Sorry not sorry for the title. I'm closing my Skool Monetization Lab community, and the reason is simple. I give away good content for free, and free members don't act on it the way my paying members do. I'm in my 50s, and I don't have time to waste like the younger "whippersnappers" (I have never written that word before 🤣). For me, time is currency, so I looked at this as return on time. In my paid communities, people have put money in, so they turn up and do the work. In SML, free content gets treated like a free sample. People take it and don't act on it 😏 That gives me a simple rule on pricing: 𝗜𝗳 𝘆𝗼𝘂 𝗰𝗮𝗻 𝗯𝗿𝗶𝗻𝗴 𝘆𝗼𝘂𝗿 𝗼𝘄𝗻 𝘁𝗿𝗮𝗳𝗳𝗶𝗰: a low-priced subscription is the better model, because paying filters for people who will act. 𝗜𝗳 𝘆𝗼𝘂 𝗰𝗮𝗻'𝘁: stay free. A price on an empty room only leaves you with an empty room. My own traffic comes from YouTube, and that's what keeps my paid communities full. Two more reasons. There are now a lot of free communities teaching the same thing, so it's hard to look different from the one next door. And the same hours in my other communities earn more. I use one test. If I'm not hearing at least one "KACHING" a week, the time and resources are being wasted. SML started as a test, and it worked at the beginning. Then Skool changed the rules. I'm not going to sit and cry about it. I've never been afraid to kill what isn't working, so I'm closing the doors. 𝗜'𝗺 𝗻𝗼𝘁 𝗲𝗻𝗰𝗼𝘂𝗿𝗮𝗴𝗶𝗻𝗴 𝘆𝗼𝘂 𝘁𝗼 𝗰𝗹𝗼𝘀𝗲 𝘆𝗼𝘂𝗿 𝗰𝗼𝗺𝗺𝘂𝗻𝗶𝘁𝘆. 𝗔 𝘀𝗶𝗺𝗽𝗹𝗲 𝗽𝗶𝘃𝗼𝘁 𝗰𝗼𝘂𝗹𝗱 𝗯𝗲 𝘁𝗵𝗲 𝗮𝗻𝘀𝘄𝗲𝗿. Here's how to check yours this week: Add up the hours you spent on it last month, including posting, replying and prep. Then count the sales, bookings or paid sign-ups that came from it. Divide the hours by the sales and you have your number. If you can't point to at least one sale a week, ask yourself two questions. Do I bring my own traffic? Would the people in here pay for what I give them? If the answer to the first is no, the pivot may be as small as changing who you're bringing in.

What's your go-to meal when you're tired and can't be bothered? I'd love to know.

We had a member, Helen, share her family's Oven Hangi with us this week. Do you know what Hangi is? I'd never heard of it, so @Helen Harris thank you sharing in the Cooking Skool. Hangi is a traditional Māori way of cooking. Dig a pit, heat rocks with fire, wrap the food in wet sacks, cover with soil, leave it for hours to steam. Helen's family does an oven version instead. Custom packs wrapped in cabbage leaves and foil, hot oven for an hour, then low and slow for 2-3 hours to steam. Same spirit, no digging required. This is what I love about Cooking Skool. It's not just recipes and technique. It's members sharing how they actually cook at home, traditions and all. Right now it's $5/year to join. That goes up beginning of next month, so if you've been curious, now's a good time to jump in, esp if you want quick, fast healthy meals made for family in under 30mins. https://www.skool.com/cooking-skool-6111

There's no such thing as curry powder in an Indian kitchen. None. Not in mine growing up. Not in my mum's. Not in my grandma's. Curry powder was invented in Britain. A shortcut. One blend, mixed to taste vaguely "Indian" for people who didn't grow up cooking Indian dishes. Real Indian cooking doesn't work off just one blend mixed together. It works off spices. Whole ones. Ground ones. Added at different times, in different amounts, for different dishes. Whole mustard and Cumin Seeds, ground coriander, chilli and turmeric and garam masala at the end. That's not more complicated. It's not scary either. It's just 7 spices, used properly, instead of one blend. What do you use? One blend of curry powder, or building it up spice by spice?

You know when you belong to several Skool communities and you start scrolling through your feed... There's Sarah's event. Oh look, there's Sarah's event again. And... yep. Sarah's event. Same picture. Same headline. Same words. Copy. Paste. Next community. Now there is absolutely nothing wrong with promoting your event in different communities, in fact, I think you SHOULD be getting it out of your own little corner of Skool and putting it in front of new people. 𝗕𝘂𝘁 𝗱𝗼 𝘄𝗲 𝗿𝗲𝗮𝗹𝗹𝘆 𝗻𝗲𝗲𝗱 𝘁𝗼 𝘀𝗲𝗲 𝗲𝘅𝗮𝗰𝘁𝗹𝘆 𝘁𝗵𝗲 𝘀𝗮𝗺𝗲 𝗽𝗼𝘀𝘁 𝗲𝘃𝗲𝗿𝘆𝘄𝗵𝗲𝗿𝗲 𝘄𝗲 𝗴𝗼? Apart from being a little bit boring, I think it's a wasted opportunity. If I'm promoting an event in Skool Events Daily, I might talk about the 𝗼𝘂𝘁𝗰𝗼𝗺𝗲, what you're going to walk away knowing, doing or understanding. If I were promoting that same event here in the Classifieds, I might tell you 𝘄𝗵𝘆 𝗜 𝗰𝗿𝗲𝗮𝘁𝗲𝗱 𝗶𝘁, share a cracking testimonial, tell you something about me, or approach the whole thing from a completely different angle. Same event. Different reason to stop and read. There's a fair chance some of the people in here are also members of the other communities you're posting in. Give them something NEW to discover rather than making them think... “𝗢𝗵, 𝗜'𝘃𝗲 𝗮𝗹𝗿𝗲𝗮𝗱𝘆 𝘀𝗲𝗲𝗻 𝘁𝗵𝗮𝘁.” And scroll straight past. We actually talked about this in this week's Skool Events Daily publication in an article about @Shannon Boyer's 𝗧𝗵𝗲 𝗦𝗸𝗼𝗼𝗹 𝗖𝗹𝗮𝘀𝘀𝗶𝗳𝗶𝗲𝗱𝘀 and why I think these two communities complement each other rather beautifully. And because it would be spectacularly hypocritical of me to copy and paste the whole bloody article into the Classifieds after everything I've just said... 😂 𝗜'𝗺 𝘀𝗵𝗮𝗿𝗶𝗻𝗴 𝘁𝗵𝗲 𝗮𝗿𝘁𝗶𝗰𝗹𝗲 𝗶𝗻𝘀𝘁𝗲𝗮𝗱 𝗶𝗻 𝘁𝗵𝗲 𝗽𝗶𝗰𝘀. I'm curious though, when you promote the same thing in several communities, do you change the post? Or have I just caught a few of you with your finger hovering over 𝗖𝗼𝗺𝗺𝗮𝗻𝗱 + 𝗩? 👀