How to Create Mutual Beneficial Memberships for Other Businesses – Episode 108

Melissa: So we're going to hop over to bill first.  

Bill: My question is I have been approached a bunch of times about doing memberships for other businesses as I've been on this journey of my own. I've been talking about it with others and now I'm being asked to do it for them. 

And that wasn't my original intent, but I'm sort of  feeling like, maybe I should follow this. And so I'm really seriously considering it, but my question is, is anybody else doing that? Does anybody else here doing memberships for other businesses? And if so, how do you manage multiple businesses, multiple memberships, how much time, would you expect to a lot to each one?

And, At some point I would think I would have to grow a team . Because I, just wouldn't be able to handle it all myself, just the content aspect of it alone. So that's my question. 

Melissa: Can I ask a quick clarifying question? 

Bill: Sure. 

Melissa: So when they want you to do other memberships, is there any particular areas they want help with?

Are they, are they looking for like everything from start to finish? Are they looking for like tech support? What kind of help are they seeking? 

Bill:  It seems like . Everything  from start to finish because they do not have memberships. And actually one, I was speaking with yesterday, she needs like a general manager for almost her entire business.

But, but we were . Talking about  her doing a membership. 

Melissa: Okay, Great. Okay, cool. 

Paul: Great. So anybody have this experience or know anyone that has this  experience? Yes. So I see Meg has her hand up. 

Meg: You guys. You guys kind of do that.  

Melissa: We do have several memberships. Yes. 

Meg: And then, yeah, I think that you definitely would eventually have to build a team and  it makes me wonder, and I don't know what you, you and . Melissa think but how many people are afraid to press that button and just like, we have all these platforms to do a membership, you know, whatever you use for your PDs and all that. 

I think so many people are afraid to press that button by themselves to start the membership. So I think there's a real need out there. That's just my 2 cents. 

Paul: Yeah. That's great. 

Melissa: Excellent. 

Paul: I think that this is such a unique niche question that I don't think everybody has experienced this a hundred percent yet.

The interesting thing for all of us, when we get into new opportunities like this, like the online space, a lot of times we get in for our own purposes, our own reasons.

And we're the ones, we're the small percentage that are the risk takers that will invest the money, invest the time, the energy and effort to move our own businesses along. And then what happens is in our own quest of learning something new in the grow, what ends up happening is other people notice that they are like, they're the one that is like your cohort, like that you're equal your peer in an industry or whatever. And then they're starting to say , oh man, what are you doing? You're progressing, you get this thing, you're starting to talk different. I see you on social media more. Oh,  How are you getting these successes suddenly? I'm still stuck in a rut. I'm still standing still. 

And then naturally, and this is for anything. So if you think about it, even our own journey, the "ADaptive Membership" that we have in the precursor that was the "ADaptive Facebook Ads Course" came and manifested because so many of our peers in the online space saw how effective we were with Facebook ads and because of our knowledge and expertise and my background in marketing and like marrying the two together, it created this natural need of enough people asking us and wanting to jump on calls and talk to us like over a period of a couple of years, it was like, oh, there's a need for this people. I keep getting tagged in Facebook groups. I keep getting this. 

So sometimes in the pursuit of your main core thing that you're doing, you expand your mind and your opportunities, because you leaned in and invested and you're in certain circles and certain awarenesses. 

We have several people like that. As an example, we have two members specifically that are inside of our "Inner Circle Membership" that they have their main thing. Like one of them's Jeff he's in the dog training that she has a membership. He's learned so much about Facebook marketing with us.

He now has a more successful business managing other people's Facebook ads accounts, because so many people saw his ads in the space. They're like, how can I, oh, well, I don't really want to do that. Can you do it for me? And then ended up creating this secondary opportunity.

And bill like specifically for your, you think about it, where did we meet years ago? And that's because we spoke on stage at a photography conference, and we were on stage and we talked about marketing everything, but then that, that began our journey together. 

But here we are several years later where we don't even have that business or that membership or that space.

But the successes that we did get in the online space led us to our "Inner Circle", let us to "ADaptive" and even here "Memberships Mastermind". 

Our original thing when Melissa and I were dating, five years ago, we didn't have any of the memberships that we have right now, you know? And it's something like that came as a natural result of us having successes where other people noticed.

And thankfully just had a background in business coaching for over 25 years. But just something like there's two things naturally coming back together. 

So sometimes your main thing and you leading leaning into that will create new opportunities for you that you don't even see right now. And then it's like,  do you straddle it or do you lean on one or the other?

A different part of this topic is  if you're going in and you're building this for somebody, we know several people that have done very well with joint venture relationships where they actually, they're not the influencer, they do all the backbone things, but this is like a marriage, like any other business partnership, you had to be very clear on what, whose responsibility is what, and also in advanced talk about what does the exit look like if either of you decide to part paths, because if you don't talk about that part of the conversation upfront, you could just have something blow up later on. 

Cause there's always a certain point where somebody feels it's unbalanced and they're doing all the work and the other person's making all the money.

Like it's just going to happen at some point or there'll be a disagreement in philosophy or whatever. 

So just think about that. And if you're doing this as a done for you service like an agency or just building things and walking away, the tricky thing is, and this is what we've seen with our friends. And that's why within like "ADaptive", we do coaching versus done for you. 

The main reason is because the done for you means that you are also as a vendor tied to the net result for that person. Okay. And then what . Happens is some of the people are so used to doing that thing. And we've seen this with people that we've brought in they suddenly want to totally tap out.

And they also want you to be the visionary of their company. And it's like, well, hold on. Now I'm living this whole thing for them. And they have nothing in it. And they're just collecting a check. 

They did three videos and now I have to own the whole experience of everything. So I just want you to be clear of like what it is and what it isn't, because you don't want to find yourself that now suddenly you are actually in, it almost feels like a job for a whole bunch of other people.

 Like you're working for a whole bunch of other people. Like they own your time, your energy, your expertise, just want you to be careful because a lot of people will latch their wagon on really quick.

If you'll do all the work,   it's very convenient. So just, just be careful of that as well. So I'm hoping that a couple of those things might give you some perspective and in your journey with that.

 Cause for all of us, we're the risk-taker and we put ourselves out there, everybody else is going to have a really good idea and we're always going to get pitched with somebody else's really good idea. Yeah. 

And we just have to be aware that we need to protect our, our thing and our space and what we're doing to make sure that we don't take away from our thing to pursue other people's dreams. You know? So just, be careful on protecting your time and energy. 

Bill: Yeah. And my main hesitation is taking away from my own thing. You know what the path I was already on, you know, this is, is this a distraction or is this something that I would really want to pursue and great points. Thank you, Paul, about making clear what the roles are, the ownership, the exit strategy, all of that. Very, very good points. Thank you. 

Melissa: And I'll just tack on one thing you could, if it is something you're interested in exploring, but maybe not a hundred percent sure. Maybe do something like a 60 day or a 90 day kind of trial  with the two of you  just to get some things implemented in place to kind of test the waters up to a certain point.

And then at that point, both of you can evaluate as well. If it's a good fit too. 

Paul: It's like dating courting should have a low level commitment initially before you just go into the full commitment. So maybe project-based or, or something versus getting right into a membership that's longterm, maybe something that is a program that is over five months or four months or three months might feel a little recurring income ish,

but at least there's an end point and allows you to see how you work together. 

And if the collective vision makes sense versus going into something and then realize you committed into something and now is an obligation like six months or a year from now. And you wish you didn't get involved. Yeah. 

Bill: Excellent. Thank you. Thank you very much. 

Melissa: You're welcome. Well keep us posted 

Paul:  And all of us were creative entrepreneurs.  We have to  block ourselves sometimes. Cause I, I had to say, at least I'd say once or twice a month,  I'll say to Melissa, cause you know, we're very blessed.

So we do well. We interact with a lot of you that are in the membership spaces. We see a lot of great ideas. It would be so easy for us to take our team and just jump in and put a little sprinkle on people's idea that would just like amplify it instantly. And I have this reoccurring thing as like let's, you know, we, we can become like a mini shark tank in the membership world. 

 We have the money, we can invest in a couple of these ideas and just be the investor. And then we just go through the conversation, like, do we want to live with the performance and the ideals and the visionary of other people, But if you look on shark tank, they're like, they're cut and dry. They're just like, if you just said that you think that you can call me every single day of the week. That's why we're saying no to this because you're not . Getting that. Good. Good.