Membership Cheat Codes With Stu Mclaren

he's here to share some quick , very important tips about just how you could explode your business growth with a membership . How do you even know a membership would be right for your business if you don't have one already ? And if you do have a membership already , he's going to share something that you probably haven't considered in your business .

That means that you're leaving a lot of money on the table . Stu , thanks for being on the Art of Online Business .

There's like this point of tension , because the only way to really grow is to give more of your time , and I didn't have any more time to give and so I'm like wanting to grow the business , but I'm already like burning the candle at both ends .

And then my wife and I just got married and we're looking to start a family and I'm realizing like these two things are not lining up , because if I want to be a present father and a husband , then I can't , you know , be working , you know , and burning the candle at both ends .

So it was at that point that I took a moment and I talked to a mentor of mine and he said you know what you should do . You should just start a membership and you should teach people the things that you're doing with your clients .

He's like if you do that , you can teach one time , but you could teach hundreds of people , thousands of people who would each pay you on a monthly basis . And I'm like that sounds amazing . So I started going down that path . But the technology then was not what it is today , and so I very quickly was way out of my league .

I was dealing with things like HT access files and server settings and I was just like this sucks , I can't do this . And so I've moaned and grown into a friend of mine His name was Tracy and then he said I'll never forget . He's like well , why don't you just create your own solution ? And I remember when he said it . I'm like is he even listening to me ?

Like I'm sitting here saying that I'm struggling with the tech ? And he always suggested I go and create a tech solution . I'm like no , I'm like Tracy , I'm not a programmer , Of course , I'm not going to do that .

And he said well , look , I've been working with a programmer for a long time who's really good that I think could help bring a membership site idea together . You want to partner ?

So we did , and a month later we had the very first version and a month after that we launched to the general public and that piece of software went on to become the world's number one membership platform for WordPress , and we were powering over 70,000 online communities and memberships , and so that's where I started to gain my experience in the membership world ,

Because when you're behind the scenes of 70,000 online communities and memberships , you start to see patterns , and so the majority of people would launch a membership and their growth would plateau or would slowly taper

off . But there was this other small group of memberships that were growing year over year over year , and so I just started paying attention to them . I'm like , well , what are they doing differently ?

And they were doing things that were completely counterintuitive as it related to the way their memberships were set up , their marketing , how they keep members happy , all of that . And so ever since I have been teaching those best practices , I've launched my own and grown my own six figure , seven figure membership .

So every single day , like we still have our own seven-figure membership today Like I live , eat , breathe this stuff as a membership site owner . But now I've since taught over 17,000 plus entrepreneurs in tons of different markets , from photography and calligraphy to fitness and finance , music , art , health , dog training .

We even have Holly George in our community , who teaches people how to make balloon animals for crying out and finance music , art , health , dog training .

We even have Holly George in our community who teaches people how to make balloon animals for crying out loud , and she's got thousands of members , and so I share this because , for since 2008 , this has been my entire focus is helping people launch , grow and scale memberships , and I'm more passionate today than I ever have been .

And I think , for the listener who is listening right now , who is an established online course creator and looking to increase revenue , how would they know ? Because they're probably wondering is the membership the right fit for their business now ? How would they be able to decide that ?

And maybe you can share a couple of or one story that would help motivate them in the right direction .

We're going to do what I call membership math . Okay , so what I'm going to do is I'm going to walk you through an exercise that will visually bring forward the power of a membership . So let's just imagine a course business and let's just use simple math . Let's just say that they are generating a hundred sales a month at $97 a sale .

Okay , so that would bring in $9,700 every single month . So if you total that up over the course of the year , it's just over $116,000 . Right , okay , so that's the traditional course business . Thousand dollars , right , okay , so that's the traditional course business .

Now here's what happens when we take the same number of new sales and the same price point , but we put that into a membership model . So a hundred new sales a month at ninety seven dollars a month . At the end of the year that membership business is not $116,000 . It's actually $756,000 .

So when you do the math on that , that means that that membership business is generating between 500 to 600 plus thousand dollars by the end of the year , compared with 116,000 dollars .

So the reason I say this is because when we start looking at our effort , a membership business it would take a course business six and a half years to be able to generate the same revenue that a membership business would in one year , with the same number of new sales and the same price point .

So if that doesn't excite a course creator right now , I don't know what would . But here's the other . Here I can share story after story , because memberships and courses go hand in hand together , cause I guarantee that your listeners who have a course they've probably received questions from people after going through the course . Would you say that's fair ?

Like they have this panic moment . And that's where a membership can come into play , because knowing what to do and how to do it is super valuable . That's what a course provides , but actually getting the result is something totally different .

And the thing that helps bridge that gap between knowing what to do and how to do it and getting the result is a membership , and that's why a membership and a course go hand in hand together . So let me give you an example .

So Nicholas Wilton he is a artist and he has a course teaching people how to produce these beautiful types of paintings , and I remember his course was rather long . It's 12 weeks , so if you can imagine , that's a long course . But he was on like week number 10 and we were chatting and he was kind of in a panic .

He's like Stu , I'm , I'm getting all these questions for people that are asking those things . What's going to happen ? You know ? Am I going to get continued support ? Can I still get you know eyes on my artwork and feedback and so forth ? And he's like I know I should launch a membership , but I just I don't have time to like put it all together .

And I said , dude , just offer a founding member , launch , just invite people to come and join you . Be open about the fact that you don't have everything figured out , you don't have everything created . But you can see that there are people who are asking questions like screenshot , screenshot , screenshot .

And I said , if you do that and just invite people to come join you as founding members and you've set the expectation that you don't have it all set and figured out , but that you will I said you'll immediately be able to start generating recurring revenue with a membership . He had about 200 people who were going through the course at that time .

They were on their final webinar and he walked through exactly the process that I outlined and he explained . Like you know , I wasn't thinking about a membership , but these questions were coming up . It got me thinking about you . It got me thinking how can we continue the momentum , how can we continue to support you and your progress with your art ?

He's like I don't have anything created . Like I said , it's just an idea . But I do want to invite you , if this sounds interesting , to come and join me as a founding member and I'll extend to you favorable pricing and when we do launch it to the general public , the price will go up but your price will stay the same . So he walks through that process .

Roughly 200 people over 180 of them signed up at 30 bucks a month . That was generating $5,400 a month in month . Number one and so I share that , because after somebody comes through a course , if you have delivered and created an amazing experience for them , they are naturally going to want to continue working with you .

And the line that I always love is I always say something like you know , when we look back on the last eight weeks , 10 weeks , whatever it is together and look at the progress that you've made in that short period of time , imagine the kind of progress that you could make if you were immersed in this community all year long , year long .

And so if you deliver on that course experience , people will have made progress and now you're projecting forward . Like imagine , if you're making that progress all the time , now they naturally want to join the membership , and that's the true value of why a membership helps people make so much progress over a longer period of time .

for me . But , yeah , definitely , we run it one time a year and it's a four-part workshop . So even though you've missed part one , maybe come join us for the other parts . They part one . Maybe come join us for the other parts .

They're super valuable and , in fact , well , I'll just give the listeners a little insight we may wink wink , be walking through that founding member launch process during the super secret segment of workshop number two , and I share that because the super secret segment , by the way , is for everybody that shows up live , that gets edited out of the replays and

recordings . So you want to be there live . But that process it works , as you mentioned , it worked for you , it worked for your wife , and we will have people who will legit launch their membership sites during the free workshop , which is insane .

Imagine coming to a free workshop and then , by the end of it , you're generating recurring revenue from a membership that you didn't have when you first came in . Like , it is possible and we will show you how we'll walk you through the process , and I can't wait to share the results with you and with everybody .

So , at the end of the day , that's what we've got to focus on , and there's a few things that I would put my attention to .

First and foremost , there's been a study where they looked at how do we increase the lifetime value of a member to a membership , and what they found was , if a member has a positive experience in the first 30 days , it will , on average , triple the lifetime value of that member .

So then the question becomes okay , how do we create a positive experience in the first 30 days ? Well , so much of it boils down to your onboarding , and there are three key areas you want to pay attention to , to your onboarding , and there are three key areas you want to pay attention to .

Number one when a member first comes into your membership , you want to make it very clear about where they are in this journey and what they should be focusing on . Most memberships unfortunately provide the same experience for everybody .

They drop them into a membership that has a ton of content , and now the weight and pressure is on the member to figure out what content is relevant and what they should be implementing , and so they've got to do all the work , they've got to do all the thinking , and so what that does is it creates overwhelm , and then they bounce and they leave .

So what we want to do is we want to ask a few questions when somebody joins our membership , and we want to help identify where are they in the journey of going from where they are now to getting the result and outcome thereafter , and so in that , we might say , oh , okay , great , I've you know , based on your answers , it looks like you're at stage number

two of this journey , and based on that , here is what I recommend you do first , and here are some lessons that are relevant for you to dig into now . So the first thing that we want to do is we want to make things clear . Clarity is really important for somebody joining a membership , because that begins to create momentum .

That brings me to number two , and that is connections . You know , my family and I we moved to a new area a couple of years ago and I remember my wife and I we walked our kids to school on that first day and we were nervous . You know like if any parent is watching or listening , you've probably experienced that .

You just want your kids to feel settled , you know , as they're going to this new school . And so I remember like we said goodbye to the kids and we just crossed our fingers and just hoped that they would have a great day and feel settled . So we go to the end , fast forward , to the end of the day .

My wife and I are there for school pickup and I'm looking for my kids and my daughter comes out first and I'm like gauging the look on her face , like was this a good day , bad day ? And she's got this big smile on her face and I'm like , oh , and she comes running up and I said how was it ? She's like dad , this is the best school ever .

I'm like , really , I'm like tell me why . She's like well , you know how I used to go to Montessori school . I said , yeah , she's like there's a girl in . She's like you know how I love horses ? I said yeah , she said there's another girl in my class that loves horses as well . I'm like , oh my gosh . She's like but , dad , this is crazy .

You know the new stable that I'm riding at and I said , yeah , she said her mom owns the stable . I'm like get out of town . She's like dad , of this being the best school ever was because she made one meaningful relationship on that first day . If we can help our members make one meaningful relationship , it can frame up their entire experience .

And there's all kinds of ways to facilitate that connection . And one of the ways in which we do it in our community is when people are onboarding , we ask a series of questions like where are you from ? You know , are you open to being interviewed ?

Are you open to interviewing others on a podcast or in your membership , et cetera , and then with that directory , we help facilitate connections , and so that helps create the connections . You can do it inside of a Facebook group when people are introducing themselves .

Give them questions that pull out connection points from your members so they can find commonalities within each other . But connection is really important and , at the end of the day , if we just help them find one meaningful connection , it can frame up that experience .

And then the last thing that we wanna do to really cement that positive experience in the first 30 days is we want to help people get a result . At the end of the day , people are signing up and joining your membership because they want some kind of an outcome or they're looking for some kind of a result .

If they're not consuming your content , they're not using it , implementing it and getting a result , they're going to bounce and they're going to leave . So when I talk about result , many times people focus on the big outcome , the big result . So for me , in my world , that would be like somebody coming in and launching a membership site with thousands of members .

That's the big outcome . But there are many steps before that and what we want to do is we want to help people begin to experience progress , like even slow progress is still progress , and we want to reflect back to them the progress that they're making so that they feel the momentum that they are beginning to experience .

That momentum creates confidence and because of it , they will want to continue to stay , continue to go deeper and deeper . So if I'm speaking to the person who wants to improve retention , focus on number one making things clear . Number two , helping your members form deep connections .

One meaningful connection and number three help them get a result and experience progress .

Head down to the description below , click the link . Register and make sure to put time on your calendar to see Stu live and learn . You will absolutely walk away with good things that you can put into practice in your business right away .

And I wish I had prepared screenshots so I could actually show you the two success paths that , like me and my wife , used in our memberships . But they really did help people get a win and help people get clarity on where they're at and where they're supposed to get to and the steps along the way .

And thank you , stu , for everything that you've taught me over the past years and thank you for taking a moment to share on this episode .

You're gonna hear all kinds of examples from people who launched a membership with little to no audience , to more established businesses like your viewers , who've got courses and then parlayed into a membership and the difference that that compounding revenue makes . It's incredibly inspiring .

And you'll hear from people in all kinds of markets , and so what I want to do is I just want people to realize , like , as business owners , this is more important today than it ever has been . You know , a few weeks ago , the US government was talking about completely banning TikTok from the US . Now why is that relevant when we're talking about memberships ?

Well , there are over 7 million businesses on TikTok that depend on that platform for either traffic , leads or sales . So with one decision that they can't control , whoop , they now have a very vulnerable situation on their hands and they're scrambling . This is true for any business .

We all have vulnerabilities , like a few years ago , the pandemic exposed vulnerabilities for brick and mortar stores right , and so we all have them . Whether it's depending on a launch for revenue and the launch flops huge vulnerability , or maybe it's depending on a few clients , and a major client leaves huge vulnerability .

We all have vulnerabilities in our business , but what I wanna say is that a membership helps shield us from so many of those vulnerabilities . It creates that predictable , stable revenue in our business that , no matter what , at the start of every month , we are starting it with the momentum of the month before .

You're never starting from zero , and I'm passionate about this more than ever , and so I just want to encourage everybody come join us . It is going to be an amazing workshop . It's all free . I can't wait to help you get your membership launched .