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Behind The Membership: Process Driven

From accidentally creating a waitlist of buyers during the pandemic to running a membership with over 600 members, Layla Pomper of ProcessDriven, certainly has an interesting story to tell.

In this episode of Behind The Membership, Layla reveals all to Callie, sharing how she made the leap from service-based provider to thriving membership owner, and why she’s avoided a pay monthly pricing strategy.

Plus, she also discusses how getting into the minds of her active members has been crucial towards her success.

Behind The Membership: Art Revenue Coaching

In this episode of Behind The Membership, artist, Josie Lewis, chats to Callie to reveal how she attracted over 800 members during her very first launch of the Art Revenue Coaching membership. 

Josie shares how pivoting her existing audience helped her to double her email list and validate her membership idea…

Plus, she discusses the one thing she will do differently when her membership doors reopen. 

Behind The Membership: Creative Crafting Club

Christelle Janse van Rensburg, Co-Founder of the Creative Crafting Club, is a membership owner whose journey has been a little different from most.

She started off with a franchise model for in-person kids craft clubs in South Africa.

But when the pandemic shut everything down, Christelle and her sister/Co-Founder, Stefanie, were forced to find an online alternative to keep their business going.

Step forward the membership model… 

Since launching their membership Christelle and Stefanie’s lives have changed in the best possible ways.

Not only do they love what they do, but they’ve managed to build a thriving community and find a work-life balance that’s right for them, all while growing their membership numbers by 10x in the last year alone.

So how did they do this?

Let’s go Behind The Membership to hear from Christelle herself…

Behind The Membership: IT Rockstars

With so many memberships out there, standing out from the crowd takes a bit more elbow grease these days.

However, IT professional and Author Scott Millar has managed to put quite the unique spin on his.

He’s the founder of IT Rockstars, a membership that helps IT companies to transform their marketing…

Join us as we go Behind The Membership with Scott to hear more about his journey, including why he decided to cap the number of members per location, what made him decide to pivot his membership, the awesome onboarding process he has to help retain members… 

Plus how he manages to successfully run his membership alongside a full-time job and having a young family.

Behind The Membership: Baking For Business

Who doesn’t love a little bit of baking every now and again?

There’s nothing quite like sinking your teeth into a sweet piece of sponge cake or baking cookies for the entire family.

But what does it take to build and grow a baking business that stands out?

Amanda Schonberg is a chef, award winning baker and marketing enthusiast who is passionate about helping bakers to create a profitable and successful business.

She’s even built an entire Entrepreneur Community for baking enthusiasts who want to build a brand they can be proud of.

Like most things in life, launching and running a membership site hasn’t always been plain sailing for Amanda.

We got the opportunity to catch up with her and hear about the ins and outs of her journey to building her membership to the success it has become today.

Keep reading to find out more about Amanda’s delicious Entrepreneur Community and how she has helped fellow food entrepreneurs become the go-to baker in their communities…

Behind The Membership: Makers Momentum Club

For most people, running into multiple challenges when managing a membership business means it’s time to pack up and call it a day.

Well, Nicola Taylor of the Makers Momentum Club isn’t most people…

Her journey has its humble beginnings on Facebook, starting out as an add-on for The Makers Yearbook and evolving into a full-fledged membership.

As we go Behind The Membership with Nicola, she shares the challenges she’s faced changing her business model, the effects the pandemic has had on her and member base…

And how a significant increase in member engagement can be a double edged sword!

Bottom line, she’s proof that when the product is good, it really doesn’t matter how many challenges you face, as long as you forge ahead.

Let’s hear more from Nicola herself… 

Behind The Membership: Amplified Artists

The Covid-19 pandemic was unkind to most sectors…

And performing arts is one that suffered more than most…

But that didn’t deter Jim Cooney.

He’s the founder of Amplified Artists, an award-winning director, choreographer, and educator, who managed to build his membership from the ground up, right in the middle of a global pandemic.

With his wealth of experience teaching in universities and offering guidance on a more personal basis, he decided to create a membership that could serve as an anchor for artists at a time when their industry had been decimated.

And as I’m sure you’ve already guessed, his membership journey has had its fair share of twists and turns…

Despite that, he’s managed to do more than just stay afloat, even as things have opened up a bit more.

So, without further ado, let’s go Behind the Membership to see how Jim managed to build a business and create value in a period of difficulty within his industry.

Behind The Membership: The Metalsmith Academy

Launching and building a successful brand isn’t easy…

We all know that… 

But pivoting an already successful business to a completely different model is even more difficult…

Especially in the midst of a global pandemic.

That’s what Lucy Walker, from Lucy Walker Jewellery and The Metalsmith Academy had to do in 2020. 

Realising the need to expand her business and navigate the ever-changing global restrictions of Covid-19, she transitioned from delivering in-person courses on jewellery making to launching her membership website.

And since then she hasn’t looked back.

But while she’s been hugely successful as a membership owner, the past twelve months haven’t been without their challenges. 

As we go Behind The Membership, I speak to Lucy to get some insight into how she braved the transition.

How she managed the highs and lows of life as a membership owner, the lessons she’s learned so far and everything else in-between. 

Changing Your Business Trajectory with Craig Cannings

In the final episode of season five of Behind The Membership, Craig Cannings, co-founder of Freelance University, joins us to share the story of how he and his wife Kelly transformed their business after switching to the membership model. 

He tells us what inspired them to go down the membership route after selling a la carte courses for so long, why they made the decision to adopt the closed-door enrolment model and how they’ve found a way to stabilize growth in-between launches. 

He also talks about what it’s like running a membership with his wife, the changes they made to the business during the global pandemic to better serve their audience and how they use badges and certifications to aid member retention… Plus much much more. 

Succeeding with a Small Niche with Lisa Leander

Our guest on this penultimate episode of season five of Behind The Membership is Lisa Leander, founder of Women in Business Education. 

Lisa’s story is a very interesting one. What started off as a planned side hustle targeting a very specific niche audience (possibly the smallest we’ve ever seen with only a few hundred people in the world in the market), quickly resulted in Lisa quitting her job and managing the membership full-time due to the pandemic.

During this episode, she shares what life is like as a membership owner. How she’s tapping into her 10 years of experience as a Director of a membership organization to build the business as quickly and efficiently as possible, why she made the decision to invest in building a team from the very beginning and how Lisa’s personalized approach to recruiting new members has a 50% to 70% conversion rate.

She also talks about why she only delivers live content to her members, how her site is structured to cater for different segments of her members to give them a specialized peer experience and her plans to grow her niche further later this year.