@Jenna Ostrye thanks!

@David Hawkins, CISSP, CTPRP, APMP That's exactly what I'm doing. I ran a marketing agency for 18 years. Now marketing agencies make up part of the clientele I serve. I launched a free community in mid-March of this year to help marketing pros understand how to use AI to get greater value for their marketing, companies, and careers. I removed the "start your own community" link I originally put up to promote Skool - because I decided I didn't want to look like everyone else I was paying attention to on the platform, and I didn't want it to distract people from what I really wanted them to get from me. To your point, I spent months creating three courses and really thinking through how I could provide the kind of education and training that would make people want to work with me. I committed myself to being in my community every day, answering every question, responding to every comment, giving a thorough welcome to all who joined, and eventually scheduling weekly onboarding calls so I could look new members in the eye and let them know this is a legit place to learn and get help. I've had to not get discouraged by all the clowns who talk about how easy it is; who already had big audiences on YouTube and TikTok and could practically flip a switch to start seeing revenues on Skool. That wasn't me. For better or worse, I was too busy running a "traditional business" to build my personal brand. Oh, the irony. Anyway, I have over 400 members now - and as I'd hoped, a few have come calling to ask for proposals. Beyond the growing membership, turns out that all the people who already knew me find what I'm doing more legit because of the community. It's added more to my credibility. Here's a key lesson I learned: I have a paid community too, with less than 10 folks who are actually paying. My current price is sitting at $349/month and I'm about to raise it to $949/month. I should have focused on using my free community to promote my high-ticket workshop and consulting engagements out of the gate... then eventually have a paid community to fall back on for those who didn't want to go high-dollar with me.

@David Hawkins, CISSP, CTPRP, APMP It's funny because this post is like a nice case study and focus group for Skool all at once. The fact you attracted @Sam Ovens' attention is evidence that the right people care. Now that I've seen your sentiment has changed from reading further - and given your comment regarding the workshops and fly wheels, I leave you with some final practical advice: First, there are legit people worth paying to help you apply proven practices for monetizing your skool community sooner than later. And I say that as a marketing pro who's been plenty confident about knowing what it takes to do it all myself. My advice is spend time to save money at first, but plan on investing money to save time soon after. Let's use the context we've already established with workshops and fly wheels: You may be a workshop delivery pro, but do you know the best way to promote them? Let's say it's a webinar (because it probably is). You may know how to run a great webinar but are you a pro at setting up the kind of webinar designed specifically to promote an offer like a workshop? We could say that's where the fly-wheel comes in, and while that nifty image you shared sure does it make it look simple (you gotta love how "simple" is written all over it) - it's far from easy... ...starting with the massive number of hours you will need to dedicate to crafting and articulating something (your offer) that will truly appeal to that hyper-BS sniffing audience you serve. 😀 Here's my point. You're going to hit several walls along the way, and should plan to get over them with a coaching-assisted, step-by-step program developed by someone who has been there done that. Even if you know 80-90% of everything they are teaching, the devil is in the details and there's no substitute for accountability to a guide. There's a reason Tom Brady had a quarterback coach, among others. I happen to be using @Doug Boughton from the Community Creators Club right now. I hung out there for months for free before I pulled the trigger, and am now advancing in a way I couldn't have without the support of others.

I'm going to experiment selling a "Mastermind Power Hour" in my free community for $349. This includes my time to review survey questions and prep for a 1-hour consulting call. Here's what I like about it: 1. It establishes a relatively high price for my time for everyone to see (important for a relatively new community with just under 200 members at this point). 2. It entices the idea of my paid community currently at $99/month, which gives people access to 2 hours of my time each month. Get it? You can pay $349 for a one-hour consulting call with me... or get twice the time for less than 1/3 the price by joining my paid community (plus other benefits such as certifications and access to courses without having to level up like you do in the free community). All theory at this point, btw 😀

@Mike Morales Do you know if moderators are included on it? I just promoted a member to admin and she might be bummed to see here leaderboard status suddenly lost. I'm wondering if I changer her back to a member, then moderator, she'll get it back. I did notice that when changing her back from Admin to Member, she remained off the leaderboard.

I think the best example is the Adonis Gang, and from what I've heard @Hamza Ahmed switched from free to $1 as part of dealing with spam. I don't know how much of his 130k members are actually paying $1 at this point, but that's one helluva community.