The paid community

Courses feel oversaturated right now. Too many bad ones. So I’d wrap the course in a paid community. People come in because of you, the authority, and they stay because of the people in the room. I’m going to build one for my own brand: two live hours a week, and the people who need more become retainer clients.

How do I use it?

1. Name the one audience the community is for and talk only to them in your content.
2. Put the course inside the community and set modules to unlock by months subscribed, spread over two or three months.
3. Give it a simple name that says what it does, with you as the authority behind it.
4. Invite people you already work with in first so the feed is alive on day one.
5. Post something useful every day from what you already say to clients and on social.
6. Reply to every post and every question as part of your working day.
7. Fix the live hours, an hour on Tuesday and an hour on Thursday, and keep them fixed as it grows.
8. Reward members who genuinely help each other with a leaderboard, and take spam down.
9. Set the launch price knowing it can go up later and never down.
10. Point members who need more at consulting and the retainer.

In his words

I’m going to build a paid community, and I’d recommend you do the same.

Tom Sharman, 2026