Why Offer a Membership Site and Why Now?

I was listening to one of Stu McLaren's recent podcasts and he made three good points I wanted to share.  As you may already know, membership sites are a great way to share what it is you know with people.  If you're in business, you use your skills and knowledge to address the problems your ideal customers need solved.  The problem is many of us offer this solution in a way that depends on us or one of our team members to deliver it.  Our customers are happy with what we do for them, but our set up limits how many people we can serve and or income.  It also makes our business completely dependent upon us to function.

Stu mentioned three big ideas about membership sites in that episode.  Here they are.

Idea #1 - People Want to Learn...But Not Waste Time

Business owners want to learn.  They are open to getting the information they need to solve a problem.  They are tight on time.  They don't have time to sift through all the available information, many of which conflict, in hopes of getting to what they need.  If you have a straight-forward way to teach what they need to solve their problem, you become a huge asset to them.

Keep from sharing all you know about a topic.  Few, if any, of our customers have time to learn all you can possible teach them.  I often see business owners add more and more content to the membership programs hoping to give more and more value.  You should see that as more and more clutter the business owners has to go through to get what they want.

Idea #2 - Long-Term Results for Clients

Our members are learners.  That's one of the reasons they became paying clients.  However, they also need to take action and use that learning to solve their problem.  You have to build your program so it addresses what they need to learn and how they are going to get the results they need over time.

Consider what you can add to your site so you get them results.  Can you add a forum or a private Facebook group so they can ask questions that answers?   Can you offer question and answer sessions once a week, once a month, whatever is appropriate so your members get the support they need?

These are things that membership site programs often leave to the end as an afterthought and these could be things that make your program really effective.

Idea #3 - It's a Compounding Asset in Your Business

As I said earlier, many businesses will not function without the owner being there.  When you build a membership program, you create recurring revenue.  Members may not stay with you forever, but if as you grow your membership, it becomes something that will generate revenue longer term.  It's something that makes your business worth something or a real asset.  And this is something that makes going on vacation, without having to be checking emails, a reality.