Membership Geeks Podcast with Mike Morrison

Have you lost interest in your membership?

When you first launched your membership, you were probably bursting with excitement and enthusiasm. But, over time those positive feelings you associated with your membership faded and now you can’t remember why you ever got into this in the first place, am I right?

If you have a lack of interest and enthusiasm for your membership site, it’s time to make a change. Your first instinct shouldn’t be to quit. You should want to try and reignite the spark and passion that inspired you to launch your membership in the first place! In this episode, I share some tips to help you fall back in love with your membership.

Essential Learning Points:

• How to know if your membership idea is something you can pursue long-term
• Why it’s important to identify the real reason why you’ve lost interest in your membership
• The benefits of trying new things in your membership
• Why you should take a break from your membership when you need to
• What a ‘happy folder’ is and why you need to create one
• Why you should spend more time with your members to help reaffirm your passion for your membership

Key Quotes:

“Consider looking into ways in which you can do other activities that stoke your interest in the topic that is at the heart of your membership.”

“Most people don't start membership sites because they're really enthusiastic about membership sites as a business model. They start because they're really passionate about a topic that they have knowledge, experience and expertise in.”

“Getting away from things, taking a break and disconnecting from the responsibilities of running a membership, even just for a few days, could be all it takes to free up your bandwidth, to give you a bit of clarity and give you the rest that you need in order to come back reinvigorated and get over a little bit of a mental slump.”

Important Links & Mentions:

Episode 76 https://www.themembershipguys.com/time-away/

A waitlist is a dedicated email list that people subscribe to in order to receive updates about a membership that you are going to launch in the future.

We are big believers in setting up a waitlist for your membership. But once you have it organized you have to keep everyone engaged until your launch date.

In this episode, we share lots of ways you can keep your waitlist interested and engaged with you so that once you launch, they can’t wait to get on board and consume the content you have on offer.

Essential Learning Points:

• Build your knowledge and content base through research and surveys
• Why feedback and input from your list will benefit everyone
• How closed-door membership sites can also engage with a waitlist

Key Quotes

“Setting up a waitlist is the first thing you should do when you are creating your first membership site.”

“A substantial amount of your initial subscribers when you open will come from this waitlist.”

“By having input, ownership, and influence over the content in your membership site, your waitlist subscribers will be far more likely to want to join.”

Payment disputes are a reality of running any business, including membership sites. Luckily, they don’t happen often. But when they do, they take valuable time away from your business and revenue generating activities. 

Since the beginning of the Membership Guys Academy site, we have had over 6,000 members and only 20 payment disputes. 

We have learnt a few things about this issue along the way. Have a listen to find out what to do when they happen to you, and ways in which you can minimize the risk of them happening again in the future.

Essential Learning Points:

• The typical payment dispute process
• Things to consider when a dispute is illegitimate
• Ways to minimize the risk of payment disputes from happening

Key Quotes

“Having a refund period that is fair is a good way of reducing the number of disputes that are filed against you.”

“Even if you can prove, beyond a shadow of a doubt, that someone is filing a totally spurious payment dispute, a nonsense dispute, and even if the payment provider believes you, they won’t always side with you. “

“You won’t be able to escape the possibility of getting rid of a complaint completely, but you can minimize the likelihood of it happening.”

In our early days of working with memberships, we stumbled across an article that claimed that the average member only stays subscribed for a mere 3 months.

You’ve probably heard this yourself. It’s a claim that’s been repeated and republished so much, that it became readily and widely accepted.

But it’s nonsense.

There’s not a single shred of data or evidence for that ‘3 month’ claim. No source data, report or study cited, anywhere.

The fact that this claim persisted for so long is part of a larger problem. There is no reliable data available about the online membership industry.

Truth is, this market is relatively tiny. It’s a niche, of a niche, of a niche.

What data we do have comes from either the broader subscription industry, or from membership associations.

Neither of which reflect the online membership world.

We figured it was time to change that.

It’s time for some real data and benchmarks for the online membership industry.

So we’ve spent the past 4 months tapping into our audience of tens of thousands of membership business owners to identify how they’re performing, what challenges they’re facing and which benchmarks and trends are prevalent.

And we've compiled those results into the very first Online Membership Industry Report

In today's episode of The Membership Guys Podcast, I talk about some of the biggest takeaways from this report and discuss which membership benchmarks surprised me, the trends to pay attention to and other interesting tidbits and insights taken from the survey results.

• How this report obliterates two of the most common myths in the online membership space
• The definitive answer to the "Open vs Closed" membership debate
• What's the most worrying trend amongst membership site owners?
• Surprising insights around pricing, retention, team size and more...

It's coming up to that time of year where promotions and discounts abound.

Whether it's Thanksgiving, Black Friday, Christmas or New Year, the sales season is definitely upon us.

While these kind of sales are traditionally for physical products, there's no doubt that digital products have jumped onto the bandwagon over the last few years, and you'll see more and more discounts being offered.

But what about membership sites? Should you capitalize on these busy promotional periods where some kind of special offer is almost expected?

And what about the rest of the year?

Promotional campaigns can be a bit of a minefield for membership site owners, who need to walk the delicate line between getting new members in the door and keeping existing members happy.

In this episode we're going to explore the different types of promotions that you can run for a membership website and the situations where they can be beneficial.

Despite what the slickest of snake oil salesmen will try to tell you, there is no secret sauce or golden formula for building a successful membership website.

The key to the long term success of your membership site lies beyond marketing tactics, sales spiel and fancy production values; and the memberships which do best are those which - at their heart - understand and embrace a core set of fundamental principles.

In this episode, I outline 7 essential principles shared by the most successful memberships around.

The path to membership success is paved with a litany of mistakes.

Along the way you’re going to screw up, especially in the early days. It’s all part of the learning curve and it happens to the best of us – yes, even your friendly neighbourhood Membership Guys!

However you will come to a point where it feel like you truly have your house in order, you’re now on the right track and those initial stumbles are far behind you.

But time and time again we see seasoned membership site owners falling into the same traps as they attempt to manage and grow their business.

In this episode, we’ll take a look at some of the most common pitfalls for experienced membership owners and, more importantly, how you can avoid them.

There are many reasons people are attracted to the membership model.

The most compelling for us is how dramatically different (and better) making recurring income from a membership is compared to servicing clients on a one-on-one basis.

This is particularly true if you’re a “one man band”, where you’re solely responsible for the delivery of what you sell, so that might be:

• Website developers
• Business coaches
• Graphic designers
• Marketing consultants

Or anyone else who works with clients one on one or even in small groups.

Your business is holding you back.

In this episode, I’m going to explain why the membership model is far superior to offering one-to-one services, as well as show you how you can start incorporating memberships and subscriptions into your own business.

Retain Live 2019 was a phenomenal success - especially for our very first live event!

However as we discussed during the first part of our "debrief", it was a little rocky in the build up.

In this concluding episode, Callie and I talk through the event itself, breaking down everything that happened and how it all came together; sharing some of our biggest lessons and top takeaways for anyone thinking of running a similar event.

• The moment we realised that all of our hard work, and the complete burnout we'd experienced, was totally worth it.
• A recap of the sessions, speakers and surprises from across the 3 days of the event
• How we added special touches and memorable moments to make our event truly remarkable
• Answering that all important question about whether we'll be running another event like this one

Two weeks ago, we kicked off our very first live conference: Retain Live 2019.

It's the first time we've run an event of this scale, and to say it was a new, interesting and challenging experience would be a major understatement!

While the event itself was a huge success and we've had overwhelmingly positive feedback - getting there certainly wasn't smooth sailing.

In the first of our two-part debrief, Callie joins me on the show to discuss the weeks leading up to the event - as the workload (and stress levels) ramp up.

• Why we hated the whole process of selling tickets for our event, and the reason we ended ticket sales early
• The big discovery we made about ourselves while preparing for the conference and working with our event team
• Unexpected challenges and frustrating obstacles that led to us hitting breaking point the week before the event
• Our biggest lessons and top takeaways for anyone thinking of running an event like Retain Live