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When we got a Voxer message from Jason Geiman a few weeks ago saying ‘you’re not going to believe this we got 100 members.’ We were pumped! Then, much to our surprise, we got a message a few days later saying Jason and his wife Jody’s membership had reached 150 members we were blown away! So, we were absolutely floored when we heard Jason and his wife had reached 189 members!
That means their membership site is making more than $10K each month!
The ‘lowdown’ on Jason:
- Full-time firefighter
- Previously owned his own pressure-washing business
- Now makes a 5-figure monthly income from his pressure-washing online membership
- https://www.pressurewashhelp.com
What You’ll Learn:
- How To Turn Your Membership Into A Community (9:10)
- You Don’t Know How Far Your Stone’s Throw Will Go (14:15)
- Your Membership Gives You and Your Family Freedom (17:45)
- Your Safe, Secure Job Is Not So Safe (21:50)
- Become Less Accessible (34:20)
- How Often Should You Offer A 30-Day Trial? (39:45)
- Lead Magnet 101 (41:40)
- Get Your Members To Renew (45:00)
Show Notes
Jason and his wife Jody had started a pressure washing businesses in their town. After some time, they had grown that business to about $1M. However, in 2018 they sold that business.
The Geiman family had been listening to the Flipped Lifestyle Podcast for several years prior to 2018. In the fall of 2019, they came to our Flip Your Life Live event. Back then, they had about 2 members. We, of course told them to build their audience, hammer that nail over and over again.
For them, this meant taking the view off of the memberships. But, what built their 5-figure monthly income with 189 was: learning to gain trust, learning to build their audience, start getting testimonials and success stories.
Since then, the Geimans have been very active on YouTube, so that is where most of their online traffic has been coming in. This year, Jason has been uploading 4 YouTube videos a week, getting their channel around 200,000 views a month. Which is where now, they sell their memberships and get around 20-30 members a week, talk about being prolific!
Turn your membership into a community.
Not only is Jason getting members, but building a community. He is having not only his videos for the members, but members are posting videos of their stories and growth, in a personal Facebook group. Therefore, they are growing together!
It keeps people paying over and over again. You have to show up consistently for your audience.
If someone wants to learn how to pressure wash, there’s probably not someone around that can do that. But for Jason’s members, he is there for them, wherever they are. He is accessible. Now they can build this business, now they can do this thing, through Jason’s community. These members are not in competition with one-another because they are from all over. They are spread out. Now they have a community that they can collaborate with.
Give your members:
- Content to learn how to do ____ faster and without having to make a bunch of mistakes.
- Build a community of people they can lean on and are in it with it.
- A leader (you, as the expert), that can walk them through whatever it is that you are teaching. Encourage and empower them they can do this too!
You don’t know how far your stone’s throw will go.
This goes back to why we started our membership site to begin with. We wanted to not only provide for our families, but help others do the same! It’s about waking up everyday and throwing your stone into the pond.
For Jason, his online membership already changed the life of a local fireman. Can you imagine how many ripples and waves throwing his stone for that person, and all of his members looks like?
Who knows? The business that your members are creating to provide for their families may be passed down through generations. A generational gift that will continue to help families for years and bless far many more people than you could ever have imagined. All because you decided to create your membership site.
Your membership will give you and your family freedom.
Jason is a full-time firefighter, has been for several years. His goal is to be able to quit his 9-5 job. He had not been able to hit the goal because it’s scary to make that leap. Now, thanks to his 189 members, they have just paid off their van and the only debt they have is for their house!
They are bringing in more money than they have ever made! Because of that, their new goal is to save up for 6 months of expenses and Jason is finally going to quit his job! His retirement form his job would have been $2,000 a month. But now, he doesn’t have to worry about losing his retirement because he is making far more than that!
Don’t lose sight of your opportunity costs. When we quit our jobs, we looked at other and said ‘what’s the worst case scenario?’ There was no real risk, it was just in our minds. We’re used to someone else paying this. We’re used to someone else providing insurance. All these other things happened that showed us it’s not as scary as you think. It’s just what you’ve always known.
Our freedom, our time spend together with our kids, that is invaluable.
Your safe, secure job is not so safe.
If 2020 has shown us anything, it’s that we need to be prepared for the unexpected.
We saw a post of the school we used to work at just a few weeks ago, in light of COVID-19. The administration pink-slipped every single athletic coach. At one point that was 1/4th of my income. There was ALWAYS going to be sports, right? There’s ALWAYS going to be teachers, right? We read an article that said based on layoffs in America, up to 10% of all teachers were going to be laid off in the upcoming, 2020-2021 school year. It also said that 1 in 5 teachers are so concerned that they are not coming back.
The only security that I have ever seen is: I go out, dig my hole, plant my seed, and water it. When this happened, we decided that we were going to plant more seeds than ever! Because of that opportunity that we have given to help others out of the position the COVID-19 shutdowns placed them, our memberships have grown during all of this. Our education company grew during all of this.
When your membership site, (whatever that is), has hundreds and hundreds of members in every US state, your risk is so spread out. You are not reliant on those people that hire you to do whatever it is, from your area. You are not reliant on that 1 employer. We could lose 100 or 200 people if we hd to and it would not affect our lifestyle. Because, our memberships spread the risk.
Online memberships, only business, perfectly equips you to be able to sustain a consistent income.
Become less accessible.
Jason already has his core members, now he has to replace churn. His next steps?
Become much less accessible and become much more of a trainer, who answers questions within his community.
Jason’s videos will now have to shift to more testimonials, much more results, pointing people towards his free trials. For him, this means leaving out information accessible in his YouTube and only giving that detailed information to his members. He will have to only answer questions from his online members.
What he can do:
- Answer one questions and do a whole video about it.
- Respond to questions with: “hey, we answer viewer questions on (whatever day at whatever time), you can log in at that time to see if we answer your question.”
- Respond to question about your membership by giving a story or example of people you have helped in a similar situation. Use it to tell that person to join your membership site so you can help them too.
You have already done the grind. Now, it is time to serve the people that are paying you, as best you can.
Giving out information de-values your paid offer. Do for a few what you can’t do for everybody. You can’t answer every single person’s question. But, you can answer your members’ questions.
How often should you offer a 30-Day Free Trial?
You continuously have a 30-day free trial! Every time you say a word, P.S. it, put it the comments, whatever! Part of being prolific, relentless, and consistent is keeping your content consistent, showing up when you say you’re going to, and be prolific with our promotion!
If you’re selling something you should be emailing your list every day and you should be selling it!
If you answer somebody’s question by telling them you can help them when they sign up for the 30-day trial. You will keep at least half of the people that join for the free trial.
When people are searching for your membership site or your specialty, they want your knowledge. They want your help. You don’t have to have a huge list, you just have to have a quality list. We would rather see 10X smaller list with 10X more conversions, than a larger list with less conversions.
Tighten up your message your message to get those people to try your trial. Pitch it every video, every email, just let people come in easily. Then you get to shift your focus towards keeping them, which is way more valuable!
Lead Magnet 101
You have to teach something. You have to prove that you are the expert. Your lead magnet is showing that you know your stuff.
With your lead magnet, you want to get people prepared to do the next part of your paid program. Wherever you start in your paid program, you want people to go into it feeling like they are ready.
For us, our free trail is typically how to find your online business idea. Because, once you have your idea we know you need to figure out if it’s making money. Or, if you’re a course sales person let us show you how to add membership to a course sales business.
Just because the free trial leads people to you, it doesn’t mean you have to focus on that. you can focus on different parts of your community.
A great way to do this is by starting a checklist. This is great in Jason’s case, because he says “do you want to know all the things you need to start a pressure washing business. Here’s our free trial and you can get access to it. If you don’t stay, you can keep the checklist PDF and go try it on your own.”
It’s just like a lead magnet, but it has a little more power. You have them put in that credit card number, you’re ready to charge them in 30 days, it gives a better chance to keep them.
Get your members to renew.
You have the members. Okay, now what? You’ve got to add that lifetime value!
Each week or every other week, prepare an email that tells what the training of the week is. All you have to do is call back to your old stuff. That way, it reminds people of all the cool stuff in there. Because, we can tell you we have X amount of training modules, tomorrow you will forget about that.
If I keep sending you emails to remind you the training of the week is ____, check it out here. It serves as a reminder and you can do it on multiple platforms.
Add an email with a video where you give a tour of the community.
Make sure people know who you are and why you’re teaching this.
Tell your story. Make sure people know who you are and where they connect with you in other places. Then, you want to make sure that you are following up and making sure they are logged, oriented in the membership and know where things are.
They days before people join, do a ‘loyalty bribe.’
Instead of just saying, ‘hey, your membership is about to renew. We’re going to charge you soon,’ turn it into a positive. Be like, ‘hey, did you know when you join the community you get a free 20 minute call with me?’ Or, ‘hey, if you renew right now I’m going to give you 20% off for the rest of your membership.’
This blue collar membership site is a great example of what membership sites can do for you and your family. The key to a successful membership is being consistent, prolific, just like the Geiman’s!
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