What’s New in Credo Pro

Hi everyone –

In this post you’ll find some information about some upcoming changes to Credo Pro. Over the last few months I have been digging deep into the Credo business metrics and also working with a business coach to figure out how I grow up as an entrepreneur and how to make Credo work better for all of you, which is my number one priority and what keeps me awake at night.

Specifically, I am making a few changes:

These changes rolled out last night, though the project contact cap rolls out May 1st.

What Are The Changes Specifically?

In this section I will go into each specific change, detailing the what and the why of each.

Project Creators View Your Responses In The Credo App

One of the things that has kept me up at night is Credo pros getting responses from the projects that contacted. Unfortunately, relying on transactional emails to deliver your messages to project creators is simply too unreliable to get you the responses you deserve, though I have made changes recently thanks to a friend and this has helped improve the response rate significantly.

As of today, when a project is created the project’s creator (and the person you email) will be able to view their project within the logged-in Credo app:

This is what the project creator will see after you respond:

Instead of receiving your full message in the email, they will simply be alerted that they have received a response and to come view it and respond on Credo:

Reminders for Project Creators

I’ve heard from many of you that one of the biggest challenges you have is getting replies from the projects you contact. Part of this in the past was due to some email deliverability issues which drove the above change of project creators logging in to view your responses. Part of the challenge as well is that people have inbox overload these days and sometimes simply forget to respond.

So, we’ve implemented a 24 hour reminder email that will remind project creators to come back to Credo and respond to you if they have not done so within 24 hours of receiving your response.

Pacing Who Is Emailed About Each Project

Email notification systems are hard. For as long as I can remember I have had this idea of “lead pacing” which basically lets me get the right leads to the right people at the right time. As an example, the system that has been in place for the last months does a better job of sending the right number of notifications than the previous, but it did not do a good job of spreading projects around evenly. This especially became a problem when an agency has a higher budget minimum than average.

Today we’ve rolled out a very big change (that has taken extensive testing) that accomplishes many goals, including:

• Ensuring that people on the same level and budget level are notified about equal numbers of projects;
• Ensuring that people with higher minimum budgets are notified more often about projects that fit their budgets;
• Sending more leads to the Agency and Consultant levels, as contact caps are higher for these levels.

Project Cap By Level

Let me note here before going any further: this cap right now will only affect a small percentage of you, those contacting the most leads right now.

The average Credo user contacts 6-8 projects per month, so this will not reduce that.

This change is meant to make it so that more of you can contact more of the projects you are emailed about, not reduce the number that you are actually contacting.

In a nutshell, there will be a project cap by level that rolls out May 1st. The feature is already there but the caps have not been set. In the meantime, after you contact each

This is how it works:

• Agency+ subscribers can contact up to 16 projects per calendar month.
• Agency subscribers can contact up to 12 projects per calendar month.
• Consultant subscribers can contact up to 8 projects per calendar month.
• Freelancers can contact up to 3 projects per calendar month.

To this point, Credo has been “all you can eat” when it comes to the projects you are emailed. Unfortunately, what this does is increases the competition for everyone. Credo shouldn’t be a race for projects – you should only reach out to the ones that really interest you. I don’t want you to feel rushed or harried.

What this change does is the following:

• When you contact a project, the confirmation page will now show you how many more projects you can contact that month.

• Once you reach your cap, you will see a page alerting you to this. You will not receive any more email notifications until the beginning of the next month.

• Freelancers, who previously only were able to generate leads through their own profile, are now included in email notifications.

The goal of this change is to make Credo more equitable for everyone.

And of course, if you would like to upgrade your level to be able to contact more projects, you will now be able to do so with the addition of Agency+ and Super Agency levels.

Freelancers and Contacting Open Projects

This change rolled out early March, but I’m really excited for it because it greatly improves the value of the Freelancer level on the site. Currently, Freelancer level subscribers will only receive leads coming directly through their profiles. While this works for some, 1-2 projects do not always come through every profile every month.

Freelancer level subscribers will now be included in the email notifications being sent out when an Open Project comes in. Freelancers, you will have access to the Open Projects when a project is there and you are emailed about it.

Remember, Freelancer level subscribers are capped at 3 contacts per month and this change is already in place.

How Does All This Affect You?

Of course, these changes come with very real effects on how the system works. And because I try to be transparent, I want to give you both the good and the seemingly bad.

The Good

These changes should:

• Allow you to contact all of the projects you are sent. No more racing to contact.
• Allow Freelancers to get more value from the platform.
• Get you more responses to the projects you contact.

The Cons

These changes will also:

• Reduce the number of projects you are emailed about (but should not reduce the number you contact each month)
• Take away the unlimited number of projects you can respond to, and implement a cap.

As stated at the top, the cap should affect only a small percentage of powers users (those contacting over 12 projects per month) and for the average Agency or Consultant, this will not have an effect on the number of projects you are contacting each month.

What is the Higher Level and How Do I Opt In?

I have a new Agency+ level that is $500/mo and allows you to contact up to 16 projects per month.

You will be shown the number of projects you have contacted during the current calendar month. When that number is hit, you will not be able to contact any more projects unless you upgrade your level. If you are on the Agency level and want to contact more, you can upgrade to the Agency+ level, which will charge your credit card on file an additional $125 that month. The next time around, your level will stay on Agency+, unless you downgrade in which case the downgrade will happen at the beginning of your next billing cycle.

Why All These Changes?

There are a lot of reasons for these changes. I really started developing them after speaking with two very smart entrepreneurs – Dan Martell and Andy Drish – who really helped me think through a lot of my roadblocks as an entrepreneur and business owner. These changes have not been developed lightly (and I won’t even mention the number of times I swore at my monitor when something didn’t work).

Firstly, I’ve been asked many times if it’s possible to pay me for more leads, either to be sorted higher (the answer is no, you cannot pay to be sorted higher in the list) or to be emailed more often about projects. I’ve wanted to do this for a while, so now if you want to pay more and therefore be able to contact more projects you are able to do so.

Secondly, the Freelancer level has long bugged me. Whenever I think of that level, I think about how frustrating it is to not be able to predict that those of you on there will receive enough projects even when those projects exist on the platform as an Open Project. This change allows me to give you more value for your membership.

Thirdly, I want to be able to focus on the Credo platform full time but right now I cannot because of living expenses, thus I do some consulting on the side.

I’ve been running Credo for a year and a half full time now. In that time, the business has grown a lot. However, because I invest quite a bit of the monthly revenue back into the platform to grow it, this business does not sustain me as well as the operating costs. While I could cut costs and thus increase the amount of time it takes to build new things and respond to all of you when you have issues, that’s not how you grow a business.

My goal is to make Credo sustain both itself, while continuing to invest the same amount into growing it, as well as my own income. To do that, I need to grow revenues on the platform while simultaneously growing your business’s revenues.

Let’s Recap

There are six changes that were released last night:

1. Project creators can now view their projects and your responses within the Credo app;
2. Better pacing of email notifications;
3. Project response reminders to be sent to project creators 24 hours after you contact them;
4. Implementing a project cap by subscriber level (going live May 1 for everyone);
5. Freelancers can now contact a few Open Leads per month;
6. Creating two higher levels (Super Agency and Agency+).
   1. Super Agency will be limited to 10 subscribers at $1000/mo. See below for more info.
   2. Agency+ will be self-serve to upgrade to contact up to 16 projects per month, and $500/mo.

I’m trying to constantly be adding more value to you, and I think this takes the platform in the right direction for the future, both for you and for me.

I’m always curious as to your thoughts and feedback. Email me – [email protected]

Until next time –

John