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Today we learn how Jill and Josh went from a cycle of online launches to a predictable business that generates revenue every month – all online.
The launch model can be really appealing. Lot’s of potential cash and a rush of adrenaline, but followed by a lack of income and consistency after each launch.
You will hear how they tested the subscription model with one of their smaller products – saw an immediate drop in their income yet through mistakes and learning they realized that as the memberships began to increase they are able to predict their income for the next month.
It only takes a few months to figure out your retention and value of your lifetime customer when using the membership model.
If you are delivering value to your membership they’ll stick around, if not they’ll leave.
You will learn
- Why a Launch Model was too complicated for them.
- Difficult to know your launch model numbers
- Quick fire products consume a lot of time
- Find the business model that works for you
- How to switch from the launch model to the continuity model
- Income will drastically decrease immediately
- Membership Sites – a slow process
- Make more for the lifetime of the customer rather than a one-time buy
- Customer has more benefits
Links and resources mentioned in today’s show
Enjoy the podcast; we hope it inspires you to explore what’s possible for your family!
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Can’t Miss Moments
Each week Jocelyn and I share moments that we might have missed if we had not started our online business. We hope these moments inspire you to see the possibilities and freedom online business could provide for your family.
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Can’t listen right now? Read the transcript below!
Introduction: Hey on today’s podcast represent a successful membership case study. Welcome to the Flipped Lifestyle podcast where life always comes before work. We’re your host, Shane and Jocelyn Sams. Join us each week as we teach you how to flip your lifestyle upside down by selling stuff online. Are you ready for something different? Alright, let’s get started.
Shane: What’s going on guys welcome back to Flipped Lifestyle Podcast great to be back with you again this week. it is membership month here at the Flipped Lifestyle, and in a last three episodes we talked about, Why is deuce the membership model for your online business, how we switched to it and how to sell all that up. And today were going to be bringing you a successful case study of a couple that switched from we called maybe the launch model and other models to make money online to the membership models and were really excited because this are two of our best friends in the world it is Jill and Josh Stanton from screwtheninetofive.com welcome to the show guys.
Jill: Ye-hey!
Josh: Ye-hey!
Jill: Business Besties
Shane: Wohoo!
Josh: We’re here
Shane and Josh: Yes!
Shane: So the a..
Josh: Uhm, we have the Canadian and an Aussie and to Kentucky and is…
Shane: We’re worldwide today on the Flipped Lifestyle Podcast
Jocelyn: International baby.
Shane: That’s right, we’re international today on the flipped lifestyle podcast so, what we’re gonna talk about today with Jill and Josh is memberships and how they just switched to the membership model, that it totally different model for their online business and have had lot of success so we wanna show you guys an example of how to do this right.
Jocelyn: Alright, so first of all let’s talk about the past, what was your business’s like before you started a membership model.
Jill: Well, when we first started it was very service base, so we did a lot of down for you services, we did quite a few coaching and consulting calls and that really just didn’t jive with us like we felt exhausted by it, we felt like were working way more in our business than honor business so we decided to switched to digital products and programs, so we launched a course called lifestyle affiliate then we followed that up with a for the course called screw U and it wasn’t really as call….
Shane: Not screw the audience on its, it’s just called screw you.
Jocelyn: Like yeah.
Jill: Universe, Screw University.
Shane: That’s right.
Jill: Yeah.
Josh: Screw did it guys.
(People laughing)
Shane: Screw flipped lifestyle people. Alright
Jill: Never.
Shane: Never.
Jill: Uhm, but was.. kind of started realizing that we were feeling uber stressed by constantly having start a square one each month, and trying make up the revenue we made the previous month so we be like OK, what are we gonna do this month to, you know, match last month’s revenue and how many webinars are we gonna do and how many digital products we have to sell, and it was just all way too much for us and it became much less enjoyable than we are hoping and so, when Josh made the suggestion to switched to continuity, I mean it took me maybe an hour or to the.. To go with it but…
Shane: Alright…
Josh: It was lost dead in an hour or two.
Jill: No, i don’t think of that.
Josh: Let’s be honest.
Jill: No was not.
Jocelyn: Yeah best….
Jill and Shane: No!
Jill: I was gonna say it, it took me a lot longer
Jill: It took maybe one glass of wine.
Josh: It was fast, it wasn’t interesting courses to go through us for sure.
Jill: (laughing) but ever since we made the switch its just been so much more enjoyable
Shane: Let’s talk about that a little bit then, and kind a go deeper on to that, like, Josh why did you want to switch I mean I know that you wanna like it sounds like your trading a lot of time for dollars, and of course that’s never are goal online because the launch model is so broken when it comes to how much energy and time it takes to keep making sales cause you know you make, you sell a hundred. You know, products this month, next month you may not sell any if you don’t keep hoop, you know hump in that, right? So like what…what first made you like why did you want to switch it first? Why continuity? Like kinda go into that what. What do you mean by that?
Josh: Uhm.. I think there were two reasons why I uhm.. The first one was that the launch model was too complicated, and so it was…
Jill: Perhaps at least.
Shane: And what why it’s so complicated? What do you mean?
Josh: Because I mean you would have to… it was kinda of risky and complicated because you have to lots trying get a lot of people to purchase something a very short period of time that didn’t work out then, you could lose a lot of money on.. on ad cost right?
Shane: Yeah.
Josh: So that was kinda risky and we couldn’t figure it out we.. we did it OK you know like we.. we did better than breakeven but as Jill said it you know, we wouldn’t have to do that all the time and its cost stressful. The other thing is that, it’s a lot more difficult to know your number specifically when you have that particular model, so I wanted to.. I wanted to create a model or I wanted to follow something where I would know each every point throughout the month, how much money we’ll going to make.
Shane: Right, you could predict base on you are…
Josh: And I wanted that basically.. yeah I want less predictable and I think that’s maybe you guys talked a lot of tools that you guys wanted that more predictable model because, I felt like we were going thru the same kind of emotions, same kind of stuff or we were trying to visual products at the same time and as soon as we both made the switch, everything just so make sense after that.
Jill: Yeah and personally I’ve always found the launch model like so stressful I would.. I would watch my mindset just take a hit, and I will convince ourselves that you know, oh my God, what happens if this doesn’t work out, what happens if we don’t meet our goals in it, just I’ve like my mindset just took a dive and i didn’t like that. I really believe him what we’re creating, and I really believed in screw U and I knew it could help a lot of people with just need to figure it out a way to make it, like a bit more attainable for people cause a thousand dollar product not everyone can throw down on that.
Shane: Exactly
Jill: At the drop of the hat week to week. You know what I mean so…
Shane: I know exactly what you mean yup, it was really stressful for us too like Joshua saying because like… like you said something that complexity of it all…
Shane: Like oh my gosh, just trying to figure out like which sales page, when to which ad, when to which product, and you know then there’s your…
Jill: Yeah
Shane: 10 different products so what have they buying and when are they buying it, like that was really stressful for us like. We’re just don’t get us…
Jill: No, I have like 30 something products i mean, it’s crazy trying to keep up with all that
Shane: Yeah.
Jill: Just who bought it? And should I email this person, I can’t email them because they bought this product.
Jocelyn: Yeah
Shane: And what am I launching and how I gonna launch it and all that stuff.
Jill. Totally, and you guys remember like during one of our mastermind say early on the year, we were all talking about doing like this 30 day challenge and so are this quick fire kind of products right?
Shane: Yup, yup.
Jill: And so we’ve sit there and brainstorm it all and then Joshua I did warn him we was, oh my gosh it’s so time intensive, and you know unless you’re making some big cash of that, its hard to keep doing that month after month you know what I mean?
Shane: Yup
Jill: Worked. on top of promoting to other products and trying to affirm revenue that way in do us men grab resources you can and all this sort of stuff plus, I hate trying to be friend people, just to be able to do a webinar together like that…
Shane: Yeah.
Jill: Is so not my jam. it feels so contrived to me and so forced, that I just wanted to be as self-reliance as possible.
Josh: I mean, now thing we haven’t mention this at.. I don’t know how much room there is at the top floor people who are doing launches… you know..
Shane: So to it make sense to you?
Josh: Yup like everyone like they made me some people who are doing really, really well. You know doing half million dollar launches more of, but is everyone doing that? How many people launching products all the time now and its just happening all the time most of them…
Jill: It’s get overwhelming for people.
Josh: Yeah mostly I’m at chewing that wealth, universe might make couple of thousand dollars in a launch, you know like, such energy in this right in a couple of thousand dollars it sucks..
Shane: It almost like that
Josh: It’s the truth…
Josh: Keep doing that again.
Shane: I’ve never said this like on air before but I know I’ve talked about this to people, the launch especially on the other hand of creating memberships. The launch model is almost a pyramid skim, because you got this one guru that sits on top, his got a hundred of like affiliates that are under him. those affiliates are up promoting things everywhere and like there’s only so many affiliates and those the bigger affiliates with the big audiences only of so much time to do JV launch but not gonna promote your product, they’re gonna promote the guy above them. The vim on the pyramid. So like the bottom then try to launch something and you’re like oh I’m gonna set that this big JV tame. Here’s my one affiliate partner i found, or whatever. You know what I mean? It’s like…
Jill: And Totally.
Shane: It’s just that possible to get in the like the pyramid basically.
Jill: And I actually I think it works for a certain type of person like a certain type of entrepreneur definitely can rock a launch like we’ve watched some of our friends do it and they do it really really low for it. It’s just not for us.
Shane: Yep, that’s true.
Jill: And I feel like that a huge take a ways when you find a business model that works for you that like feels good and everything feels aligned with it, and that’s when you have to go full steam on to it.
Shane: Some people, life that rush of the laws….
Jill: Yeah
Shane: Like some people are addicted with the adrenaline rush.
Jill: And they huge payouts like assuming everything goes right and like the strategy behind the raw and I mean I get it , it just a sexy process you know like its fast moving and there’s some many elements going on and you know there’s a lot happening, but that doesn’t always jive with everyone.
Shane: That’s right.
Jill: So I’ve just think you have to figure out what’s work for you and then hammer that.
Jocelyn: Exactly and we’ve been really promoting memberships this whole month because we’ve discovered all of this same things we are talking about and with that in mind and that all lot of our audiences how could they turn their websites or there online products into this membership community, so in that in mind how difficult was it for you guys to change over from what you are doing, the launch model to know what you’re doing the continuity or the membership model?.
Josh: That’s a really good question..
Shane: It’s kind of a loaded.
Josh: It’s a loaded question for sure. It was challenging you know because i didn’t go thru a course trying like that to learn how to do it. I just can have like I shouldn’t took a lot of measure from you Shane. So you we’re saying like you were trace word press, in this and that and this. And then I’m…
Shane: The form that we’re, cause like that core of your membership as your form basically.
Josh: Yeah, it’s like a free version of a word press plug in that turns your website into a discussion form which is kinda important for most membership sites. So what we did is we took out one products, we have two products, we were selling at a time and the first one was all about marketing its called lifestyle affiliate, and we saw it hey what if we turn this cause this is like a small product, what if we experiment by turning this into a membership site and see how it takes off, and so that’s what we did. we just set up…we set up a new web site, we put it all training in the forms, which actually is really important like on that one, for me it was just a co. For all the training forms, that we just sold it on web at arm. A lot of people jump at it because the cost is much lower than what they have to pay for the purchase cost separately.
Shane: So much very much the course that’s a launch product.
Josh: The course is a launch product was at regularly 500 dollars who a sign yet at pretty big discount on the web and not like 300 dollars
Shane: And then the membership, what does the membership cost to join?
Josh: We keep the membership cost of at 19 dollars a month to start off with…
Shane: Which so much more affordable Yeah.
Josh: Yeah it was 19 dollars to start off with, because we realize Okay a lot of values can be held in the community we don’t have to sell right because we don’t have a strong community so let’s sell at a low price. That would help that community in over time, as the community goes stronger the membership will be worth a lot more us we gradually increase the price up and up and up. There what happened is we realized that, we wanted to do this for Screw U which was other side, which is more about kinda like teach people how to build personal brands, and so we would going to initially launch this two things separately have to separate membership sides. by again like you said this which to show how to sell, we said okay let’s just combine this two together under one big hub and that’s what we did in screw U so it was certainly a process to show what we went through and there’s a lot of mistakes that we made along the way, but I think because we made those mistakes t just force us to figure stuff out even faster, cause we have to get ball rolling on this. You know one thing that happens, a big learning experience to anyone who’s wanted to transition from digital products to a membership side. is that your income will drastically decrease immediately, straight away. Because you’re not earning ten thousand dollars on a web an hour, five thousand dollars in a web an hour need doing that multiple times a month, you’re earning a few hundreds dollars on a web an hour because the cost your membership this much lower this is more as slow kind of thing. So that’s one thing I think everyone should take in initially that it is a slow process and you know I’m gonna stop make it a ton of money straight away. And you shouldn’t really because you’re not that experienced and your membership site until it reaches a certain point so, that was a big thing for us.
Shane: And the drop really more like a check mark, it’s like, if you’re coming along flat, you drop because you are selling a 400 hundred dollar product but now you need, you know ex-members maybe 40 dollars a month, in 10 members to make up that one four hundred dollars. but what happens is those members don’t leave so were after 10 months that person had paid four hundred dollars if they stay another ten months, that’s another 400 dollars. It compounds over time so you keep building brick by brick. you won’t make as much a front but you will make more for the lifetime effect customer basically.
Josh: Yeah that was a huge learning for us like once we kinda like figure that out, the people will actually gonna stay for, and its very easy to figure it out how long the people gonna stay for then it takes a couple of months to figure it out what your chain made by your attention raid just like and you know what your lifetime value for this customers. so that was a big thing for us to learn.
Jocelyn:Yeah for sure and you know I think that we are both fortunate and that we sort of learned all this things together and we learned from each other’s mistakes.
Shane: That was that the value of community, seriously just like we were bouncing things like what’s happening here, what’s happening there. Like it probably would have took as both a lot longer to set this up without having that community within the group you know in a group.
Josh: For sure, absolutely, it was .. I can imagine doing this without you guys.
Shane: What were the results after you switched, I mean we already talked a little bit on how you might as solved little drop but then stabilize then now its rising backups so like price prize. What was the result, the benefits of all this happening like what was the difference now from the launch model till now. Like how was your business different, how was your revenue and your income different. What was some of the great results from switching to the membership model?
Josh: A few great results, so let first one like costumers senders much better to the costumer because they are paying each month you both can a held accountable so they wanna use the nan share and you wanna help them grow as being part of the membership so it’s gonna better on the end you both. Both accountable, the second thing on LN on the business and is that we talk the days before banning for more predictable. So let’s say, you go from.. You know selling products month to month and you’re making like fifteen thousands and you more make plus 7 thousand and then some months so you go to be better than others basically. With this bond its far more predictable, so maybe your initial like when we first launch our initial income was much lower, was like four thousand dollars initially after we first launch. And then gradually it started to grow, but what we noticed is, there has been fluctuations ups and downs. Now we can say this is where we are right now this will be next month if we go at any members. And this is probably if we add 10 percent or 20 percent growth.
Shane: So why is that important do you think to be able predict that. Like some people would say well but i can make 100 thousand dollars, I’ve got it for the rest of the year. But like it may not, you what I’m saying? So why is that important to have that future task report.
Josh: I guess when you’re running a business, You need to know okay this are my cost right now, this is how much I have to pay, what maybe cost 3000 dollars a month so if you know that next month you will going to make above your initial cost you’re gonna break even then it gives you like a sense of encouragement that you can actually go out market and market and promote and know that you’re going to have a business that is going to make money and at least it staying soft.
Shane: Right.
Josh: And that’s a huge thing.
Jocelyn: And you know I think I support it because I’m reading this book right now its called profit first is about a guy who wrote the pumpkin plan. I don’t know how to say his name, his first name is Mike.
Shane: We can’t read, we don’t know how to read in Kentucky. Mike” Pumpkin’ that’s his name will put the link in the show.
Jocelyn: It’s a really long last name that I don’t know how to pronounced but anyway, He was talking about how like we as human being were not good at managing money oh really anything for that manner but f we have money then were gonna spend that money and we won’t have enough left to ourselves, we won’t have enough to pay taxes, or other obligations, so that’s why I think it’s so important in the membership model because if you get all that big lump sum of cash is really hard to hold on to that as a human being.
Shane: Now listen, listen. We’ve done that before we have put over hundred thousand in our bank account in a month and let me tell you something we spend a lot of it next month, a promise you. Cause it is hard not to cause its sits there in your lock, I’ll do whatever i want because i just drop six figs in the back account.
Jocelyn: And then you get that in your man like I can do this again, but you don’t know for sure.
Shane: That’s right
Jocelyn: In a launch model you don’t know.
Shane: Cause it’s like. It’s crazy
Jill: All I was gonna say is like once you put that six figures in your bank account okay we’ll take out tax, take out expenses
Shane: That’s right.
Jill: Take out what your gonna pay yourselves
Shane: And you better do that before the next month when your just dropping cash and make it rain. You know what I mean?
Jocelyn: I love nothing more than spending money. But I also love the fact that I know exactly what your expect next month if not more..
Shane: Yeah
Jocelyn: Because its took you up to you to build it right? So..
Shane: It really helped us like hiring, like we’ve been.. we like always wanted to like you know we always got contracting but things like that but now it’s like we can pull out that few where’s the future cash report that we have in our systems it’s like , you know this minus turn to people that leave plus the people that come in its what you’re gonna make next month so we can look it like just today, i hired a new VA because i was like i know we can afford this, like it doesn’t matter what happens over the next six months i know this what were gonna make as long as we keep delivering value i can go higher this person without fear of not making a big launch and saying oh crap I’ve just trained this person now I’ve got to fire him because my launch didn’t work
Jocelyn: Yeah.
Josh: On the flip side of that too, wanna flip side…..
Jill: flip..
Shane: Flip side I watch you did there.
Jocelyn: I see you what you did there.
Josh: I actually didn’t think about that, that’s like stealing our brand.
Shane: Our brand is so powerful, that we just take over your brain.
Josh: So on the flip side, one of the things that happened with us two stop it made us more aware of outgoing expenses a lot more. Yes we we were able to understand how much more money we were making but price that we had like the launch model will kinda of blow the place really with that outgoing expenses, we were like lets gets this service and let’s try this and this and this. Just focusing and try increase revenue that’s all we carried out…….
Jocelyn: yeah
Josh: Just increase revenue; make as much money each every month. Where’s in this time, now we have, okay we know okay predictably speaking we can make this much per month. How much could we return the spending right now? And we took a look on everything we reduced our cost spill like a 500 dollars which
Jocelyn: Minimum I think.
Josh, Yeah minimum which probably the cause of our customer support agent so we bring on so, it’s funny what happens when you switched this model, you really just become aware of the numbers on the both sides of the coin.
Jocelyn: and when we were kinda in a launch model, like I was really treating our business like it was an atm. Like I was just like wow, we made `twenty five thousand dollars this month so I can easily take out I don’t know 7 or so for lives. but there was no structure, and then if the next month we did like 15 or 10, okay will you just had to drastic drop there you know, so now what do you do. I just, it was just stressful.
Shane: One time you Josh you said the man owner of our mastermind calls one time was we were at, we were probably both about I say about 8 to 8 weeks and then the switch. and we have both had, we both launch, we both had great inflaxive members with run out marketed our different products and you were, we both said like, we were talking about have the different we felt, like our stress level like Jose said, but you said something that really resonated with me is you said it feels like were running a proper business now. because like before Dewey’s felt just like a game or your just like trying to win a lottery every month. you know what I mean ? Now it ‘was like Oh wait, we have actual, predictable revenue and steady growth and we don’t feel like everything’s going to crash and burn. but I, that really stuck with me, that really felt like if this is a business, this is not playing online, you know?
Jocelyn: Yeah
Josh: It’s a proper business, exactly.
Jocelyn: “poppa”
Shane: And I would never say proper cause we don’t say that here in Kentucky and I’m proper in Kentucky you know what I mean, so funny it never stuck with me because I’ve never heard of that word before but you know
Jill: We talk long words and short num.
Shane: Wait!
Jill: We take a short word with wrong paths
Shane: That’s right you there!
Jill: It’s my favorite shame quote.
Shane: That’s what we do around here. Yup, that’s it.
Jocelyn: Okay
Shane: And we say y’all a lot. You know
Josh: It’s definitely true, prior to this, I didn’t really think of myself I look back on what we do before. I don’t really think I was that good business person.
Shane: Right
Josh: Really, I mean now, I can feel myself growing as a businessman like I’m just standing understanding numbers which just very important. Understanding how to manage our staffs, understanding default systems. All this different things that we would taking for granted, when we have the launch model, cause we just want to doing you know this things are so important for running long term successful business as pros making money in a short term.
Shane: Then I think a good word there before we got transition to the next question that we have for you guys, you said there was, basically this is a way, I thinks this is the faster path to success online. Because i do think there’s less barrier to entry in starting a membership model, and you got a better chance on longevity. Then you do, I know so many people and I’ve heard so many stories of people who hit a big launch and never made another done. just because something stuck at that one moment but when you get this one win it takes hold and you start building your foundation brick by brick, it really is building something that’s gonna last. And that’s a huge different from the launch model.
Josh: I don’t know if this any other model, maybe any other model was better than the, model will be like SAS business , for like the turn. The average turn is like 3 percent but like.. How would then SAS like the membership model is ridiculously…
Shane: And status like software or servers like leaf page it’s just something like that.
Jocelyn: I mean like we could never cancel with Theo pages our whole business is built on it.
Shane: There are tentacles everywhere. That’s a story for another day.
Jocelyn: yeah exactly, but I wanna to quick say about the whole membership like the beauty of it all is it totally up you, you can completely up your retention rate keep you prolong then first as long as you want , its all on you, you know what I mean?
Shane: Yeah
Jocelyn: Like you build a community and if you ever foster that family, those people won’t leave, because you’re giving them something there craving. the knowledge and the community, the connection. That I feel like I say it all the time, why we all seem hyper connected online, yes. You can tweet anyone, you can do anything you react on periscope, whatever, that wobble of connection is pretty surface. Like its pretty what’s the word for it, like just..
Shane: Superficial basically.
Jocelyn: Superficial thank you..
Shane: That’s a big word for a Kentucky kid now.
Jocelyn: You can never make that sure.
Shane: I didn’t make that for sure, but I’m keeping’ it long. That’s right I’m good.
Jocelyn: But it’s so true like that level of connections, superficial where is you can really lock in that loyalty and turn those people into life first, what would they leave?
Shane: That’s right
Jocelyn: So we talked all about the benefits of choosing the membership model, so what do you think some challenges that you face so far as far as changing to membership model?
Jill: for me, the thing I probably find not challenging the most annoying is people who come in for like a few weeks and took a look around and bounce.
Shane: Yeah
Jill: However, at the same time I looked at it, it was like okay could we turn to that person like they’re not for last.
Shane: Right
Jill: It’s really just a mindset, I don’t want people who come in and take a look around and bounce, so those aren’t my people. You know what I mean, people are the ones who got stuck in and stay committed and persistent.
Shane: Jocelyn has a problem with that two, just like rejection of any kinds of classified jobs.
Jill: Yeah I don’t like rejections.
Jocelyn: It’s hard to. Exactly it’s hard to not to make it personally, when you pour your heart and soul into this however it’s just a mindset shift you know?
Jill: exactly and you know we even started an flip lifestyle specially like excluding people purposely on the onset like before they even join, we even say this group is not for you if. And we ….
Jocelyn: We started putting something’s out there, and I think that our intention is actually gotten better and we have fewer of those people that just hopping in for a couple of weeks, and you know, people email us and they’re like I had somebody feel her day just sent me a Facebook message and she was like hey, you know I wanna trump a community that I can cancel any time and I said you know what if you’re already asking this then probably this is not gonna good fit for him.
Shane: Yep, that’s….
Jocelyn: And I think Jill you’ve talked about this too.
Jill: I have the exact same thing happen someone message me there’s still on school but they know they didn’t want get jobs. they’re like what happen, how do I cancel , if I do wanna cancel, I said that the fact that you are even asking that, it means you’re not the right fit for this. So there’s loads of other communities online, you can absolutely stay in my free community whatever you want, it’s just I don’t think our paid membership is for you, coz I wanna deal with that, I don’t want to deal with customer service headache, it’s like I’d rather you just not joined.
Shane: and the important thing there is, I think the important negative there is you still gonna have some cancellation like our turn is probably five to ten percent.
Jill: Yeah there’s no way to avoid cancellation…
Shane: But that’s is.. kind of a thing you brace yourself for when someone’s, when you have a lots and someone buy something or they either don’t buy or they really complain or maybe you know that you’re going to have people quit and there rejection is a little bit of something you got a kind of prepare yourself for because i think you see it more because you got more people coming in therefore more people are going to be going out then maybe on a launch model were it just launch they get their product they go away forever. you know.
Shane: What else what else’s the negative about a membership?
Josh: I wouldn’t say negative this are all basically challenges..
Shane: Yes challenges that’s good
Josh: A big challenge would be trying to, trying to get helped for within the memberships, this is probably I’m working on right now, just to build up ambassadors on the membership side so they can kind a like, sooner become stars, that other people inside the membership can lean on us well to get advice from cause right now a lot of a time we are the once who ask for advice, so we are having out in our times
Jill: As it should be
Josh: As it should be, so it like learning how to balance that out because
Shane: People may differ in perspectives too, there’s people in our community, I mean in both of our community that there’s really freaking smart. You know?
Jill: Yeah
Josh: Yeah
Shane: They need to have their voice like that’s what that community is for basically.
Jill: Yeah, and it’s totally cool that people want you to answer their question. They want us to answer their questions, But we are only two people and there only so much of your time and energy to go around.
Shane: Right and we don’t know everything.
Josh: So true, I guess what Im talking about here is kinda like learning how to balance retention vs. growth? So like, how much time should you put into retention of versus how much time you can put in the growth of your membership.
Shane: Right.
Josh: So try to figure out that balance is bit of a challenge. But I think once you have that balance, what you know precisely how much time you need to invest to make sure retention is a point your happy with. Safe for us, like we wanna get to I’d like to get to 95% retention would be fantastic.
Shane: Right
Josh: Once get to that then how much time is required in all of you to maintain that so you can actually go and try grow your membership side as well.
Shane: That also touches on the challenge of culture. Like how many people do you let in at a time. Because if you got 500 member. We have like almost 300-400 members, so do we want another hundred people to come in 0n this next webinar? Or do we cut it off at 20 because it could change the whole dynamic of the community. That’s a lunch model you just sell it and they go away. You know what I mean?
Jill: Yeah, I’m so happy that you brought that up. Because I have a girlfriend who has a membership model and she does it based on launching. So she only opens at once a year, Right? So she did a huge push for. Before she had like 1200 people in her membership. She did the push and she got 1300 new people.
Shane: Oh my!
Jocelyn: Whoa!
Shane: Where just good start money, you know for money.
Jill: It’s great! However I sad to her hows it all going? Ahhh..Well the culture is really change some people are complaining about that because there is more newbies than it was existing members.
Shane: yeah
Jill: That’s massively gonna disrupt the feel of it all, the family of it all. You know like, I really thanks that’s a super important thing to keep in mind if you’re gonna go continuity memberships. It’s like you really wanna keep fostering that sense of community. So over all I think it’s, I mean I truly think it’s amazing that were only both of us like you guys and us are only what? 4 months into running the membership and yet were already thinking of all these things.
Shane: Yeah
Jill: You know, it’s not just like oh! Lets throw it out there and see what happens. It’s like how can we make this better. how can we serve people. And the fact that where doing not so early on, makes me think that our memberships out gonna be power houses.
Shane: You really have to like change your mindset of make us much money as possible in front to the long game? Because, that’s hard, because that’s not everyone online teaches. You know everyone online teaches the ATM / win the lottery model of online business. You know, create your perfect product that will make you millionaire this weekend. Before Sunday and now, and like that’s what this mentality is ingrained in the entrepreneurial community. But the launch model is, I could grow a thousand members next month. Like i have no doubt with the major push that we could easily put in 500,000 people in…
Jill: Would you ever wanna do that in one big swoop? No.
Shane: Exactly, exactly. You have to restrain yourself that’s a challenge to restrain your growth. You know it’s so easy to say I just wanna make more money, but now that’s not really what you wanna do. You want to build something that’s sustainable, growing over the long term.
Josh: I think you just have to focus on the, there is like two numbers you have to focus on. It’s retention,
That’s we have to focus on. Cos if you focus on getting too many members in once. It may decrease your retention and so you could have got all those people and eventually, and your retention would stay high. So what you ended up doing is you have less money in the long run.
Shane: Yeah, the goal was always in this model ” Is not how much money can I make next month, It’s I know I’m gonna make that money next month”. That’s a huge difference that’s so much more secure. But the feel is good.
Jill: And I love it! (Laughing)
Shane: It doesn’t sound as sexy just like Jill always says. That’s the sound of sexy.
Jill: It’s so true.
Shane: It feels better that when you’re on the other end of it, man I get up every day with the whole lot less stress now since we moved our teacher sites, flipped lifestyle style. As long as I deliver value I know I’m gonna make money. It doesn’t matter what the search engine says or anything else.
Jill: And who doesn’t like waking up, just like your phone is full of pay pal notifications of people who renewed.
Shane: Exactly
Jill: it’s so fun! That’s my favorite thing to do in the morning.
Shane: And that drive is like, I used to loose energy in launches because I don’t wanna do it again. But like when I wake up and see all those people pay that accountability thing Josh said. I’m excited to go help those people now. Because there in the boat with me.
Jocelyn: Yeah, we’re investing in them and they are investing on us. You know it’s a great relationship to have. So, this has been a great discussion about membership.
Shane: Amazing discussion.
Jocelyn: Yeah, I mean I love it. And I know our listeners are gonna find a lot of value in it because like even I learned things just talking to you right here. So would that in mind, what is one thing if you could start all over again, what is one thing you would do over or differently?
Shane: And would you go back to the other way?
Josh: (Laughing) Just NO, Definitely not. I wouldn’t know what to do now if someone said your going to do a launch back..
Shane: What’s a launch? (Laughing) I don’t remember.
Josh: One thing I would do over again is, I would.. This is a tough one cos I have few things I would do over again.
Shane: Give us all of them
Josh: Forget it.
Shane: 3 things you would do over
Josh: One, I would have not done life style affiliate and then combine them together. I would have combined together right from the start so would have just launched Screw U directly from the start and then later migrated those affiliate marketing people over.., So that’s one thing that I would have done just because right now the culture is a little bit one-sided. Or not fully one sided but certainly more sided towards affiliate marketing, so I actually working on trying to entice people who has starting long term businesses less affiliate marketing to get involve. So I can look in the sort of segment those two things. SO that would definitely you josh one thing I would have done. What about you Jill? What would you’ve done differently?
Jill: U hmm.. I feel like I would have been more preventive of a, who can join? Like that would be one thing I could start at the gate. Or would have done straight at the gate. Is like saying to people, this isn’t to everyone. Where is when you first starting in your membership, You just wanna get your 1st batch of a hundred or two hundred people in right?
Shane: Right.
Jill: So you’re like, everyone join! But then that stuff becomes such a headache. Also another thing that I would have done is never gone with pay pal subscription. Because that didn’t really play nice with the infusion soft but that such ‘a like leaving learn kind of thing. Also, I would have built a community straight at the gate. Like I really wish, I’m grateful we ended up here because we’ve tried everything else. Like we’ve offer services, we’ve done digital programs all that sort of stuff. I’m so happy that we ended up in the membership world that I truly do. Now looking back wish we’d started with that in the beginning but were here now, so that all that matters.
Shane: Yeah, I look back in all the money we made those first couple of years. And all the sales that we made?
Oh my gosh!, If half of those people had been members then that money would still be coming in. Because the value with still be there. Like I would do anything to go back and change, wouldn’t you Jocelyn? When you go back and start over doing this stuff.
Jocelyn: Yeah, I wish I would have done it from the beginning. I was just so sort of like resistant to do it; you know I do certainly understand that.
Josh: Also on the customers end – like imagine how much after that they would have progress up to point if they have it, ridiculous.
Shane: Oh, value was.
Jill: Yeah, but you don’t know what you don’t know.
Shane: That’s right
Jill: You know what I mean? Like, I’m just happy we all figured it out.
Shane: That’s all we tell our members to. That’s another way to ramp passed the learning curved that I think a lot of people won’t invest in their selves. And they won’t learn things from people who’ve been there and done that. We tell people all the time like they have this idea. And like, yes we want you to create a product to put in your membership side. Because you can literally start a membership and if you are an expert in your field, you have authority and if you can get people in there. It would spread and it would grow. And you don’t even really need products, you just need the community with maybe a draw to get a man but you’re the show. You’re in there your expertise is gonna carry the day while you flush out your product offerings inside your membership community.
Jill: Yeah, Totally
Josh: Yeah Cool!
Jill: And I love that are two membership sites like there is so similar yet so they can just exist on their own and yah where so bustiest.
Shane: Oh I know! Cos where in the same space. We same the sell content but in the different way to different avatars. And that allows you to bounce side this of people and do things like that. It just works out better.
Jill: Yah
Shane: Yup, totally
Jill: I love it.
Jocelyn: On paper we shouldn’t be friends at all, but it really works out.
Shane: And yet were the best friends ever.
Jill: And yet were the four best friends anyone can have.
Shane: We are such best friends that we do an amazing life event together. We’re gonna be hosting here in a couple of weeks in Tampa do you like that transition?
Jocelyn: That was great.
Shane: And we still have two tickets left as of this recording. So go to FlipYourNineToFiveLive.com and joins us in Tampa on October 10th.
Jocelyn : No one can do this one.
Jill: Because you want all this one.
Shane: I know right, that was total pitch man right there.
Jocelyn: (Laughing) you want all this fun live right?
Shane: You wanna get some of this live, I know you do.
Josh: That was very ‘launchy’ Shane.
Shane: That was very launchy – But our membership is included with our ticket. Bump, bump, bump like that wrapped it up bring it to home.
Jill: Bringing it back (Laughing)
Shane: We are not gonna turn this into a pitch feast. But we love Jill and Josh Stanton and we are so grateful
l that you guys came on the show today. Because that was an awesome case study that really showed that you have an existing business you can switch to this successfully. We believe that you guys believed that it is better on the other side of the switch. And if you’re starting out you probably wanna look out this membership model before you get it to the launch hype. Because it might save you a lot of pain in the future. So thank you guys so much for coming on Flipped Lifestyle Podcast today.
Jill: Thank you so much for having us, This is so much fun.
Josh: No worries, see you guys soon.
Shane: Yah, we will see you very soon. And hopefully will see you soon too if you go buy one or the two remaining tickets at FlipYourNineToFiveLive.com, right?
Jill: Yah, I love it
Shane: Alright, guys thank you so much for tuning in today’s podcast. I am so sorry that I went into my best infomercial at 3am impersonation there. But we would love to have you guys at our live event. It is coming up in a couple of weeks, we do actually have a spot or two left so head over to FlipYourNineToFiveLive.com and check that out. And if you would like to check us out and our community it is at Flippedlifestyle.com/flipyourlife if were not your cup of tea, head over to screwthe95.com and maybe you could jump into Jill and Josh’s community. Either choice you make would be amazing for your online business and your future. Thank you so much for listening. And till next time get out there and do something, flip your life. Will see you again.
Jocelyn: Bye!
Natalie Brown says
Loving the membership month series guys. Very timely for me as I have been looking for a way to move from the trading dollars for hours method in my paediatric Occupational Therapy practice. I looked in to membership sites about 5 years ago but have never been able to squeeze developing it or even online courses/digital products into running a practice and family life. Your approach with just starting small and like even just with a forum seems so doable for me.
I have a couple of questions.
Shane – I know you have mentioned that you have used Buddypress before. Would you see any value in adding Buddypress to a membership site or would it be better just to stick with a forum?
Jill mentioned in this podcast that Paypal caused problems as it didn’t talk nicely to Infusionsoft. I was wondering what she would recommend instead? I’m not ready for Infusionsoft yet but I see that in the future we might need something like that and it would be good to set up a payment processer that will work with it when we do.
Love your work guys and hello from sunny Queensland!
Jocelyn Sams says
Hi Natalie! We like Stripe as a payment processor. Buddypress can be a good solution for some people – Shane used it on CoachXO for a while. We prefer using forums for our current businesses. 🙂