bring in more wonderful people, but I was like, well, I want to be in the directory because I want more people to know what we're doing in here and how we're simplifying things and, you know, making business more fun and all of that. So that was part of the impetus too, just full disclosure. So, right.
Okay.
Great. Yeah, yeah. Hi, Louise. Thanks, Anne.
Hi. Yeah, this is wonderful.
I've, I've—
yeah, I'm in like, I think, 4 schools, and, uh, yeah, I think they're very cool. Um, I wanted to ask Anne, are you going to put all your Secret of Everything in these? Because I don't know how many times I've shared your— I think they're so wonderful.
Um, actually, that's quite interesting because I, uh, the the actual website has gone now, that they're still all on YouTube, but they're not, um, I hadn't thought of that actually.
I think that's a great idea.
Yes, they're brilliant.
Yes to that. But yeah, imagine if you have a hub like this, and you know, I love YouTube believe me, I love YouTube. It's been great for me and for my business in lots of different ways, but it doesn't have the same kind of community aspect that this does. Yes, you can interact with people there, and I have, but it's not the same, you know. So if you do have something like that, that you have lots of material and you'd love to have people just in a space where they can access everything and then you can facilitate a discussion about it, You know, school is the place. There really isn't anything like it. Well, yeah, go ahead, Louise. No, sorry, I was just gonna—
from an admin point of view, um, because obviously I'm on the other end of it, the member side, so there's like a notification, notification, which I have drilled down. But yes, so from an admin point of view, do you find it easy to keep up with, you know, the comments and the all that stuff? Is that an easy, easier than other platforms?
Yes, mostly because I have made sure that my notifications are very pared down. So I only get notifications from people who have posted in this group or one other one that I'm a member of. So when I, when that little bell lights up, I know it's one of those two. So I'm not having to scroll through a million comments or whatever. I just have my notifications set up that way. It also helps to, to make sure that you're not available 24/7, basically. So I often will unless like today was a little bit different for me where I was kind of responding whenever I saw them. But normally I will set certain times of the day when I go and check and that's how I— and then after a certain point in the evening, I just, I just don't check until the morning because I figure if it's really urgent, someone will email me or something and it can wait until the next day. And so that's another way that I manage things. I also am really devoted to posting something in the group at least once a day, like 6 days a week. And that's also really important, not just to keep people engaged and keep them, you know, remembering that you're there, but it also helps to showcase your community. The more active your community is, the more engaged you are as the admin, the higher your ranking will be on that directory and that search.
Thank you. Thanks.
You're welcome. Jacqueline, did you have something else you wanted to say?
Yeah, just to add on to that, I devote a certain time. So my first thing in the morning is answering all the notifications and so on. And I don't trust the notifications. So I always check my two groups and Mary's group to make sure I haven't missed anything. But I, but I like being in there. So it's not difficult.
Yeah, I agree.
That's the other part of it. Yeah, no, I was going to share something I picked up from another group, which is if you do have a school and you are going to share, don't say come to my school because that's like saying come to my backyard.
Right.
Come to my barbecue because there's a difference, you know. So come get my freebie, come watch this webinar. Don't try and get people to join your school because they don't know what it is and they don't like— it's like, oh, I don't want to join another thing until they're in there. Then they see how brilliant it is. So it's more like talk about the benefits, you know, why they should come to your backyard.
Yes, exactly. Very well put. Sharon, did you have a question?
Um, just one? No, I don't know, my head's going all over the place a little bit. So, um, I haven't, I haven't done a— I've been thinking about doing a group course of some sort for ages, but I haven't done anything like that since you helped me do one probably 2 years ago, which we put on Payhip, I think, wasn't it?
Yes.
It's still on there somewhere.
Yeah.
And you helped me on with a text of, um, I can't remember, Voxer, was it?
Yes.
Um, and I remember I found that all very scattered.
Yes.
Which doesn't help me because I'm already very scattered.
Like a lot of us are, yes.
So yeah, so And I, and I've had a— I'm kind of, um, I've had a bit of a break really, so I'm sort of coming back into all this with, with, um, lots of energy, definitely.
But how—
if for somebody who hasn't done anything like this, and, and basically I'm, I'm just doing one-to-one coaching and not that— not enough of that at the moment— well, how would you recommend starting? What would you do first if you were going to start, you know, have your own school?
That's a great question. The way that I would answer it is that I would start a school if I was really sure about what I wanted to talk to people about. So I wouldn't start a school if I was still kind of unsure. Once you're clear on exactly what you really want to talk to people about that is when I would start your school. And you don't have to have a big following. You can grow your school as your quote unquote following. And you don't need a lot of materials in your school to get started. You could literally just start with the discussions and a little thing in the classroom that says, here's how to participate or something like that. So you don't need a lot of bells and whistles to get started on school, on school, because the whole point of it is really the community aspect and connecting with people. So that's really as simple as it gets for me is, are, are you clear on what you want to talk to people about? Then start a school related to it and start talking to them and have them communicate back to you.
Okay. So for example, I recently started a weekly Zoom call free, which I've only been doing it a few weeks, but I've had 3 or 4 people show up. It was a little bit airy-fairy to start with, and I've got it a little bit more structured now, but is that something that I could put in?
Absolutely.
Do that.
Absolutely. Just do it inside a school space and then share the link to your school and tell people that they can access this call. Yes, absolutely. And if you are not very technically inclined, that's okay, because school is not technically difficult. Yeah, at all.
I know, I really enjoy it, actually. I mean, as a user, yeah, it's, it's very intuitive.
So yes, and it's the same if you're an admin. It's that same level of intuitive controls. There's really nothing more complicated on this end. So yeah, so you, you know, I really think that's a great point about the fact that you really don't need more than that to start a school, is a clear idea, a clear topic, and the desire to connect with people. And I was just reading an article yesterday that was saying that not, not that this is the be-all end-all, but it does underscore the importance of Personal connection, which is that the average person before they buy anything needs at least 8 to 10 personal interactions with you. And this is one thing that's great about school because that's what it's designed to do. It's designed for personal interaction. And I was saying on a previous call tonight with another group of people that I really do think one of the reasons why school is growing so much is because people are craving this right now with, you know, a lot of the upheaval that we're all dealing with. People are really wanting personal connection again and not just this fake social media blah blah blah. And school is the perfect place for that, in my opinion. Yeah, yeah. No, I like—
because also with the, with the, um, the, the call, I'm talking to people on Facebook Messenger, WhatsApp, Yeah, email, trying to pull it all, you know, pull it all together.
Yes. So this way you could just use school and email. Yeah, you know, and you could use your email to just remind people about your school. Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Okay.
Yeah, it would simplify things for sure. Thanks for asking that, Sharon.
I was going to add for Sharon that You would use the, you'd use the hobby one, the $9 a month, because you get most of the features anyway. There's only a couple of features on the pro that when you get to that level you need, but that's okay because you've got payment, people paying at that point. And also the support at Skool is really good. There's a course immediately that you set up at Skool that helps you to how to get people in. Very, very simple. And there's a platform called Schoolers that you get more— you can ask questions and get more support. So even though it's really simple to use, they've also got lots of support and lots of places where you can be helpful. So one of the things I do is my school hasn't grown. It's only grown inside my own community right now. not like Mary's, which seems to be, you know, really, really growing. Um, but one of the things that I do is I'm useful in other people's communities. So I answer questions or I help people. And I've been told that over time that has, you know, that has an effect. But I do it because I love it. So I enjoy doing that anyway. Yeah, but that's another sort of added benefit of when you're out there and you're doing your helpful stuff, people are checking you out. Yep, they're looking at your profile and profile, they're following you, they're interested in what you're doing. So you're adding to those 8 to 10, you know, without really— we're just being you out in the world.
Yeah, exactly.
The whole idea of the collaboration of it. It feels, it just feels, you know, like a really shared space.
Yeah, that's exactly, that's a great way to describe it. Um, thanks for that, Jacqueline, for sure. Louise, did you have something else?
Yeah, um, following on from that, you mentioned the profile. If people are checking the profile out, and I don't remember what's on it, but would you also then have your own school in that?
I do. It's the first thing I have. I say creator of the Coaching Freedom Collective on Skool. That's the first thing in my profile so that when they go there, they see that right away. And Jacqueline does something nice too, which is like she will, if she's answering a question or making a post in another group, she will maybe tag me and say, you know, I got, I learned this from @MarySchiller, or she'll say something like that, which is really nice. So then I see that and I respond. And so So, you know, you can start to see, oh, people know each other here and they've helped each other. And, you know, again, it creates that sharing space that's just really nice.
Yeah, brilliant. Thank you.
Yes, just one last thing, and it's, it's just to mention, there are the weirdos still.
Yes, they're everywhere.
There are the weirdos. So there are the weirdos that DM you And there are the weirdos that even in the group will go, hi, can we be friends?
Or whatever.
But I've just been really straight with them. I, in the DMs, I ignore them and block them. And in the communities where they go, oh, hi, I want to be your friend, um, or can we set up a call, cheeky buggers, I just say, well, I look— what I do is I look at their profile I see how active they are. I see what communities they're in. And usually those people are not very active. They're in loads of communities, but they're not posting. And so I respond, well, you know, be more active and let me know.
Right.
And someone did actually comment on that and said, best response ever.
That's awesome. Yeah, if only we could, you know, exclude those oddballs, but you know, that's, that's not going to happen. Fortunately, my experience in the school spaces has been pretty positive. I've had very, very few interactions like that. Like, I can think of maybe 2 or something like that. Um, and I had like 1 person DM me and I just deleted it and blocked them, and that was, that was that. And, you know, in, in our space in the Coaching Freedom Collective, we— I do have rules about DMing people and things like that. So, you know, as long as people follow those, you can set them up any way you want to as the admin to try to, you know, keep it a safe place for people to be. Well, this was really fun. I'm so glad that you were here. And if you watched watch this on the replay, I would love to hear what you thought about Skool and all the things we talked about. I am a big proponent of Skool, as I said, and I intend to post some videos on YouTube about my experience, not just to share my affiliate link, but really to let people know, as somebody who has been around a long time in this space, it is the best platform that I have found. And it's why when I decided to start a community, that it was the only place I was going to go do this. So that's my endorsement of school. And thank you for being part of my school. It's lovely to see everybody, and I can't wait to get to know you even more and see what you do going forward. So thanks for being here, and I will see you again soon. Bye, everybody. You're welcome.
Thank you.
Okay, bye.
Thank you.
Bye-bye.
