2012- here we go

For each of the past few calendar years I've written and posted my goals for this site. If you look at the last three years you will see we do a pretty good job of focusing on something and working to help it grow in the industry. Sometimes our ideas take more than a year to make a difference, because things that are worth doing usually aren't easy.

BACKSTORY:

It was never my intention or expectation to have HypnoThoughts get this big. Many of you have heard me say that my goal was to someday get to 500 members. We will be hitting 20 times that goal in a couple months. So with that unexpected audience came a responsibility to to bring great content and tools to the community. It's never been my goal to monetize this site, because I don't think you owe me anything for showing up and contributing to a community. I think I owe you all a big thank you for making this site so valuable, so every year I try to focus the site on a goal.

A few years ago it was the HypnoSummit, which we created to help expose hypnotists to schools of thought and ideas from all over the world. Within 2 years we had hundreds of attendees from over a dozen countries at each of our virtual events.

Last year my goal was to focus on business, so we put out a financial census that got well over a thousand responses, held free teleseminars on hypnosis marketing tips (thanks Craig for all the great info and getting cool guests to interview), and we built TheHypnoStore, which is a place to sell your own hypnosis products without having to build your own website.

2012:

HypnoThoughts is big. People are getting more comfortable with the internet. The tools are getting more accessible and affordable. Hypnosis is showing up more and more in the mainstream media in a positive light. We have most of the most important hypnotists in the world as members of this community.

This month we are launching the Hypnosis Practitioner Training Institute. It's not the first online hypnosis school, and it won't be the last. What it is, in my opinion, is the right idea at the right time. We are going to be working hard this year to bring those students the best education we can from a wide variety of instructors. I think our curriculum and approach is unique enough to make a difference.

This summer will be HypnoThoughts' fifth birthday.

This site has come into it's own and become something bigger than the number of members, videos, blogs, and discussions hosted on this site. In just the last couple years it's become something special.

I'm really excited about 2012 and the opportunities we have to work together as a community. I'm looking forward to meeting more of you in person at the various conferences, classes, etc. this year, and I'm happy to say that the IM system on the site will be up and running really soon.

As always, we want your feedback, insights, requests, and ideas about how to make this site even more valuable. The moderators (who do a great job) are here to help. If you want to know how to do something, ask. The more people get involved, the more valuable this site is.

Looking forward to an exciting 2012 with all of you,

Scott

Tags: blog, hypnothoughts, hypnsis, learn, online, school, video

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Permalink Reply by Barry Neale on January 7, 2012 at 2:39pm

Far be of from me to state as we say in the UK, "to state the bleedin obvious" but is there anyone here who thinks Facebook would have grown to be the phenomena it is if it had charged a monthly fee?

Of course it wouldn't

However Mark Zuckerberg doesn't seem to be doing to bad.

There are many way to moneytise membership sites and subscriptions are only one way.

You have done an excellent job Scott and as I like to say, "if it ain't broke, don't fix it"

Happy New Year

Barry

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Permalink Reply by Bob Brown, CHt, CNLP on January 7, 2012 at 4:39pm

Barry:

In my real life I used to work for a company called Microsoft. When I was there I grew my business unit from $800K to $66M in 6.5 years. But more importantly I was given an award from Bill G as best business developer in the world. I say this not to brag but to to give some context as to my background.

Here is one "obvious" difference between Hypnothoughts and Facebook. FaceBook is a product for everyone and Hypnothoughts is not. When I was at MS we had people come in all the time with great ideas but the reality was if they didn't capture the attention of the world it wasn't deep enough. I also want to take you back to the early 2000s and the collapse of the dot.com phenom. The driver behind the bust was lack of revenue. I remember in my niave way watching the excitement of everyone capturing names and building big lists and I would say when are people going to realize there is no value in a community that doesn't represent some form of currency. What happened was companies received multi million dollar valuations that busted because no one ever bought.

Now Scott has already said he doesn't want to charge a fee and I get that. But if you read my other posts I then stated the focus needed to be on everyone investing some form of currency. There are very interesting articles on "Intellectual Capital Models" in the internet. This is an area I find extremely intriguing. The intelectual capital model focuses on revenue, customer, team, process and R&D. What it ultimately says is you need to have health in all aspects to create real value.

Please understand I am not here to be the constant combative of points but I do like to help. If you truly do want to create a powerful and dynamic community then tough questions need to be asked.

Is the membership engaged (not just 10%)

Are they coming back?

Right or wrong $$ are a great way to measure value.

Is knowledge being captured, documented and diarized. Quite honestly by now the Hypnothought community could have written 20-30 Hypnosis best sellers and become the leading authority.

Hypnothoughts can also be leading the way in "new ways" of thinking by being the pioneer for futures ways of doing business.

I think Scott wants to do these things but he needs resources. He needs thought leaders, money and audience to really smack a home run.

As I said I don't want to keep harping. Facebook isn't Hypnothoughts and you will be seriously mislead if you think so. While each of us here know Hypnothoughts I would doubt its brand recognition is anywhere near market saturation. When we tested Micrsoft brand awareness we were horrified to learn how low our number was.

I keep hearing people size growth growth growth. Growth is great but it needs to be the right growth. Growth that is engaged, contributing and buying.

Anyways I will step off my platform . Sorry to alienate because that is never my intention.

Anyways hope it helps.

bob

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Permalink Reply by Doreen Cohanim C.Ht on January 8, 2012 at 1:40am

Hi Barry,

I enjoyed reading your resonance.

Happy New Year

Doreen Cohanim C.Ht, MM

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Permalink Reply by Scott Sandland on January 10, 2012 at 1:37pm

Bob-

My goal is to help as many people as I can get this information as possible and to help make it accessible. I think some people are reading your post and think you are saying, "Bob wants HypnoThoughts to charge $100 a year, just like some of the certifying organizations do."

I think that's one of the options you are presenting, but not the only one. would you be willing to start this conversation in it's own thread?

There was a time when we were smaller and more people felt invested in helping this site succeed. Now that it has grown, people seem less hands on. I miss the old days when this site was more of an underdog and people were more emotionally invested.

You seem to be talking about investment of a few varieties, and I think that is definitely worth exploring. I've got plans and goals, but this is a community and I'd like to hear what other people have to say on this thought.

Thanks for your support and desire to help HypnoThoughts. I know you are coming from a place of wanting good things for this site, and I know you have experience in this field.

-Scott