The Inner Circle Newsletter #004
(👀 Sneak peak: Be the first to see our exciting new offer at the end of this email)
Nicolas Cole has taught thousands of people how to be successful at writing online.
He posted something last week that I find myself saying to clients on repeat.
He said "Join my newsletter" is the worst call to action there is.
When people swapped it for a specific outcome, opt-ins jumped from 2% to 40%+.
Same thing is true for communities.
"Join my community" is the worst CTA you can use (and I see it all the time).
Nobody wakes up wanting to join a community. They want a result. The community is just the vehicle for how they get it.
Here's the pattern I see over and over (after 150+ paid community launches):
- You're not sure what your promise is, so you describe the features. The calls, the Q&As, the mixers, how great the people are.
- Your customers can't see the promise either. So they don't join.
- Or they join because they like you, but they don’t really know what they’re going to get. So soon after joining, they churn.
- So you drop the price. $47/mo. $27/mo. 50% off for founding members. Maybe that'll do it. But it doesn’t.
Starting with a low monthly price is the mistake most people make, believing this is the best practice for pricing since we all subscribe to things like Netflix and Spotify for $10-50/mo. It feels safe, but it actually works against you.
Your community is in a radically different category in people’s lives than a streaming service — your offer and pricing should reflect that.
It's extremely hard to grow a business with just a low ticket membership option.
The worst part is it still doesn't get people to join, bc you're still not describing the outcome.
A cheaper vague offer is still a vague offer no one is excited to buy.
What actually sells is a promise for a price.
People want to know
- Here's what you'll walk away with.
- Here's how long it takes.
- Here's what it costs.
Words matter. A lot.
"Grow your business" isn't a promise. "Turn your audience into [specific result] in [timeframe]" is.
If you can't say your promise in one sentence, your customers can't either. And if they can't say it, they won't buy it.
We recently reworked a client’s promise from “Join a community of resellers” to “Earn $1,000 profit by reselling in the next 90 days (even if you’re brand new).”
Now you know right away if this offer is for you, right?
Quick test for your own community:
- Can you finish this sentence: "Members join to solve ___ problem in their lives"?
- Would a stranger understand it without a sales call?
If you aren't sure you can answer these straight away, that's what you need to work on.
Not a new feature or a lower price. You need a clearer promise.
For Transformational communities, it’s easier. For Belonging communities, it’s harder, but still possible.
You need to know which one you are to know how to shape and price your offer and customer experience (we’ll go into more details on these two models in a future episode).
Want some help?
This is exactly what we built our new offer around: The $100K/mo Club.
We help you turn your expertise into a predictable recurring revenue community. You start w/ a clear promise at the right price, then we put you on a path to be able to earn $100k/month (if you want to go that far).
This isn’t just a course, coaching program or set of tools. Because you've tried that already, and it's not enough.
It’s a hybrid program that contains all three. Where we work 1:1 with you AND in a group of your peers. We give you access to our proprietary Growth Engine (AI-powered tools) we’ve built that create a custom action plan for you to follow and helps eliminate the bottlenecks in your business so you can grow faster.
We're opening a waitlist right now. If you want to know when it’s ready (and help us shape it), sign up for the waitlist here.
Make it an epic week ✌️
Jordan
TL;DR
Stop describing the community. That’s like asking someone to buy a book because it’s 300 pages and 15 chapters. No one cares. Tell them why they should read it.
For your community, tell people what problem it solves and what they walk away with. Never forget your customer’s #1 question: “What’s in it for me”. Help them achieve an outcome then price according to the problem you solve.
