How to Lead a Membership Welcome Call That Inspires

Robert: big news. I launched my membership on Monday. we're growing it's building. and I haven't really even hit the, like, the real, like paid advertising stuff yet.
So, that's just organic, which is nice. My question is in this, I'm doing the first meeting, later today. I'm gonna do a member orientation and then, we're gonna do kind of a, just a introduction and the plan is to introduce the vision, the membership, what it's all about, kind of walk through all of that. introduce myself, and then I'm really trying to use that first meeting as a bit of some, you know, in this founding member launch style. Getting them talking and opening that dialogue about what it is that they are trying to do and where they're running into challenges, to help shape the direction that things are gonna go. and I wanted to know a, am I completely going in the wrong direction? 'cause I have a couple hours to fix it if I need to. And then the other one is, Does anyone have any recommendations for other things to do in that first meeting? that would be useful.
Paul: great topic.
So if any of you have firsthand experience where you've gone through like what Robert is asking about and you can share some advice or, or input, we can take firsthand experience. Even if you haven't personally done it on the provider side, you might have experienced something as a consumer. Mm-hmm.
And you have perspective and experience. and we'll just go around the virtual room if anybody has anything. And if you guys don't, then Melissa and I will chime in, you know, either way at the end. Diane, did you got your hand raised?
Yeah.
Diane: Robert, congratulations on starting your, um, membership. The only thing I missed, I was coming in now. Uh, what is your membership about?
Robert: So I am teaching and helping, small business owners leverage AI and use AI more effectively beyond just content creation.
I mean, there Okay. We'll be covering some of that, but I'm a data analyst. Uh, okay. And so the real focus is gonna be on using AI to. Help fill that role of analyzing your data, doing financial analysis of the health of the business, doing things like analyzing your customer data for, you know, segmentation purposes and really being able to sort of fill that role as a bit of a, personal business analyst.
And strategic decision making partner. Um,
Diane: okay. That's awesome. so my membership's, called pierogi school and my, it's much different. I'm doing food where you're doing, but, um, when I did my initial meeting and brought the founding members in, I was celebrating them, thankful they were there, you know, that kind of thing.
And then just kind of, brainstorming with them like what they wanted to see. because. Sometimes I have in my head what I wanna do and it isn't what they wanna learn or what they wanted to see. So, and I only, I think I kept it to like maybe 20 minutes to 30 minutes if it went longer that would've been fine.
But we were just kind of getting to know each other and just getting some feedback on what direction they wanted to go. and then, I took their feedback and then moved forward with the first lesson then from that. So I don't know, um, if that's helpful or not, but I just, that was my experience and I thought it might be something you could do with yours.
So
Paul: love that. So do you got anything that you wanna throw in?
Melissa: Well, I definitely, um, I love the idea of the, uh. Brainstorming ideas, usually with the first, depending on how big, how many people are in the membership. If you have the energy to do like, introductions around the room, don't have to do that every single time.
And you can even frame it to them. It's like, you know, we're not gonna do this every single time, but you guys are like the founding members. And I just would love to learn a little bit, uh, get, get to know everybody in the in the room type of thing. That usually takes up a little bit of time too. So I introductions around the room with that.
and then it's really about setting, the stage for what's to come. as far as, calls that you might have, deliverables that you might be doing, things that they can look forward to as well. That's also re a retention thing too. So if you have an your mind of like any special events or calls or things like, hey, in September we're gonna be hosting the.
X, y, z, which is a members only event. So make sure you mark this on your calendar. It gives 'em something to look forward to and it helps with the retention and, you know, pulling them through that month. So if you can have, and this is for everyone, if you have those little, retention kind of type of activities in your membership throughout the year, it pulls people through.
Um, it just gives 'em another opportunity, to stay longer in the membership and, and really see the value with the membership.
Paul: Yeah, and I'll throw in a couple things as well. and Diane already mentioned, definitely wanna right out the gate, celebrate their decision that they made.
because a lot of us, we forget ourselves as a buyer, the most vulnerable moment that people have. Is the buyer's remorse? The buyer's regret moment, like, did I make the right choice? Did I make the right financial decision? And we're sitting on that thank you page. We're going into the first thing.
We have certain expectations in that moment. So you really wanna reaffirm, you know, their decision to be there. you wanna pre-frame and cast a vision of what? In a way, you're reselling them on the membership, on the decision that they made. So it's, it's a great time to just bring in that energy and also I.
reminding them what the purpose is, what the goal is, what the outcome that you're promising. not just get right into the nitty gritty type thing because there's a mindset element that we're all in that state of vulnerability. The first call we get on and, and the tricky thing sometimes with welcome calls is some people are sitting in their pain or what.
The solution, like the reason why they bought the thing from you. And sometimes they want it fixed immediately and they're hoping you're gonna cover that topic right out the gate, you know? And so in a way, you are, as Melissa was referenced, and also you're, you're, you're setting expectation, but you're realigning expectations as well.
So by pre-framing and future pacing and letting them know, like, this is. How the calls are gonna work, or this is how the deliverables are, here's the frequency and all like that. It's also a good time if you had the time to show people like, Hey, when you signed up, I, I sent you an email to log in. Now I'm gonna screen share and show you how to log in.
I mean, I'm telling you as simple as this, it'll save you so much support, because you're gonna have people later on go, I don't know where things are. I don't. So it's like we normally, before we jump on these calls, we have like the Facebook group open if there's a community, or if you're using Circle or money networks or whatever, you know, uh, we, we would have the, platform, there and we would do like a mini demo, like a mini tutorial.
Like, Hey, let me show you how to get around mm-hmm. Things and like, here's where you ask questions, if you have login issues, whatever, here's the email address. that you should email. So just, just think of it almost like an orientation that you would like in, in the real world.
It's like, okay, the exits are this way and that way, you know, uh, you're telling people the non-smoking section, you know, you gotta go over there, you know, this is what time lunch is. Like you, you kind of want to treat it, that way. and then I recommend that you give some type of.
Teachable learnable, aha moment, right in that call. Give a nugget, something that they didn't know that wasn't promised. Something quick and easy. I can give 'em a quick, fast, easy win. Because that's really what they came for. They really didn't come for like, oh, I'm, I'm here just to know all the logistics of what's gonna happen, you know, uh, type thing.
So if you can give them like a, a little bit, you know, hey, while we're on a call, let me show, something was just announced yesterday in AI that it's gonna, you know, apply. I'm gonna go into this deeper later on, but let me just show you what you can do and like, get, and have everybody like, oh my gosh. You know?
'cause then it's like they just made this investment. They're on a welcome call. And then you just blew their mind on something. And they're just like, Ooh, I'm in the right place. You know? and it just gives people a feel good when they come off versus it just being again, you know, logical. Like, here's all the things type thing.
And then again, wrap it at the end, to, surmise everything that you just said. So, and you hear this in a thousand different ways from different people, Tell people what you're gonna tell them, and then tell people what you told them. Mm-hmm. So it's just a good way in speaking in general.
so pre-frame, like, Hey, here's what we're gonna cover during this call, then actually cover it and then reflect back on it. I do recommend in your content piece, like ask for feedback and everything. But you're still the leader. So these people are making an investment. So if you came on and go, man, I'm glad you guys bought, but I don't know what we're gonna be doing here.
Talking about like, I'm really gonna lean on you guys. It's like. Uh, why did we pay you? You know, so you have to come in with confidence and you just need to cast the vision, and just say, but the advantage of you being an early adopter is we're gonna have more access and more conversation. Yep. Can't promise that, you know, for people that come in like, you know, six months, a year from now, we might more people in, so you're gonna, you're gonna help us form the deliverables.
And also what we start off with might not be where we evolve to. Mm-hmm. So I'm gonna be looking for your constant feedback to make sure you know that I'm answering your questions now, right out the gate. I'm just curious what caused you to purchase, you know, what, what are you curious about? What are you struggling with?
You know, what are your aspirations? What are you hoping to get out of this program? I. Yeah. And, and then you'll get the, again, their pain or the confusion overwhelm. You also get their aspiration, out of it. I do a lot of the onboarding, uh, and Melissa does the onboarding in our coaching programs in our mastermind.
Yeah. But all of our courses that we do, you know, the majority of the things, like I'm the one that's doing the, the welcome call Over and over again. So these are just things that, that I, I think about when I get on these calls. Yeah.
Robert: That's awesome. I, I appreciate the feedback, Diane, uh, Paul and Melissa both.
I'm planning on doing 95% of that already, which I'm glad to. That's good. Uh, I've got a couple other things. I, I think Melissa, I will have time to the, to do introductions. It's a small enough group and I don't anticipate everyone will show up on the first call. So I think, you know, if I have.
Three or four people that show up, I'm gonna be thrilled. and we're gonna go from there. Paul, the, the comment about the sort of teachable nugget I do have, I had something I was thinking about, like, should I include it or not? And I thought it, it will, it feel weird if it, if I'm throwing something in there.
But the way you mention it of like. Hey, there's just something, you know, like this came up and I should mention it to you. And I actually have the perfect thing. I know exactly what to that I can, I know what I can do to help set that framework, provide something that is an aha moment, and also future pace for what's gonna be coming this summer in the industry.
so I think that'll be really, really helpful.
Paul: And I was just thinking one thing just for context. When you have a smaller group, it's easier to do the like intro part. We've mistakenly a couple times over the years decided to do that exercise when there was way too many people in the room.
Yes. So I just wanna bring that up, that if you have a lot of people, then just say hey, in the chat. Yeah. Say who you are and who you're from. Yeah. Yeah. I problem. because you'll have people that'll go on for like. 5, 6, 7 minutes talking about the beginning of life and you know, all kinds of random things.
And it's hard to interrupt sometimes and pull them back on, especially when it's a first impression. You don't wanna cut people off, but it ends up ruining experience when people are like, oh my gosh, that took five minutes and there's 30 of us on this call. Yeah. You know, we're gonna be here for two hours just for introductions, so.
So I just wanted to reference that. Yeah.
Melissa: Well, congratulations again. That's so exciting. Yeah. Yeah. And, um, it'll be good to see you when you pop on these calls in the future, just how, how that evolves and how the membership grows. So
Robert: thank you. Yeah. And I just as a, a, a shameless plug for you all, I'm gonna be working through the, uh, 1 0 4 formula.
Uh, yeah.
Melissa: It influence course. Yes. I love it.
Robert: Building out, building out some, uh, content for based on the influence course. So thank you for that as well.
Melissa: Perfect. I love it. Awesome.
Paul: That's great. That's awesome.