$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