How To Build Your Membership Through Referrals – Episode 29

Melissa: So let's hop over to Suzanne. 

Suzanne: Hi, glad to be here.  Since we met, I did my virtual event and had a little, teeny bit of profit. I learned a lot. I'm in a 30 day implementation process with them where I'm going live every day, four days a week.

And they had, they get that for 16 times, but I'm also building up my video library. So it's like a good double purpose thing. Then they're going to go into a membership group. And so I wasn't ready for the members.I mean, it was like so hard getting the thing done. So I had this guy call me yesterday, says, or emailed me, says, I want to give you my credit card for the membership I'm in.

I was like, I'll get it in a minute because there's gotta be another piece of it. That's going to be even more.  So my question, is I'm going to launch this membership and it may only launch with maybe five or six people in it or 10   people in it. And then I'm hoping, because it's a pretty tight knit community that as through the 16 videos that I'm going to be able to pop in the side,I read already that are topical, that will build.

So it'll help build some momentum. Is there any other things that you think are, make a difference in having the people that are in there share with their colleagues about it? What have you seen work? Maybe it's a game. Maybe it's a reward. Maybe it's just let's have a great hometown.You know, let's have a great home hometown experience in our group that have had people share the group with other colleagues in the same industry.

Paul: So there was a question that couple of people want to know what niche are you in? Just so they have kind of Well 

Suzanne: Dentistry. 

Paul: Yep. And what's the membership specifically about just to give them kind of,we know 

Suzanne: I have a program I've done since 87 called dental bootcamp and we've trained 40,000 people all over the world they're all out there, this poor job at keeping them corralled.

And they love the program and I want to bring them together. 

Paul: Great. So does anybody have any input suggestions  they wanna hop on?

Kricket: Totally off topic.Suzanne, are you speaking at dentistry association meetings and as, as a paid speaker? 

Suzanne: Yes. 

Kricket: Awesome. 

Suzanne: I do probably five or six or seven of those a year, which is not bad.

I'm happy with that . Might increase though, because I'm not gonna be traveling so much. 

Paul: Anybody have any input?

Suzanne: Cause it could be with photographers. I mean, it could be any niche really that people that get together in conventions.  

Paul: re Re-frame your question, just so I think everybody has more clarity as far as how to be able to help you. , 

Suzanne: So once I get my first wave. 

Paul: Yep. 

Suzanne: How do I motivate them to add their friends in the business?

Paul: So you want them to refer their friends to you? Do you want them to add into like a free group or into a challenge or into your course? 

Suzanne: Into the membership be like a founding membership for awhile. And there's a lot of folks that have done the program who could come into the membership at that founding member rate.

Paul: Okay. And this'll be actual dentists or this'll be staff?

Suzanne:  The actual dentists. 

Paul: So anybody have any input as far as how to get members to  refer members? 

Leslie: So Suzanne,what's your funnel? How do you get people into your membership now? 

Suzanne: Mostly through reputation and phone calls and emailing them.

Leslie: Okay. Okay. And so you just offer it and they say I'm in, you don't need to warm them up or anything? 

Suzanne: Well, I just did a one day course on Friday, there was an initial offering online,a virtual course and that  warm them up. They were pretty warm because they know me and I worked with them. Like they've been clients. 

Leslie: So do you think you want to get the people right into the membership or do you want to get them into that course so that you can get them in the membership? Is that what you want? 

Suzanne: Good point. 

Leslie: Right. I'm thinking like, just think I have a group and they love me.

I mean, I'm just saying, they tell me they love me, but it just, it takes a while because it's not about the low price. It's not about, it's about, what's expected of me. You know,there's always that action or reaction. So that's, I think I would think about some relationship. I know Melissa, I've heard a lot of them I've been listening.

Like, what are you doing for the relationship? Then it doesn't matter how good, I mean, unless you're like going to make a logo for $20 for somebody, you know, you really need to warm them up a little.So I would think about a plan, a funnel plan. You get the people to invite, have them invite to a thing where you can offer them membership.

That would be mine. My first thought, 

Suzanne: okay

Melissa:  Angela, you have a, 

Angela: what about some sort of a buy one, get one free, special where you buy it and then you get to give it to a friend or maybe you have someone like me.If I were in that industry, I'm looking at the price tag. And when I see this buy one, get one free.

And I call from my friends and I'm like, Hey, split this with me. Something like that. 

Suzanne: Okay. 

Melissa: That's a great idea. 

Paul: Yeah. We've seen really successful promotion with that with the company masterclass. I'm not sure if you guys get the ads.Like we do like a thousand times a day. But during their promotions they do buy one gift one. So that's how they, they normally reference it. It's a one year membership. So of course the person that got gifted at the end they would have the app now they own their email and everything.

So they have the ability to remark  to them. I wouldn't do that. I wouldn't do that if you're in the middle of a launch, cause you'll basically cannibalize your launch. Cause people will start partnering purposely and you won't have individual buyers, you know? So just, just be careful. Cause you'll basically, you'll have people like in your challenge group, as an example,going back and forth, like who wants to go in with me on this?

And we'll both basically pay half, you know? So just, just be careful and undoing that if it's like a private promotion or direct to consumer, that might be a little bit of a, of a bump. 

Melissa: I'm sorry, Tazeem, did you have a, did you have something? 

Tazeem: I was going to suggest something else that might work depending on the price point is I've done this with my group is why not offer them?

If they refer somebody to you, when that person joins, they will get their following month membership suspended. The person who joins us covering that person's membership for that month. And then the following month that the person who referred them would only get that next month for free.So you're not giving away the farm, but I mean, they could refer three people in a year and they'd get three months for free.

They only get it one time. Right? 

Suzanne: I think that's great. And I think that fits the price. It's not going to be very expensive, but I wouldn't miss it. 

Paul: Yeah.It is a very effective method. We do that within “Inner Circle” and it's just a reward because our member existing members are typically going to be your biggest raving fans when you're over delivering to them.

They're naturally going to go out into the world. So just have that little bit of incentive that they get their next month covered and how we normally do. It might be a method for you guys.I know it gets confusing when you have automated payments happening. So once their next payment goes through, we just hit refund in Stripe. We just go back and mainly do a refund. That way it doesn't cancel their actual subscription. Yeah. Cause you know, it's harder to like how do I get that money back over to them? So we just are promises that we'll give you,um, now where that works out well for you as well, is that if you are doing a founding member offer, initially all those people are at a certain rate. So as you progress, you're going to have people come on at a higher rate. Correct. So what happens is when you incentivize your existing members that you're going to refund them one of their,well, their founding member referring, you technically get paid out less than what you collected the, the rate on, on the existing price of the membership.

Does that, does that make sense? 

Suzanne: Perfect. 

Paul: Yeah. So it's a win, win, you know, on that end. Now, not everybody has memberships that the people are incentivized by money.Like that could be potentially a drop in a bucket and that might not be, so this is where you can potentially also game-ify, you know, where you could, some people are motivated by recognition.

So you could look at it from, you know, creating like a VIP program where those, that support you the most. It could be a point system in and different things that they,you know, that they do to like help build the community that they get rewarded or get acknowledged by you saying, Hey, I want to, you know, this month's MVP is, you know, dr. John, dr. John, thank you for recommending us and referring us to Mary and Bob, you know, at such and such practice,you know? So now then just hearing their name, how many of you get excited when you're part of a membership , or a course in the influencer sends an email out and you're talked about in the email, you know what I mean?

Like, Ooh, I was mentioning this week's email, you know, so it's like, some people just need just love to hear their name or see their name being acknowledged. So just keep in mind, reward recognition, you know, there's different ways of people like you know, that, that actually motivate them, not everybody's my money.

Suzanne: Yeah. Awesome. 

Melissa: You're so welcome. Exciting along move, moving along. Awesome.