Skool still doesn’t have native voice messages, so I built VoiceDrop, a browser extension that lets you record and send them directly inside Skool. And while voice messages are obviously handy when you don’t feel like typing, there are a few places where I think they really shine. 𝟭. 𝙒𝙚𝙡𝙘𝙤𝙢𝙞𝙣𝙜 𝙨𝙤𝙢𝙚𝙤𝙣𝙚 𝙞𝙣𝙩𝙤 𝙮𝙤𝙪𝙧 𝙘𝙤𝙢𝙢𝙪𝙣𝙞𝙩𝙮 Most new members get some version of “Welcome, great to have you here!” Imagine joining a community and instead hearing a short message where the owner actually says your name and welcomes you personally. It takes seconds, but immediately makes the community feel a little less like another website you joined and a little more like somewhere people actually know you’re there. 𝟮. 𝙒𝙝𝙚𝙣 𝙨𝙤𝙢𝙚𝙤𝙣𝙚 𝙝𝙖𝙨 𝙜𝙤𝙣𝙚 𝙦𝙪𝙞𝙚𝙩 Maybe a member stopped engaging. A lead disappeared halfway through a conversation. Or someone you were talking with just dropped off. Another text can easily feel like another follow-up. A quick voice message using their name feels much more personal and much less like something that could have been copied and pasted to 20 people. 𝟯. 𝙒𝙝𝙚𝙣 𝙨𝙤𝙢𝙚𝙤𝙣𝙚 𝙙𝙤𝙚𝙨 𝙨𝙤𝙢𝙚𝙩𝙝𝙞𝙣𝙜 𝙬𝙤𝙧𝙩𝙝 𝙣𝙤𝙩𝙞𝙘𝙞𝙣𝙜 They bought something. Referred someone. Hit a milestone. Made a great contribution. Took action on something you suggested. Most people expect a notification, a like or a quick text reply. They probably don’t expect to actually hear from you. That’s where VoiceDrop comes in. It gives you voice messaging directly inside Skool, without moving the conversation somewhere else. -- -- -- See how VoiceDrop works at VoiceDropHQ.com

Not necessarily today, and not necessarily Skool altogether. But at what point does “keep going” stop being persistence and start being stubbornness? I’ve been building Room to Record for about six months. I’ve experimented with content, ads, pricing, free and paid membership, different offers and a low-cost product. I’ve got members, traffic comes and goes, and I’ve learned a ridiculous amount. But I still haven’t had that first paid member. Meanwhile I launched Guitar Mod Lab as a second experiment and it has moved much faster in Discovery, which has made me question whether the problem is my execution, the offer, the niche, or simply that Room to Record isn’t something people want badly enough to pay for. So I’m curious about the people here who have been doing this longer: How do you decide whether to keep pushing, pivot, or kill an idea? What evidence actually matters to you?

Sit with that for a second. Not would they notice the charge stopped. Would they feel the absence. It is the most useful question I ask myself, because it cuts through every vanity metric. Member count, post count, leaderboard rank, none of it matters if the honest answer is "not really." The communities people would miss all have one thing in common. Something happens there that does not happen anywhere else in that person's life. A relationship. A weekly win. A place to be honest. That is the whole product. Everything else is packaging. If the answer today is "maybe not," that is not a failure. It is a map. It tells you exactly what to build next. I run a community for owners building the kind of place people would miss, free for 7 days then $9 a month, one taco lunch. Come see it. Real question, and I want honest answers: if yours disappeared tomorrow, who would actually miss it, and why? 👇

It's time to celebrate each other! In the COMMENTS BELOW, please share a Skool community you think is doing really great things. It can be one you've participated in yourself or one that you've heard from others is amazing. Please do the following: 1. Tell us the name of the community and link to it (affiliates allowed). 2. Tag the person who owns the community. If they are not in the CLASSIFIEDS, then please send them a DM and let them know that you mentioned them here. I promise you will make their day! 3. Describe why the group is so wonderful and how it has helped you. Please DO NOT just copy and paste the About page! 4. Comment on each others comments and scroll through the referrals to see if there's an amazing group you are missing out on! Thanks so much for supporting each other and this community! Please note that any #FriendFriday mentions that are created as new posts will be deleted. Thanks! Please DO NOT promote yourself. 🤨. The entire community is for promoting yourself. This post is for celebrating someone else. 😊

One question comes up in almost every community: "How do I get more engagement?" It's not a bad question. But lately, I've been wondering if it's the wrong first question. What if we started by asking... 💡Are members clear about why they're here? 💡Do they know what success looks like? 💡Have they experienced an early win? 💡Do they know what to do next? Sometimes what looks like an engagement problem... ...is actually an onboarding problem. Or an outcomes problem. Or a community design problem. When we solve the right problem, engagement often follows naturally. That's why we've been studying community design instead of chasing one-size-fits-all growth tactics. Because the goal isn't just to build a busy community. It's to build one where people make progress. 💬 I'm curious... Have you ever solved one problem in your community... only to realize the real issue was something completely different? Skoolology