|
$29-$49 a
month?
Dear R&D Team Member:
As you know,
the CoachVille membership is a one-time fee of $79, which lasts for a
lifetime. Lots of experts told me that would be dumb to do because
it's only a one-time revenue source, but here's why I chose to do it this
way, instead of a monthly or annual fee:
1. It makes the CV
membership a no-brainer, even for someone 'on the fence.' The idea
of 'lifetime' is appealing, and in an interesting way, comforting. A
homey-ness.
2. I did NOT want to start getting into the
annual convincing mode to get current members to renew. I probably
would have taken their non-renewal personally, or at least have gotten
diverted into running loops to get them to stay. Not an energy
source that appeals to me.
3. We want members to stay
for a lifetime. Members aren't revenue streams to us, they are our
partners in making coaching universally known and consistently
effective.
4. We want our membership numbers to grow up and
only up, and not be subject to the churn. At some point, CoachVille
becomes the default coaching association, certifying body and source of
the media stories on coaching. Size matters, for credibility and
other things.
5. I believe we can afford to serve
all members for a one-time fee for several reasons:
--Once the member
gets oriented/up to speed cyberwise, they don't need much tech support or
help time, so we can afford them.
--We use technology to automate about
everything, so we're lean.
--Volunteers make CoachVille happen and
that's a model we know works.
--The 'special member pricing' for live
TeleClasses and other trainings and licenses makes these appealing and a
certain percentage of members will buy quite a bit of add on/specialty
trainings, materials, etc.
--There's a lot of books, tapes, CDs and
other non-virtual items that members will buy over time.
--We can
private label certain products like assessment services and other
professional services. (This is where AARP gets the bulk of its
revenue.)
--We earn affiliate fees for referred services and products
like 1shoppingcart.com, merchant accounts, web services and the
like.
--With members help -- and because we want to come up with new
stuff for them -- we create some very cool IP which can be licensed to
corporations, etc.
6. A significant percentage of CoachVille
members will be referring their clients and friends to LifeVille, which
itself is a fresh source of revenue.
So, the more the merrier at
CoachVille, even at the ridiculously low $79 lifetime membership
fee.
Note: If you see any other reasons/benefits to add to the
above, PLEASE email me at thomas@thomasleonard.com.
I am trying to add to this internal list.
Okay, so what's this about the
$29-$49...
As CoachVille grows
to 10,000 members, and then possibly to 100,000 members, there are going
to be naturally occurring 'groups' of members. For example, there
will be groups of members:
1. Who plan to be a Certified Coach and are
here to master the craft of coaching.
2. Who are actively coaching and
earn $50,000-$250,000 a year
3. Who include coaching as part of their
primary job/professionals and are mostly here for the cool stuff.
4.
Who are here mostly for the personal development of it all.
There
are likely to be other groups/segments; I just can't see them
yet.
Here's the point of this memo -- I am GUESSING that there may
be a bundle of services, or a premium membership package, that would
appeal to segments 1 and 2 above.
Recurring revenue for
active/professional services delivered is fine with me -- it's different
than an annual membership fee for training. Maybe not a difference
to some, but to me a huge difference.
What would be included in the monthly
service package?
That's the question....
Some initial
thoughts...
1. Cool, custom-made software for client use.
2. An
online client-management system.
3. Access to the extra, specialty
TeleClasses.
4. First invitations to special events (think Platinum
Card)
5. Web hosting services.
6. Post-Certified Coach training
hours (like CEUs, to maintain designation)
7. Access to full PowerPoint
Collection
8. License fees to teach some of our programs to groups,
etc.
9. Use of e-systems like TeleAudio.
10. Use of course-by-email
system and Perfect 100 to conduct your own e-classes.
I can offer
each of the 10 items above as an a la carte item. No problem
there. And, it's both fun and beneficial to all concerned for a
segment of members to join and 'get used' to paying a monthly membership
fee, just like they do with AOL or MSN, etc., for internet access.
There IS an ongoing cost to deliver most of the above, which is why we
can't include them for free as part of the one-time membership
fee.
And, the BIG reason for this premium service package --
believe it or not -- is that the members who buy this package will
stimulate us to come up with more and more and more services that we can
only imagine now, especially the e-management and e-coaching systems so
they can use these to coach their clients.
One note: One of
the premium service package items was going to be the
LifeVille-membership-for-all-of-your-clients thing. In other words,
if you paid the $29-49 a month service package fee, all of your clients
could get access to the programs/resources at LifeVille. But I
decided to simply make the LifeVille membership available at $17 per
client (you can pay for them or they can pay for themselves via a special
link known only to CV Members that you can provide to get them in the
backdoor at the $17 lifetime fee) because it would take a while to get the
monthly premium services package up and running and because I couldn't
figure out how to 'charge' the client, if at all, after they stopped
coaching with their coach. I'm still open to weaving this back in to
the premium service package, but it wouldn't happen for 3-6
months.
Whew...
This ended up being a longer memo than I
expected.
I guess I
am looking for:
1.
Reactions (positive and negative, but please be civil) to the monthly
premium membership/service package idea.
2. Some suggestions on
services/licenses/e-systems that you think we could include to make this
option a no-brainer for the active coach.
3. Any other comments
or suggestions are most welcome.
Thanks!
Thomas
thomas@thomasleonard.com
|