There's one more week left in our referral rush, and it's still anyone's game. @Des Dreckett came out of nowhere this week and entered the leaderboard with 6 referrals!!! In case this is news to you, the three people with the most (accepted) referrals by Jan 28 will get pinned posts in the community. First prize is a 72-hour post, second prize is a 48-hour post, and third prize is a 24-hour post. Here are the standings as of today (please note that members with only one referral are not reflected here even though I greatly appreciate your contributions!): @Katya McEwen 9 @Tim Adam 7 @Des Dreckett 6 @Katrina Wright 6 @Robert Cummings 5 @Heather Di Rocco 5 @Nick Nebelsky 5 @Diana Frank 5 @Heather Wilson 4 @Paulo Costa 4 @Kat Oakley 4 @Mona Weathers 4 @Jake Hill 4 @Heather Boers 3 @Éva Raposa 3 @Christopher Whitehead-Baines 2 @Kisma Reidling 2 @Ivan Ivanov 3 @Julie Nelson 3 @Karen Castillo 3 @Sherifa Nakalema 2 @Lisa Black 2 @Iris van der Stelt 2 @Lucas Edmonds 2 @Stacey Youlios 2 @Sondra Verva 2 @Yvonne Carter 2 @Lisa Z 2

The time has come to pull back the curtains and share a peek inside the CLASSIFIEDS. If you are new here, this is a weekly feature that I share on the request of the members. You may have also noticed that the CLASSIFIEDS got a bit of a glow up and a name change. We are now the skool CLASSIFIEDS, although still just affectionately referred to as the CLASSIFIEDS. Why? Well, this was the name I originally wanted for the group, but someone I consulted with told me that Skool was cracking down on people using the term/logo in their communities and to leave it out, so I did. I've decided to change, though, for a couple of reasons: first, that is obviously not true, second it is better for SEO and Discovery, and third because if our thumbnail shows up in someone's sidebar, they need more context to click and learn more. I'd love to know what you think! The Data: Number of Members: 1164 (+107) Number of Premium Members: 198 (+11) Percentage of members who are Premium : 17% (- 0.8%) About Page Conversion: 27.8% (+1.8%) Discovery Ranking in Money: #28 (+5) Discovery Ranking Overall: #96 (+5) Highest Activity Day: 2276 (+122) Lowest Activity Day: 1048 (+15) Percentage of members at level one: 32% The Context: We had a strong week, and we got the 🌟 back!!! I have to admit that while I don't seek it out actively, I did miss it when it was gone! I'm curious to see how this week's posting party affects (or doesn't affect) our ranking... While the number of premium members went up, the percentage of members has gone down from an all time high of 20%, so that's on me to better educate people on the benefits of being a premium member. Thanks to @Christina Ryan for sharing her experience being a premium member here. You will also notice a new statistic that I'm tracking, which is the percentage of members at level one. Thanks to @Albert Reyna for pointing out that this is a statistic we should all be proud of. Let's see what we can do to get more people engaged. If you are curious about his thoughts on the matter, you can find them here!

On today's Skool news, Sam and Andrew talked about the importance of unstructured coffee chats in your community. Honest Confession: I'm great at casual conversation in-person but I absolutely suck at it online! Chock it up to too many years teaching, I don't know, but it's not my forte! Luckily, we have a once a month drop-in social where Premium members of the CLASSIFIEDS are free to jump in at any point during a 5-hour window. Meet with whomever is there, talk about whatever you want. None of it is recorded - I don't even fully know what goes on there! There's a bit of a game of chance component as well. You might show up and ten people are there, or you might show up and no one is there. Last month, I think the biggest the group got at any one point in time was 7... The best thing to do is to comment in the community that you are there, share a photo if there are a few people, tag some people, and invite others to join you. Apparently it's a lot of fun. I don't usually show up, although I have been known to pop in briefly. Why? See "honest confession" above. So mark it on your calendar, tag someone you want to connect with, and drop in tomorrow! If you've been before, let us know what it's like below. If you're planning on attending, let us know below. The time in in the calendar!

Ever wonder how you can let people know about your Skool community? Feel like you have so much to offer but don't know how to get people involved? Wish there was somewhere you were actually allowed to promote yourself and talk about your offer? Look no further! The Skool Classifieds are the place where you are not only allowed to promote yourself, but you are actually encouraged to do so! Like the Classifieds section of your local newspaper or the Community Message Board at the gym, this is the place to let people know what you do and what you offer. Here's how it works: 1. Invite other Skoolers you know to join the group using your invite link. The more people join, the more people there are to promote to! 2. You can post once a day only. This is to keep the group from getting spammy. If it's spammy, people won't read and you won't get noticed. Post as many days in a row as you want, but please do not post the same thing day after day - mix it up! 3. Make sure you add your post to the appropriate group/heading. Please see below for a description of what each group is for. If you don't see a group that is appropriate, message me. 4. Self-Promotion is what this group is all about, but please do not DM people with your offers. You will be removed from the group for doing this. 5. Introduce yourself in this thread, and then scroll up and find someone you have something in common with. Reach out. There are some really amazing people here! 😉 This is a place for us to support each other for our mutual benefit. Hate speech, offensive language, or general negativity will be deleted, and you will be removed from the group. *Please check out this post for more tips on how to get great results from your posts. And also this post by one of our own community members who has had great success growing his group through the CLASSIFIEDS.

Thank you to everyone who has already shared their #headline for today's prompt, I promise I will read them all sometime today! One of the important parts of the party is that you interact with others' posts and get to know some of your fellow community members. Imagine you walked into a party and yelled, "Who's ready for a good time????" and then you turned around and walked out! If you posted and ghosted, that is essentially what you've done! Building a business is about building relationships and getting to know people even if it doesn't seem immediately apparent that they might be interested in your community - their sister-in-law might be, their neighbour might be.... And even if it doesn't lead to a lead, it's still a nice way to connect with another community owner. So get back out there, and start commenting! 😉