← People Magic: How to Build a $1M Community
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If you want to create a community and monetize it with a membership or courses or challenges or events, it is not about charging people to consume your content. Flip that on its head. It's about people paying for something that you have set up so that they can get results in their lives, so that they can meet amazing people who they are going to learn from. And your job is to create a framework for them to go and build those relationships and apply your ideas in their life. So what does that mean? It means, number one, people pay attention to what they pay for. The data on that is so clear across everything that we know and have learned at Mighty Networks. So if you want higher engagement, people building relationships with each other and less work, you want to charge, but you're not charging for the thing that you're giving away for free on social media. You're charging for them to be able to participate in an experience virtually or even IRL or in real life to meet other people who are on the same path, navigate a transition in their lives. That is where people are the most motivated. You are creating something that is about helping people navigate a transition and get results and transformation they can't get on their own. Or as I like to call it, your best year ever. And so that's the way to think about it. And then there are nine specific pillars. That's it. The way that you're going to price is not, you know, this is another sort of thing that I hear where people are like, make sure you charge what you're worth. I want to challenge that. It sounds so good, people can snap about it, but it doesn't actually help you price effectively. The way to price effectively is to take that transition, what is valuable about that transition for that member. So, for example, if someone is able to successfully get their first job or successfully raise an amazing set of kids, that is incredibly valuable to people. And so in your offer, what you are doing is essentially quantifying three Rs results. What is the quantifiable value of the results? That best year ever that your members are going to get? Second is replacement. What else are they paying for today to get those results or not get those results all effectively? And finally, respect what is a price point that you are going to be excited about it, especially if you're used to doing things for free. Don't look at it as, oh, this is what I'm worth or this is what I'm comfortable charging. It's not about you, it's about people pay attention to what they pay for what are the quantifiable results? What is your community replacing? And. And what is going to be a price point that is going to let them have respect for what they have decided to be a part of and then for you to have respect to really be investing in it in some great ways because it's fun and it's worth it because it represents significantly more money than what you would be making by giving your content away for free. And it's not about your content, it's about your members transitions. People are overwhelmed. They don't want more content from you. What they want is for you to help them meet people who are navigating the same transition full stop. The way to think about moving from free to paid is that you're not actually moving from free to paid with the same offering. You are creating a different offering that is about your members meeting and building relationships with each other. And, and you are utilizing your free content and the free work that you're doing to raise awareness of it. So that's your offer. You can charge and charge comfortably if you have a choice. Don't do a freemium community. Freemium is not very effective. You will end up doing significantly more work for significantly less return, including just engagement. Even a Facebook group, even a WhatsApp group. Free is not really the place you want to play. The reality is that people pay attention to what they pay for. So our data across a billion data points at this point, for Mighty Networks, our data is so clear you will end up doing more work, have less engagement, and make less money by having a freemium community, meaning that you make your community free and then you have paid courses or challenges or a paid mastermind that you're offering. On top of that, a much better structure is where you have a free course or challenge or event or or summit. Something that has a beginning, a middle and an end. Emphasis on the end. So you can still offer something free, but it has a container to it. We call them mini launches. You want a container to what you offer for free and then you want to be consistently upselling people into whatever your intro offer is or your core offer, which could be, I have a membership I at $48 a month. Now anybody who's like, oh my gosh, what is $48 a month? That feels like a lot of money. I only pay 14.99 for Netflix. $48 a month is the average price that hosts of Mighty networks. So people who are building these community businesses are charging on Mighty successfully, meaning people are paying them $48 a month on average. So just keep that in mind. You will be much more likely to create something of value that ultimately will be really successful if you are charging for it. So don't do a freemium community. People pay attention to what they pay for. Now, in that context, let's talk about the difference or the similarities between coaching, a cohort, a challenge and a course. The reality is they are all flavors of the same idea, which is to bring people together who are going through a transition. You offer them a framework for them to take and apply in their life, and as they are going through your framework together, they're learning from each other. So it's not about kind of the old way of doing courses, which was, oh, I as the instructor or I as the host, as we call everybody at Mighty Networks. It is not about your content. Very rarely, if ever do people get results and transformation in their lives simply by consuming videos and reading PDFs. Where the true power of change comes from in people's lives is through the application of ideas in community with other people. So, so what that means you can create a cohort of people going through that framework together with a set of things that you are structuring for them every week. That is a cohort, that is a challenge, that is a course. So it's really what language are you going to have the most fun with? And then I want to tackle coaching a little bit differently. When people start communities, there is typically a belief that for my offer to be valuable to the people I'm bringing together, it's about me as the host, it's about my content, it's about my point of view, it's about time. One on one with me, that's the most valuable thing, and the reality is that it is not. The true value is your ability to create the free framework that people are going to go through together. That's where the value comes from. So when you set up your community with the highest tier being one on one coaching, that is a very standard model. We support it on Mighty Networks. But I challenge you to shift your mindset from I am the most important person, I am the expert. Two, I am the person that through my framework and through my monthly themes, a weekly calendar, daily actions that I am encouraging people to do with each other, I am getting them more value than they're ever going to get. In a one on one conversation with me, that is more valuable. You can price it at a premium. It is significantly more scalable. It is the difference between a party where you're meeting all sorts of really cool people, and they are all on the same path versus going to a party and the host is doing all of the talking and dominating the conversation. You're like, let's wrap it up. And that is what you are fundamentally doing. If you want engagement, if you want retention, if you want people to buy the next thing or stay engaged in your membership, in your community, in your course, in your next set of courses, it is all about connecting your members to each other, not producing more content that is only going to serve to exhaust you and your members. And the world isn't going to get the best of you if you choose to do it that way. This is people magic. I'm Gina Bianchini, and we'll see you in the next episode.