NEW Program, WSM Feedback Wanted

Coach Rich · July 8, 2015 2:31PM

Wicked Smart Members,

Rich and Patrick here with another update for the Team that requires your input. Specifically we are rolling out a new program for Short Course athletes and would like your input on the program itself, as well as how we can help TeamEN athletes understand what we are doing.

Background
For many years Endurance Nation has been considered exclusively a community of Ironman or long-course triathletes. Our membership reflects this as do our training plan sales and our focus on content. As we have evolved over the last eight years it is become very clear that if Endurance Nation is going to continue to thrive, we need to recruit and cultivate athletes who are (1) beginning their triathlon journey or (2) have decided to focus on the short course distance in the near term.

In addition, the strength of the Team has allowed us to create strong industry relationships, creating many opportunities to create value for a wide range of triathletes, not just long course athletes.

Finally, we released our short course training plans in about 2011, have sold more than a few, and more than a few TeamEN athletes bounce back and forth regularly between short and long course racing. The net is that we have a larger contingent of short course athletes on the Team than you may be aware of.

Presenting ClubEN

We are writing to you today because we would like your feedback on a new level of Endurance Nation access designed to recruit and support athletes who are focused on short course racing.

Athletes who join ClubEN will have access to a very specific set of Short Course resources -- including our Short Course plans and supporting resources for those plans.
ClubEN athletes will pay a larger upfront fee and they will pay a lower recurring monthly fee.

Please carefully review the Comparison Table here to see what Club*EN athletes will and won’t receive compared to TeamEN athletes. Athletes who are members of ClubEN are still a part of Endurance Nation, they are simply not involved, as a function of access to training plans, resources, the coaches and community, at the level of the typical TeamEN athlete.

Our goal is to expand Endurance Nation into the Short Course space through this membership focus, and ultimately to transition these athletes up from ClubEN to TeamEN team.

Where We Need Your Help
We've done our best to outline the differences between the two programs but we would really appreciate your feedback on the structure of the program we have designed. We welcome any advice for how to make it clear to our members that nothing is changed for them, and that this is a new opportunity for the triathlon community as a whole.

If possible, please give us your feedback by close of business Thursday, July 9th so we can make any tweaks and share this with the rest of the Team.

Thanks!

Keith Wick · July 8, 2015 3:47PM

In looking at the comparison chart, it doesn't appear there is enough in club EN vs just purchasing a training plan given the increase in price. I would explore the following:

1. EN is known for and built it's house on its Race execution, but clubEN members are not given access to any of these resources, calculators or library. I think that either they need access to short course execution materials or all materials if only doing the short course is too much admin work for you guys. If they can train and execute, they are more likely to buy into the whole program. By only providing the training, if they mess up the execution during their race, they are less likely to return and may see it as a training issue vs an execution issue.

2/3. I would also give them access to a training and racing group, even if it is just the one created for short course. Would it be easy to create a sprint group and an olympic group so that you are clearly defining what short course means? I think it will be important for them to have a group/forum to connect to others with in order to see the community aspect of EN. Would giving them the same access as trial members accomplish this goal of letting them understand the EN community? This would also allow you to keep the limit access they currently have to the coaches without feeling abandoned because they have other community members giving them feedback.

4. Limited or modified access to a basic 4 week OS plan. If you give them a taste of this, are they likely to become full EN during the winter in order to keep making gains? For many people, getting that first taste of a sprint or olympic triathlon can lead to wanting more, so give them a taste of the OS---or would they then become trial members and get the same thing?

Coach Rich · July 8, 2015 4:38PM

Posted By Keith Wick on 08 Jul 2015 03:47 PM

In looking at the comparison chart, it doesn't appear there is enough in club EN vs just purchasing a training plan given the increase in price. I would explore the following:

1. EN is known for and built it's house on its Race execution, but clubEN members are not given access to any of these resources, calculators or library. I think that either they need access to short course execution materials or all materials if only doing the short course is too much admin work for you guys. If they can train and execute, they are more likely to buy into the whole program. By only providing the training, if they mess up the execution during their race, they are less likely to return and may see it as a training issue vs an execution issue.

2/3. I would also give them access to a training and racing group, even if it is just the one created for short course. Would it be easy to create a sprint group and an olympic group so that you are clearly defining what short course means? I think it will be important for them to have a group/forum to connect to others with in order to see the community aspect of EN. Would giving them the same access as trial members accomplish this goal of letting them understand the EN community? This would also allow you to keep the limit access they currently have to the coaches without feeling abandoned because they have other community members giving them feedback.

4. Limited or modified access to a basic 4 week OS plan. If you give them a taste of this, are they likely to become full EN during the winter in order to keep making gains? For many people, getting that first taste of a sprint or olympic triathlon can lead to wanting more, so give them a taste of the OS---or would they then become trial members and get the same thing?

Keith, thanks for your feedback! My notes for you:

1. Race Execution Materials: over the years we've had to draw a very clear line in the sand about what a training plan customer vs TeamEN member gets and doesn't get. One big item that has belonged squarely on the TeamEN side of the line are race execution resources, particularly long course. "Sorry, there's only so much that your $xxx for a training plan gets you and what it doesn't get are the #xxx race execution stuff that our members are paying $109 for. But you can always go _here_ and create a free 30d trial." ^This^ is how the plans vs TeamEN thing has been run since the Dawn of EN Time. We're comfortable with it and it retains the value that the team is paying for. That said, it would be pretty easy to add some basic short course race execution resources to the Short Course / ClubEN side of the website...and we may have already done that in the 10 part lesson series that PnI created.

2. Forum/Group: I've been bouncing around forums and such for a very, very long time. Having a forum that is not getting any traffic, participation, lacks conversations, etc, is more of a liability than not having a forum at all. And so our concern is (1) we fire up a ClubEN forum and (2) people don't participate in it and/or (3) expect RnP to answer q's in there and then (4) we have this big empty thing sitting there that we can't talk about about how great it is, because it isn't, and instead it's emptyness shouts "theres not much going on here!" If ClubEN people want to investigate the great EN community, they can always create a trial.

3. OutSeason or Basic Month Plan: again, ClubEN members will certainly be encouraged to create a 7d trial membership and around Sept/Oct we'll be telling them about the OS, what it means, why they want to participate, come over hear to check it out FREE for 7d, etc.

The Value Proposition of ClubEN vs Training Plan

The table probably doesn't do the best job of explaining this so here are the bullets / where we going here:

For the initial $249 they're going to get access to 3 x SC plans (about $200 each) and support resources. They're also going to get some physical stuff -- EN swag to include (maybe, working on the details) an EN singlet. IOW for the $249 they're going to get some no-shit stuff they can no-shit point to and put a $$$ value on.
They're also going to have access to discounts from our sponsors and we're working with sponsors to create some value for C*EN members right away. So consider that the box that ^this^ stuff arrives in also contains some flyers and discount offers from sponsors, the total of which they can attach a $$$ value to also.
The Recurring Monthly: gives them continuing access to these plans, these discounts above, and PnInEN will provide for them some monthly actions -- a monthly webinar series, guest speakers/presenters, monthly special offers from sponsors, etc. IOW, our goal is to do/provide them with $29/mo of learning and other stuff such that they continue to feel the value is there.

Questions for you guys:

Can you see any pushback points or items from the other members? Anything we are missing here? We've tried to be very clear about _this_ is what you, the TeamEN member are getting for you month and _this_ is what ClubEN is getting, and you can see that they are not getting a lot of stuff that you are.

In your opinion, have we successfully communicated this separation of the tiers?

Al Truscott · July 8, 2015 9:49PM

1. As an EN member, do I feel short changed by this new offering. Two ways to look at it:

Are the Short Course folks getting something I'm not, no matter the pricing? In other words, is there any "product pull" out of EN into ClubEN? Doesn't appear to be; I have access to everything that ClubEN gets, so no reason for me to switch from a product perspective.
Is it more cost effective to be a Club EN member than and EN member? Disregarding what *I* actually pay, the typical EN member is paying $981 compared to the Club EN member paying $610 over the envisaged nine month cycle, or about $40/month more (if my math is wrong, well, I;m doing this in my head!). What value am I getting for that? Well, if I decide to become a short course athlete for a year, ClubEN looks pretty good. As a long-course athlete, however, I get 3 key things: what amounts to unlimited (as long as I don't abuse it, I guess) access to the coaches; access to the vast treasure trove of in-house info (wiki, etc), especially the race execution stuff; and participation in the athlete-to-athlete stuff, e.g. forums, racing groups, "team-ness". Those three things are, in truth, what keep me coming back every month. So, from my perspective, I;d rather be in TeamEN, even @ a premium of $40/month.

2. Are there things you should be offering to ClubEN which you are not? If you see this as a way to leverage your short course plans into a few more $, no, it;s the right package. But if you see this as a gateway drug into TeamEN, then I would think you might want to provide some measure of interaction with the Coaches, so people can see how awesome you are. I know you're saying the 30 day free trial is always there to advertise the forums and the other stuff, but how many ClubEN people will suspect there is something more to EN than what they are getting. Maybe some way of giving them a taste of it, like the tiny spoons @ Baskin Robbins to get you to buy the big cup or cone of ice cream?

ezellrh · July 9, 2015 2:27AM

RnP, a couple of points, hopefully they are
of some value:

“We would really appreciate your feedback on
the structure of the program we have designed. We welcome any advice for how to
make it clear to our members that nothing is changed for them, and that this is
a new opportunity for the triathlon community as a whole.”

Structure - IHMO, the chart
along with the bullet points in your 2^nd comment above pretty
clearly layout the differences in the tiers of membership into EN. I understand them (the tiers) and think access
at each level are relatively appropriate.
Opportunity for the triathlon community as a whole – I think most
members understand that EN is evolving and has to innovate to stay relative and
at the pointy end of the business. Lot
more short course folks in this world than long course. And short course folks tend to stay in the
triathlon world longer (as measured against a large one-and-done long course
population). I do think that RnP need to
clearly define the purpose of ClubEN for yourselves (not for public
distribution here or anywhere else) – Is the ‘priority’ for ClubEN (a) an
independent revenue stream as a stand-alone product or (b) a gateway drug used
to pull in new TeamEN members. The
answer to that will drive a lot of the answers to steps b, c, d, etc…

“Can you see any pushback points or items from the other
members?”

Nothing major from a value perspective because I do see significant
differences (available resources) among the different tier levels. Obviously, all of the information is available
to the TeamEN membership and the access steps down appropriately. You will get some knee jerk negative
reactions as you get with every new offering (recent forum style change, mojo
leaderboard, strava leaderboard lovers/haters, EN website 1.0 – 2.0, etc), but
you can’t help that.

Anything we are missing
here? We've tried to be very clear about _this_ is what you, the TeamEN member
are getting for you money and _this_ is what ClubEN is getting, and you can see
that they are not getting a lot of stuff that you are. In your opinion,
have we successfully communicated this separation of the tiers?

Anything we are missing – don’t think so.
Communicating tiers – Short answer yes, long answer see above.
Here are some unsolicited thoughts on some potential ClubEN
offerings:
1. Race Execution information – I think EN has to give ClubEN
  members appropriate information on good race execution skills for a couple of
  self-serving reasons. You want ClubEN
  members to feel like they got good results from their training. How will most members measure their happiness
  with the ClubEN plans – by how well they perform at their races. Regardless of how sound their training is,
  the improvements they make in performance measures gained over months of good
  hard work (testing, daily/weekly training, general health improvement) won’t
  mean anything to them if they don’t get whatever ‘good’ performance they
  imagine in their head. Their
  satisfaction with ClubEN will likely be directly tied to their race
  results. Additionally, if you do intend
  on giving or making available EN kit (with the work Execution on it) to this
  population, they need to be able to represent your flavor of Execution well as walking
  advertisements for your brand. With this
  being said, in reality I believe that this execution information should be ‘relatively’
  less involved and less complex than long course execution. Most of our TeamEN products about sprint distance
  say, “Go all out at all times” and it only backs down slightly for Olympic
  distance. So I don’t think there is much
  actual work besides prettying it up for presentation.
2. Forums – I believe you have to offer some type of forum
  functionality. Most other major online
  coaching systems (Mark Allen Online, MaccaX, QTC) offer some type of forum
  functionality within their system. Quite
  honestly, I love you guys and your plans, but the forums are a huge (if not key)
  factor that keep me in the house. An
  option initially could be to advertise it to the ClubEN membership as a ‘beta’
  or as a not-advertised feature but a limited run experiment to see how it
  actually develops. This would allow you
  to see if your concerns are justified and offer you a pre-existing out if they
  are.
3. TeamEN advertising / Tie-in – I would be blatant and upfront
  with a couple of EN “infomercial” products.
  Two ideas that immediately jump to mind are a) a podcast conversation between
  Coach Patrick and a member (s) specifically talking about that member’s inside
  the house experience. The State of EN
  Weekly updates and post-race interview podcasts are good, but they are not
  specific to this topic. b) an example of
  two of the OS weekly training threads. Go
  back and pull a random OS run and bike thread, sanitize it for names, and make
  a pdf out of them. You’ll have to
  balance the need for proprietary ‘training’ information with the desire to advertise
  just how great the ‘mojo’ / team aspect of full membership is. I concur with Al’s point above about some
  folks never ‘seeing’ it unless they see it.
  The free week membership offer is good, but it won’t get the same
  visibility that a no-obligation down load will.

Good luck!

Matt Samojeden · July 9, 2015 7:39AM

Hi Rich and Patrick – I’m still out here – Found a new soulmate and am remarried. I have just moved to NY from STL. The move blew up my training schedule for Lake placid. Still training - got a free invitation to the NY marathon in November . That training will put me in good shape to take another shot at Kona next year when I age up to 60-64 group.

Your goal is on target.
“Our goal is to expand Endurance Nation into the Short Course space through this membership focus, and ultimately to transition these athletes up from ClubEN to TeamEN team.”

I don’t think you will hear significant screaming form the EN team that we are diluting the power of the long distance perspective of EN. I think most will support this - we all started doing shorter events and work up to the IM.

Comments on the plan comparison table:

Your section - Coach Patrick will analyze critical Race Simulation and Race Day data to help you make maximum improvements. - had no check marks?

I strongly believe the values of the communities section of the table is a key part of the power of EN. So what are the community options? Providing a separate one for short course modeled after the current EN? Or add a short course section to the existing communities. This gets then able to see the buzz that the long course EN team has. Getting them hooked on the communities and the social aspects of EN is what keeps them coming pack month after month long after then now how to execute their training and race plan.

Maybe you make a Cub EN Diamond level that is more $$ but has access to all EN resources?

You may made the monthly price lower because you are not offering this valuable part of EN to them. The catch 22 is how do you get them expose to this so they understand the value they get from the community aspects of EN?

The section - Four Keys LIVE Race Talks Do you plan to do short course events???????

Matt 314-409-8182

Keith Wick · July 9, 2015 10:21AM

Rich,

Your 3rd bullet point definitely clarified some things for me which I didn't quite get from the table and the fact that these members will still be directed into the same "free trial" of EN that currently exists solves some of the things I mentioned.

As far as seeing it as tiers of EN, then I think that is clear and that members will see that they are getting significantly more for full membership than this clubEN level membership. For the $380 difference that Al mentions between the 2 levels is a no brainer given you get all the plans, forums, & complete resourses.

William Jenks · July 9, 2015 10:44AM

I won't reiterate all the points made by others, so my response is fairly brief.

1) I am a little skeptical that you'll be able to do key races, if that term means that R or P will be there. There are just too many short course races and people travel too little for them. If you make them something that people have to qualify for (e.g., USAT Nationals or something) in order to make them the "important" races, that kind of defeats the entry-level/populist marketing that you want. I would think very hard before promising this.

2) It makes sense to front-load the ClubEN cost. I don't have any problem with the idea of doing that and delivering most of the value up front, as you have described in the initial info and in your follow up answers here. Where I would like to see you think about this a bit more is to ask what is the continuing value that keeps the member subscribing each month. It looks like the discounts (which may not feel a lot different than local tri-club ones) and the monthly Q&A are the big things. I'm not sure how compelling this is. I know you're concerned about an inactive forum, but I'm really concerned about retaining athletes on the monthly thing. Is there a half-way solution, such as providing macro/micro only? If I'm a potential purchaser, I want something reasonably substantial for the considerable extra investment over the short course plan-only option.

That said, I agree there needs to be a distinction between ClubEN and Team EN, and the major forum and library stuff is fair.

3) Not entirely related to your immediate question, but a comment on my observation of the forums over the last 5 years or so that I've been a member: I think you need to program things so that there is a "not read" button that excludes the macro/micro forums. I am convinced that the forums are somewhat less vital than they once were, and I think there is a strong correlation between the sorting change that came on with the individual macro/micro forum topics being listed. The way it works now, when you go to the unread forum listing you have to scroll through a few dozen of those if you don't visit every day to find the more general discussion posts. I think there are fewer general discussions than there once were, although the quality of the good ones remains very very high. But as far as retention of members goes, I think revitalizing the broader set of forums would help.

I think you need three buttons where there currently are two. Current = Unread (shows all unread) and Macro/Micro (takes you where you can start a macro/micro). My new version would be Unread (shows all unread, EXCLUDING MACRO/MICRO), Unread Macro/Micro (self explanatory), and Start Macro/Micro thread (same as current macro/micro). Of course you might think of better wording.

Hope this candid look is helpful! Trying to be as constructive as possible.

Coach Rich · July 9, 2015 1:32PM

Hey guys,

Thanks again for the excellent feedback! My notes and comments:

Value of Team vs Club:

Great job by Al to lay out the value of Team vs Club, from a dollar standpoint. We hadn’t done that math but that math will definitely go on whatever page we build to display Plan vs Club vs Team side by side. Thanks!

ClubEN Resources:

Race Execution: consistent feedback that we need to offer short course race execution resources, to remain true to the EN brand. I also see it as another opportunity to direct them to TeamEN with messages like “If you think this stuff is good, watch this screencast where we touch on just a fraction of the RE-centered resources available to TeamEN athletes!”
Forums: ok, I’m starting to come around bit. But understand that we are truly looking to scale ClubEN, it’s “enterprise level triathlon,” stuff like that. Like, 1000-5000 athletes or however big we can make it. At level #xxx of ClubEN membership we could certainly afford to create a system of forum helper/moderator types. But in the meantime the thought of assigning more forum responsibilities to PnI, on top of everything else we have going on, is a tough pill to swallow. But I get your broader points regarding the forums, community, etc.
Downloadable OS / Forums Mojo: this is interesting, something we haven’t thought of.

Four Keys

Matt: great to see you and so good to hear things are going well for you!

Our Four Keys bullet = free 4k DVD (which we remade last fall at IMChat) sent to them. RnP are 100% tapped out, at our limit, ain’t adding more “at the races” race appearances to our calendars. “Maybe” if C*EN is HUGE and we have a shit ton racing USAT Nationals…one of us goes, but until then we’re just not adding any additional race appearances to our more than full dance cards.

Value of the Monthly Recurring:

Yes, I could see how a forum of sorts, parked within the EN forums, can be used as an valuable item within that $29/mo bundle of monthly items. We can put a Club*EN Short Course forum within the structure of the other forums and toggle switches such that they can (1) see all the forums, (2) see the titles, post counts, and view of threads but (3) can’t open and read any of those threads or (4) start a thread in a forum. So we can use ^this^ to show them how much more is going on in the TeamEN forums…that they can take for a test drive via this 7d trial.

Micro/Macro Thread

Good observation, one we’ve seen before and is on a list of items to investigate. I’ll see if we can bump it up closer to the top.

Nemo Brauch · July 9, 2015 2:26PM

The one "math" thing I see that doesn't make sense to me (for recruiting Club EN folk) is the pricing model for a typical "First timer/training for an Olympic" athlete. Most of those folks aren't looking for 9 month commitments, plans, or schedules. They are looking for 12 or maybe 16 week training plans. Based on the current structure, a "12 week" Olympic Distance peep sees a total cost of $336 to be in Club EN, but only $327 to be a full TeamEN. Hard to understand why I'd pay more to get less. This price point tips in the other direction when you go to 16 weeks so which is good (of course now you have the already discussed issue of making sure TeamEN feels the love), but you may be cutting out some folks and also confusing the value message.

Nemo Brauch · July 9, 2015 2:31PM

3) Not entirely related to your immediate question, but a comment on my observation of the forums over the last 5 years or so that I've been a member: I think you need to program things so that there is a "not read" button that excludes the macro/micro forums. I am convinced that the forums are somewhat less vital than they once were, and I think there is a strong correlation between the sorting change that came on with the individual macro/micro forum topics being listed. The way it works now, when you go to the unread forum listing you have to scroll through a few dozen of those if you don't visit every day to find the more general discussion posts. I think there are fewer general discussions than there once were, although the quality of the good ones remains very very high. But as far as retention of members goes, I think revitalizing the broader set of forums would help.

Amen to that^

Coach Patrick · July 9, 2015 8:10PM

Wow, great feedback all of you! My head is spinning with info...looks like Rich and I have some serious thinking to do here...THANK YOU!!!!

Coach Rich · July 21, 2015 5:14PM

Hey folks, a quick update for you:

We've made a few tweaks to the program and have gone semi-live with it, by giving the rest of the team a heads up here. We'd appreciate if you could help us keep an eye on this discussion, add your comments to ours, etc.

The biggest change we've made is to allow C*EN athletes to have view, read, and write permissions to the Short Course Forum, which will become the place where C*EN and T*EN athletes can discuss training and racing topics, network with each other, and in general get a taste for the community.

PnI haven't sorted out the details yet, but we expect our participation in this forum will be on a "scheduled" basis. IE, the #x day of #y week is "ask the coaches questions" day, where we'll monitor and answer questions in that forum, posted by C*EN members, for a limited block of time. We want to find a solution that gives them value but not at the risk of taking us away from the task of supporting T*EN athletes more fully.

Thanks again for your comments and feedback!