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A lot of people underestimate how hard it is to help people achieve their dreams. Especially if we're coaching them to level up through acquiring new skills or removing roadblocks. Bottom line: Helping people change their lives is extremely difficult. Why is this important? because I think far too often building a business online has become about marketing, offers, copywriting and closing the deal, and NOT about how to make the best product in the marketplace. We are all encouraged to use the internet to build our dream lives by selling products, but so phew people talk about how do you create an AMAZING product. In fact most of the advice is that you already have everything you need to start a business, they say -- "you just need to help someone a few steps behind you". Which is really only partially true. Being slightly ahead of someone else doesn't really mean you know how to coach them to get to where you are now. It doesn't mean you can't figure it out either, but don't fool yourself that it's going to be easy. You can put material in a course, and you can learn how to sell it. You can even get 100 clients, but that doesn't mean you have a good product. Without a good product that REALLY works you will eventually fail. That early momentum you had, the 5-10 clients you had, that will all go away if you can't eventually develop and improve your product so that it's really really really good. How often have you received a testimonial only to feel deep inside that this person is just doing you a favor? I had lots of those in the beginning, "Yea, Stephen is a great guy, loved working with him" -- this is a testimonial from someone who "likes" you, not someone that really loved your product. People might like you, and they may not regret working with you, but do they really rave to others about your product? So you have to ask yourself why you mostly focus on marketing and closing deals and not on customer success. Sometimes even when we're experts we don't always know what will make our customers successful. But you have to start thinking about it, you have to start taking repeated and sustained actions to improve your product and figure it out.

It's easy to look for others to solve our problems. And there are plenty of people that will take your money to solve it. But will they? And sometimes we all need help. That's true. But what if that elusive dream was just one honest assessment of yourself away. We often know the problems we have. But we cant sit long enough in a quiet place to assess it. Maybe we're too distracted, in denial or whatever it might be. Give yourself a shot as the answer to your own problem. Bet on you. No one else will.

Today I had a lot of reservations about the quality of my most recent video, the thumbnail, everything. I felt sick to my stomach. But I hit publish anyway. I have very high standards for my work as I'm sure you do as well. But sometimes you have to push things out and keep going. Do better the next time. You get better at making videos by making a 100 videos. Not trying to perfect 1. And keep in mind, your audience is the final judge. So they may appreciate the work a lot more than you do. And if they aren't happy with it? well the best way to address that is in the next video. Not by holding back and never making progress. Hit that publish button!!

The jury is still out—but this is my experience from growing a Skool community to $78K/month. I've seen lists of various tactics you can use, but I think the secret to long term growth is MISSION and VISION. Moving people forward, keep their eyes on the next step. Making sure people are progressing towards THEIR goals. It's a lot harder than... - Trying to "increase engagement" to keep people from leaving - Adding a cancelation video to keep them from cancelling - Updating your about page to increase conversions - Making a smooth onboarding process These are surely all important tactics to growing your membership. But truthfully all those actions need to be seen through the lens of a strong mission and vision that is way bigger than you or your community (as it sits now). Those tactics alone are UTILITY, without meaning, without VALUE. It's vision and mission that will turn a community that provides ONLY utility into a TRUE movement. That's my take. I have a long list of improvements I could make, but for me investing in mission, vision and a roadmap seems to be my secret weapon.