Membership Geeks Podcast with Mike Morrison

An active online community can play a huge role in getting your members to stick around long term.

However even just a small negative element can quickly turn your community into a toxic place that nobody will want to be involved in, unless you keep on top of things and implement steps to ensure a positive environment.

In this episode of The Membership Guys Podcast, I delve more into managing your community dynamic and how you can ensure your online group or forum is one that members enjoy being part of.

• Why the dynamic of your membership community is crucial for member retention
• The importance of setting and enforcing community guidelines
• What your role as community leader involves, and how you should set the tone
• Why it's a good idea to use real names and profile pictures

Momentum plays a huge part in your membership growth. In fact you’ll often find that there’s a snowball effect which kicks in once you achieve a certain level of growth, where everything seems to pick up speed.

But what if your membership has slowed down recently and started to stagnate?

What can do you to reignite that momentum and get back on track?

In this episode of The Membership Guys Podcast, we look at how to reignite your membership growth and regain momentum.

• How to research and identify the core problems that have caused your membership growth to stall
• Two ways to relaunch your membership, and whether you should close your doors
• The honest questions you need to ask yourself about whether you're actually delivering value to your members
• Ways of re-engaging your existing members

One of the most effective ways to position yourself as an authority in your industry is through public speaking, and done right it can be a great way to grow your membership business.

However for many the idea of standing up and speaking in front of a room full of strangers is the stuff that nightmares are made of!

And even if you're comfortable with public speaking, then there's the question of how you actually get booked, how do you make sure your presentation is good and - importantly - how do you make it a worthwhile activity for you and your business.

In this episode of The Membership Guys Podcast, we speak to Grant Baldwin from The Speaker Lab about how to get started with public speaking and use it as a platform to grow your business.

With our community of thousands of membership site owners, we see the same patterns emerging when it comes to wrestling with membership tech.

People starting their site build and then 6 months later they're still stuck, spinning their wheels, trying to get everything perfect and making no progress!

Often they'll blame this on the technology being too tough, but more often than not it's because of their own unrealistic expectations.

In this episode of The Membership Guys Podcast, I give a kick up the backside to anyone stuck.

We've all come across the concept of the "starving artist" - the notion that to pursue creativity and artistry is to sacrifice any hope of making money. Jeff Goins is on a mission to dispel this myth.

Many successful memberships are built around the skills and passions of their founder; however we've seen time and time again in our community that in more traditionally "creative" industries there can be a little resistance to the idea of monetization - almost as if to do so would be "selling out."

In this episode of The Membership Guys Podcast, Jeff Goins breaks down where this whole idea came from and how you can shake this mindset and effectively monetize your "art."

• Where the whole idea of the "starving artist" originated from; and the surprising truth about how wrong it is!
• How you can shake limiting mindsets around monetizing your creativity
• How Jeff Goins uses his books to sell digital products
• The 3 steps anyone can take to start monetizing their skills

When you either have a large amount of content inside your membership, or you’re continuously adding new content on a regular basis – there’s a real risk of overwhelming members.

And when members are overwhelmed, they're less likely to stick around.

This is where having a smart approach to your membership content strategy is crucial.

In this episode of The Membership Guys Podcast; we look at the most common causes of member overwhelm, and the tactics you can employ to avoid it.

• Why overwhelm is a dangerous thing for your membership site
• A breakdown of the main kinds of overwhelm common in memberships and what causes it
• The "Four S's" you need to focus on in order to reduce overwhelm
• Managing your own workload so that you don't become overwhelmed too!

Chris Ducker is the founder of the YouPreneur membership community and the man the man behind popular events such Tropical Think Tank and the upcoming YouPreneur Summit.

It's through these live events that Chris has been able to help his community to build connections and develop relationships way beyond what's possible online; and this has been a key factor in the success of his membership.

In this episode of The Membership Guys Podcast, Chris shares his insights into the benefits of running live events as a membership site owner; plus his advice on how you can orchestrate your own events.

• How Chris Ducker has used live events to grow his membership community
• The 3 most important things to consider when organising your own live event
• How to choose speakers for your event and - more importantly - get them to agree
• Specific ways to make events extra special for your community members (and get more signups from other attendees!)

Looking to increase your membership sales?

Who isn't, right?!

We often find that rather than huge complex sales strategies and eye-watering ad budgets, it's usually a culmination of minor tactics and little details that end up moving the needle in terms of attracting new members.

In this episode of The Membership Guys Podcast, I dish out 5 specific, quick and actionable tips that you can implement right away in order to increase your membership sales.

• What tools should you add to your sales page in order to increase conversions?
• The small tweak you can make to your checkout page that stops you losing sales
• How to use your membership content to get more qualified leads
• A simple risk reversal technique to increase membership sales

Podcasts have made a significant resurgence in recent years, having never quite hit their full potential back when they first became “a thing” in the mid-2000’s.

This growing popularity, coupled with it being easier than ever to start your own podcast, makes for a great opportunity for membership site owners to really get ahead by incorporating podcasting into the content marketing strategy.

In this episode, I discuss the main reasons you should consider using a podcast to promote your membership site, and the 5 steps you can take to get started.

We made it! 100 episodes!

To celebrate our centennial, I invited 16 fellow membership site owners to share insights, experience and advice from their journey so far.

I asked my guests to answer 3 questions:

• What's the one piece of advice you'd give anyone starting a new membership?
• What impact has having a membership site had on your life or your business?
• What would you do differently if you were starting your own site again from scratch?

The answers they shared are packed with golden nuggets for anyone planning or running a membership website.

In this episode you'll get insights from:

• Nathan Chan - Foundr
• Heather Crabtree - The Savvy Community
• Scott Devine - Scott's Bass Lessons
• Chris Ducker - Youpreneur
• Janneke den Draak - Learn Dragon Online
• Andrew and Pete - Atomic
• Colin Gray - The Podcast Host
• Chris Marr - Content Marketing Academy
• Marisha McGrorty - SLP Now
• Janet Murray - Soulful PR
• Bjork Ostrom - Food Blogger Pro
• Christina Peters - Food Photography Club
• Shannon Rogers - Hand Tool School
• James Schramko - Superfast Business
• Ben Adam Smith - House Planning Help
• Avalon Yarnes - Avalon Cake School