138. Membership Sites, Courses, and Coaching (With Monica Bijoux)

Monica Bijoux is the founder and CEO of Decide To Move. She’s also a licensed psychotherapist and business strategist. She’s an international best-selling author of books such as Teach Your Expertise. She speaks at events around the world and hosts the Decide To Move podcast. She uses her decades of experience to help high achievers, aspiring entrepreneurs, and veterans to have financial freedom and live a life of purpose. 

In today’s episode, Monica and I are going to walk through the details of her membership site, courses, and coaching. We’ll also discuss her passion, journey to entrepreneurship, and more.

Monica’s Membership Site, Courses, and Coaching

Monica’s membership site is called Decide To Move Academy. Every month they release a new course, product, service, or training. Members have access to their own private Facebook group. Monica does one coaching session with the members as well. 

“It’s really just about being a value. . . . I’m just one that I like a lot of times to over-deliver because I know what it’s like to have people under deliver.”

Monica has about 50 members in her community. “I try to keep them kind of small so I can give them a lot more support, compared to me being so big that [I can’t keep up]. I still work in the service, and so I want to make sure that I’m not overwhelming myself.”

Monica also has a lot of different courses. Her courses are taught outside the membership portal, but clients can upgrade to include group coaching in the course.  

“Because I’m a therapist, I’m able to really help people with their mindset. I’m also certified as a hypnotherapist, so there are [things] like meditation, and going from a deeper level than just surface-level stuff. I also do visualizations. So, I have different modalities that people can go in, based on what’s comfortable for them. We also do stuff around confidence levels . . . from a social standpoint. So, I have courses that address those issues and concerns as well.”

To power her online courses, Monica uses LearnDash, which she highly recommends. “It’s so easy to use, and they’re constantly updating their . . . plugins, and their plugins are free. . . . It’s easy for me to even update it. Sometimes I don’t even wait for my VA. I just do it myself because I’m a techie person too. . . . It allows you to just click a button to determine what assets people have whether it’s a course or . . . membership. So, it’s great. I absolutely love it.”

Her coaching offers two packages: one for six months or one for a year. “We both know for a fact that a person doing one-on-one coaching for a month is not going to get what they need,” she said. “The leverage is not going to be the same.”

With her one-on-one coaching, her clients have access to the whole membership and are also able to select one of her big-ticket courses. If they want to start their own podcast, they have access to the podcast course. If they want to start their own online program, they have that course in there as well. Monica will be adding media publication training to her coaching next year. She also plans to add a SaaS product in the future.

Monica’s Passion: Life

Monica is passionate about life. She said, “Just based on my own experiences, I came from a life filled with abuse, neglect, sexual abuse, homelessness, teen [motherhood], etc. I’ve had people that know who I am now [say] ‘What? You actually went through all that?’ and I’m like ‘Yeah, that’s what makes me who I am because I know what a rough start looks like.’”

“I spend a lot of time making sure people understand that your past doesn’t have to be your future. It doesn’t have to be what defines you. You make that decision yourself,” she said. “[So] I’m truly passionate about life and helping people grow.”

Monica’s Journey

Monica had never thought about being an entrepreneur. She had a difficult childhood, moving around about 20 times before she was 18 years old. “I just knew that I had a passion and a heart to help other people, [but] I didn’t know what that looked like.” She thought maybe she could be a counselor or a therapist.

Monica started dispatching for 911, working in the emergency department. She saw people come in and have different stories. “People would just gravitate to me without realizing why and so I ended up going to school, getting my degree as a therapist.”

She found out about business coaching and learned it was another way to help people. “I went to school, got certified as a master level coach, and I started my own business. I loved it because I was like, ‘Wow, I can actually help people and also work for myself at the same time.’”

Monica had to put her business on hold when the Lord told her she needed to go into the military. “I literally had an argument with the Lord . . . [but] I finally said okay, let me just do what I’m supposed to do.” 

“I was working with a lot of military active duty as well as their families,” Monica explained. “I was finding that I would help them get to a certain point because my specialty is trauma in the military, so I was helping them get to the point where they’re ready to live their lives, they’re transitioning out of the military, [and] I would take off my therapy hat and put on my business coaching hat. Once I left South Korea and came back to the States, I was like, ‘I’m going to start my coaching business again.’ That way I can help people from both ends, from the mental health side of the house, but also the business side of the house.”

Don’t Put All the Eggs in One Basket

When I asked Monica what her best monetization strategy is, she said, “I actually have several different avenues. I don’t put all my eggs in one basket, and I believe in laying the foundation and building on top of it.”

She said she has a podcast course, online courses, and a membership site. She’s also on social media, but she doesn’t do Facebook ads or Facebook lives because it’s not her thing. She also works with newspapers and magazines, and she’s on lots of summits, getting asked to speak at a lot of different events. She also said, “Networking and collaborating [are] huge things for me, making sure that I’m around like-minded and like-hearted people, and then the money will come.”

“I provide value, and people automatically start messaging me and asking me [if] they can set up a consultation call. They ultimately end up becoming either a client or signing up for one of my programs. I’m not a salesy person; I’m just willing to be authentic, and I think that really helps people feel comfortable.”

Clubhouse

Monica talked with me about one tectonic shift that is a big one: social media. The latest social media statistics in 2021 show that the average person spends two hours and 25 minutes per day on social media (Source: Oberlo.com). As with other tectonic shifts, we can leverage the time people spend on social media.

Monica and I talked specifically about Clubhouse, which is an invitation-only social media app where users can communicate in voice chat rooms that accommodate groups of up to 5,000 people. The audio-only app hosts live discussions with opportunities for users to participate through speaking and listening (Source: Wikipedia.org).

Monica co-moderates several chat rooms in Clubhouse, and she is seeing how it is shifting how people do business. “You have high influence entrepreneurs that are seven-, eight-, nine-figure, even some 10-figure entrepreneurs that are on Clubhouse. They actually provide strategies and . . . value to people who follow them. They learn different things about them. They’re providing free coaching. People are [direct messaging] them and connecting with them, signing up for their products and services.”

“Since I’ve been on Clubhouse,” Monica said, “I’ve gotten six high-end clients just from me having a room, and talking, and providing value. . . . In fact, before this podcast interview, I had somebody message me and ask me if I would be interested in being their coach. So they signed up for a consultation call for [the next day].” 

“So, that’s the kind of thing that I’m seeing happen in the business world: that people want to actually . . . know, like, and trust you, not just through email, but also just hearing you. That’s what’s great about Clubhouse; people can actually hear what you do. . . . I see Facebook ads kind of fading away. . . . On Clubhouse they actually get to hear you talk and hear your value based on the questions that they ask you, so people are already coming in with the mindset that they want to work with you.”

Helping Someone Sleep

Monica also shared a simple but meaningful story from her career. She had one of her high achiever clients reach out to her. This client wasn’t very sure what she wanted to do, and she was under a lot of stress. She hadn’t slept in over 38 hours because she was in her head and feeling overwhelmed and frustrated. 

She got on a coaching session with Monica and told her about her frustration. “I’m smart,” she said. “I’ve owned a business before, and I know that I’m supposed to be a coach. This is my purpose. I just don’t know what to do.”

By the time she got off the phone with Monica, she was feeling much better. She had a clear direction and a step-by-step strategy. She posted on Facebook that when she got off the phone with Monica, she was able to sleep like a baby.

“So, that was, to me, one of my favorite things that happened when she tagged me on Facebook,” Monica said. “It was just something as simple as . . . helping someone be able to sleep.”

Key Takeaways

Thank you so much Monica for sharing your stories and knowledge with us today. Here are some of my key takeaways from this episode:

1. In our membership sites, courses, and coaching, we should be providing continual value. We can also overdeliver as Monica does.

2. Our past doesn’t have to define us. We can decide that for ourselves.

3. We should diversify our monetization strategy and not put all our eggs in one basket.

4. Apps like Clubhouse are causing tectonic shifts in how we do business. People want to hear from us through these kinds of apps.

Connect with Monica

If you enjoyed this interview and want to learn more about Monica or connect with her, you can find her on LinkedIn or visit her website at decidetomove.com.

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