Why You Should Not Miss Out On Having A Membership – Episode 26

Melissa: So we're going to move to Charley. 

Charley: Hi. Thank you. I had a question maybe philosophical, I had hired a coach to help me with my business. And when I've talked to other people who are in my health coaching and all that, I'm often unpersuaded to do memberships.

And so I'm curious as to why so many coaches that are helping other businesses to grow are against memberships. And what I've been getting a lot is that it's a lot of work for a little bit of money. And so they've kind of swayed me to not do that. So I guess I'm curious in one way, for those of you guys who have built memberships,

I mean, is it something that you've gotta be thinking like longterm, like, well, it may be a lot of work for the first year or two, but as I continue to grow, it will be something that continues to grow. I don't know. Cause I feel like I've been going back and forth just because I've had such negativity around like, well, if you really want make a living from this, a membership's not the way to do it. So that's the one thing I'm I was kinda curious about. And then I had a question about what's the best platform for what I do. So, 

Paul: So let's open it up to the group. So anybody have any question? 

Melissa: Why memberships? 

Paul: So Laura has her hand up.

Laura: For me, I started my membership three years ago and bar none, all of my private clients have come from that membership because it takes it, it gave them the time to get the know like, and trust to invest at a much higher level with me. And before that, I was kind of in the quick sand with getting the private coaching, so.. 

Charley: Okay. That's Good. 

So we have Kari, Thanks, Laura. 

Kari: So I'm going to say that  I had basically a hobby business until I had a membership and having the membership literally kept me from constantly having to advertise every single thing that I did. And so I feel like it has taken a huge weight off  my shoulders by having that versus having to promote every single class and literally get 10 people signed up versus now they're all signed up and actually would have to like leave the membership if they don't want the class that I'm offering for the month. So. 

Charley: Excellent. Thank you. 

Paul: So anybody else have any... alison? 

Allison:  So yeah, two reasons why a membership has been phenomenal for me, first of all, it's regular income. So before I had a course that I was trying to sell point number two, and nobody was buying the course. So I was getting no money a month. I had this fantastic content and I had no one engaging in it. I wasn't reaching anybody because the course was worth a significant amount of money if I'm only going to get them buying it once.

And so, but I couldn't get anyone to even buy that much less the upsells, which is, you know, what I was hoping would bring in even more money. When I launched my membership, I immediately had people who were paying me every single month. So I knew every month I was going to get at least this much money. And so it allowed me to be able to budget for things,   to be able to pay experts in other areas to come in and speak in my membership, serve my people and to be able to pay for zoom and, you know, different things that I wanted to be able to use, but I could never be sure I was going to have the money to actually pay for those things.

So those two things being able to know every month, how much money I'm going to be making and then actually get people purchasing. Cause I can lower the price and make it more accessible to them. I actually have business. 

Paul: Excellent. Thank you. So anyone else want to jump in? All right. So do you have any..

Melissa: I know for us, one of the things that we just like just to chime in with everyone else said with memberships,  it's that recurring revenue it's that consistency. And   I know in our business we have a lot of different streams of income, so it's just, it's that consistency of stream of income. And then when we do launches for other offers where it might be a course or a program, those are influxes other Income streams that are coming in, but that membership is that consistency. Also just on a personal level,  I just love the relationships when we get to know our members,  we really just get to know who they are as people, we get to have deep conversations, we get to go further with them in that relationship.

So it just allows us to have deeper conversations and to also have context as to what the challenges that they're facing. Because a lot of times , if it's a shorter term relation, we don't have the whole context of what's going on in that individual's life. And when you're really working with members and you're working with them for long time, you get to know their story, you get to know about their family. You get to know what's going on with them. And then the transformation that you're helping them through, it's it makes a big impact because you actually get to know them from a holistic perspective on all aspects. So it's just very rewarding. So that's one of the reasons, we love memberships, so 

Charley: Yeah, that's helpful because I have a program that's 10 weeks long and I thought I could do a membership to get the people who are not yet in it. And then also for the people who finished and you guys have been with me asking that same question, but I kept getting stopped because I kept getting the that's a lot of work for a little bit of money and I have a free Facebook group. And  I gave a lot of content in my free group. And so I'm like, well, if I do a free group and then a first step membership, then I got to give them a lot more than the free group. What should I stopped doing so much in the free group so that I'm not over doing it because I am running a 10 week membership, a 10 week transformation. 

Paul: Yeah. Oh, so it looks like we got some more people that have some inputs. So Jason first, 

Jason: hi, sorry. Busy writing things down. So I didn't forget what I wanted to say. Two things. If I may, number one, the principle around it being cheap, cheap is a relative term. Anyway, Paul and Melissa will readily tell you they have memberships that go from a low dollar amount or a much higher dollar amount. And they will readily talk to you about how those things differentiate between those relative price points. That was a massive eye-opener for me because three years ago I had a similar perception, low ticket value.

A lot of work needed a lot of people, not true one person and something she said on a call totally changed my view of that. So that's one thing. Second thing from my historical financial director, the CFO type perspective on life. I love businesses that are predictable financials that are predictable are just awesome. So if you think about it and turn on its head, predictable cost means, you know what you need to come for every month. 

Predictable revenue just as Alison said, does a phenomenal job as well, because you know where you are before you even start, it doesn't mean you can't grow. Doesn't mean you can't add in, but if you know where you are at the start of a month, you've got all that room to expand everything in the right direction thereafter.

So there are beautiful business model from an FD CFO perspective in that respect as well. Predictable sounds very dull, but it's an absolute dream from that perspective. 

Charley: Yeah 

Paul: love it. So we're going to go over to Doreen. Thanks Jason. 

Doreen: Hey everyone. I'm guessing a little bit at the questions to give it a shot here in regards to membership and importance to it.

I launched a membership and learned from that membership that I actually have enough material now for a course. And my membership has now kind of evolved into either my one-to-one consulting or my course takers can move into the membership, you know, but it's at a level now that it's not like an entry level, right. But the second point that I wanted to make for Christina too, is that as much as we're looking at these memberships in our own revenue streams, I highly recommend participating in a few memberships to help you level up as well.  I'm really pleased with the perfect mix of the memberships that I bought into to even better serve my clients and how I grow and the friendships I've made. And it's literally had me traveling around the world virtually,

So I really, the, the opportunity for you is so expansive, right? Like it's limitless. 

Charley: Yeah. 

Doreen: So just want to offer that perspective 

Charley: Thank you. Because I'm a community person. And I, and I keep thinking like, well,  I want to grow a community like a sisterhood. (inaudible) don't do a membership. It's like, except in this group.

So I'm like, I'm just going to come back to this group and ask the question. Okay. 

Doreen: Well, and, and the other thing is you will find throughout different networks, there are people that are like, Oh, membership. And then there are people that just light up and Paul and Melissa light up about their membership and their people. They are cultivating growth, they are building an ecosystem. And that's exactly what you can do. 

Paul: Yeah. 

Charley: Awesome. 

Paul: All right. So I'm going to give some final thoughts and we'll move on. Is that come back to lifetime value, you know, Jason's spoken to the ebb and flow of having consistency, predictability in business as sustainability. 

You know, when you have 80, 90% of businesses failing and you know, the first two years it's typically because they can't have that ongoing revenue stream to be able to sustain permanently and be able to either be stable or to go up, they don't have the cash reserves in place, right? So if you think about it from a lifetime value standpoint of a client also is that when you're doing all the effort, all the work, and you're bringing people through a 10 week plan, then their transformation is done. The promise you made is over and that's your best potential client that would want to potentially have more transformation, more coaching, more support the follow up community. And you're basically those that say, no, it's like, okay, no, I don't want your money.

That you're already willing to give me. I'm going to go out into the market and trying to recreate a new client all over again, even a year, standing in front of me saying that you're willing to keep going and willing to invest more. Now what I also have known through me owning my real estate company and then training and all the way through the years, because this is very, very common. I'm glad you brought this up in a, in a generic context. 

A lot of coaches have a very specific way that they've had their own success. And then they coach within the reality of what they have experienced. So they very click quickly will Dodge or put down things that they honestly don't know anything about. Cause it's easier to be like, nah, that doesn't work. Oh, that's going to fail. Oh, you don't want to go that way because that keeps you a client to them. 

Okay. So that is something they're protecting because they don't have that area of expertise. There are people around the world. I mean, in fitness, majority of all the fitness, like the real world fitness things out there are memberships like their memberships.

I don't care if it's a gym or a Peloton or personal training. They are reoccurring every single month in the real world. But then,  we just don't look at them as memberships that way. Cause we're looking at this new world thing, right? But it's like most of our lives, our 30 day cycles, like look at all the little money that comes out of your bank account every single month we all are. 

Whether it's your phone or your cable or your internet, look, we're technically a membership. So on every aspect of our lives. So be careful where you get coaching because you're getting it from the lens in their own experience, their own tunnel, aware they can keep you within is that there's nothing wrong with having a couple mentors because then you gain perspective.

You don't have to do yes with everybody. I just, I always feel bad for the people that suffer in the, these worlds because they pick one lane and then they can make the magic bullet formula that, that one influencer has worked for them. And they don't realize or believe like anything else is possible. They think that's the only way. 

Charley: Yeah.

Paul: And it's just unfortunate because maybe webinars is not your thing. Maybe it's doing a launch thing, maybe a launch. Thing's not your thing. Maybe Instagram, do you think maybe that maybe it's real life, real world. You can make an incredible amount of money online by communicating with people in the real world. Believe it or not like it's possible. That might be your thing.

But when it comes to also the next question you had when it comes to platforms, we can probably circle back into that question if we have time, just because that in itself is a whole other topic. And there's so many choices out there. What I would do is start with writing down. What resources would you want to give to creating an incredible member experience?

So what would they receive? Is it videos, PDFs? Is it lives like, what is that? But then on the opposite side of that paper, it's your resource. How are you going to deliver that? Is it sustainable? Long-term because you don't have to build a membership. You're going to burn out one. You're going to purposely create the deliverables where it just, while we're talking to you, we have a team of nine people going over, helping people out in our adaptive membership. And we don't have to be there to that. There's some of the members that are in here right now. So we're able to be here and there at the exact same time, in a way like we don't have to physically be there.

So in, in they're getting delivered, they're getting serviced. So it's really how you want to design it so that sustainable, I see Doreen has her hand up and then we'll, we'll move, move around. 

Doreen: And this is really to share a discovery that I recently had. I'm not sure if, how many of you still do one-to-one consulting.

But I found that my one-to-one clients, I recently discovered that they struggle with implementation. And so I started asking them , what would help you? Would it help to have a group call once a month? And that is becoming another membership for me,  and my, day rates are moving.

So my one-to-one consulting is actually moving to a price point that allows me to move them into like give them the first visit free, so to speak, right. So that they can participate and get their feet wet, understand what it feels like. And then they can join that once a month alumni type of implementation group. So it doesn't have to be content filled, you know, it can be about shepherding them along to their success. 

Charley: Thank you. All right. You guys really appreciate it 

Melissa: You're welcome as you were kind of going through this discovery process. So 

Charley: I will. Thank you.