For the right business with a Skool group, there is so much potential for Skool's Growth Boost program. I love watching groups take off and thrive with that lovely tailwind! Because I grow primarily with collaborations, my business is not one of them at this moment. Many of the "Skool Network" attributed individuals, as it turns out, are not truly thanks to Growth Boost and/or Skool marketing on my behalf. GROUPS THAT DO WELL WITH GROWTH BOOST: - Bring in a lot of outside traffic - The humans who show up, often join (high conversion %) - Extremely clear niche and "target" "avatar" (But let's be real... they are simply lovely humans who are a good fit for what we offer. The marketing lingo can sometimes feel so very inhumane!) BUT. I have a whole different situation right now. 1️⃣ I love collabs and will be ramping them up. This is my favorite way to grow because when a new friend arrives they are ALREADY connected in a way. So it feels lovely to drop in. 2️⃣ ALSO FYI: We have the affiliate % turned up to 50% for now, and that feels like a great way to grow! AND 3️⃣ IS THE REAL CHARM / A QUICK ATTRIBUTION STORY. It's about a friend I adore. He's a super cool guy, and I joined his paid group. But before I did, I waited and got his direct link. He DM'd me the link, I joined his group at that exact second without clicking anywhere else. Guess who got the attribution? SKOOL NETWORK got it. Whattt?! Right now a lovely team member at Skool is looking into this to understand because that's not the intended design. BUT -- I don't need her to do that research for me to know with 100% certainty exactly what I did. I was intentional about the whole thing. Making sure that I clicked the message then joined his group directly and immediately from his direct link. He's my friend and someone I want to learn from, not some rando who's group got placed in my face. This leaves me with some real questions about attribution. THAT + MY SITUATION DOES NOT MEAN: 1. This glitch is consistently happening (my hope is this was an anomaly) 2. Growth Boost is bad 3. YOU should turn it off for your group

As mentioned on Tuesday's Skool News, there would be some wonkiness and changes in Discovery. We now have a new algorithm. What I believe is that Skool's new efficiency score is almost exclusively what is determining the ranking. It looks at conversion rates, traffic, income and revenue, but also the Growth Boost percentage (we have the option to slide from 30% all the way up to giving Skool 70% of our revenue in order to get more traffic). And perhaps other details I've missed or simply am not privy to. In practice, that means that "trending" is almost more like an auction or marketplace for how much revenue a group can bring to Skool, rather than a more traditional meaning of how popular something is. This is way more than popularity. The 30 communities on page 1 more or less show which groups Skool's algorithm currently sees as the most profitable / "efficient" to promote. THE FORMULA IS LIKE THIS: Expected value per visitor ≈ Conversion rate * expected customer LTV * Growth Boost percentage (and then some other bits that surely factor in, like the amount of traffic a group is sending to Skool) MORE PERSONAL OBSERVATIONS - A lot of the Platinum program folks are there (meaning: those supported by Skool's platinum program, with at least 1/3 who were in it) - Many have huge audiences and are likely sending a lot of traffic to Skool - Most didn't have tiers OR had simple tiers dynamic (24 out of 30 didn't have tiers, in the top 10 NONE of them had tiers!) - ZERO free or freemium groups - Many of the groups are way more expensive than just a couple weeks ago what you'd see on page 1. Now the average entry price is around $100 - The majority have at least 100k followers - Vast majority have strong promises or guarantees --> first client in 90 day, $1k/day, $2k/mo, get hired, get funded, hit $100k/mo, close on the first call, money-back guarantee - More than 2/3 have an annual plan and those are often steeply discounted I created a spreadsheet documenting all 30 communities -- including their rank, prices, tiers, membership, owner audiences, annual discounts, links, and several calculated comparisons. I've shared the complete spreadsheet inside Focused Founders. An AMAZING group of humans, many of whom own Skools and are highly collaborative lovely founders!

Did you see the freemium experience upgrade? This went live today. 1️⃣ the "plans" page is visible BOTH for members AND non-members (example with mine: https://www.skool.com/focusedfounders/plans) PERFECT TIMING for us because we have a huge special this month! 2️⃣ that's what is shown when they click "join group" as well --> now potential members see BOTH the free option and paid tier(s) the moment they enter the group. This is HUGE. Great for transparency and a better likelihood that your new members upgrade right away or in the future. I'm a HUGE fan! Anyone else with a freemium group who loves this news?!

BOY OH BOY I've been thinking a lot about the conversation Martin started yesterday after our chat! BASICALLY, WE HAVE TWO OPTIONS: 1️⃣ FUNNEL-First Community = the community exists as a funnel, plain and simple 2️⃣ COMMUNITY-First Community = community is there for us to connect, even if it is also part of a business ecosystem which has paid offers. STAY WITH ME HERE on the incoming analogy... This got me thinking about how my daughter is 14, and now we have to teach her to be wary of boys. For some reason, when teenage boys' hormones get crazy, they're not always thinking of the girl and her brains and jokes and HER AS A PERSON. "NOTCH ON THE BELT" feels - honestly? GROSS - like there is the conquistador and then the conquest - as though one person is essentially there just to be used and tossed FUNNEL-FIRST COMMUNITIES = - feel much the same - like members are conquests - members are used like we're a cash machine to pull money out of And yeah, it's truly just like being another notch on the belt so the hustle bros* can brag about the $$$ from the launch. *QUICK NOTE about "hustle bros" --> I know this a gender-heavy marketing conversation. MEANWHILE... IN THIS ROOM, there are actual *GENTLEMEN*, so I want to take a moment to acknowledge that women can also show up as "hustle bros" and that men are often insanely thoughtful and gentlemanly in terms of the way they show up in life and business. This is not about man vs. woman. This is about the FEELING of being used or a conquest vs. the FEELING of being honored as a human. LET'S BRING THIS BABY HOME: In a community-first community where there are offers in place, there's no feeling of "notches on the belt" (which is obviously gross as a side note, but I make this analogy because I think we need to know that certain ways of showing up in relationships of ANY KIND feel genuinely... gross!). ➡️➡️➡️ YOUR THOUGHTS ON THIS ONE?!