Katie Wardrobe from Midnight Music, a membership specialising in helping music teachers with technology, is the final guest for season four of Behind the Membership.
Midnight Music has been running for 4 years now and while it has always been successful, Katie has managed to nearly double her member base during the current pandemic, even though she has actually been focused on providing more free content and resources for her audience during this time.
In this episode we talk about how Katie has started providing her previous member only webinars for free each month, attracting thousands of attendees each time, her experiments with creating live courses to keep members engaged and boost sales, and why she reduced her price during the pandemic.
We also talk about the increased challenges involved when schools are paying for a teachers membership, how Katie engages her members by answering forum questions via video, hiring a content manager to keep her free content on track and much, much more!
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Pamela Mitchell has been a professional coach since 2003, with a focus on helping people to reinvent their careers so that they can live a life that they love. When demand for her services became too high, she decided to launch a membership offering – the Reinvention Launch Club – in order to help more people.
It wasn’t all plain sailing though and in this episode Coach Pamela discusses the mindset shifts that needed to happen for her to be able to move from creating a more traditional content focused and high volume membership to a smaller, more curated and intimate experience where the focus is on individual and group coaching.
We also talk about how Pamela makes use of associate coaches to provide a more one-to-one experience for her members without needing to spend all of her own time coaching, the challenge of finding your own path and being clear on what you enjoy and what’s going to give your members the best results when creating your membership model, and the quest to find the perfect community solution.
Plus lots more!
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John Michaloudis from MyExcelOnline, a membership which helps people to become Excel experts, is this week’s guest on Behind the Membership.
John started his membership just two years ago after growing tired of running course launches, and with 1600 members is already a third of the way to his goal of making $100,000 per month with the membership.
In this episode John is talking all about how he is using evergreen webinars with fast action bonuses to make sales every day, and how email marketing and Facebook ads also contribute to his sales.
John also shares how moving from a Facebook group to a forum for his community is one of the best things he’s done, and how John isn’t actually the person answering members questions in his community.
Plus we talk all about the benefits of adding things like Trustpilot reviews to a sales process, creating a business you can take 6 months away from and how member success stories make all the work worthwhile.
And of course, much more!
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Marisha Mets from SLP Now, a membership for speech language practitioners, is this week’s guest on Behind the Membership.
SLP Now has been running for over four years and over that time has evolved from a simple membership to a full web app offering thousands of practitioners teaching resources and even their own CRM and case tools.
In this episode Marisha talks all about how she went from creating resources for her own use to launching a hugely successful membership and the challenges she’s had along the way, including learning how to manage her time effectively and finding the right developers to create her app.
We also talk about the benefits of starting simple, and how a membership has helped give Marisha more freedom and flexibility, particularly when faced with health challenges. Plus how running a twice yearly online summit works well for attracting new members, and how she utilises tools like Net Promoter Scores and Intercom to get feedback from members and provide additional support.
Plus much more!
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Felicia Lo from School of Sweet Georgia, a membership site for fibre artists, is this week’s guest on Behind the Membership.
Felicia first started her blog way back in 2004 and her physical business manufacturing beautiful hand dyed yarns, Sweet Georgia Yarns, in 2005. Over the years Felicia has also taught classes for companies like Craftsy, written a book, and run a yarn based subscription box, so by the time she started her membership School of SweetGeorgia in 2017 she already had a huge amount of experience in her market.
In this episode, we’re talking all about how Felicia is able to run the membership site alongside her well established physical business, and how having the two overlapping, but still separate, sides of the business works well for her and gives her more flexibility and stability.
We also talk about how Felicia used Patreon for her initial idea validation, which gave her the incentive and accountability to create her full membership site. And we talk about the team she has helping her to keep both businesses thriving, plus how she focuses on YouTube for attracting new members, her plans for bringing guest teachers to her in-person studio to record courses, and much, much more besides.
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On today’s episode on Behind the Membership Callie is talking with Warwick Brown who runs the KAM Club, a membership site for key account managers which has been running for around nine months.
Hear all about how Warwick came to start the KAM Club and how he utilised existing resources, like his previously free blog content, to get him started much quicker – although he still put off launching the membership for a long time!
Warwick also talks about the challenge of consistency, particularly when it comes to content creation, and how finding a way to link his free and paid content together has made his life so much easier.
And discusses finding time to do everything when running a membership site solo, how Warwick provides a lot of personal support in his membership site, from 30-minute welcome calls, to personal videos and check-in messages, despite it being low cost. And how, despite quitting his high salary job, and not yet making the same amount with his membership, he couldn’t be happier.
Plus, of course, much, much more!
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Trish Blackwell, a confidence coach and creator of the College of Confidence is our guest for this episode of Behind the Membership.
Funnily enough, Trish’s biggest challenge with her membership initially was actually having confidence in her ideas and what she wanted to create. Fortunately this was something that she was able to overcome in order to build a thriving membership site that’s now been running for over three years and which is continuing to grow and evolve.
In this episode, we’re talking all about how Trish overcame her original doubts and how the membership model has allowed her to 3x her private coaching fee, while still helping even more people.
We’re also discussing the challenges of running a business with small children at home and how hiring support for her community was a game changer for Trish and her membership, plus much, much more.
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Carole Copeland Thomas, a diversity and inclusion expert, is talking all about her membership site the Multicultural Symposium Series in today’s episode of Behind the Membership.
Carole’s online membership actually evolved from her long running annual conference with the aim of providing somewhere business owners could have a year round conversation around important topics that relate to becoming a more multicultural and inclusive business.
In this episode we’re talking about the importance of Carole’s work and the impact it’s having, how she’s able to keep her membership very low cost and affordable because of corporate sponsors, and how her current focus is on scaling the membership even further.
We also talk about how she mixes her offline events and online membership and the monthly webinars that she runs which are available to attend live for free, but then only available within the membership.
Plus of course much more!
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On this episode of Behind the Membership, George Reid is talking all about his membership site for Amazon based businesses, the LaunchPod Academy.
George started the membership 15 months ago after originally working for Amazon in the UK and then creating an Amazon agency. Over the last year, the membership has become the main focus of his business though, now accounting for 80% of his revenue.
One of the things George is most passionate about is ensuring he is giving his members the best experience and making his membership as ‘sticky’ as possible, meaning his retention, even for annual renewals, is great.
In this episode, we’re talking all about how George originally started the membership with his brother but is now flying solo, how he is utilising guest experts for creating content, and some of the new strategies he’s trying to improve his retention even further.
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Caryn Liles from the Centre of Canine Education is this weeks guest on Behind the Membership, and while her membership is only a few months old she is a great example of what’s possible with memberships, even when you have to launch quickly and in a market that you may not think is a fit for online training. Because when COVID-19 first hit earlier this year, Caryn could have easily thought the worst when she had to close her brick-and-mortar dog training business down overnight.
Instead, she chose to pivot quickly to an online membership model for both her existing clients and a wider audience as well. And it’s been such a success that she isn’t even sure if she’ll open up her physical business again.
In just a few months having a membership has quite literally been life-changing for Caryn, giving her more time, less stress and a better work-life balance than she ever thought possible.
Listen in to hear all about her journey so far.
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Today’s guest on Behind The Membership is Steve Pavlina, a prolific name in the personal growth space and owner of the Conscious Growth Club.
Steve actually has a bit of a different membership model to most you’ll hear on this podcast, offering a 12-month membership at a price point of $1997. He also only launches the membership once a year, so his membership is small and intimate by design.
Steve shares some great insights into why he picked this model and why it’s worked well for his audience and the kind of results he helps his members to achieve.
Steve has really fine-tuned who his membership is for and isn’t afraid to remove those that aren’t a good fit, realising that alignment and attracting the right members is absolutely key for the kind of community that he is creating.
Listen in to hear how going to Disneyland every day for 30 days was what inspired Steve to first start his membership, how 30-day challenges work for his membership community, and how his low-key five-day launches bring him six figures, allowing him to focus on his members for the other 360 days of the year. Plus, of course, much more!
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Warren McPherson from Piano Lesson with Warren joins Callie for this episode of Behind the Membership.
Warren’s membership focuses entirely on teaching people how to play gospel piano, and he transitioned to a membership model after first selling low-cost courses. As you’ll hear though, the initial transition wasn’t smooth, with Warren quickly realising a successful membership isn’t just about putting everything behind a paywall.
In this episode you’ll hear how Warren made that course to membership transition and how he is working to combat the challenge of retention, including how making one particular change cut his churn rate by an impressive 8%.
We’re also talking about why he wishes he’d grown his team earlier and how he has played the long game when it comes to audience growth, allowing him to now attract 50-100 new members a month just through content marketing.
And even though Warren’s membership is still just a couple of years old it has allowed him to work less and his wife to leave her job so that they can both spend more time with their young son. They’re even moving to a new state, something that didn’t seem like a simple idea for them before the membership.
Listen in for all this and more!
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You don’t need me to tell you that the world is currently in crisis and that countries are starting to take measures we’ve never seen before.
As more and more people are forced to social distance or self-isolate, and the economy starts to feel the repercussions, it’s natural to feel anxious and uncertain about what this means for you, your loved ones, and your business.
But what are the rules on this? Should you still be marketing your membership when the world is in crisis? Is it insensitive to worry about higher churn at a time like this? How can you better help your members at this time?
These are just a few of the questions we’ve been answering inside our own membership site, Membership Academy, over this past week. And I want to share some of our answers with you here too.
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Wishlist Member is arguably the granddaddy of WordPress membership plugins, being one of the first available and, for a long time, the go-to membership plugin recommendation.
However in an ever-evolving marketplace of membership plugins that has seen some exciting additions in recent years, does it still measure up?
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Launching a membership site is an exciting but nerve wracking time.
You’ve probably put your blood, sweat and tears into creating this site, no doubt losing some sleep along the way.
But when the time comes to actually open the doors, we can often find ourselves hesitating.
What if it all goes wrong?
Running a beta test can be a great way of assuaging this fear, as well as ensuring that you launch the best possible version of your membership.
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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?
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