The Foolish Adventure Show | Internet Business Radio

Managing a membership site isn’t all fun and games, but it can be very profitable.

Lain and I continue our discussion on how to deal with all the issues of running a membership site.

We were going to talk directly about money in this episode, but ended up talking mostly about something that will make you more money — retention.

Keeping customers will make you extremely profitable. When your site isn’t losing lots of members, your income can stabilize and then grow.

Also, in this episode we toss out some more advanced ways of managing a site and do bring up some money talk.

Jump into this episode and start building a more profitable membership site.

Tim and Lain

Join The Forge: A Group Of Entrepreneurs Creating A Life While Building A Business
bit.ly/entertheforge

New Training: How To Scale Your Business
If you want to get in-depth training on operating and scaling your business check out The Bootcamp: TimConley.co/bootcamp/

Time to get down to business…

The business of membership sites.

Lain and I run membership sites and I consult on several so what we wanted to do is bring you some concrete ways of managing your membership site.

What was going to be a single episode is turning into a series. (We’re recording part 2 tomorrow and will publish it next week.)

In this episode we tackle:

1. member intact strategies,
2. two types of membership sites,
3. doing “live” content vs digital content and
4. pricing strategies.

Membership sites are a great way to make a living online. But…

They’re a lot of work. Hopefully this series on managing your membership site will help make you successful.

Until the next time,

Tim and Lain

Join The Forge: A Group Of Entrepreneurs Creating A Life While Building A Business
bit.ly/entertheforge

New Training: How To Scale Your Business
If you want to get in-depth training on operating and scaling your business check out The Bootcamp: TimConley.co/bootcamp/

In this episode, Lain explains how she is having trouble using outsourcing to build a new app for her business.

She doesn’t know how to program, hasn’t managed any software development until this project and is finding that she can’t get the people she hires to actually deliver the work they said they would do.

Lain and I sit down for a conversation on hiring a team versus outsourcing to a freelancer. 

I give my best tips on how to manage short-term projects like building an iPhone or iPad app or even getting a website built for your business.

If you haven’t run into personnel problems & project management headaches — from employees to outsourcers — then you haven’t been aggressive enough with your business or you’re just getting started.

For those looking to build a company and grow into new markets, then this episode will give you management strategies to help you succeed.

Enjoy your Foolish Adventure,

Tim and Lain

Join The Forge: A Group Of Entrepreneurs Creating A Life While Building A Business
bit.ly/entertheforge

New Training: How To Scale Your Business
If you want to get in-depth training on operating and scaling your business check out The Bootcamp: TimConley.co/bootcamp/

If you’re not listening to BlogcastFM.com then you’re seriously missing out…

You’re missing out on the insights and experiences of a couple hundred bloggers — from the really successful to the just-getting-started.

I got Srini, the host of BlogcastFM to come on the show to share what he has learned from interviewing all these bloggers, what he’s learned about running a business and advice he can give to you, dear listener.

Inside this episode, you’ll hear about the “scripts” we run in our lives, consciously and unconsciously, that define our lives and what you can do to only run scripts that create the life you desire.

You’ll also hear about:

• The two types of people that come on BlogcastFM and what those types have to do with you and your business.
• What “treating a blog like a business” really means.
• Srini’s Ultimate Networking Tip for students.
• How to build your expertise and using what you learn as you build your expertise.
• What’s holding back most bloggers and what you can do about it.
• And much, much more.

I had a great time talking with Srini and learned a lot so I hope you get a lot out of this episode, too.

Enjoy your Foolish Adventure,

Tim

Join The Forge: A Group Of Entrepreneurs Creating A Life While Building A Business
bit.ly/entertheforge

New Training: How To Scale Your Business
If you want to get in-depth training on operating and scaling your business check out The Bootcamp: TimConley.co/bootcamp/

Lain wanted to know what I thought she should do with her business since she felt she needed to make more products.

Advice that I had given her in the past was to focus on selling what she already had to a bigger market. Her question was, “But how do I do it?”

That what this episode is answers. It covers the problem of too many products (Product Hell) compared to building a product ladder (Product Line) with the right mix of products that can appeal to bigger markets — even if you start out in a tiny niche.

There’s also a topic inside that I don’t think I’ve ever heard anyone talk about when segmenting your prospects. I think I just might have come up with an original thought. 🙂

Check out this episode and keep yourself away from Product Hell.

Tim and Lain

Join The Forge: A Group Of Entrepreneurs Creating A Life While Building A Business
bit.ly/entertheforge

New Training: How To Scale Your Business
If you want to get in-depth training on operating and scaling your business check out The Bootcamp: TimConley.co/bootcamp/

This is the most personal episode of The Foolish Adventure Show yet.

As a matter of fact, I was reluctant to record this conversation. And even as I sit here writing this, I’m still unsure of releasing it to the world. Yeah, it’s that personal.

Lain and I talk about our personal and familial experiences with Lynchpin Lies. Seth Godin wrote a book about becoming a lynchpin in an organization — you know, becoming indispensable. 

Well, there is no such thing as being indispensable in a company. Inside this episode, we share why you shouldn’t put all your trust and loyalty into an organization.

We feel — hell, we know, it is less risky to be entrepreneurs and have control of your Time, Income and Mobility than to put your life in the hands of a company.

Listen in and if you can relate to what we share in this episode, please share your story.

Stay Foolish,

Tim and Lain

Join The Forge: A Group Of Entrepreneurs Creating A Life While Building A Business
bit.ly/entertheforge

New Training: How To Scale Your Business
If you want to get in-depth training on operating and scaling your business check out The Bootcamp: TimConley.co/bootcamp/

What if you could make a living from content you didn’t create?

What if that content is more diverse and higher quality than you could ever make on your own?

That’s the power of user-generated content.

Dan Andrews is the guest co-host for the show today and lets us in on how he set up a community site that has very high quality content covering dozens of advanced business topics from setting up Hong Kong corporations to search engine optimization strategies that catapult niche sites number one rankings.

Dan’s site, Dynamite Circle, is a great example of cultivating an audience that wants to connect with each other. Of course, they could just comment on Dan’s blog, but they couldn’t get the depth of conversation nor could they be as open in their discussions.

So they join a community that Dan curates — he keeps out newbies & showcases the best content — this is very valuable to all the members.

Listen in to see how you could set up your own community site and make a living from user-generated content.

Stay Foolish my friend,

Tim

Join The Forge: A Group Of Entrepreneurs Creating A Life While Building A Business
bit.ly/entertheforge

New Training: How To Scale Your Business
If you want to get in-depth training on operating and scaling your business check out The Bootcamp: TimConley.co/bootcamp/

Do you know what they are?

Are you using 1, 2 or all 5?

In this episode of the Foolish Adventure Show, Lain and I use our knowledge and experience to talk about successfully using content in a membership site. 

A big problem we’ve seen for membership sites is creating content. Many people focus on being the sole creator of content for their site, but…

This can lead to burn out especially if you get caught up in the idea that you need to offer more and more content each month.

As you listen to this episode, you’ll discover ways of using one or two or more types of content to keep yourself from getting burnt out from always running on the hamster wheel of content creation.

Inside FoolishUniversity.com, I use all five types of content along with the sixth type of content. 

Ooh, I slipped another one in there.

Don’t worry, it’s not “Just great… more work to do” kind of content. It is one that actually mixes with the other five and is also one of the easiest methods of generating very high quality content.

Listen in and stay Foolish,

Tim and Lain

Join The Forge: A Group Of Entrepreneurs Creating A Life While Building A Business
bit.ly/entertheforge

New Training: How To Scale Your Business
If you want to get in-depth training on operating and scaling your business check out The Bootcamp: TimConley.co/bootcamp/

Own enough?

This episode of the Foolish Adventure Show addresses the problem all small business owners face — especially startups — how much is enough?

This ISN’T an episode on having less.

It’s about looking yourself in the mirror and knowing — really knowing that you accomplished enough today.

Knowing that you can get enough of what you want in life.

The show runs from practical to philosophical, but hopefully you’ll find it all useful.

Enjoy Having Enough,

Tim and Lain

Join The Forge: A Group Of Entrepreneurs Creating A Life While Building A Business
bit.ly/entertheforge

New Training: How To Scale Your Business
If you want to get in-depth training on operating and scaling your business check out The Bootcamp: TimConley.co/bootcamp/

All the principles of running a million dollar online business are used even when you’re just starting out.

Yeah, some of the things you have to do in the day are different — like managing staff. When you are first starting, there is a good chance it is just you or you plus a cofounder or two, and you’ll be wearing all the hats in your business.

My friend and fellow podcaster, Ian of the LifestyleBusinessPodcast.com, was kind enough to come on the show and talk about how he runs his million dollar a year company.

Ian is the operations manager, or probably more accurately, the CEO of the company he and Dan Andrews founded. 

In this episode, Ian covers how he and Dan run their business from multiple countries while focusing on a company culture that ties together staff from around the world.

And speaking of staff, the company is team focused. Ian explains why having a team has been a key element in creating a successful company.

Ian doesn’t hold back in this conversation. Business isn’t all mansions and Lamborghinis. Sometimes building a company isn’t glamourous and Ian talks about some of those downsides of business and how he deals with them.

This is a great show for anyone wanting to grow their own successful business especially if you’re willing to build a team to do it.

Enjoy your Foolish Adventure,

Tim

Join The Forge: A Group Of Entrepreneurs Creating A Life While Building A Business
bit.ly/entertheforge

New Training: How To Scale Your Business
If you want to get in-depth training on operating and scaling your business check out The Bootcamp: TimConley.co/bootcamp/