How to Decide Between 1:1 Services and Launching a Membership

Candice: So my business is. Hey, boss lady. So I basically have connection and collaboration hours for women business owners to talk about what type of collaborations they're looking for. I did my founding member launch from my membership. I had about two people raised their hand, Which is nice.
They haven't paid yet, so I'm going for that. That's another question. What do you do when they don't pay and they raise their hand? But I also was like, well, do I want to do the membership or do I really want to, like, focus on my services, like, selling my services? Because that seems to be a little bit more. easier for me, because I do have some of the boss ladies ask me, well, what do you do besides hey, boss ladies.
So that's kind of like an easy sale to. For me versus me doing the membership because, you know, you have to send those emails and then it's like a few people are like, oh, okay. But I find it that selling my service one on one is really good. like my best asset, I would say me actually selling something. So I'm wondering if I should just, continue with my services and selling that.
Also having the networking events as well. But if anyone want me help or support, should I just go ahead and, you know, pivot that way?
Paul: Yeah. Anybody on the call have any thoughts or input? Yeah, go ahead.
Diane : Candice, One of the things that popped into my head when you were, you started talking about, like, your membership, like, oh. And then I was like, because I don't know you yet, I haven't had a chance.
Then I was like, but how do I know that, like, I can trust her? Like, it took me a while to know that Paul and Melissa, were people that, if I gave them money, I could trust them, that they knew what they were doing. So I'm not sure. How are you letting people know in the membership, that they can trust you if they come into there?
I don't know if that's making sense.
Candice: Oh, that's a great question. thank you for asking. So I will say I have 70 people, 74 people on my list. Half of those are warm because I know them. And the reason why I know them is because I do go to networking events. I literally meet these people. They're all organic. They go on my list and they're adding themselves to the events that I have.
25 is referral, because I have like a little widget on there. Like, hey, if you post this on your Facebook group or on your LinkedIn, I'm going to give you like this freebie, which is the connection and collaboration kit. So is referral and 25 is percent it. I run ads. So I do ads maybe once a month, but I only do them like for a couple of days for time for the hey, boss lady event, which is normally like the morning one.
I have a morning one and afternoon one twice a month. So they all know me. They're all in the event. I run the event, like, kind of like this in Zoom and they go into breakout rooms and that's where they plan their collaborations or they meet each other and then at the end I give them a sheet of all the women who were in the collaboration event and that's where they can actually contact each other.
Diane : Because I'm just wondering if maybe you don't have to completely give up the membership yet, but keep nurturing, you know, the people, growing your list, getting more people on there and giving them a chance to know you and feel confident in what you're teaching. then when they get, like I said, I know that you said some of them are already warmed up, but, you know, maybe they're not exactly your ideal people and you need to keep, you know, growing that list and then still break.
Because I'm kind of in the same thing. Like I teach in person and I make a lot more money there right now than I'm doing with any of my online stuff. But my ultimate goal is I want, I'm in my 50s. I want to get where I'm. It's tiring to do the in person classes, so I want to get more where I'm pivoting to like online, but it's just taking a little bit longer to grow.
But I am moving forward. Like, I'm not where I want to be, but I'm not where I was. So like I'm baby stepping my way forward. So maybe doesn't, maybe. I'm just saying maybe it doesn't have to be an all or nothing right now. Maybe focus on the things that are bringing in more money, but take baby steps when you have the opportunity to grow that audience and stuff.
Just a thought. There's just a couple things popped into my head when you were talking, so thank you.
Candice: Thank you for that. Awesome. Natalie.
Natalie : Candice, I'm just making an observation. You seem to light up when you talk about the one on one work, but when you talk about the membership, you don't seem to light up. I'm just wondering if maybe not everybody needs to have a membership or what are your goals for having a membership?
Is it recurring income or is it really something you feel passionate about because your whole face lit up when you talked about the services you provide outside of the membership. Just an observation.
Candice: Thank you for that observation. Really. I actually, I like the one on one work. But then it comes to a point where you still feel like you're working for somebody and that's kind of like I want to get out of that.
I love doing my hey, boss lady sessions. So I just like the community aspect of it and just having more time to actually talk to the boss ladies and be there, have like a, a mastermind or something like that where they actually plan in the collaborations. That's where my joy is. But I'm lighting up for the services because I'm actually making money from that. So that's the thing.
And then, yes, to the reoccurring income. Yes, that, that's a plus too. Then that way that will actually can come together. As far as, like having my monthly income, I kind of rely on the membership money if I don't have any clients. So that's what I was thinking as well.
Melissa: Okay,
Candice: Robert.
Robert : So, Candace, had the same observation that Natalie had, so I won't revisit that. But you do seem to light up more when you talk about the services.
However, I understand too, that there's an interest in, something that's a little more scalable, all that in the membership. So it sounds like you've got a nice sort of networking sort of membership going for bringing people together. Now, I've seen this, and I know you said you're paying for some ads to attract people in. I've seen this used very successfully, I don't know if you're.
Are you on LinkedIn?
Candice: Yes, I am.
Robert : Okay. Are you using Sales Navigator?
Candice: No.
Robert : I would recommend that you take a look at LinkedIn Sales Navigator because it is a premium product. It is about 100 bucks a month, but it gives you access to the entirety of the LinkedIn network in a searchable fashion. It also gives you a massive increase of InMail so that you can send directly email messages to people.
And I've actually seen this used effectively as a tool to curate a membership by going out and targeting specific kinds of people. And one of the things that you seem to be offering in this membership is the ability to get people connected with other boss ladies that are going to be able to help them. And as the facilitator, one of the things that you arguably might want to really consider leaning into is being that cruise director You're like the dating coach, right? You're bringing them together and you're. You're going to be the matchmaker or you're going to be like, oh, hey, I've got people that are looking for someone who does X, Y and Z. But we don't really have anybody like that in this membership. You could use something like Sales Navigator to go find someone like that and invite them even. And if it's local, if you're just doing it locally in your local area, you could even target it down and each down saying, I only want people in this geographic area and do that kind of.
The search capabilities on Sales Navigator are fantastic. And so just thinking, if you want to continue going down that road, this is, it's an idea, something to think about and look into because I think it'd be a really valuable tool for you.
Candice: Oh, wow. Thank you. Like that. I'm
Robert : not trying to presuppose what your job is. That's my perspective on it. So
Candice: thank you. I love
Melissa: it. Quick question.
With the event that you're doing once a month, you said you have a morning session and an afternoon session. is that the membership itself or is that just an event that people come to?
Candice: No, it's just an event that people come to. So I have a morning session. It was in the evening, a lot of people come.
People were like, do you have anything earlier? So I have the earlier one and then two weeks later I have the evening one. Okay,
Melissa: okay. Because I think one of the things with memberships and someone had said it's not like an all or nothing. I think Diane said before, not an all or nothing. I love with the one on one work. Yes. That's where you're going to get like some of that income coming in right away.
And like you said, you can charge a little bit more for that. But there is a point that you only take so much one on one work, but then you have this already built out, this event that you're doing. And I'm thinking like, how can. I would ask yourself a different question is like, how can I like create a simple membership that's going to be like an easy lift for you?
Like you're already doing this event that you, that you're hosting once a month. What would it look like to maybe create a membership component to that event where maybe like they get an extra time slot basically like a members only type of time slot like on that day that you're already doing the event. or some sort of membership perks to that event that you're already hosting because they're coming to that event already.
And sometimes we make these memberships a little bit more complicated than they, they need to be.And it could even start off as a low. Like, maybe they get a spotlight in this. event where you spot like the members they submit and they can do a little spiel at the beginning the event.
You know, something like that. You're already doing this event, so can you add some components to it to start creating that membership that might not be the end all. Be all membership, because you can have multiple memberships, but for the event that you're already hosting, you can maybe add something that. That could start to bring some of that recurring revenue into it for something that you're already doing and that wouldn't be such a heavy, heavy lift.
So that was. I get
Candice: what you're saying. Yeah, I get what you're saying. I actually started It's funny you mentioned that. Like, Like a spotlight moment. Like, some of the ladies had an offer. I was like, hey, bring. Send this stuff over to me. And I would, you know, showcase your offer in the Boss up announcements. And that actually has been working well.
But then I'm like, look, here's the thing. Y' all gonna pay for that Boss up announcement. So I'm like, I'm not doing that no more. You know, it could be as simple as, like, they're
Melissa: included In your weekly email. We do that for our Mastermind members. We have a listing where they can put their freebies in there.
Right. like you. They can have almost like a listing in your weekly email that gets emailed to your entire list as well as maybe If they're in the membership, they get an opportunity to do like a. A spotlight, like right before the. The meeting itself. Like things that you're already doing. That's not good. I like to think of like, what can I do to.
I'm already doing this event, so how can I add a component to it that's not going to be a super heavy lift for me? And that would give you that recurring revenue with it.
Candice: I love that. Thank you. You're
Paul: welcome. Can I expand on that? Yeah,
Candice: sure.
Paul: So think of things that happen in the real world and some of those things can be brought in. So. And I'm just going to randomly say a bunch of things. Doesn't mean, go with any of them. I'm just going to spitball. But like, like in the BNI world, you can go to the first one for free as a guest. So you kind of get a taste of it and then you're invited to come in as a member after that. So like these calls don't necessarily have to be indefinitely free for everyone.
It's like, hey, if you had a great experience, you know, here's how you can continue, you know, to come in. Now that might feel a little risky for you. You might not want to do that initially, but, but another way is like what we do here with this memberships Mastermind call. We do two calls a month, but one is, is free for the public. So we're attracting new people in.
And we do have a Facebook ad that runs all the time, not just particular. Like we spend maybe like 40 or 50 a day on an ad that just spills in to tell people about next month's call. Now during that period they're going to get other emails from us and other offers and all that stuff. Stuff. Now they unsubscribe, that's fine, but they can come into the free call next month.
And then after this call, Melissa will hit the whole list and make people aware of all access and we'll get a few people that'll trickle in, you know, on that. for all of us sometimes like this memberships Mastermind membership that we have here. There's gonna be some people that this will be their only touch point, like paying wise in our world.
And that's okay. what this is though is a feeder membership. And a lot of people don't think about memberships like that. So like the, the free call is a feeder into this all access. This all access is a feeder into our coaching programs. Now we're not looking for hundreds of people over there, right?
But what does this. Instead of you guys having a, just a lead magnet that's a PDF or you know, something like people can come on and they're like, oh, almost actually have really good legit advice. I don't get that in the program that I'm in right now where I'm hoping all the people in the Facebook group answer my question, you know, type, type thing, you know, so it allows us to exercise and show like our expertise, our ability, stuff like that.
Now I would definitely couple you Doing the collaboration part, maybe with you having some type of, maybe teaching element or some type of knowledge nugget thing that you drop each time because on these calls and I want you to see the methodology of like what we're doing. So in this every, it is truly mastermind, everybody has a chance. But Melissa and I come in at the end like what was missing because we still want to position ourselves as an expert, you know, give value and there'll be that, that couple people, you know, one or two people every month out of the group that'll say, hey, I think, tell me more about your coaching programs or tell me more about your, your high end mastermind.
Right. We're not looking for everybody to say that. We're not pressuring any. None of you get direct messages from me trying to hook you into the next step. But there's that natural tension that happens at some point. And we didn't like Alice's in, in Nicole and a few others are in our high level programs and they come in and we don't ask for an endorsement but like Alice, you know, just naturally talked about it earlier on.
Right. So like that stuff's like baked in naturally. Right. So, so when you have a free thing, but then you have paying people coming in as a value add, they become a natural endorsement for you as well. But what it is is the moment that you, because it is all about collaborations, you send everybody off, off. They're all trying to sell each other now and you're not in the room with them.
Candice: Yeah.
Paul: So like they're not getting influence about your membership anymore. They're trying to figure out how to work off of each other because, because of the concept that you have. So in a way you still have to have some type of leadership role, you know, at the beginning or when you bring everybody back in between. And then at the end I would create some type of arc where you are making your offer.
You know, hey, if you enjoyed this call today, you're going to really love Blank. You know, you just gotta taste do over here. So even for us, like this call is a one hour more peer to peer, but essentially an hour call where in our adaptive marketing program we have 51 hours of calls with our coaches every month.
Like every single day there's two to three hours of calls, you know, with copywriters, digital marketers, like they look at your Facebook ads, they look at your copy, they help you with your offer, like all the things. Things, Right. So it's like this creates tension and creates awareness of people going to the next step. So when you're doing this type of call, you need to leverage it. That creates natural tension that only gets relieved that people say yes to your membership offer like you want.
So think of it more like a feeder.
Melissa: You know,
Paul: they're coming on this call, but the call is a feeder to the next step. And a lot of us don't think of all of us have bought those $2,000 courses. And what you don't realize most of the time is those are affiliate launches that those big influencers do. they make big money but they are paying out their entire 40 person team all year long off of that money.
They're not really making all the millions you think. And half of that money is going to affiliates and the other parts go into ads and everything. But what they did is they got a whole bunch of people in so they can sell a percentage of them their back end offer where the profit really happens. So really they use the $2,000 course as a feeder to their real offer where they make all their profit.
So you're, you could have a different level of membership on the front end bolting on like what Melissa just said, what you're already doing that feeds people in. And then one of the tension is people, most people want to be just given the fish and I'll learn how to fish. So it's going to naturally. So you could, if you want those one to one clients, you could open the valve up and say hey, I'm able to take on two, you know, clients.
I have this membership in this program. Love you to come in there. But naturally some of you are at a different level, different stage and you just want me to do the work for you. And if that's you DM me right now and let's, let's have a conversation. You know, you could use inside that bubble but the next thing could be a feeder to the next thing. Just keep that in mind.
Anything that you're doing now is a feeder to the next thing. And then you'll start seeing this more. You know, instead of like just one race, it's, it's like you're passing the baton. It has different legs to it.
Candice: Okay, this is good.
Paul: Hopefully that's helpful.
Candice: Thank you. I love it. Thank you everyone.