Hey everyone, I'm planning to launch my community soon - I've already prepared a lot of content. Now I'm thinking: Paid or free. I have relatively good social media accounts (about 1 million followers across all platforms) - does anyone have experience with managing this?So should I start with free or go directly to paid?

To build a successful community, you don't need 1,000 fans. You need 10 true regulars. (Credit to David Spinks for this idea... It's brilliant). This may contradict what most people imagine about communities — spaces with hundreds or thousands of people actively contributing and forming relationships where everyone is engaged and involved. In reality, only a small percentage of your members will actively participate. You don't need a lot of active members to get conversations flowing; you only need the right few. When new members join your community and see dozens of new posts and hundreds of new comments every week, they won't know if all that activity is coming from ten people or 100 people. However, getting to ten true regulars is not easy. My recommendation: Start with three. Get to the point where you have three members who are coming back every day (or most days) and posting and commenting. You probably already know the three people. A lot of successful communities have the same founding story: "It was just me and a few friends in a group, and it slowly grew from there." Who are you already talking to about the topic of the community? What three people would you text first with a question? You've already validated that they're motivated. They could be your founding members. Ask them if they'd be interested in joining a small group of friends who are interested in the same topic. Once you get them together, start conversations, discuss interesting articles, and share learnings. Be yourselves, the same way you would in a private text conversation. Be weird, tell jokes, have fun. It's that kind of organic, quirky core that can spark a thriving community. Slowly invite more people, but don't invite too many at once, or you'll smother the flame. Be selective and keep curating. Once you have 3 true regulars — reward them, make them feel special, hang out with them on Zoom 1on1, meet them in-person — give them what they need so they can continue being a role model in your community.

Ive been saving this one until today. As of last night we are #397 on the entire Skool Platform IN 20 DAYS I had to bite my tongue as @Jade Jemma was posting her MASSIVE win, cuz our number kept dropping, and this is where it seems to have balanced. And theres something IMPORTANT here. It might blow your mind, and change your growth strategy. Her strategy results are excellent: 📈 100% engagement ⛔ 100% spam free 👀 Almost 100% lurker free! My strategy results are also solid! 📈 90% engagement ⛔ 99% spam free (once or twice a week) 👀 Not lurker free! Both are strategies are something for you to consider depending on your goals & here is why. A strict approach to your community, DEFINITELY raises the quality of the community, but CAN limit its growth A loose approach to your community, DEFINITELY raises its pace of growth, but can lower the quality I recommend most people find a balance. Right now for us, growth is the MOST important because of one reason, We have found a way to turn LURKERS into active members. Not all of them, but a lot. And were doing tests constantly to measure the results of different strategies. And starting today we're gonna start trying some bolder ones to see what the limits of engagement and "lurker reactivation" are. If you have giveaways and freebies and ALL KINDS of wild shit to bring people value, You can turn silence into noise. But probably down the line, we will shift our strategy to more of a stricter strategy! The point is however you decide to run your community, the more your give the more you get. As @Jade Jemma once said: Skool is AMAZING, FABULOUS & THE PLACE TO BUILD COMMUNITIES IN 2024 AND BEYOND!!!

Build a free group as fast as possible, get it to, say 500 people. You can do a simple invite from your other social: -- Hey [firstname] - just released a new training program, (xyz result) thinking about charging $97 ++ (use an honest number) want to take a look at it and give me your feedback? (link to Skool group) or do a 2- step get them to reply yes then send the Skool link . . . This is my #1 way of getting leads in externally Key: you must be committed to volume if you are serious building your Skool up . . . go hard in the other socials, invite people from facebook, twitter, instagram, linkedin, to come here to get your free training Use the main carrot a few lessons or trainings, so that community isn't necessarily the hook. once you have some number - say 500 free members launch your paid group, and focus on community and live coaching and involvement . . make it great don't make a "okay" just because it's small You want to have an amazing program and make $10k/month? Then make it amazing even when it has just 5 people in it Start it at a low price, something totally irresistible - say $9 or $19 a month Let your free members know you are going to raise the price to $49 a month once you hit 50 members . . . But for the first 25 members, you get in for $9 a month and for the next 25 members, you get in for $19 a month you could do 2 more rounds of that . . 25 more at $29 25 more at $39 Now, you have 100 members . . . Turn it up to $49/month Massively engage your audience and grow from there Hope this is helpful . . .