Membership-Driven Business

⭐ Your Roadmap to 100+ Members: LIVE CLASS ON OCTOBER 14 @ 2:30pm PST ⭐

https://themissingink.co/100

4 steps to swap slow membership sales for steady growth and get new members on-demand - without a traditional launch

So you can hit 100 members and keep growing to 200, 300 & beyond →

Save your seat at the free class: https://themissingink.co/100

🎉 Fifty episodes in, I'm taking you behind the scenes of something I've never done before: launching my own group offer, with me in the driver's seat.

After a decade of writing launch campaigns for other people's memberships and courses, I'm promoting Membership Growth Lab publicly for the first time.

It's been a wonderfully busy season that has taught me a lot about what it really takes to promote with staying power.

In this episode, I'm sharing the trade-offs I've made, the skills I'm still building, and the kind of support that's made the biggest difference.

If you're growing your membership and want it to become a bigger part of your business, these lessons will help you decide where your time and energy should go next.

We'll cover:

• How to decide what stays on your promotion list when your ambitions are bigger than your capacity (and why the answer is hiding inside your membership)
• Why promoting your membership is a skill you build, and what the "let it be easy" message gets wrong
• The difference between support with strategy and support with decisions, and why you need both during a promotion
• What it means to become a membership-driven business owner, and how the work you do for your membership strengthens everything else in your business

• Roadmap to 100+ Members Live Class: https://themissingink.co/100
• Contact Natalie: themissingink.co/connect
• See how else you can work with Natalie: themissingink.co/services

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• Instagram: instagram.com/natalietaylor.co
• Threads: threads.net/@natalietaylor.co
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What does it actually look like to double your membership enrollment without a traditional launch — and when you already have 1,000+ members? This episode is the answer.

Stephanie Stollar built the Reading Science Academy into one of the most trusted resources for educators learning about the science of reading.

By the time she came to work with me, she had over 1,000 members, a great marketing team, three books under her belt, and a speaking calendar that was anything but empty.

And yet: she couldn't tell me how she was selling her membership or what was actually working... which meant she didn't know what to do next to grow it.

In this conversation, Stephanie shares exactly what it looked and felt like to get strategic about growing a membership that was already wildly successful — including the uncomfortable parts.

We cover:

• Why being deeply in demand can actually work against your membership growth (and what Stephanie had to confront about her own calendar)
• The first conversation that made it crystal clear: successful doesn't always mean strategic
• How activator events became the foundation of Stephanie's new sales system — and what doubled her monthly enrollment average
• What it felt like to try a webinar launch for the first time in years, with 2,500 educators showing up for it
• The shift from doing everything yourself to letting your team carry the execution — and how to stay involved in the right way
• Why tracking your numbers changes everything (even if spreadsheets don't spark joy)
• Stephanie's advice for anyone who has grown their membership through grit alone and is ready for what comes next

If you have a membership that's doing well but suspect you're leaving growth on the table, this one's for you.

• 🎯 The Membership Growth Gameplan: Work with me to grow your membership: themissingink.co/the-gameplan
• Contact Natalie: themissingink.co/connect
• See how else you can work with Natalie: themissingink.co/services

Read this podcast in article format & check out the shownotes:

https://themissingink.co/listen/49-stephanie-1500-members

Follow on Social Media:

• Instagram: instagram.com/natalietaylor.co
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A membership is a category, not a complete description of your offer.

Memberships can range from a $19 monthly content offer to a multi-thousand-dollar annual commitment with high-touch support. They may all technically sit under the same umbrella, but the buying decision behind each one can be completely different.

In this episode, I’m breaking down why your sales strategy needs to be built around the specific membership you have, not a generic formula for how memberships are “supposed” to sell.

We’ll cover:

• Why asking “How do I sell my membership?” can lead you in the wrong direction, and the better question to start with instead
• How price and commitment level change the buying decision, including how much runway, trust, proof, and interaction someone may need before saying yes
• Why positioning becomes increasingly important as your price rises, and when personal conversations or higher-touch sales assets actually make sense
• How your membership model changes your expectations around churn and renewal, and why another membership’s numbers may have very little to do with yours
• Where the ongoing value of your membership should live, especially as buyers move from wanting more content to valuing access, feedback, personalization, and proximity

If your current sales strategy feels harder than it should, the answer may not be another funnel, launch tactic, or promotional idea. It may be that the way you’re selling simply doesn’t match the buying decision behind your offer.

When you build the sales system around your actual membership, its price, commitment, positioning, and value, you can stop chasing generic advice and start creating a buying process that makes sense for both you and your members.

• 🎯 The Membership Growth Gameplan: Work with me to grow your membership: themissingink.co/the-gameplan
• Contact Natalie: themissingink.co/connect
• See how else you can work with Natalie: themissingink.co/services

Read this podcast in article format & check out the shownotes:

https://www.themissingink.co/listen/48-membership-group-mastermind-how-selling-is-different

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• Instagram: instagram.com/natalietaylor.co
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Are memberships really the hardest offer to sell... or do they just expose the skills you haven’t had to build yet?

There’s no shortage of strong opinions about memberships online.

Some people will tell you they’re the easiest path to recurring revenue. Others will tell you they’re exhausting, impossible to grow and not worth the effort.

The truth, as usual, is a little more nuanced...

• 🎯 The Membership Growth Gameplan: Work with me to grow your membership: themissingink.co/the-gameplan
• Contact Natalie: themissingink.co/connect
• See how else you can work with Natalie: themissingink.co/services

Read this podcast in article format & check out the shownotes:

https://www.themissingink.co/listen/47-are-memberships-the-hardest-offer-to-sell

Follow on Social Media:

• Instagram: instagram.com/natalietaylor.co
• Threads: threads.net/@natalietaylor.co
• Facebook: facebook.com/natalietaylor.co

What if the membership that grows your revenue could also make your business feel lighter?

When Tim and his co-founder Lea launched Mission AI, more than 400 members joined straight away.

But after that first successful launch, his question wasn’t simply, “How do we do this again?” It was how to make sure this membership could still feel exciting, valuable, and sustainable five years from now.

In this episode, Tim joins me to unpack what happened behind the scenes as Mission AI grew to nearly 700 members, with monthly churn below 2%. We talk about the mindset shifts that helped him add far less to the membership than he originally planned, create stronger member engagement, and build recurring revenue that has completely changed how his business feels.

We’ll cover:

1. Why Tim wanted recurring revenue even though his launches were already successful, and how the membership gave him more choice inside his business
2. The one question that completely changed how he thought about delivering value, and helped him avoid building a “Netflix-style” membership packed with endless new content
3. How designing for member action instead of consumption changed Mission AI’s onboarding, including the small win members can experience almost immediately
4. Why building the membership around Tim and Lea’s actual lives matters, and how clear roles, boundaries, and fewer deliverables have made the offer more sustainable
5. What Tim has learned about growth, experimentation, and cringe, including why discomfort can be a sign that you’re moving in the right direction

If you already have a successful business and you’re thinking about adding a membership, this conversation is a reminder that the goal isn’t simply to bolt recurring revenue onto what you already do. It’s to build an offer that creates results for your members, expands your options, and still feels like a business you want to be running years from now.

• Contact Natalie: themissingink.co/connect
• Work with Natalie: themissingink.co/services

Read this podcast in article format & check out the shownotes:

https://www.themissingink.co/listen/46-question-that-changed-tims-membership

Follow on Social Media:

• Instagram: instagram.com/natalietaylor.co
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Does your membership feel heavier than it should... even when you’re not actively promoting it?

Memberships are always on. Even when you’re not launching, questions about when to sell, what strategy to use, which goal to pursue, and how your membership fits alongside your other offers can linger in the background and slow you down.

That is the weight of unmade decisions.

In the final episode of the 4-part Return to Form series, I’m exploring what needs to happen after the creative spark returns. Because fresh ideas and renewed excitement can only take you so far.

To sustain your momentum, your membership needs a plan that gives your ideas somewhere to land.

We’ll cover:

• The signs that you’re stuck in “promo vision”: moving from one promotion to the next without a bigger growth strategy guiding you
• How to set a meaningful membership goal that stretches you without hurting your own feelings or demanding an unsustainable version of you
• Why your numbers should guide your next move, rather than copying another membership owner’s strategy or chasing every new promotional idea
• The assets and baseline activities that support growth between promotions, so you're not rebuilding your momentum from scratch every time you sell
• Why commitment makes creativity sustainable, and how making decisions in advance can help your promotions feel lighter

If you want your membership to become a steadier, more intentional part of your business, rather than an offer you scramble to promote once or twice a year, this episode will help you turn renewed creativity into a realistic plan you can commit to... even through the wobbly days!

• [FREE] -> 10 Simple Ideas to Grow Your Membership This Summer ☀️ https://themissingink.kit.com/10-ideas-pod
• Let's grow your membership together (work with me privately) https://www.themissingink.co/the-gameplan

Read this podcast in article format & check out the shownotes:

https://themissingink.co/listen/45-membership-decisions-youre-avoiding

Follow on Social Media:

• Instagram: instagram.com/natalietaylor.co
• Threads: threads.net/@natalietaylor.co
• Facebook: facebook.com/natalietaylor.co

What if answering “Why should I choose you?” has less to do with finding the perfect words... and more to do with making the answer self-evident?

When someone is already inside your membership, you know how to support them. The harder part is reaching the people who are still deciding whether to follow you, trust you, or take that first step into your world.

In this third episode of the Return to Form series, I’m exploring how to make choosing you feel like a natural next step — without constantly explaining, proving, or convincing people that your membership is worth joining!

The answer comes down to three things: identity, your point of view, and an anthem.

We’ll cover:

• Why people are buying more than an outcome when they join your membership, and how to show them the version of themselves they can become inside your world
• How a clear point of view differentiates your membership from a sea of similar offers and strengthens your own belief in what you sell
• Why every membership promotion needs an anthem (and you need to figure this out before you start planning your next launch or writing another email)
• How to balance repetition with fresh creative angles so you can keep selling an established membership without feeling stale or starting from zero

If you want your next membership promotion to feel less like proving your value and more like inviting already-aligned people into a world they genuinely want to be part of, this episode will help you build the creative clarity that makes choosing you feel a no-brainer.

• ☀️ See it in action: 10 Simple Ideas to Grow Your Membership This Summer ☀️ [FREE] -> https://themissingink.kit.com/10-ideas-pod
• QUIZ! What's your membership growth style? growthstylequiz.com
• For more on the Return to Form series, join the newsletter for membership people here: themissingink.co/newsletter
• See how else you can work with Natalie: themissingink.co/services

Read this podcast in article format & check out the shownotes:

https://themissingink.co/listen/44-membership-commodity-trap

Follow on Social Media:

• Instagram: instagram.com/natalietaylor.co
• Threads: threads.net/@natalietaylor.co
• Facebook: facebook.com/natalietaylor.co

What would change about how you promote your membership if you knew you'd be selling it for the next 70 years?

That's exactly what brands like Gucci have done... finding fresh, exciting ways to sell the same iconic products for decades. And in this second installment of the Return to Form series, I'm borrowing from their playbook to help you get your creative spark back for marketing an established membership.

If you've been going through the motions with your promotions, focusing on getting everything "right" instead of infusing your marketing with what makes you magnetic, this episode will shake some new ideas loose!

I'm sharing two powerful prompts (with plenty of examples) to help you start thinking like someone who's building a world people want to step into... not just a membership people join.

We'll cover:

• How Tom Ford revived a languishing Gucci by looking inward instead of chasing trends (and what that means for how you position your membership)
• The 30-second exercise that reconnects you to your membership's values and makes your marketing more fun to create
• Why imagining your membership as a physical space unlocks promotional ideas you'd never find in a swipe file
• How visuals, tone, and curation shape the feeling of your world, and why that feeling is what members are really buying

• ☀️ See it in action: 10 Simple Ideas to Grow Your Membership This Summer ☀️ [FREE] -> https://themissingink.kit.com/10-ideas-pod
• QUIZ! What's your membership growth style? growthstylequiz.com
• For more on the Return to Form series, join the newsletter for membership people here: themissingink.co/newsletter
• See how else you can work with Natalie: themissingink.co/services

Read this podcast in article format & check out the shownotes:

https://themissingink.co/listen/43-membership-world-building

Follow on Social Media:

• Instagram: instagram.com/natalietaylor.co
• Threads: threads.net/@natalietaylor.co
• Facebook: facebook.com/natalietaylor.co

You can be in a rut with your membership marketing and still grow it anyway.

If you've been feeling uninspired about how you talk about and sell your membership, like you've said it all before and you're not sure what fresh thing there is to say, you’re going to love the new series I’m kicking off on the podcast (and newsletter) called Return to Form.

This is Volume #1!

📌 Join the Membership-Driven newsletter (it’s free) for exclusive instalments of the Return to Form series: https://themissingink.co/newsletter

We’re talking about how to get your excitement back for how you promote and grow your membership - without reinventing everything, breaking what already works, or waiting until you have all the answers.

Because being in a rut doesn't preclude you from growing. It just means we need to look at what's actually going on, and take the next right step from there.

We'll cover:

• The uncomfortable truth about what it takes to grow a membership consistently (and why most of us are operating from an unrealistic expectation)
• How much of your month do you actually feel good? What the math really tells us about "being in a rut"
• How to stop giving the rut more power than it deserves and move forward with growing your membership even when you don’t feel 100% ah-mazing
• Why waiting for an epiphany is holding you back from growing your membership, and how to find the right thread to follow instead
• Is your rut actually a structural problem? The difference between a performance issue and a pressure issue
• My activators, accelerators and accessories framework: how to bring more variety and repetition to how you grow your membership

If you've been waiting to feel inspired before you take the next step in growing your membership, this episode will help you stop waiting and move forward.

• 🎯 The Membership Growth Gameplan: Work with me to grow your membership: themissingink.co/the-gameplan
• Contact Natalie: themissingink.co/connect
• See how else you can work with Natalie: themissingink.co/services

Read this podcast in article format & check out the shownotes:

https://themissingink.co/listen/42-membership-rut

Follow on Social Media:

• Instagram: instagram.com/natalietaylor.co
• Threads: threads.net/@natalietaylor.co
• Facebook: facebook.com/natalietaylor.co

Growing a membership past 1,000 members requires a radically different playbook than the one that got you there... and most of the advice online simply isn't built for your level of success.

If you've built a membership with a thousand members or more, you've probably noticed that the conversations happening publicly are aimed at beginners chasing their first 50 members.

Meanwhile, you're navigating questions nobody seems to be answering: which opportunities deserve your attention, why growth is slowing despite doing everything "right," and how to break through the plateau you keep bumping against.

In this episode, I'm peeling back the curtain on the private work I do with membership owners at this level. You'll hear exactly where I look first, what I typically find, and how your focus needs to shift when you're no longer building... you're optimizing a machine that already works.

We'll cover:

• Why you're out of the "building" phase and into the "unearthing" phase, and why the answers to your growth are now hiding inside your business instead of outside it
• The two O's I work through with every private client: optimizing your go-to sales system and identifying the right opportunities to layer on (before you ever touch a new tactic)
• The two types of disconnection that almost always affect membership owners at scale, and how each one impacts your marketing, your sales, and your fire for the work
• Why your existing strategy might need a new face, including the campaign concept that has enrolled thousands of members for one client over five-plus years
• How your role changes at this level of growth (and why it's going to feel deeply uncomfortable before it feels like a relief!)

• See how you can work with Natalie: themissingink.co/services

Read this podcast in article format & check out the shownotes:

https://themissingink.co/listen/1000-members-now-what

Follow on Social Media:

• Instagram: instagram.com/natalietaylor.co
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• Facebook: facebook.com/natalietaylor.co