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Podcasting Business School: Podcasting Tips for Content Entrepreneurs
628: Should you start a Skool community for your podcast? w/Shannon Boyer
00:51:54
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- [00:00]
A
What's up, pod Pals? It's your buddy Adam, and you are listening to Podcasting Business School. It's the show where I teach podcasters simple strategies to help you grow your audience and turn your podcast content into new clients. And today, pod Pals, I finally get to tell you a secret I've been keeping for, like, two months. I have built a school community for Podcasting Business School, and I would love for you to join for free. The link is in the show notes and we are talking about building a school community here today in this episode with my pod pal, Shannon Boyer. Shannon and I did this interview a couple months ago. I basically took what I learned from what she's going to tell us in this episode, and I built out my school community. I've got about 60 testers in there that have been helping me build it. I've been asking them, what do you want? What are you struggling with? What tools do you need? What kind of cadence do you want for live trainings? What do you want to do in our monthly workshops? What courses need to be in there? So it is jam packed with good people, great conversations. We got our discussion threads going. So if you are somebody that really wants help, I am going to match your energy in there at the free level. All right, so that's something that there are paid tiers. We talk about that in this episode. But if you really want to put in the work, get to the link in the show notes and dive on in. I'll put you in the group and we will get to work. So in this episode, I asked Shannon to come on because she is an expert at building school communities. She's got a platform inside of school where this is what she does. She helps people build school communities that are successful. So we talk about why she's obsessed with the school platform, the basics of the platform, how it works, my goals. She helps me build out my entire strategy live on this episode, which is. I really appreciated that. That was my favorite part. Probably what we should do for free, what we should do for, like, paid options as we do different tiers. She does a great job of explaining everything. Like, I literally took what she told me to do here and I built it. I did ask her a few questions. I had a couple dms in there. She was gracious enough to answer those for me. She is inside of my school community, so when you guys pop in there, you will see her as well, answering all my questions that I have for her there. She talks about a lot of things to avoid in this episode as well. So if you are looking at monetizing and this is one of those things, like I get that question from a lot of you. What if I don't have something to sell? What if I have an entertainment based show or a sports based show? I think a school community could work because that is monetizable. If even if you have like a hobby based podcast, if you are bringing people together in one spot and saying, hey, this is going to be $3 a month or whatever, feel like this is an opportunity for you. So this is gonna be an episode where everything gets broken down and again, the link to join my podcasting business school community, join for free. Get grandfathered in at that free price while you can. The link is in the show notes. Go and get it. And without any further delay, let's dive into this episode with my pod pal, Shannon Boyer. All right, Shannon Boyer, welcome to podcasting business school, my friend.
- [03:05]
B
Thank you for having me. I'm really excited to be here today.
- [03:08]
A
All right, so I am really excited about this topic. We've never talked about it on the show. It's the. The Perfect Storm. Yeah, you are. I only have a few guests per year. People know that it's a big deal and have somebody on. I'm really hot on this idea. I'm on your email list and I get this email that comes across saying that you're teaching in this school workshop, the school based workshop. And I'm like, oh, my God, Shannon, you've got to. I'm like begging you to come on the show and talk about this. So I'm really grateful that you're coming on today and I want to dive right in. So I'm very curious about school. I know that you are, like obsessed with it. So tell us like the number one reason why you love it so much and why we should be considering it as content entrepreneurs.
- [03:49]
B
Okay, awesome. Great question. So let's just preface it by saying we're talking about Skool. It's a platform. It's a community first platform, which is one of the reasons that I love it the most. I've been teaching online course creation for a long time and I've been having to make the argument again and again and again for high touch, high quality, high impact online courses. And so the high touch, you know, we're not talking about a set it and forget it, hope it sells itself, hope people get results. We're talking about a community first platform where we are interacting with our members, with our audience. We are helping them get Results and we are in it with them. And so that's one of the things that I love about it is that. But also it is so simple to use. I actually like didn't want to go on school for the longest time because of some of the ads that I've seen, I had seen a couple of years ago and I was like, that's not me. I'm not a 20 year old guy who wants to win a cyber truck. That's not me. But I was in somebody's community who was on school and I was like, this is amazing. I love this experience. I have to get on here. And their image is changing. They're doing a lot to, you know, get away from that cyber Trekkie kind of idea that some people have. But yeah, just an amazing platform for both myself as the user and the student member experience as well.
- [05:16]
A
It's funny they mentioned like the, I'll call it like the bro marketing cybertruck thing. You didn't wear, you don't like wear a nasal strip and a flannel shirt. So anytime. So Alex Horosi was big in their launch and anytime I see him, I, I run the other way. I, I know there's a lot of people that love his stuff. I had an interaction with him and his team when I owned my gym. I lost a bunch of money and I've found I got like a behind the scenes look on the poison of all that stuff. So I tend to run the other way. So that's how I was about school. I'm like, oh, this is his thing. I don't want anything to do with it. Yeah, but like you said, I have been in a couple of school groups where I bought the thing and I participated in a thing. I'm like, oh, wow, this, this seems very interesting. So I am going to be launching a school platform as I talked about in our, my intro that I recorded here. And I've got some basic. I haven't signed up any for anything. I haven't set up anything yet. But I've got some basic thoughts. I want to run this perspective by you first and tell me like how wrong I am. Okay. So it seems like when I look at school I see three things. Number one, it seems like there is an opportunity for like a Facebook group ish free interaction zone. It seems like there are paid options that you can unlock, tools, courses and resources. And the real thing that has me attracted to this and the advantage I see is that there is discoverability within the platform. Like if you like, when I was in this other course, other things were recommended to me and I was like, that's what really caught my attention. I'm like, this, this is interesting because, you know, I want to join another Facebook group. Said no one ever, like, that's, that's not what we want to do, but this is something a little bit different. So how close am I to. In those three statements? Am I, are you feeling like I'm, I'm kind of on target with what I'm saying there?
- [07:09]
B
Yeah, you're bang on. And it's funny that you mentioned that because I actually just did a podcast episode on my podcast called Stop using Free Facebook Groups, Use School instead. So, yes, absolutely, it is. If you have run a Facebook group and it's not functioning anymore, if you're thinking about running a free Facebook group as part of your funnel, but you haven't, you know, dived into that yet because, well, you just don't want to. Like, so many of us, you know, like, this is an amazing opportunity and alternative to that because they have. There's a lot of different ways that you can host your community, your membership, your course, whatever. On school, they have a lot of different options. But what you're talking about is called freemium. And so that's where you get people into a free community and then you monetize in a number of different ways. So it can be through your classroom. So you have both a community and a classroom and you can monetize directly through your classroom where you have courses, resources, tools, as you've said, and they unlock for. You can unlock it for a one time fee, you can unlock it when they get to a certain level, you can unlock it after they've been there a certain period of time. But what you're talking about is like a fee, right? So they pay a fee to unlock that and to get access to that. The other way of doing it and can be done in conjunction with that is tiers. So you can have a free tier which is called standard, a premium tier, which you would charge a monthly subscription for, and then another tier called vip. So you can have up to three tiers that you're charging different prices for depending on the services and the access to you. And everything that's available at those different tiers, a lot of different permutations and combinations that can be done within that. And your lowest tier doesn't have to be free. And in one of my communities, my lowest tier is $27 a year. So it's a low priced entry point for people to get in, but I know they're serious. I know they're, like, looking to pay. But a lot of people have huge success with the free. Having it be free, sort of like that Facebook model that you talked about. So, yeah, absolutely, like, you are right on track. It's a great way to get people onto the platform, sell them once they're on the platform and nurture them while they're there. The discoverability. So, yeah, when you asked me, like, why school, I mean, that was on the tip of my tongue too, because, like, what are we all struggling with? It's like lead gen, getting in front of people, you know, this constant looking for customers. And so the fact that they help you with that is incredible. And there's just a bunch of different ways they're doing it. At the time of this recording, they are on the verge of some massive, massive improvements to the system as well that are going to make that even better. So one of the things is called discovery. And when you have a community, you rank in discovery in one of your categories. So mine are both in money right now. They're going to be expanding the categories so there'll be more categories which will make you even more discoverable. As you rank higher based on the success of your group, people can find you like, they can scroll down and find you more easily. Obviously, if you're number 200, you're easier to find than if you're number 2000. I have thoughts on that, but I'll leave that for a second. The other thing they have is search. So you can go into the search bar and you can search how to start a podcast. And you know you're going to come up. So they're also adding in now where you can add 11 of your own search key word search terms to help you get discovered even more. Their goal, their mission is to help you get people and make money. And that's at the forefront of everything they do, which I think is incredible. And another reason why I'm. I'm such a big fan.
- [11:09]
A
Yeah.
- [11:09]
B
And then the last thing is on the hobby plan, they have two, two options for your. Your own, how you're going to run your community on the hobby plan. Anybody who's on the hobby plan will have a bar in the side that recommends community, other communities to their members. And so your community can show up in other people's community as a recommendation. I just want to say, if some people are thinking like, ooh, I don't want. I don't want to pull people away from My community, I don't want people recommended to go somewhere else. The owner of school has actually said they have some research that shows that if people are in at least two school communities, they stay on the platform longer.
- [11:46]
A
Makes sense.
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B
Yeah, absolutely right. So then you are not just the only one who's trying to get them on the platform, logging in, interacting. They are involved in a whole ecosystem that makes it more likely for them to come in and actually participate, engage in your community and your courses. So, yeah, you're like, bang on.
- [12:05]
A
Okay, great. Building my confidence already. Shannon, I like this. So to me, it seems like most, you know, audiences, podcasters, content creators, for most of us, it would make sense to have that free entry point option and then we build to paid tiers or paid unlocking things from there. Is there a specific instance where you're like, it makes more sense to charge at the lowest tier for sure. What are your thoughts on that?
- [12:33]
B
Okay, so one of the things, I always say that school is a hybrid between an lms, a learning management system where you would, you know, host a course like Kajabi or Teachable or Thinkific or something like that, and social media. It's really a hybrid between the two. And so what happens when you have a free community is you'll have hopefully tons of people coming in. Some of those people are spammers and bots. And school is doing an amazing job to flag those people. So when they come in for a lot of the times, it will be flagged, like, you know, cautioned, you may not want to accept this person. You can also put membership questions to control that as well, so that people aren't coming in automatically without you having any say. But especially if you have a large audience, that's something that you may contend with. And so it depends on what's actually happening in your community that might help you make the decision. So for me, one of my communities is free. There's membership questions that I use to determine who's going to come in. The other one is, like I said, $27 a year. And the reason for that is because the discussions that are happening in that community are about course creation. And I want to protect my members a little bit more and make sure that they are free to have those conversations and talk about their ideas and what they're thinking and what they're vulnerable about and all the rest of it. So I've put a low ticket price on entry to protect the community. There's also something to be said for the buying intention of someone who's coming in for free versus someone who's paying a little bit to get in. So that's a consideration as well.
- [14:22]
A
Okay, that's, that's super helpful. All right, so I have mapped out kind of what I want to do with my podcasting business. School, school, community, school with the K, we got school with the C and school decay. It's going to be crazy. Okay, so I definitely want to have a free place for audience, audience interaction and, and basic resources. I don't know, I want to have some sort of upgrade or tier options for other resources or coaching. And then I really want to optimize this whole discovery thing. So I want to start with that free zone.
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B
Yeah.
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A
Best practices. So if I want to develop this free thing and am I going live, am I adding a question of the day? Am I stirring up engagement? Like, what do you see is working from a area standpoint on school?
- [15:12]
B
Yeah, great question. So it's probably easier to start with what's not working. Number one is when you are designing your community, you need to be very intentional about what your monetization plan is. So I, again, I love this question because you're already thinking that way. Like, how am I leading my audience towards that purchase? What am I offering for free? What am I offering for paid? And where are the lines going to be between that and a big mistake I see people making is like, I'm just going to make it free. I'm going to hope I get a whole bunch of people, then I'm going to start charging or then I'm going to launch a tier or I'm going to, you know, have them help me figure out what they need. And that just doesn't work. Even though there's, there's a lot of people out there who will tell you that's the way to go. I have seen that not work more times than not. So, you know, it is important to be very intentional about it. And so it, a lot of it depends on the strategy that you choose for that eventual monetization. So if that's going to be that at each tier they get more access to you. Like at the premium tier you're doing group coaching and at the VIP tier you're doing one on one coaching, for example, then you'll want to make sure that at your free tier you're not doing a bunch of lives. And because then there's no need for them to upgrade to your premium tier, I would say for most, in most cases in the free tier, the kind of lives you would want to do are just the little occasional teasers or tasters or webinar type things where you're giving a little bit of value and then inviting them to, you know, move up or purchase something. The other way of looking at it is that your first tier, whether it's paid or not, is solving an early journey problem that then uncovers the next problem that they need to solve that leads into your paid offer. And that's my. Both my communities work in both of those. So the free one, it's all about access and visibility as you move up the tiers and the one that has the low ticket, it's more about. It is about access as well, but it's also about continuing on the journey in terms of the course content.
- [17:27]
A
Okay, so yeah, that, that makes sense with just kind of. I like what you said about kind of connecting the dots with where you eventually would like them to. To be from a paid perspective. That, that makes a lot of sense and increasing access. Okay, now you give me things to think about. So what about like the daily weekly engagement sort of a thing? Like when I had successful Facebook groups, I'd have like a little question of the day three times and, and let's collaborate, let's introduce each other, share your show type of stuff. Like is that effective on the platform? Is that reason enough for people to come on and interact a little bit?
- [18:04]
B
Yeah, yeah. I'd say if you had something that was working in a free Facebook group and you were able to then monetize on the back end of it, you can do that very similar thing in school. Absolutely. You can. Yeah, for sure.
- [18:17]
A
Okay, now let's talk about that, that paid situation. And you mentioned a couple of different, different paths. One is kind of like an a la carte, buy a thing, unlock it, get access to it or tier growth with. To me that seems like you're adding as you go up, like you said, access more and more access to you. Where tier one, maybe be a monthly group thing. Tier two, maybe I could do a monthly group thing plus office hours access. Tier 3, get some, some one on one involvement. I'm also someone that I do have a lot of boot camps, courses, different protocols that I could sell at all different price ranges. Like where would you suggest I start or try? I can kind of go either path. You got any gut feeling as far as what might work best for me?
- [19:07]
B
So one of the things I will say is that at its heart, although there's many options, it's a membership based platform. And so one of the kind of obstacles that I've come across where I've had to basically fit a square peg in a round hole is that I was before I came to school, like by my course cohort based course. Right, by my course cohort. 12 weeks we'll be together, I'll assist you. And the reason I went to school is because I wanted to have a backend membership. I wanted to have a way to continue to support people after the fact. Then of course I fell in love with school and I was like, I want everything to be here. And I brought my course into it as well. So I have it set up with the. The course is a one time payment and the premium tier is group coaching. So they can buy the course no matter what tier they're at. But if they're in the standard tier, they're not getting the group coaching. If they're in the premium tier, they're getting the group coaching. And then if they're in the VIP tier, they're getting more one on one and done with you kind of opportunities. So, you know, that's one of the things to keep in mind if you are wanting to bring kind of like course type material in is how are you going to be supporting them and how are they going to be paying and then how are they going to continue to have access to the course if that's something that you want to provide. So, you know, depending on what you're going to bring in, you may have to think a little bit creatively or strategically about how you're going to manage that and how you're going to give access to people in terms of things like boot camps and you know, all the other things that you're offering. I think an important thing to keep in mind is that you don't have to have just one community. And let me clarify this for people too, because when you start your group, you have one community. That means no matter what tier people are on, they are all in the same community feed. And that's different from some of the other platforms where it's like you take this course, you're in this community, but if you take this other course, you're in a separate community. So when you start that group, you have one community with all of the different options for that community. So what some people choose to do is then start a second group and sometimes just a like pop up group for a bootcamp or for a one off thing and then they are inviting people in, in all of their audience to come and join that pop up and then ideally you're inviting them after that experience into your kind of more permanent group.
- [21:31]
A
Okay, all right. And with like charging people, is all that done on the platform or do you have to have. Okay, so all, all the, like the sales pages or all that stuff is done within.
- [21:45]
B
Okay, so let me talk about this for a second because again, it's very different from, from most other platforms. So you set up stripe through school, so it's not your personal stripe. They are the merchant of record, which is actually amazing because they're taking responsibility for all the sales tax, collecting it and remitting it. You don't have to do that, which is a huge weight off for a small business owner. Like, love it. And then they pay you out every week. So that is seamless. And affiliates, same thing. They take, you know, responsibility for that. They pay out the affiliates, they pay you. It's so hands off. It's so beautiful. It's, it's really, really nice. They don't have traditional sales pages though. So what you do have for your group is an about page. And on your about page you're limited to, I think it's like a thousand characters. You have to be really succinct. But you can put videos and photos and images and stuff as well on kind of like your wall. So that's where you're driving traffic. That's where your members are sending their referrals and affiliates, if you have affiliates turned on, that's kind of the landing page where people are going and finding out more about your group.
- [22:57]
A
Okay, very helpful. Are there any questions I haven't asked about the paid stuff that you feel like I really should be asking?
- [23:08]
B
Good question. I think the biggest thing and the biggest sticking point for me, well, actually two things. So it's about that membership based, you know, thing. So that if you want, even if you have a free group, if you want to sell a course, there's a little bit more friction because somebody has to come into your community before they can buy your course. It's not a one click buy my course. So some people get around that by having an off platform link that they'll use. So you know, ThriveCart or Stripe or whatever Flodesk, you can, they'll have their checkouts. So if you do want to sell a one off course, that way you do kind of have to do a workaround and then you just give them a free invite into the community, control it that way. So that's something to think about and potentially an option depending on what you want to bring into your school and how you want to kind of run that. The other thing I would say is just to be aware of is that school does not offer coupons or payment plans. And that's another big difference and another reason why people sometimes like to do a third party off platform payment. I'm trying to stay away from it as much as I can because I love that they take care of the sales tax and how, you know, simple. It is. Yeah. But if your business really runs on, like, coupons and payment plans, then that would be something to take into consideration.
- [24:29]
A
Okay, that sounds simple enough. All right, so let's go to that third tier of my master plan here of optimizing for discovery on the platform. Walk us through a few best practices here. Like, keywords name. Like, is it like podcast SEO where you have to name the show and keywords and stuff like that? Yeah, I messaged podcasting on there, and a whole bunch of groups about podcasting popped up. And I also was like, I got this. I can compete with these people. But no offense, anybody has a school group, you're all great, but I'm coming to the scene, y'. All. But yeah, yeah. So how do we optimize that discoverability on the platform based off of kind of current day, what they got available?
- [25:10]
B
Yeah, so great question and difficult question because like I said, as we are recording this now, they're about two weeks away from relaunching a whole new searchability, Discoverability, everything. They are admittedly, like, their search functions right now, they admit are not that great. Like, if you search someone's name, they may or may not come up.
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A
Okay.
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B
But that is all improving in the next two weeks. They've put a lot of time and effort, and actually they've said their mission and mandate for 2026 is all about discoverability, searchability, and getting more people to find your community.
- [25:49]
A
That's good to know.
- [25:51]
B
Yeah, they're all in on it. One of the things about school that's really nice, too, is they have their own community for school group owners called Schoolers, and they do school news. The head of the community, like, community platform, as well as the CEO of Skool himself, Sam Ovens, who's amazing. They do this weekly school news, and they talk to you about what are the updates, what's coming, what are they working on, how to best optimize the platform. Like, they teach you how to do that, which is really cool. But to answer your question, what I would say is, so, like, in your short description of your community, it's important to be using keywords there on your about page. It's important to be using keywords there. So yes, very much like your podcast. Very, very much like your podcast. Then you're going to have that option to choose 11 targeted keywords. And the advice right now from the CEO himself is to choose those words that you think your ideal person would search for. Obviously like, you know, don't be doing long tail keywords, just put in the short, like what are the things that they're going to type in that search bar? Like podcasting, how to podcast. Like, you know, all like, yeah, all of that. So that's going to be really, really fantastic. And then yeah, just that whole searchability is going to improve. One of the things that I will say, also a mistake I've seen a lot of people make once they get into school is they get sidetracked by the kind of gamification that is available there. So one of the things that happens as you start to move up in discoverability is it starts to become an obsession for some people. How can I rank higher? How can I rank higher? And right now the ranking is based on how many people are coming in versus how many people are leaving and the engagement that you are getting. So are people, you know, how many people are engaging in your feed, what kind of comments, how many comments, blah, blah, blah, blah, that kind of thing. I shouldn't say what kind of comments, but how many comments. And if you rise to be top 30 in your category, you're considered a top 1% school. So one of my communities is in the top 30 of money, which is the most saturated category.
- [28:13]
A
Wow.
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B
And I just want to say like now that they have so many people, they've grown so much. It's like a point top point zero one community, not even though it's called the top 1%. And so people come in and they kind of get sucked into this gamification of like, I gotta climb, I gotta climb, I gotta climb and it's completely useless. I make more money in my community that's in the 2000s than I do in my community that's like number 29 because of how I'm monetizing it. So I just want to kind of give that caveat to people of like, remember what the true metrics are for your community, which is are you getting your members results and are you effectively monetizing? To me, those are the two metrics. Don't get sidetracked and hung up on where you're ranking because how you're Found in search is much more important than where you're ranking in discovery.
- [29:07]
A
Wow, Such good advice. And I felt like you were talking directly to me when you talked about people being like, obsessed with Ray ranking. Oh, no, I've been out.
- [29:16]
B
It's so easy to get drawn into it. And that was that they talked about on the latest school news, they said, you know, 10% of new members are coming from Discoverability. And the vast majority, I think, is like 70% of those found within the school network are coming from search. The rest is from profiles and recommendations and stuff. But it's a huge number from the school network that are coming from search. So that's where you really want to focus. Yeah, and one of the other benefits that I'll just mention is that if you're on the Pro plan, they tell you where your members are coming from. They'll tell you the website they're coming from, they'll tell you if they're coming from affiliates, if they're coming from the school network, if they're coming from YouTube, if they're coming from Pinterest, they will tell you where your members are coming from. So that lets you know where to double down and where to put your energy into. Because if you see more people are coming to your community from your podcast versus your YouTube, then you're going to double down on putting the energy into your podcast. So that's another great feature that's not, I don't think, available anywhere else.
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A
Now, you mentioned Hobby Plan and Pro Plan. What is the difference? I assume one is free, one is paid.
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B
So hobby plan is $9 a month.
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A
Okay.
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B
It has many of the same features as the Pro Plan, so a lot of people will start with the hobby plan. The Pro plan is $99 a month. Both of my communities are on the Pro Plan because I'm a sucker for the extra benefits that are offered through the Pro Plan. There's a number of them, but so a custom URL is one of the benefits. So, like, I wanted. I wanted those names for mine. I didn't want anybody taking them. Affiliates is on the Pro Plan. Meta pixel tracking is one of the things. If you're doing ads, you'll want to be on the Pro Plan. And there's a few other things, like if you want to have moderators and admin in your community, that's on the Pro plan. So, yeah, there are definitely some differences, but for a lot of people, they start out on the hobby plan until they're monetizing it to a point where oh, huge difference. On the hobby plan, it's 10 fees. On the pro plan, it's just the stripe FEES, which are 2.9%. And so, yeah, once you monetize to a point where it doesn't make sense to be paying 10% fees anymore, then you switch over to the pro plan. And if you have a big audience and you know you're going to be making money off the hop, you just start on pro plan.
- [31:47]
A
Okay, that. That definitely makes it. Is there any limit to the amount of offers or tiers between the two different plans? Like, can you only have, like, one offer on the hobby versus. Okay, so you can. Okay, good, good. Okay, so we got hobby plan, we got pro plan. I think that this is. I just want to drop a side note here to everybody that's listening in. I. Shannon has given us a freaking master class on this just so far. And I still got a couple more questions, but before I forget, I'm going to drop Shannon's direct affiliate link in the show notes. I. I want you to use that if you sign up for schools as a thank you to her. And just when. Whenever I have somebody on the show that, you know, if you guys hire Shannon for anything, I don't accept affiliates from my guests because it's just an honest recommendation. So that's. That's how I roll when it comes to that. But anyway, that'll be in the episode notes. So if you. If you decide to sign up, I'm going to use your affiliate link. When I sign up, you guys should do Shameless Plug. Okay, so how are people messing this up? This is kind of like a place that I want to land, like, things to avoid.
- [32:57]
B
Yeah.
- [32:58]
A
Like, how are school communities dying? Like, I, you know, in my world of podcasting, I see people fired up through episode seven, and then they quit and they never come back. Or they do seasons, they do season one, they never come back, they take a break, and it's a never ending break. So how are people. Like, what's that version on school where people are really messing this thing up? What do we need to avoid?
- [33:18]
B
Okay, wonderful question, because it is very similar to podcasting. The number one mistake that people make is they buy into the hype that they're going to go on the platform. They're going to start a community around a passion that they have. People are going to come to them in droves and they're going to be an overnight millionaire. And it is not going to happen that way. Like, let me just dispel the myths. If that's your plan?
- [33:38]
A
Oh, my gosh.
- [33:40]
B
Like, yeah, it's a long game, right? And. And it. If you have no audience outside of school, you're going to struggle at the beginning. You need to build that momentum. You need to come in with the expectation that at the beginning it's going to be more work than payoff. You know, someone like you, Adam, you've got an audience, you've got traffic, you're going to come in and you're going to, like, hit it out of the park from the beginning because the people are going to come. They know you offer value. They know you deliver on your promises. They know that there's going to be something amazing inside of that community that you're going to have started. But for people who are like, a little bit smaller, like, you know, the rest of us, we. We have to build our audience. And although skill school is amazing for the searchability and the discoverability, you cannot rely on that. So you have to have an outside source, whether it's YouTube, a podcast, Instagram, TikTok, whatever it is, pick one and use that to drive your audience and your traffic into your school community and play the long game. Like, know that it's probably going to take longer than you expected to or hope it will. The other thing I see, especially on this platform, is people trying to fit the platform instead of making the platform serve them like it. And it's. When I talk about the hybrid, it's not social media, and people come in thinking like, okay, well, if I'm gonna go on tick tock, I have to figure out like, what's the tick tock culture and how does think do things work on tick tock and how am I gonna make. And I'm not on tick tock, so I have no idea. But like, you know, you go onto a social media platform and you got to kind of figure out how it works. Don't do that with school. Make it serve you. Make it work for you. Who is your audience? What do they want? What are your expertise and skills? How are you going to deliver them in the best way that's going to get the results for your audience and then set up your school to deliver that in the best way possible for your style, your personality, your business and personal needs, and how you're going to get results for your people. So it's. It's that first. It's results first, it's not platform first. So that's a big mistake I see people making once they come onto the platform, and especially if you get involved in communities like schoolers and you start talking to other schoolers, which you will, you get involved in that community and it starts to become your world. And it's not, you are driving people from outside in and then you're profiting from the ones that are naturally coming from the school network. And I think the last thing I would say is because it's a community first platform, people get the idea that the classroom is dead. So when you come into your group, the first thing that you'll see is the community feed. And at the top there's a button or a tab for your classroom and a tab for your calendar, which we haven't even talked about in another wonderful feature of school. But you have to drive people into your classroom, you have to give them a reason to go there. You have to be continually, not just selling it, but reminding them of the value that's there, even if they have purchased already. And really make those links between the two. Because on a traditional platform like Kajabi, people are going into the classroom first and then you're working so hard to get them into the community. This is the other way around. Although they're together in the same group, they're going into the community first. They're getting, you know, into the feed, they're reading and asking questions. And so you need to be intentionally and strategically driving them to the community and making sure that they're getting the value that's there.
- [37:23]
A
Okay, so based off what you just said, the idea I have is if I have a free community, free tier, I may want to have one or two classroom based tools, resources that they have access to. So they are in there in the free. Because I know once you're in there, you see all the stuff that's locked up. Yeah, and that's like when I've been into of the things like this, I'm like, I want to unlock that thing. I see the thing, I want to unlock it. Yeah, 37, I want to go pay for that and get that thing. So having a few of those that, that would automatically give them a reason, like in like you're, you're welcome, whatever, you know, welcoming new members, make sure you go into the classroom to access your free, blah, blah, blah. And then they're just seeing the stuff. And you can reference that within the feed too as maybe something that they can use continuously. Maybe it's like I could use a monthly podcast content planner and put that in there and then reminder every single month. Go to the classroom, get the planner, go to the Classroom, Go to the classroom and then they see all the glorious 37 things that they could potentially buy or whatever and unlock. So do you feel like I'm on the right track there?
- [38:29]
B
Yeah, because you've got the two parts of it. The mistake people make is they either assume that people are just going to go into the classroom and hunt and peck around themselves, or they mention it in their, like, you know, start here, welcome introduction. And then they never mention it again and it stays hidden. Like, that's the biggest mistake in any kind of course that I've seen is you have these amazing resources and they're hidden behind this link and nobody knows the gold that is within it. And so you've got the second part of it, which is you're going to make it something that people want to use on an ongoing basis and you're going to continually reference it in the feed that will continue to remind people that it's there and drive them. I think, you know, as the content creators, we get too hung up on like, there's incredible value. Of course people are going to go there. Of course they're going to download it, of course they're going to use it every day. But think about yourself on the other end of it. When you've been the user, you're so busy, you're not looking, you're not, you know, so. And it's focusing on the transformation. Right? So not just like, I've got an amazing planner, I've got an amazing planner. But, you know, are you having trouble staying on track? Are things getting away from you? And all of a sudden you don't know, like, what you're going to talk about next week. Have you checked out the planner? Right, so it's about the benefits that that thing is giving as well. Not just like, hey, I got a great planner, I love it.
- [39:49]
A
And I think you hit on something that is a big focus point for me as putting ourselves in our customer slash audience members shoes. And, and like, as a podcaster, Shannon, I had a huge realization last year. People listen to other podcasts besides mine and, and guess what? They also read other newsletters and guess what, they follow other people on social media. And I'm just like, these people are being bombarded by calls to action, sales pitches, content, free content, and then you can upgrade to my paid content, more content. And that's a lot of stuff. So I'm always just thinking like, am I adding value or am I adding to the noise right now? And that's been a really helpful filter for Me and I think you, you hit it on the head with like, what's the customer experience of a really busy, really overly marketed to and CTA two person? Like, how do we make this as simple as possible? I mean, that thing I'm thinking about is like, Adam, in this free zone that we're creating, we cannot make it overwhelming. It has to be a minimum effective dose. It can't be like, and then this tab, and then this tab and this discussion thread and then the other 12 discussion threads and all. Yeah, that's why I didn't like Slack, because I'm like, I got 49 discussion threads going here and it's like nobody's talking to any of them. So simple seems to be the way to go. Now I've got a challenge for you, Shannon. Okay, I got obviously podcasters listening in. The majority of our audience, I would say, are in the business type show or health type show or mental health type show, personal growth type show. So they're doing some sort of coaching in that alignment. Let's say there are people out there with a smaller ish type audience. So Getting less than 100 downloads per episode email list, maybe around 100ish, 200 people, you know, 500 people following them on an Instagram platform or something like that. Let's talk about some benchmarks. They start, they start their school free community today, six months from today, a year from today. Like, what would you consider to be kind of good for that person as far as like an amount of people in that free zone? And we're totally ballparking here. And it's a, we're painting with a very broad brush. But people will ask me this question.
- [42:01]
B
Yeah.
- [42:02]
A
So I'm going to ask you first. So like, what are just some benchmarks for that type of person? 6 months and 12 months. What are some, like, hey, you're doing good. If you can just hit this type of a number and it's. I don't care what the number is, but just anything you can give us would be helpful.
- [42:16]
B
Okay, tough question. Tough, tough question. Because for a couple of reasons. Number one, so many factors, so many factors that are going to go into it. And number two, it's a pretty new platform. In fact, they just launched tiers, I think it was in November. So, you know, the long term data is not really out on it yet. I would say that. Okay, I'm gonna start with this. The most important thing is for you to get that momentum. And the way they phrase it in school is like you need three people to have like a party and it not just be a conversation. 10 people is your benchmark. Like you want your 10 true regulars, which is not necessarily your first 10 people, but you want your first. Your 10 true regulars are the ones
- [43:04]
A
that are power users all the time.
- [43:06]
B
Yeah, exactly. Like they're really contributing to the community. A hundred is where you've got like momentum. Like, you know, you're in it, you can make it work. This is going. I would give you six months to get to the 100. Some people are going to do it in a month. But I think if you give yourself six months to get to the 100, that's probably realistic. Now, at a free tier, it's going to be a lot easier to get people in. But I'm going to also recommend that you. First of all, I'm always going to go on the side of like more time versus less time, because I think it's so important to be realistic and give yourself that chance. But also I want people to be judicious about who they are allowing into their community. When you see that little membership request pop up, oh, it is so enticing to want to accept everybody who does that, because we want the numbers and we want the, in a certain extent, vanity metrics, but you really want to be picking the best people who are going to contribute to your community in the best way and really make it a vibrant place where people want to be. So I'm going to give a longer time range on that so that you can be really judicious about who you are bringing in and, and just make sure you're doing it in the right way. Slow growth is good growth. And, and that's. I'm always focused on the long term plan instead of the short term game gains.
- [44:31]
A
Yeah. And I think 100 people in six months is great. I know, I know clients that are hopping on this platform and they're realizing it's kind of a slower grind and things like that. But so is podcasting. And yeah, you know, when, when somebody gets 100 downloads an episode, I'm like, that's like doing a Ted Talk every week to 100 people and you're sitting in your, your basement, you know, and that's great. So having an active community of people where you've got some power users and some, you know, fringe passive people to pop in and out and some people that are kind of inactive, like, that's how it is and we can't have our hearts broken over that. But I know people that just heard what you Said like a hundred. Like, what about like, yeah, you know, but, but, but Dean Graziosi has 3 million or whatever. I'm like, bro, Dean Graziosi, where you get, like, you got, you have 12 Instagram followers right now. How are we comparing ourselves to Tony Robbins and like all the, and, and whoever that. These big name people that are on there.
- [45:21]
B
Yeah.
- [45:22]
A
So yeah, we gotta compare ourselves to our ourself when we're doing this. But I love that, like it's a hundred person challenge for six months and maybe you push hard for six months and you got 77. I'll say, good job, well done.
- [45:34]
B
Absolutely, absolutely. And you know what? I always, because I am one of those people who has a smaller audience, and I would rather have a smaller audience of buyers than a huge audience of freebie seekers, because this is not my hobby and it's not a charity, it is a business. And we have to keep that first and foremost at the front. And again, going back to the metrics, are you getting results for those people? Are they paying you? That's what we care about more than the numbers for people who have a small audience. I will kind of give this insight into, you know, how I started out on the platform. I did have a business before I came into the platform, but I knew that getting those first few members and the energy happening and the conversations happening was going to be critical for the success of my group overall. And so the strategy that I used was I went to my alumni. Now, these are podcasters, so they might not have alumni, but you probably have some sort of audience. I invited my alumni in for two months for free, and I told them if they wanted to stay, then they could start to pay after the two month mark. And that worked really, really well for me. So I think that's another thing is like, don't get so hung up on at the beginning. Like, I'm giving value, people have to pay me for it. They're giving you value by helping you get the energy and the momentum going in your community. And if, if you've got people who are in there for free and they're commenting every day and they are adding to the engagement and the energy in your, in the vibe, in your community, then they're giving you value.
- [47:06]
A
Shannon, you just did a mic drop. You just mic dropped us on podcasting Business school. I, here's what I think I want to do. Like, I'm going to launch this. I, I've just, I just calculated my human calculator here. I think my confidence has risen by about 84.6% since we started talking about me doing this. So I appreciate that very much. I'm going to launch it. Maybe I'll do my six month and we'll invite you on again and go, okay, grade, grade me. How did, how do we do? What's the next evolution? Let's, let's look at the next, next set of school questions I have. But this has been so helpful for me. I am a minimum effective dose guy. I do not add a new platform. I do not add a new thing until I thoroughly vet it and think about it. So you've kind of got me across the finish line with all your help today. Hopefully you've helped some of our audience members, obviously. Again, Shannon's affiliate link is in the show notes. Please use that if you're going to sign up. Also, Shannon, how else can people get into your world? You've got an amazing podcast. If you want to reach out, connect with you, where do you suggest that they go? And also if they want some help, like how can they pay you for some stuff?
- [48:11]
B
Awesome. Thank you for asking. So glad. Hope it was valuable for everybody. So yeah, I do have a podcast called the Art of Online Course Creation. My background is as an award winning educator and so that is my predominant or my primary focus. The episode I mentioned is number 54 stop using free Facebook Groups Schools Better Lead Magnet. So you might want to check that out. The two school communities that I have that you may be interested in is the youe Best Course Build Lab. So it's just school.com build lab. And that's where I help people build their communities, their courses, their classrooms. And so if you did want help with school, that's a good place to go. The other community I have is called the School Classifieds. So it's just school.com classifieds. It's for schoolers only and it is a place for people with new groups and especially people with small audiences. Although we're not going to disclude you, Adam, you're welcome there as well. To come to promote themselves, to talk about their community, to talk about how they help people, to network with other schoolers, make connections and build relationships on schoolers. The community that school runs. You are not allowed to promote yourself at all. It's highly moderated and that was very frustrating for people who were like, okay, I got this community, let's talk about it and let every, you know, so I started, that's the reason I started this community, to allow people to promote themselves and talk about what they love. So once you're on school, I would love to welcome you into that. And if you just want to send me a dm, I'm on Instagram as well. Shannon L. Boyer, thank you so much for having me. This has been absolutely incredible.
- [49:51]
A
All right. And I'll make sure I get the appropriate links in the episode notes as well. And the nice thing about my show is that all my listeners are podcasters, so they know what episode notes are, Shannon. They know exactly where to go and what to do. Not true for most shows, but my show, they know what those episode notes are. So, Shannon, thank you so much. I appreciate you coming on podcast in business school.
- [50:12]
B
Yeah, thank you again.
- [50:13]
A
All right, pod pal. So there you have it. That is what Shannon told me to build. I went out and I have built it. I'm very excited to invite you in. So all the important stuff is in the episode notes. Here you got all of Shannon's important contact links. She's got a great group in there that we're going to link to. I would love to have you join podcasting Business school. And if you guys are already in school, I'd rather have you use the link in the show notes, because if you do decide to join on one of my paid tiers, if you join directly from school, then school takes 30%. I found that out since I started building. But if you use the link in my show notes, then I get a hundred percent of anything that you decide. Even if you join at the free tier and upgrade later, that will really help me out. So use the link in the episode notes and you can join the podcasting business school community for free. I do have two paid upgrades, a premium tier and a VIP tier. As you upgrade, you're going to get more trainings from me, more courses and tools, office hours, access some of my best courses as you upgrade. So if you need a little bit more atom time, a little bit more resources that I build out, then you can definitely upgrade. And it's all low ticket. So I'm very excited about this. Get in early because everything is grandfathered and grandmothered pricing. So get in early, dive in, be active. This can't be something where you get in there and never dive into a conversation. You can't be a lurker. You got to be in there and be a participant. And I will match your energy pod pals. I'm very excited about this. And again, all the important info is in the show notes. And with that, I'm going to send you out into the world. Wishing you health, happiness and many downloads. I will see you on the next episode.