Our Behind the Build series is underway, and this time we’re going LIVE! We’ve already had a fabulous recorded conversation with @Michael Wacht and @Jen Ps has shared her story through a written Q&A. Both are coming your way soon, and you're going to love their stories! ❤️❤️ Next up: @Lisa Vanderveen ! 📅 Wednesday, August 19 ⏰ 12:00 PM Central 🔗 Zoom link is in the Skoolology calendar And just so we're clear... This is NOT an interview. 😄 No polished presentation. No perfect answers. No “give us your 5-step formula for success.” Just builders talking building. We’re pulling up a chair with Lisa and talking about what’s REALLY happening as she builds her community. What's working? What's she learning? What's she rethinking? How is she figuring out what her members truly value? And how is she working toward turning that value into revenue? We have some things we want to explore, but we're also perfectly willing to wander down a rabbit hole or two. 😂 That's often where the good stuff lives. So come hang out with us. 👂 Listen. 💬 Jump into the conversation. ❓ Bring your questions. ☕ Bring your coffee. Obviously. Know another builder who would enjoy this conversation? Invite them to come along! They don't have to be a Skoolology member. ❤️ Can't make it live? No worries. We'll record it and share the replay. Different builders. Different stages. Different approaches. Real builds. Real lessons. And a chance to learn from each other while we're still figuring it out. That's Behind the Build. 🎙️❤️

You have heard that this is a numbers game. It is. But the number that matters is not the one on your member count. Here is the example we will use throughout. You have 100 members in your free Skool community. You open a Premium tier and a VIP tier. How many will upgrade? First, do the subtraction Take your 100 members and start deducting. The ones who have not logged in. The ones who never answered your DM. The ones who have never commented, reacted, or shown up to a call. You will have outliers. A silent lurker will occasionally buy the moment you open the doors. But that is not what you plan around. If 50 of your 100 members participate, you do not have 100 potential upgrades. You have 50. That one change in how you count makes everything downstream more accurate: your revenue projections, your launch expectations, and your read on whether a launch actually went well. It also explains why engagement and onboarding matter from day one. Every member who joins and disappears is quietly inflating a number you are about to make decisions with. The tools already agree Run one of the popular CRM extensions alongside Skool and it will tell you which members are most likely to upgrade. It will rank your list and hand you a shortlist. Spoiler alert: it is the people most active in your community. The ranking is built on posts, comments, logins, and call attendance. The software is not finding a hidden pattern. It is confirming the one thing you should already be counting. The targets Out of 50 active members, a good target is: - Premium: 15% to 25% of active members, or roughly 7 to 12 people - VIP: 5% to 10% of active members, or roughly 2 to 5 people You will likely see lower benchmarks quoted elsewhere, usually 4% to 10%. Those are measured against total members, ghosts included. Same launch, different denominator. Ten upgrades is 20% of 50 active members and 10% of 100 total members. The first number tells you whether your offer landed with the people who were listening.

Todd and I have been doing a LOT of thinking, talking, questioning, and designing around one big question: How can Skoolology help you become not just a better community builder, but a stronger business builder, too? And we’re ready to let you in on what we’ve been working on. We just added a short new series to the Classroom: The Skoolology Journey: What We’re Building Next Inside, we’ll give you a first look at: - The new competency-based learning experience we’re designing - Why your path will be personalized to what YOU need - The Professor, Guide, and Explorer pandas and what they have to do with your journey - Our bigger vision for helping Skoolologists become Multipliers - What begins rolling out in September But there’s another reason we want you to watch. We don’t want to finish designing this without you. Throughout the lessons, we’re asking questions and inviting your feedback because your goals, challenges, and ideas will help us decide what we build first. So head over to the Classroom, watch the short series, and jump into the conversations. 👉 START HERE: What We're Building Next We have some pretty big ideas. Now we want to hear yours.

A few days ago, our own @Lisa Vanderveen asked on Skoolers why so few women are at the top of Skool leaderboards. 265 likes, 255 comments, and counting. People clearly had thoughts. But thoughts aren't facts, so we told her we'd go find some. This is harder than it sounds, because the face on the profile doesn't always match what's happening behind the scenes. Take Alex Hormozi. His public story is offers, sales, marketing, pricing, acquisition, strategy. When Steven Bartlett asked whether he'd have been as successful if he were single, Alex said flatly that he wouldn't have. He describes Leila as a "pure operator" and an "unbelievable leader," and credits her with the operations, hiring, management, culture, and organizational structure that turn ideas into companies that actually run. That's two people building one business, with one name on the marquee. Leaderboards work the same way. One name goes up. It doesn't tell you how many people built the thing, or who was doing which half of the work. So we're looking at who's actually on those leaderboards, who's behind them, and what we can verify rather than assume. We're recording a podcast episode on it next week with what we have so far, which means input this week actually makes the episode. Not everyone here is in Skoolers, so I've attached a screenshot of Lisa's post for context. What do you think is driving the gap? And if you'd rather we record it live in the community, say so. Some of you are wondering whether that's a smart move for me, and you might be right. In my defense, I was smart enough not to wade into the Skoolers post right off the bat with "my man thoughts," which makes me measurably smarter than several of the men who showed no such restraint.😉

We are at the end of week two, and I want to tell you what I noticed, because it was not what I expected. It was so much better. Nobody launched anything this week. Nobody unveiled anything. What people did instead was take something off, rather than add something on. Weight taken out of a challenge. Pressure taken out of a room. An about page aimed at one specific woman instead of at everybody. That is what discovery actually looks like, and it is worth saying out loud, because it is not what we picture. We imagine a big reveal. What it usually is instead is somebody quietly taking away whatever was in the way. There is something else this week clarified for me, and it is about this room. It went quiet in here for a couple of days, and it turned out you were all building. Heads down in the actual work. So here is what I want this place to be. We each have something to teach. We each have something to learn. Come when you need something. Come when you have something worth sharing. And the rest of the time, go build, because that is the whole point, and this only exists to help. A quiet week in here does not worry me. Sometimes it is the best sign there is. So tell me, in the comments, last one for the week: What was your next right thing this week? Next week we get to trust, which is where this whole month has been heading.