The Membership Site Dilemma and How to Turn it Around
Most of us dreamed of having a membership site when we first came online. The idea of recurring income that will increase over time is alluring. You simply choose a topic you know about and are interested in and find people who want to learn about it from you. The membership site dilemma is the furthest thing from your mind.
The photo I’ve included in this post is of a live marketing workshop I co-hosted with Dr. Jeanette Cates in 2010. It was a gathering of about half of the people who were a part of our Online Revenue membership program and this was the “Online Revenue Workshop” in Las Vegas. The workshop was an unannounced bonus to the program and they loved it!
Perhaps this is what your membership looks like…
You charge $20/month and grow to 500 members and you’ve got 100K+ a year locked in for life. You add a report and host a call each month and that’s all it takes. No matter how big your membership site grows you will never
have to do any additional work. You spend a few hours each month and then you’re off to enjoy life and spend the money that continues to roll in.
This is the life! Members will stay forever, your income continues to grow and…then people leave or refund and no one new comes aboard. Affiliates stop recommending your membership site and you aren’t sure what to do next.
Therein lies the membership site dilemma. You’ve been seduced into believing that people will spend money each month, or annually if you offer that option without questioning what value they are receiving. Hopefully, this is not the case.
WOW Your Members
You must WOW! your members on a regular basis. Under promise; over deliver. Add unannounced bonuses. Include them in additional programs, products, and courses for no or a very low cost.
Reach out to them personally – I do this alphabetically to keep track – and see what else you can do to serve them as they work to achieve their goals. Because almost no one is doing this, you are setting yourself apart from the very beginning in a meaningful way.
When I launched my Micro Course for Affiliate Marketing recently I then invited all the members from my full course (Really Simple Affiliate Marketing) to come aboard for one dollar. It felt great to be able to include everyone and they were quite vocal in expressing their appreciation, to me personally and on social media.
When you have a membership site it’s not about you; it’s about your members and how you may serve them. Give until it hurts because that is who you are and what you do. What happens when you do these things I am sharing here?
…you create raving fans who are willing to follow you anywhere because they know you care about them and their success more than simply collecting their money.
Dennis Becker has been creating membership sites longer than I have. He put this training together to make sure you set your membership site up to be both profitable and helpful to your members. It’s quite affordable here.
You’ll learn about how to create valuable content and creating a calendar to deliver it to your members. He shares details on member retention and so much more. This inexpensive training is crucial to success with membership sites.
Outstanding Service
Last evening I worked with a long time client in my Mentor program in what I’m now referring to as “VIP Half Days.” Tom is a dentist here in southern California and has been with me longer than anyone else in my program. I still have one opening if this is of interest to you.
We began by discussing his offline business. His city has doubled in size since he began his practice more than twenty-five years ago and the number of dentists has tripled, yet Tom’s income continues to increase each year.
The reason for this comes down to the one thing almost no one else in his profession is doing consistently – outstanding service.
New patients are welcomed personally again after they leave the office, first with a phone call and followed up with a card. When someone has a more complicated procedure the phone calls begin eight hours after they leave the office and continue twice a day over the next three days.
This isn’t delegated or outsourced; Tom does it personally!
Last evening we discussed the new health related membership site he will be launching in the fall and how he will give as much service to members as he does with his “in person” dental clients.
If I could give you three tips on how to achieve maximum success in business they would be…
1) provide outstanding, personalized service to every client
2) offer more service, and be creative with how you accomplish this
3) serve your clients as though they are close friends or family members
When your clients and customers feel cherished and appreciated they stay with you for years. Give with a servant’s heart and see what happens.
By the way, this client will be using the membership site training I am recommending from Dennis Becker, someone who has been creating membership sites longer than I have. He put this training together to make sure you set your membership site up to be both profitable and helpful to your members.
You’ll learn about how to create valuable content and creating a calendar to deliver it to your members. He shares details on member retention and so much more. This inexpensive training is crucial to success with membership sites.
You Are the “Hero” in Your Business
What do I mean when I say you must be the hero in your story? I’m referring to your story as related to your online business and it’s a fine line you must walk here.
For example, when I share what I’m achieving in my business you prefer to hear about what’s working and how you can implement the same strategies in your online entrepreneurial endeavors. You want to emulate my successes.
One of my clients had a third of his online members drop out this summer. He teaches SEO (search engine optimization) and traffic generation and was telling people during his webinars that he was just like them and was struggling to get new visitors to his site and to rank on Google. He also shared his success with the strategies and methods he uses, but people lost confidence in him when he admitted he didn’t have it all figured out.
In an attempt to be modest and humble, he stepped away from being the hero in his story and became more like the people he wanted to serve. When you have a membership site of any kind you must work hard to stay at the top of your game and be ready to serve your members as a leader in your field.
Learn everything you need to set up and run a membership site in any niche through this excellent training. It’s affordable and thorough and I only recommend what I am using and benefit from myself. Check out Membercome for yourself. This will help you to avoid the membership site dilemma as you move forward confidently and successfully.
I’m author, publisher, and entrepreneur Connie Ragen Green and would love to connect with you. If you’re new to the world of online entrepreneurship please check out my training on how to sell yourself at Sell Yourself and Your Stuff and learn how to gain an unfair advantage when it comes to building a lucrative online business.
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