Cohort vs. Evergreen: Why I Choose Cohorts for My Group Programs

I’m going to discuss the cohort vs evergreen but first let me tell you my story. Back when I first started this business, I came across a business coach running a highly successful membership for entrepreneurs. She had thousands of members and was charging around £40 month bringing in six figure revenue each and every month. As you can imagine, I was inspired by this model.

Wanting to learn more, I joined the membership and witnessed first hand the weekly live calls and extensive resource library of classes and decided (rather naively) that I would create an ethical business membership along similar lines.

In 2017, the Female Business Academy was born. I built my own website, reached out to some amazing business owners to come and teach classes, had a beta launch where 20 women signed up and I was excited to grow it into something big and profitable.

I worked my butt off and created some really great classes with some really amazing teachers.

2 years later I shut my evergreen membership down because it simply wasn’t making enough money.

One year after that I launched my cohort business mastermind.

Cohort programs are a big part of my business model. I’m a huge fan of the format and I want to share with you why.

The downsides of evergreen

Evergreen groups usually mean something that people can join and leave anytime they want.

With this situation, there are two things you need to be paying constant attention to: the retention of existing members and the recruitment of new members.

If you don’t pay attention to these two things then existing members will eventually drop off and few new members will join. Meaning you’ll be doing the same amount of work for diminishing financial return.

This is pretty much what happened to my membership, resulting in a situation where I was working hard to create new content every month for a tiny number of people, who were paying just a couple of hundred euros a month between them.

This is why when clients come to me with dreams of running an evergreen group program, I usually recommend that they don’t. Here’s two reasons why.

It’s hard on your own

What I failed to take into account when creating my membership and hoping for the success I’d seen others have, was that I didn’t not have a marketing team and huge ad budget.

It was just me. Me creating the content, me doing the marketing, me delivering the content, me onboarding new members, me managing the community. And to top it off, zero budget for ads.

Those big successful memberships you’ve seen? I bet they’re all from established multi 6-figure business owners who spend a ton on ads and have a team to help with marketing, content creation and community support. They’ve likely been in business 10 years plus and have a goldmine of existing content they can repurpose and repackage without being on a constant treadmill of content creation

Can lack a sense of community

When you have a group that people can join at anytime, the group is constantly shifting. One of my favourite things about running group programs is the bond that develops between group members. The same set of people working on the same things at the same time.

If people are joining and leaving at different points the group never really gets a chance to bond and develop into something that feels truly safe and supportive.

The Shift to Cohorts

I made the shift to cohorts back in 2020 when I launched my first yearlong group mastermind. It meant a set start and end date with a big launch to fill it.

It definitely wasn’t all plain sailing, That first year, I charged way too little, gave way too much and only had 6 members sign up, which dropped down to 4 as two members dropped off part way through the year,

That first year was a slog and given the time I spent creating content and on live calls, it definitely wasn’t a profitable first year. But, I was determined to make it work so I launched again in 2021, this time I put the price up, offered less (I took out individual 1:1 sessions) and got 14 people signed up (which dropped to 12 as the year went on). Much better.

Since then it’s grown year on year, so much so that I now have two groups a year. And of course because I spent those first few years developing marketing materials, class content and structures and systems, what I have today is something I can roll out with ease, year on year.

Why Cohorts Work

There are several reasons I love the cohort model:

Marketing is contained to one launch

For some people the pressure to fill the group with a single launch is a reason to avoid cohorts but that’s what I love about them. Once the launch is over, I can focus on service delivery without worrying about getting more sign ups. Is the launch period intense? Sure, but I’d rather a contained period of intense marketing rather than needing to market all year round.

Strong sense of community

Because everyone starts together, it’s easier to cultivate a sense of trust between group members. For me the group dynamic that grows in my yearlong program is a huge part of the group’s magic.

Even in my shorter programs, strong relationships are built that often last longer than the program itself. It’s not uncommon for members of my group programs to go on meeting and co-working together long after the paid program ends.

Creates shared momentum

Because people are working on the same things at the same time and at roughly the same pace, I’ve found a much higher level of engagement and accountability. People don’t want to miss calls because they don’t want to fall behind and also because you get to know your fellow group members well you don’t want to let them down by no-showing on calls.

Clear boundaries

I like the fact that with cohorts, there are clear boundaries around when I’m marketing and when I’m not and also when I’m in service delivery and when I’m not. Because my Conscious Business Mastermind is yearlong, I don’t get to switch off from that one, but my shorter group programs are between 5–7 weeks which means they’re intense while they’re live and then I can switch off and focus elsewhere when they’re not.

Who Evergreen Is Good For

Is there ever a good time to build an evergreen group program? Yes, in my opinion when you have the following two things in place:

You are an established business owner with a sizeable audience that is growing all the time because of consistent marketing.

AND…

You already have content to share plus a budget/team for things like ads, community support and marketing.

Can you do evergreen without these things? For sure, but it will be harder. That doesn’t mean it’s the wrong option for you.

Which model is right for you?

I’m not saying that cohorts are the right approach for everyone.

Or that one model is better than the other, but if you’ve been struggling to make evergreen work, you might find some of things I’ve shared helpful in understanding why.

I’m also not saying that I would never use an evergreen model for groups, in fact I have one currently in development but for now, the stage I am at in my business with the audience size I have, cohorts will usually be my go to for group programs.

How about you? Which model do you prefer or feel most drawn to? I’d love to hear about your experience with either cohorts or evergreen or your plans to start with one of those formats.

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