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Our customer Carrick Institute delivers continuing education to licensed healthcare providers across four continents through 385 courses and 4,400+ hours of curriculum. After years on a fragile tech stack that required constant maintenance, the academy migrated to Thinkific Plus – and has experienced zero unplanned downtime since.

In the latest edition of our newsletter, Dr. Matthew Antonucci shares the growth strategies behind the respected clinical education academy, including:

→ Rebuilding its tech stack from the ground up
→ Using platform migration as an opportunity to improve its curriculum
→ Connecting its free courses to an automated conversion funnel

Read the newsletter and subscribe free to The Thought Process here: https://www.thinkific.com/the-thought-process-newsletter/

When we say learning drives revenue, most people think: paid courses.

That’s one path. But our 2026 benchmarks data tells a bigger story. A large majority of organizations now link education to customer retention, expansion revenue, accelerated onboarding, and direct course revenue.

The strongest education strategies are hybrid. They don't have to choose between monetization and lifecycle impact. They design for both.

We see three key revenue paths in modern education programs:

1. Retention-led education: enhancing customer engagement, accelerating onboarding
2. Expansion-led education: unlocking deeper usage, driving upsells
3. Monetized training: certifications, paid courses, credential-based selling

If your learning strategy only covers one of these, you’re leaving revenue on the table.

→ Explore how your programs stack up. Take the assessment here: https://thnk.cc/4usYSXF

The Chaos Tax is real – and the data shows it.

41% of education businesses struggle to connect their core business systems. 35% are losing renewals because their operations can't keep up. And nearly half say they don’t have the time or resources to fix it.

At the Thinkific Horizons Summit, we covered exactly how to beat it. Watch the on-demand replay of the session, “Scaling Without Chaos: The ‘Systems of Scale’ Playbook”: https://horizons.thinkific.com/

Here is the disconnect holding most learning teams back:

- 98% of organizations believe education impacts revenue.
- But 41% cannot connect their learning data to CRM or business systems.
- 47% say reporting is slowed by time and resource constraints.
- And 32% cite limited analytics expertise...

Confidence is high. Proof is not.

Without connected data, learning teams cannot:

- Demonstrate business value to leadership
- Secure budget for growth
- Optimize the programs that are actually working

This is why measurement maturity is the next competitive advantage.

The organizations that figure this out first will lead the next era of education-led growth. The rest will keep building great programs that nobody funds.

→ See where you fall on the measurement maturity curve. Take the assessment here: https://thnk.cc/4usYSXF

Your learning program tracks enrollments, completions, and engagement.

That’s stage one of proving learning impact we call it "Learning Activity." And for most teams, it’s also where things stop.

Stage two is where things start to matter: Behavior Change.

This is where you answer: what do people actually do after they learn something?

Do they adopt the product or service faster?

Do they use features differently?

Do they resolve problems on their own?

Our 2026 benchmarks data found that organizations tracking behavior change, not just completions, consistently outperform on retention, expansion, and revenue impact overall.

The question is not, "Did they finish the course?"

The question is, "Did anything change?"

→ Find out where your connection to impact is breaking, take the 5-minute assessment: https://thnk.cc/4usYSXF

Day 2 of Thinkific Horizons was about the business behind the learning experience: the systems and revenue strategies that help learning businesses scale without chaos. Swipe through for the key takeaways.

Thank you to everyone who joined our virtual summit. In case you missed it, you can watch the on-demand replay of all sessions here: https://horizons.thinkific.com/