Three Things I learned about Membership Sites, and I have so much more to learn!

Joseph Rupp, Sugar High Motivation

The membership model popped into my head on the morning I referenced in the prior post. I was thinking about how I would both connect to people I used to work with and make money. I also wanted to create a customer base and serve them. I planned to do something bigger, more impactful and personally meaningful. And here it was!

One morning, the email jumped into my account. It was from Stu McLaren. This post will not become a commercial, but it might sound like one. However, the idea the Universe brings you what you are seeking occurred to me when I stumbled upon the email while clearing out the pervasive junk in that account. In fact, it’s a modest miracle I did not delete it. I usually get on a roll deleting 95% of the email in that inbox — I usually enter autopilot mode and even delete valid stuff.

I had never heard of Stu, Tribe (his company) or membership sites. And, yet here it was. He found me because of our association with Hay House — my wife had taken some of their webinars aimed at aspiring authors. I joined her. We were right in his wheelhouse.

First lesson. Build Your List. Yes, I know. This lesson is not a secret, but an affirmation. My first lesson involved the tried and true power of list building. I learned this before I had even heard the concept of list building. He found us by leveraging his own connection (I must believe) to Hay House. Hay House found us because my wife was on their list and they had just opened, wait for it, a membership site! Yes, I purchased that one too! Stu had created a valuable marketing list. I was part of his list building.

I had no idea what a goldmine I would be to Stu — he earned it. His material and courses are excellent. He possesses a bouncy, optimistic, authentic personality. I find him genuine and his material valuable. I took the bait — hook line and sinker. I do not use that phrase to diminish his product or me in any way. The reality is his course and material perfectly fit what I needed at the time.

Second Lesson: Marketing skill and content is as valuable as the product content (maybe more so.) Over the next three days, we joined three webinars designed to answer what, not how questions — a lesson he teaches in his courses — meaning you explain to potential customers what your offer is, but not how to use it. Save the product for that interaction. Why else would someone purchase a product from you? If you are reading this, you may believe that is obvious. Not to me.

Interestingly, after three days of webinars, I felt as though I understood exactly what he would teach in the course and product stack he offered. Remember, we had attended multiple free marketing webinars — and received at least one, often two, marketing emails daily during his marketing blitz. Did not matter in the least.

I needed that course to really understand all the lessons from someone who has done it hundreds of times and to unlock the other secrets — which indeed I needed to learn.

I appreciated and needed his personal guidance, content and energy. You might think he practically gives away the material in the webinars. Does not matter in the least. I still purchased the course after multiple webinars and one email with a blueprint attached.

Third Lesson: Overdeliver value, but not content. This statement has been repeated often by successful entrepreneurs — internet focused or not. Its often repeated by anyone preaching business success. I recognize its an extraordinarily simple statement. But it comes with an explanation. Do not confuse over delivery of value, with over delivery of content. Stu preaches limiting weekly content to no more than an hour — whether your model provides weekly content, or you are dropping course content.

His survey data shows that customers get overwhelmed with anything more. He teaches simplicity.

That one lesson was extremely helpful as my instinct pushed me to believe I needed to create mountains of content so that both customers and prospective customers would associate that with valuable information.

I have so much more to learn. I’m often overwhelmed with the demands of creating content — videos and blogs, creating a course, building and renovating the website(s), learning how to market and build the list (still job number one!) My site is still so new, I’m not sure it would qualify as being in its infancy! I still feel like it's being formed. Again, I have so much more to learn and test. This blog post simply affirms the lessons I’m in the process of mastering and hope it helps anyone in the same position.

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