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cosi.org. If

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you're trying to figure out the best online

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business to start in 2024 you are in

0:33

luck. Today we are going to break down

0:35

the differences between having a course or a

0:37

membership and what are the pros

0:39

and cons? Are one or the other oversaturated?

0:41

What does it look like from a financial

0:43

standpoint? What do you need to have in

0:45

terms of tech? Can you start a membership

0:47

or a course if you really don't have much of

0:50

a following? And what exactly does that

0:52

look like? What if you've already started a

0:54

membership site and now you're thinking about creating

0:56

a course where you host these things? What

0:59

can you charge for a membership? Should you

1:01

offer a lifetime membership or monthly? We're discussing

1:03

all of that and more today with my

1:05

guest Rebecca Baker. She's the brand lead at

1:07

the membership experience. She's got tons, years

1:10

of experience working with people launching

1:12

memberships and courses and she's part

1:14

of the team that we use

1:17

to switch a lot. Well I

1:19

think almost all now of our programs over to search.

1:21

Anyways we're gonna get to all that and more. Let's

1:23

get to it shall we? Thanks for being here. Rebecca

1:29

Baker thank you so much for joining us today.

1:31

I thought who better to answer

1:34

our questions about memberships and the difference between

1:36

memberships and courses and the opportunity that

1:38

we have right now before us than someone

1:40

who is the brand lead of the

1:42

membership experience. So thank you for being

1:44

here. That's right. Thank you so much for

1:47

having me. I'm really excited to chat

1:49

with you about memberships today. What I love

1:51

is that you have been in every

1:54

capacity like a customer, someone

1:56

who's gone through the customer experience and now

1:58

someone who really is. very

2:00

devoted to helping people have

2:02

a really good customer experience. But

2:04

you know, for that person who's right now trying

2:06

to decide, I've got this knowledge,

2:09

I have this expertise, I don't know

2:11

how to monetize or package it. Should

2:13

it be a podcast? Should it be

2:15

a membership or a course? Can

2:18

you help us understand like, what is the

2:20

difference between membership and course? Yeah. So I

2:22

mean, and the benefit of being in a

2:24

membership really is being able to master

2:27

whatever it is that you took in the

2:29

course. So if you think about this in

2:31

terms of, you know, sports, or you

2:33

know, if you're in martial arts or in

2:36

swimming, you don't go and just

2:38

learn the thing. And then you know

2:40

how to do the thing, right? It

2:42

takes a lot of time to master

2:44

and implement and practice and go back

2:46

to the foundations and just keep repeating

2:48

those and, you know, expanding on that

2:50

practice. I used to have an Instagram

2:52

course, this is like 110 years

2:54

ago, I had an Instagram course before there was

2:56

Instagram. And you know, the

2:59

minute I created it, it

3:01

was outdated, you know, and, and so we

3:04

had to constantly be updating it. But

3:06

what I found is even though we

3:08

were updating it, people

3:11

bought a course, they consumed the course,

3:13

and then they just they never came back, even

3:15

though we were updating the course. And

3:18

so that's why we switched over

3:20

to a membership model, not

3:22

even like from a financial standpoint, even though

3:24

it ended up being a better financial decision

3:27

as a business owner to offer it as

3:29

a membership. But what we found is that

3:31

people were like, it's a membership. So therefore I'm

3:34

going to keep plugging in. And when

3:36

they keep plugging in, they keep getting all of them

3:38

because Instagram changes by the hour, then

3:40

they keep getting all the updated information. And

3:43

I find that when people are plugged into

3:45

a community, whatever that is, when

3:47

you're plugged in, you just do a much better

3:49

job. It keeps you accountable. Yeah,

3:51

and it maintains that consistent

3:53

momentum, right? And then for you

3:56

as the business owner on the back end, it

3:58

gives you that stability. And you

4:00

know, that you can start expecting that revenue, right?

4:02

So with a course, you launch it, you get

4:04

that injection of cash or you know, that income,

4:06

but then it stops and then you have to

4:09

launch again and then you have, so it really

4:11

also creates that consistency both on the front end

4:13

and the back end for you as a business

4:15

owner. That's a really good point. Okay, we're gonna

4:17

get back to that part in a second, but

4:20

I want to imagine that I'm that person right

4:22

now who's trying to consider whether they should create

4:24

a course or a membership and

4:27

their fear perhaps is like, but

4:30

if it's going on and on and on, how

4:32

will I come up with new

4:34

content every month? Right, so what

4:36

we tend to recommend is that

4:39

people really kind of start simple,

4:42

right? You can always grow, you can always

4:44

add things, you can always assess and

4:46

see what's working and what's not, but

4:48

it's really hard to kind of go

4:50

backwards from there. So if you really

4:52

think about starting simple and working with

4:54

your community, you'll start to learn what

4:56

people need, you'll start to kind of

4:59

see what you need to maybe create

5:01

to help them along the customer journey

5:04

and you're really just kind of giving them little bits at

5:06

a time. So it's not that

5:08

you have to go all in and commit to

5:10

giving all of this content and beyond this constant

5:12

content creation treadmill, just

5:15

pull it back, start simple and you'll

5:17

start to see where your

5:19

customers are experiencing progress, maybe where

5:21

they're getting stuck and then you

5:23

can start basing your content on

5:25

that. I'm glad you said

5:27

that and I just wanna be perfectly

5:29

transparent with everyone. I have both courses

5:32

and memberships and I think I mean

5:34

myself and Brock and Brett, team

5:36

Johnson, we have courses and we have memberships. They're

5:39

both now hosted

5:41

with Searchy, which is

5:43

your affiliate obviously with Searchy and

5:45

they're different, it's like it's so

5:48

different and I should also say

5:50

that we have been doing courses

5:52

and memberships for more than 12 years and

5:55

we were with one company we really

5:57

loved and I couldn't imagine having a better.

6:00

experience. And so I was like, I don't, the

6:02

reason why we should switch, I really don't, like,

6:04

we love right the company that we were using

6:06

before. I still think they're

6:08

a great company. But we were so

6:10

convinced by the tools

6:13

and the ease of use for

6:15

customers. I was like, Yeah, just about like, is

6:17

this easy for us? Like, we have to make

6:20

it easier for our customer. And so that's why

6:22

we switched, we just switched one over first, I'm

6:24

going to give you guys a little backstory. So

6:26

we had Insta Club Hub, which was our Instagram

6:28

coaching program, we built it ourselves.

6:32

Yep. Never, ever,

6:34

ever with a capital E would I recommend

6:36

anyone ever do that. So we switched that

6:38

one over first. And all

6:41

of our other programs and courses

6:43

and memberships were still on another,

6:45

what do you call it software

6:47

platform? Yeah, yeah, platform. Our experience

6:50

was like, insane.

6:52

And here's what happened. So

6:54

when you have a membership, we can explain what this

6:57

means in just a second churn. So

6:59

you know, people dropping off, right? So whenever

7:01

you get a membership, all of us have

7:03

memberships of certain types and certain points on

7:05

your credit card statement, you're like, wait, am

7:07

I using using this for sure. And you

7:09

cancel it, right? So our cancellation rate went

7:11

down 50% in the first two months

7:15

of switching because of the customer experience.

7:17

So first, can you explain what churn is? Yeah,

7:21

so churn is when you're basically bringing

7:23

people in, but then also losing people.

7:25

So you're getting new customers,

7:27

you're, you know, whatever that might look

7:29

like, you're launching, they're coming in, but

7:31

then on the other end, you're losing

7:33

people. And so it's just

7:36

kind of this cycle of you're getting people,

7:38

you're losing people. Yeah. And the idea as

7:40

business owners, like you want that number, you

7:42

want the new people coming in to be much higher

7:44

than the, you know, people are just like, okay, thanks,

7:47

I'm done. And sometimes people, because they're

7:49

just, they're not doing that anymore. They got what

7:51

they needed. They can't afford it. There's a whole

7:53

number, whole, whole reasons why people might cancel a

7:55

membership. But the one thing that you

7:57

have control over is their

8:01

experience. Hey, before we

8:03

go much further, I know it's really hard to get

8:05

all of your questions answered. Maybe we're going too fast.

8:07

Maybe you need us to go more in depth and

8:10

that's why I want to make sure that

8:12

you know the team at Searchy is putting

8:15

on a free training. That's the training that

8:17

I went to to understand like how to

8:19

improve our memberships and get all of my

8:21

questions answered. So if for any reason we

8:23

don't answer all of your questions, I highly

8:26

recommend you sign up for one of their

8:28

free workshops. You can do so by going

8:30

to shalene.com/membership. shalene.com/membership. Alright, that

8:32

link is below in our

8:34

show description. Let's get back

8:36

to Rebecca. That's

8:39

right. So what would you say people

8:41

who start a

8:43

membership orders, maybe the three the biggest

8:45

mistakes they make that impact customers

8:48

experience? So I mean

8:51

I think right off the bat, I

8:53

think going back to what we just talked

8:55

about and touched on a little bit is

8:57

trying to give everything all at once rather

9:00

than keeping it simple. And really

9:02

the number one reason that people

9:04

ultimately leave membership is actually content

9:06

overwhelm. And because they're not

9:08

sure where to start, they're not sure about the

9:10

next step in their journey, they know they started

9:13

here, they know they want to be here,

9:15

but what am I doing in

9:17

between? What are the steps that I'm taking

9:19

to get from here to here? And so

9:21

if that's not laid out clearly inside

9:24

of the membership, then people are going to, what

9:26

are they going to do? They're going to leave,

9:28

right? Or they're not going to make progress. And

9:30

even if we can get our members to make

9:32

even just a little tiniest bit of

9:34

progress from one month to the next, they're

9:36

going to stay. They're experiencing

9:38

progress, they're going to stay with

9:40

us. So content overwhelm, I would

9:42

say is one of the biggest

9:45

things. And then really just kind

9:47

of touching on what we talked about in there

9:49

is the thing that we call the success path.

9:51

So that customer journey, and

9:53

that is the starting point and the end

9:55

point. So if somebody's coming into your membership

9:57

and they're in there and they're excited, they

10:00

got in on the launch and this sounds amazing, I

10:02

can't wait to get started, but then they get in

10:04

there and they don't have any direction

10:06

and they don't know

10:08

what they're trying to necessarily

10:10

achieve, then it's becoming kind

10:12

of a, not really a place

10:14

for them. They don't really know what they're there for

10:16

anymore. Okay, so let me be

10:18

a devil's advocate. What if I come in

10:21

for a certain thing, like let's say

10:23

for example, it's instant club hub and I

10:25

decide, okay, I want to get to 10,000 followers and

10:29

I reach that end point. How

10:31

do I keep that number in

10:33

if they've already achieved their

10:36

transformation? Right. So I

10:39

guess what you would say, we could bring this back to

10:41

what we were talking about before with mastery. Yeah.

10:43

So let's say you're in martial arts, you

10:45

get all the way to the top and

10:47

you've earned your black belt and now what

10:50

else? Do you stop? Do you stop practicing

10:52

martial arts? Do you not have any new

10:54

goals? Are there no next steps for you

10:56

to take or that's it? You're just done,

10:59

right? So we can think about that in

11:01

the same way for our member journey or

11:03

our customer journey where yes, they'll

11:05

get to the end of the success

11:07

path, but there's always going to be

11:09

opportunity to go back to the foundation

11:11

and tweak something or change something, right?

11:13

Or set a new goal or whatever

11:15

that might look like. So we

11:18

see a lot of members coming back

11:20

through our membership experience as alumni, because

11:22

maybe they have reached a goal, but

11:25

now they want to come back and maybe they

11:27

want to tweak their membership content a little bit,

11:29

or maybe they want to get back in the

11:32

community and see what other people are doing in

11:34

their memberships. And maybe there's going to be a

11:36

cool idea or something new and

11:38

new strategy that they'll learn from somebody

11:40

else that maybe wasn't available the first

11:43

time that they went through it. I

11:45

guess it's because you guys have helped

11:47

so many people build memberships. I don't know what

11:50

those statistics are, but I'm sure it's in the

11:52

thousands, tens of thousands. But we

11:55

learned, I mean, even though I had been doing

11:57

a membership for More than

11:59

a decade, We learned so much

12:01

different from human from steel and the

12:04

keen about that process that we just

12:06

you know is so sometimes like when.

12:09

You. Know have all the information. It's

12:11

so hard. To things are

12:13

really hard. Number one. Everyone is

12:15

considering creating a membership. or course it

12:17

doesn't matter. Y'all are going to give

12:19

people too much and efficiently. Johnson, you're

12:21

going to give them too much time

12:23

to pass like it is my achilles

12:25

meal. And yes, and just like learning

12:27

from from your team like you've gotta

12:29

pull it back to his i think

12:31

In the mindset of someone who's a

12:34

content creator, we just think. I

12:36

can make this more valuable if I give them more

12:38

information. That. People don't want more information

12:40

they want. To keep. Me there is

12:42

little the fast as possible with as

12:44

little information. Yeah, they want results and

12:46

yes, and when you give too much,

12:48

you overwhelm And you know when I

12:50

think about your audience. So I'm in

12:52

that seem phase of life. Harry Menopause,

12:55

Menopause, all that fun stuff And so

12:57

you know there's so much information out

12:59

there about all of that stuff and

13:01

what's true and what's not and what

13:03

works for me and what does. And.

13:06

You know you wouldn't recommend

13:08

Rebecca. Okay, Year, Imperium and

13:10

a pause or the saw. This is

13:12

what you're experiencing. Go do these seventeen

13:14

thing right? You're gonna. Tell. Me.

13:16

You know, try this and then add this

13:18

next and then add the snacks right? So

13:20

you're gonna help me and I'm filled. The

13:23

Momentum: Get a result, add the next thing,

13:25

get a results, and you know, help me

13:27

along that journey. And so you're really taking

13:29

all of that information into selling it for

13:31

me and saying you don't actually need to

13:33

do all of the see him that you're

13:35

seeing online. You need to bring it back

13:37

and focus on these poor things. And that's

13:40

what we do inside of a membership. And

13:42

you guys are so good at teaching me

13:44

because I think anyone can do lots. Of

13:46

platforms we can build memberships

13:49

there are yeah I'm but

13:51

understanding how how. To.

13:54

Build it the right way and how to

13:56

give people an experience and how to keep

13:59

them happy and. How did not

14:01

burn out as the content creators?

14:03

Really quite huge. Disaster.

14:05

Ew. because that's where they're at

14:07

the trying to figure out course

14:09

or membership. Is there a certain

14:11

type of i guess situation or

14:13

type of content or expertise or

14:15

knowledge that you would think? Okay,

14:17

this. Might. Need more sense? Of course.

14:21

That's a great question, one. It's

14:23

a good question because you know one of the things

14:25

that we. Also talk about really how.

14:27

Courses. And memberships can go hand in

14:30

hand souks. I think there are instances where

14:32

you can have a course. I think that

14:34

we're always going to see people you know

14:36

wanting a little bit more and we actually

14:39

see a lot of membership being born off

14:41

of the back. Of course says because a

14:43

court will end and then that the person

14:46

will get a lot of feedback thing to

14:48

this really have to and can we keep

14:50

going? We see that every year our in

14:52

our courts actually So I think that even

14:55

though we might think that oh yeah that's

14:57

kinda see a coursera. You know we.

14:59

See that people want that ongoing connection. They

15:01

make connections while there with you in the

15:03

chorus. they make them with you, see me

15:05

them with other people in the course. And

15:07

so we often see people wanting to continue

15:09

wine and memberships being born off the back

15:11

and of courses. So I think it would

15:14

depend on the creator. Like at the Crater,

15:16

someone who they don't have a team that

15:18

are the staff, they don't see the something

15:20

they want to do and definitely they just

15:22

have like one though chunk of information. Maybe

15:24

it's like how to knit a blanket. Or

15:27

whatever you know to mean And so it's like.

15:29

One saying and that might make sense to have

15:31

a course, but is it something was like it's

15:33

a. You're. Better off with a constant

15:36

learning and being plugged into community than a membership.

15:38

Makes most sense As I might say to someone

15:40

who doesn't have like they've got the knowledge they

15:42

know like okay I know I can share the

15:44

city by north of monetize this knowledge or they

15:47

have. I want to teach this. By.

15:49

I have zero following. Yeah.

15:52

They have any business creating a course or membership or

15:54

like where does that look like. Yeah,

15:57

absolutely. So I think that the

15:59

first to kind of address air is

16:01

that. Nobody. Doesn't have a

16:03

following? You know what I mean. We

16:06

have friends and family. We're faced with

16:08

pages we might have Instagram feed itself.

16:10

It might not be filled with our

16:12

ideal customer. That there might be

16:14

a handful of ideal customers on their

16:16

the So. What we often recommend in

16:18

those situations is starting with something called

16:20

a founding Member like, oh, and that

16:22

is really something where you put it

16:24

out there. You just let it. You

16:26

just share that you have an idea.

16:28

Say, I have this idea. I've been

16:30

thinking about doing this. What would you

16:32

think about it? Can I get some

16:34

feedback on it And then you'll You'll

16:36

see that you'll actually start getting some

16:38

feedback on it and people will start

16:40

talking about it. And you can start

16:42

it. Really simple. So. Founding member

16:44

Launch really looks like inviting people

16:46

into your world. You know, playing

16:48

that idea out there and inviting

16:51

people that actually help you cope

16:53

create that membership. Magical. Right?

16:55

So you're bringing people and you're saying you

16:57

can get in and a founding member. Price:

16:59

Say A Make it You know nice and

17:01

low of what you would normally work yourself

17:03

up to charging and then they help you.

17:05

You don't have to having content created, you

17:07

don't have to have any text that added.

17:09

We have members in our communities. You. Launch.

17:12

Their memberships and I'm thinking of Cheryl

17:14

Hatch right now. She did a founding

17:17

member lunch for her membership. she just

17:19

served her members through email for a

17:21

full year. Before. See actually

17:24

implemented anything attacker any kind of back in

17:26

so I think she had a feast for

17:28

community. He. Served through email.

17:31

And. That was it. And can you tell us

17:33

where her membership offered? No. Yes,

17:35

oh she's she served preschool teachers and

17:37

so she creates lesson plans and and

17:39

different things to help teachers. Same time

17:42

on creating those things and giving them

17:44

back a little bit of time. And

17:46

yes there see just saw need right?

17:48

She worked in that industry. She saw

17:50

the needs. You put it out there.

17:52

She got an amazing results and but

17:54

she just kept it super simple. See

17:56

to serve through email. That is

17:58

one of my favorite. You know

18:01

when I think about a course for some membership

18:03

and for those of you are trying to consider

18:05

it I will say that I personally

18:07

feel like a membership experience as

18:09

the creator is far less pressure

18:13

and you're gonna get a better

18:15

product because When you create

18:17

a course you like sit down by yourself and you're like,

18:19

okay They're gonna learn this and then this module and this

18:21

module and this module and we think we know what they

18:23

need and in what order And then we

18:25

create all and then we give it to them and then

18:28

we find out It's missing steps

18:30

or like they don't need this part at all

18:32

and or they're not interested in this exactly Whereas

18:34

with the membership you can literally start by saying,

18:36

okay Here's lesson one

18:38

or here's like our step one and

18:41

they don't get to like be a part of

18:43

the community where they're saying But what I really

18:45

want is fill in the blank where I'm really

18:47

struggling Yeah fill in the blank and we have

18:49

learned so much from

18:52

our membership experience, you know at

18:55

search because we We

18:57

can find out from them like what

18:59

what's overwhelming what they're using what

19:01

the transformation is it and how they're framing it

19:03

And so it helps us with our sales pages.

19:05

It's helped us with our emails. It's helped us

19:08

with our content creation everything Yeah,

19:10

I really like membership after that reason

19:12

and if I'm being completely transparent completely

19:14

honest We created marketing impact

19:16

Academy. It's what we call a lifetime

19:18

membership. So you pay one Yeah, and you

19:20

have access to it until I die Yes,

19:24

forever We'll say forever. Yeah,

19:27

but I mean hindsight I

19:29

wish I you know, I guess I did 2020

19:31

if I had to do things all over again

19:33

I would have launched that as a higher ticket

19:35

monthly membership as opposed to one time

19:38

fee Lifetime membership, you

19:40

know, because basically it's a course that we update all

19:42

the time, right? But I really

19:44

would have been so much easier If

19:47

I could do it all over again And maybe that's

19:49

something we should do is like visit talk about make

19:51

do we make this a membership? Well, I

19:53

was just gonna say shaleen I think that

19:55

is the beauty of Being

19:58

a membership site owner being a business owner in

20:00

general is that you get to decide that.

20:03

So maybe it's been this way for

20:05

this long and so all of the

20:07

people who are already members of that

20:09

and have been able to pay that

20:11

lifetime access fee, that's amazing. They're grandfathered

20:13

in, they don't have to pay a

20:15

thing ever again, but there's nothing saying

20:17

that you can't moving forward make

20:20

a different choice and turn it into something

20:22

that has you know more of a reoccurring

20:24

revenues. So talk to me about

20:26

the different types of membership experiences

20:28

that some of your customers have. So is

20:30

it always video? Is it video and audio?

20:33

What are the options? Right,

20:35

so we kind of boil it down

20:37

to four different membership types. So we

20:39

look at product-based membership. What would a

20:41

product-based membership be? So

20:43

product- based membership you could look

20:45

at subscription boxes. So I think about

20:48

Sarah Williams from our community. She had

20:50

a bricks and mortar shop where

20:52

she sold t-shirts and then

20:54

turned it into a subscription box. And

20:56

so she has members who every month

20:58

get a curated box. They get

21:00

a really cool monogrammed shirt, a

21:02

different design every time. And then

21:04

she can select and curate beautiful

21:06

gifts that people get in that box.

21:09

So they just get that month

21:11

after month. So that would be an

21:13

example of a product and she's, yes,

21:15

she's done very very well. I think

21:17

she's up to, I know she has

21:19

at least two memberships now, if not

21:21

three. But yeah that's really grown for

21:23

her. So that's an example of a

21:25

product-based membership. Yes. And what other

21:27

types of memberships are there? Yep, so

21:29

then we've got community-based and then

21:31

we also have information or knowledge-based.

21:33

What would community-based, some

21:35

variety, some different examples of a community-based?

21:37

Yeah, I mean so this can look

21:40

like a lot of different things. So

21:42

in person I can think of Jess

21:44

Bomerito in our community. She actually has

21:46

a bricks and mortar co-working

21:48

membership, but she also has an online version

21:51

of that too. So she's been able to

21:53

kind of get the best of both worlds

21:55

where she gets in-person community building

21:57

there, but then they also have online

21:59

version. of that, if you

22:01

think of masterminds, masterminds really,

22:03

they're the next level up, but

22:06

they tend to be a little

22:08

more community-based where you're bringing together

22:10

a group of like-minded

22:12

people. You're bringing together

22:15

people who are just experiencing things at a

22:17

bit of a different level and they need

22:19

to connect with each other. So they're

22:22

still accessing the same information that

22:24

everybody is, but they're just kind of

22:27

at this next level of masterminding

22:29

together, helping each other solve problems,

22:32

really just gathering this collective wisdom

22:34

of experience and information that they

22:36

have in their membership. Interesting.

22:39

Okay, so someone could start a,

22:41

basically just like, I'm going to

22:43

start a community of stay-at-home moms

22:45

who are also homeschooling

22:47

their children and like literally create

22:50

this monthly opportunity for people to

22:52

connect, share experiences, tips, etc. Very

22:55

interesting. For sure. Okay, so we've

22:57

got product-based, community-based, I'm sorry, then

23:00

you said service. Service-based.

23:02

Okay, example service-based. So

23:05

an example of service-based, I think of

23:07

Ginger Dean. So Ginger is a therapist

23:09

and she was finding herself really

23:11

burnt out with the one-on-one work,

23:14

which I'm sure many therapists do.

23:16

So she really turned her one-to-one

23:18

model into one-to-many. And so she

23:20

serves a community of women who

23:22

are recovering from abusive or toxic

23:24

relationships. And now she has

23:26

a huge community where she gets to serve

23:29

and really impact so many lives as opposed

23:31

to just having to, you know, kind of

23:33

being there one-on-one with people, still having an

23:35

impact, of course. But now she gets to

23:37

do it on a bigger scale and she

23:39

has, you know, more time for herself, you

23:42

know, outside of her business as well. And

23:44

then you said knowledge, was there one other?

23:47

Yes, so knowledge and information-based, which

23:49

tends to be the most popular

23:52

style of membership. And this is

23:54

really where you're taking, you know,

23:56

your expertise, whether that's, you know,

23:58

your professional expertise. or maybe

24:00

it's a hobby or maybe it's, you know,

24:02

your own lived experience where maybe you've gone

24:04

through something and you're on the other side

24:06

of it and now you have a strategy

24:08

to get to the other side and you

24:11

want to share that with people. Those are

24:13

great examples of knowledge-based membership.

24:15

And I want for anyone who

24:17

you've got a little bit of maybe imposter syndrome

24:19

where it's that you're like, oh, I feel weird

24:21

creating this membership around my knowledge because

24:23

I'm not the most knowledgeable or I'm

24:26

not the expert. I want you to

24:28

know that you don't have to be

24:30

the most knowledgeable or the expert. You have to be an expert in

24:32

the way that it works for you and share that with other people.

24:35

With a new membership we just launched

24:38

on Searchy, phase it up. That

24:41

is, it's a program that really helps

24:43

women who are in perimenopause or

24:45

menopausal and beyond. And I'm not the

24:47

expert. What I've done is

24:49

curated the experts. Now my fitness programs

24:51

are in there, but I

24:54

don't have to be the hormone

24:56

doctor. I can bring the best

24:58

experts to my membership. And

25:01

so I just want your mind if you're

25:03

thinking about all these opportunities that you don't

25:05

have to be the sole piece of content.

25:07

In fact, I would say as your bossy

25:10

older sister, you don't want to do that because

25:12

that is a lot of pressure, but there's so

25:14

many other experts out there that can serve you

25:16

and would be happy to have

25:18

the opportunity in front of your audience. Absolutely.

25:21

And you know what, to that point,

25:23

Shalene, we actually have several membership

25:25

site owners who are not the front

25:27

facing person of their membership at all.

25:29

So I think about Scott Paley, who

25:31

runs the nonprofit leadership lab. He

25:33

is the back end and Joan Gary is

25:36

actually the front facing person in their membership.

25:38

We just caught up with Scott Curran.

25:41

I believe I'm saying his last name correctly.

25:43

He is the back end of

25:45

their membership and it's his friend who's the

25:47

front end. His friend is a dentist and

25:49

who teaches a unique way

25:51

for Invisalign. And So they

25:54

just were having a backyard conversation. Actually, they

25:56

had this backyard conversation over the course of

25:58

I think almost two years. I'm

26:00

finally got convinced his friend to give it

26:03

a go. And now they're running

26:05

a membership several years later and you know

26:07

they're doing really well with that so you

26:09

don't even have to. You put yourself in

26:12

that sense the and be the front facing

26:14

person if you know someone's and you know

26:16

you know that you could do great on

26:18

the back and then you know. Like he

26:21

said, it's really just asking yourself whether the

26:23

number sick make possible what is the lowest.

26:26

Tier of membership The you've got that. You

26:28

know some customers that charged x amount was

26:30

the lowest and and when the highest. Oh

26:33

my goodness. Now. That's

26:35

a great question. I don't know exactly. I

26:37

mean, I know that we have people who

26:39

charge you know, under ten dollars for their

26:42

member, say. And then you know

26:44

people who charge upwards of. You.

26:46

Know five figures even for their members.

26:48

It depends on what a air. Yeah.

26:51

You know I'm thinking of sharing Pulp and

26:53

Sees guy. She has a great membership. In.

26:55

Which see guides people in making the decision

26:57

about whether or not they should get a

27:00

divorce. And so this is a community where

27:02

people are coming in and and learning. Is

27:04

this the as that one guy is not

27:06

always gonna be a yes or no late.

27:09

it depends on where their outfits see, the

27:11

able to charge I believe around to ninety

27:13

seven I think a month for her member

27:15

semi oh really can bury and it just

27:18

depends on you know where you've got going

27:20

on, what you're delivering inside of your membership

27:22

lonely and how they have added the I

27:24

have a. Are in that sense? Yeah, yeah

27:27

oh that's exciting. Yeah. Do you find

27:29

him touch me about trends? Is the

27:31

consumer more interested in a membership? Or

27:33

like is one more popular the other?

27:35

Right now I'm me. I have my

27:37

own thoughts on this friend here and

27:39

with the data, Living. In

27:41

the space which is more popular. Well.

27:44

It's hard to say but what I can

27:46

say is that we actually have kind of

27:48

been going through some stuff here because we

27:51

are leading up to you our annual lots

27:53

of the membership experience and one of the

27:55

stat that we pulled from Forbes magazine was

27:57

that than me this and then and that.

28:00

Want to make sure I'm saying

28:02

that gradually. So they reported that

28:04

the global subscription economy is expected

28:07

to reach nine hundred and four

28:09

billion. By. Two thousand

28:11

and Twenty Six. And

28:13

when you go back to two

28:15

thousand and twenty twenty one, the

28:18

global subscription economy looked like seventy

28:20

two billion, So that's a pretty

28:22

massive jump over the course of

28:24

what is that can be five

28:26

years or so when we play

28:28

Devil's Advocate yeah says that. You.

28:31

Know the pessimists in me might

28:33

think okay to move then to

28:35

that Now that membership subscription based

28:38

businesses are it that saturated. That's

28:40

a great question, and the answer to that

28:42

is no. Of course, I think that what

28:44

we're seeing as the were in the world

28:47

is that there really is. Were. In

28:49

Information Overload and I think that

28:51

people are looking for clarity. They're looking

28:53

for that clear path to get them

28:56

from. A To be People

28:58

don't want to spend hours and

29:00

hours and hours will take that

29:02

back to Menopause as because that's

29:04

a lot of familiar with this.

29:06

Unfortunately phone people don't want spend

29:08

hours and hours and hours on

29:10

google and trying to find the

29:12

best solutions and then you know

29:14

finding this thing and then trying

29:16

it for x number of weeks

29:18

or even months or even years

29:20

only having it to not work

29:22

spray and so it really is

29:24

about finding that we're past. That.

29:27

Gives you convenience. Six.

29:29

Ivs you result. So.

29:31

I think we're just going to see this more and

29:34

more. And when it comes to somebody who's thinking about

29:36

at thinking that and thinking while. You. Know

29:38

there's already a whole bunch of men upon coaches

29:40

out there are there's already a whole bunch of

29:42

fitness coaches or whatever your market may be. You.

29:45

Really? You? You know? You want to step

29:47

back and think, well, what is it that I bring

29:49

to the market though. right? So

29:51

you know somebody who. You.

29:54

know might deliver their content with lots of

29:56

energy and enthusiasm and married happy and bubbly

29:58

that may not be the person for everybody,

30:01

but a person who's serving the same

30:03

content, who's maybe more low key

30:06

and just a little more toned down,

30:08

that might be the person for somebody

30:10

else. When

30:12

you look at that and think, well, there's just

30:14

so many people out there, it really is just

30:16

finding maybe you have one

30:19

little different way that you help people

30:21

achieve a result that is different than

30:23

somebody else. I

30:25

think, again, it's just opening up your mind and

30:27

thinking, well, what does a membership make possible? What

30:30

is possible for me? I think when

30:33

anything gets saturated, if we think about social

30:35

media, social media is completely over-saturated. Totally.

30:38

Yeah. Does that mean that we should no

30:40

longer be creating social media? No. I

30:43

think it's a call for excellence. With

30:46

our Instagram, it's

30:48

called InstaClubHub, with that program, when we

30:50

launched it, that was when we

30:52

were doing our initial research, we found that

30:55

there were a lot of really well-established

30:57

Instagram coaching memberships. We were

30:59

like, it's a pretty saturated

31:01

field. We have to go

31:03

above and beyond. What can we do

31:05

that really, really serves people? I'm

31:08

not saying this in any

31:10

way to disparage other creators, but

31:12

since that time, four of the

31:14

top five Instagram coaching

31:16

memberships, they've retired them. I

31:20

think that says a lot. We just continue

31:22

to grow. I

31:24

want to encourage you not to

31:26

be afraid of competition, but also

31:29

to be inspired and to recognize

31:31

that you need to do things the right way. You can't just go,

31:33

I'm going to start a membership and I'm going to build it myself.

31:36

That's why I would strongly encourage

31:38

anyone who is trying to figure

31:41

this out for themselves, go

31:43

to the expert. That's what we did. I know you

31:45

guys do workshops and masterclasses. That's

31:47

how we discovered. Literally, I

31:49

did a free, I think it was a

31:52

webinar, three years ago now. I

31:55

was like, okay, they've got

31:57

bells and whistles, which is great, but more

31:59

so. We need

32:01

to understand all of

32:03

these intricacies that make a membership

32:06

such that people don't ever want to give

32:08

it up. And you guys do that better

32:10

than anybody. Thank you. Yeah,

32:13

I'm glad that you mentioned the workshop. We actually have

32:15

our free workshop. We do this every year. And

32:17

so it's coming up starting on April 4th. And

32:20

it's about a week and a half and then we go

32:23

into, we have a master class after that. And

32:25

we just, we break it all down. It's

32:28

totally free, but we have, there's three master classes

32:30

starting April 4th and we break it all down.

32:33

And during this time together, the community

32:35

just lights up. We see people doing

32:37

their founding member launches while they're with

32:39

us during this free workshop.

32:42

And it's absolutely incredible. It's mind blowing. It's

32:44

exciting every time because you just see people

32:46

popping up and saying, I'm going to do

32:48

it. I'm going to put my

32:51

idea out there. I'm just going to see what

32:53

happens. And you know, whether it's a handful of people,

32:55

whether it's, you know, even a

32:57

few hundred, we've had people launch and end

32:59

up with a huge founding member launches during

33:01

our free workshops. It's just

33:03

a really exciting time. It's really inspiring

33:05

and you'll just learn so much. Okay.

33:08

I am listening to you. I'm just double checking to see if my

33:10

staff can't give us a quick link. So

33:12

right now, hold on. Yeah. So

33:15

you've got a free, it's on April 4th. Is that right?

33:17

It starts on April 4th. Yeah. Or

33:20

there's some free workshops that we do leading up

33:22

to a master class that's happening on April. Okay.

33:25

Perfect. So go

33:27

to shalene.com/membership and that'll

33:29

take you to the sign up for the free after

33:31

April 4th. I know you have a master class that

33:33

starts a couple of weeks after that. So either one,

33:36

depending on when you're listening to this, go

33:38

check it out. shalene.com/membership. You

33:41

guys know that I'm always really transparent

33:43

about the tools that we use and

33:45

why. And you know,

33:47

in full transparency, when we initially

33:50

switched into club hub only to

33:53

searchy, it was really, I was like,

33:55

I'm just going to learn everything I can. And about how to

33:57

have a better membership experience. And I'm going to

33:59

keep my stuff. over on this other

34:01

platform. But then we just, my mind was

34:03

blown in like how quickly we were

34:05

able to reduce our churn

34:07

and increase the member experience and how

34:09

much easier it was for my team. Like

34:11

I have no tech abilities whatsoever. I love

34:13

that you guys are so hands on. I

34:15

asked today, I said, how many files do

34:17

you think we have with Searchy?

34:20

Can you guess how many files we have with you guys? Individual

34:23

files. Oh my gosh. Am I

34:25

gonna guess like in the thousands? Yes, over 4000

34:29

files with all of our different

34:31

courses now and memberships. It's

34:34

just nice not to have like

34:36

a new headache every day or like a new

34:38

tech problem to solve. When we were trying to

34:41

do this ourselves, I was like, I guess

34:43

it's just what life is like as a

34:45

digital content creator. It

34:48

doesn't have to be that way. It

34:50

does it. Well, and I love that you

34:52

actually shared how many files you do have

34:54

because we touched on content overwhelm and

34:57

someone might hear that and go, do

34:59

I have to create that? First of all, how

35:01

do I organize that? But I love, I've been

35:03

inside of your membership and you guys

35:06

have it so simplified

35:08

where you come in, you

35:10

take an assessment, you find out

35:12

exactly what content you need for where

35:15

you are. So here we are talking

35:17

about our success path again. So and

35:19

then it curates that for them. It's

35:21

amazing. And so that removes

35:23

the overwhelm. They know exactly what they need to do

35:25

when they come in. But that was missing before. Like,

35:28

I mean, that was a piece that yeah, yeah, you

35:30

know, we just we just didn't really understand that you

35:32

guys make that so much

35:34

easier. You taught us and

35:37

we're continuing. I'm still a

35:39

recovering over content

35:41

creator. But for sure,

35:43

learning from your team

35:46

and your expertise, like, yeah, still

35:48

things down so that people can get in,

35:51

get what they need, transformation. And we've

35:53

got so many different like I

35:55

said, we've got a diet and

35:57

fitness program, Instagram coaching, digital business.

36:00

influencers, brand deals, what else do we

36:02

have on there? Did I ever

36:04

say diet and fitness? Yes. And our,

36:06

we have courses. So

36:10

it's really been fun to be able to

36:12

give, it's been fun to read comments from

36:14

our customers who are like, this

36:16

is so much better. They don't know that we're on

36:18

a different platform. They're just like, wow, you guys have

36:20

really improved everything. Like they know

36:22

the experience. Yeah. Yeah. That's

36:25

what it's all about really, isn't it? It's

36:28

creating that experience for our members and just

36:30

helping them make the little bits of progress

36:32

every day. My story can sometimes be overwhelming

36:34

because I've been doing this forever.

36:37

But for that person who's maybe in the 2.0

36:40

season of their life, they

36:42

have never thought of

36:45

starting a digital business. How

36:48

much tech do they

36:50

need to understand? Like what do you

36:52

really need so that you understand,

36:54

like in order to be successful

36:56

as a brand new membership

36:59

creator? Yeah. So if you

37:01

are just starting out, you're brand brand new,

37:03

no idea about tech,

37:05

anything, honestly and truly all

37:07

you need to get started is a

37:10

place to be able to email someone

37:12

from. And truly that can be

37:14

your Gmail account to start with. You

37:16

know, you think about, you know, everything that's available.

37:18

You can email people through Gmail. You

37:21

need a way for people to pay you. So

37:23

just a checkout link that you can do that

37:25

through PayPal. You can do that through Stripe and

37:28

a place to communicate with people. So

37:30

you might do that through a Facebook group or

37:33

you might get a free Zoom account and just,

37:35

you know, be able to email them a Zoom

37:37

link and meet them on Zoom, whatever that looks

37:39

like. So it can really be

37:41

that simple. I know we've gone really fast in the

37:43

workshop. What can people expect to walk away with? From

37:46

the workshop, people can expect to learn more

37:48

about the success path. They can dig more

37:51

into the different membership types. So we just

37:53

barely touched on them here, but really we'll

37:55

look at the service base, the community, the

37:57

information, all of that kind of stuff. So

38:00

you can really start identifying what

38:03

makes sense for you and what's possible for

38:05

you in any of those membership type Yeah, and

38:07

you know you will maybe maybe we'll teach

38:09

you how to do a founding member launch. I

38:11

don't know I can't promise anything Yeah,

38:14

so you'll walk away just kind of

38:16

knowing everything you need to know about

38:18

you know membership Then what it

38:20

makes possible for you and lastly a membership

38:22

You can do it launch style and

38:25

you can also have reoccurring like every week people

38:27

can be signing up So you've gotten a more

38:29

steady income stream is that true?

38:32

That's right Yeah So we have an open

38:34

model and a closed model and so the closed

38:36

model is really where you do that big launch

38:38

and you have It open for a certain period

38:41

of time Then you close your doors and you're

38:43

able to kind of go in and work with

38:45

your members Get that feedback that we're talking about

38:47

help people make progress Get those

38:49

stories that are really great to be able

38:51

to share on the front end But then

38:53

yes, you can have an open model There's

38:55

some memberships like if you know we think

38:57

about someone like ginger Dean who I already

38:59

mentioned She doesn't want to close her door

39:01

She wants to always be available for

39:03

women who need support coming out of

39:06

those kinds of relationships So she has

39:08

an open door membership where she is

39:10

welcoming people all the time. We have

39:12

one closed and two open well

39:14

Rebecca This is super helpful. I

39:16

know Sue so fantastic at workshops

39:18

and master classes So I hope

39:20

that if you're just a little

39:22

bit interested I highly encourage you

39:24

to go to shaleen.com/membership again at

39:26

shaleen.com/membership It'll be in our show

39:28

description. You'll see the link there

39:32

On that while you're thinking about what kinds of questions

39:34

you want to ask me. I'm an open book

39:36

Let me know if drop whatever questions you have

39:38

about courses or memberships I'll do my best to

39:40

answer them for you. And as always Rebecca, thank

39:42

you so much for being here with us today

39:44

Thank you so much for having me. It's been

39:46

a lot of fun. Awesome. Hey, thanks

39:48

so much for listening to this edition of build your

39:50

tribe I really hope that today we were brief and

39:52

bright and we made it fun And I hope that

39:54

we helped you to make a decision if you still

39:57

have a lot of questions You could head over to

39:59

YouTube and drop so of your questions there or

40:01

better yet, you probably should jump on that

40:03

free training that they're doing because listen, they're

40:05

the experts and I'm just happy to share

40:07

our experts with you. You can sign up

40:10

for their free workshop by going to

40:12

shalene.com/membership. Hey, thanks for being

40:14

here. Talk to you soon.

40:17

This episode of Build Your Tribe is

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sponsored by Keap. Keap is the email

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