Membership Geeks Podcast with Mike Morrison

Conference season is upon us! For some that means cramming into a drab hall in a hotel out in the middle of nowhere, listening to long-in-the-tooth experts drone on for hours on end. For others, it's a chance to take time away, fly to somewhere sunny and fill your brain in between running up a huge bar bill on company expenses. Whichever end of the scale you land on; conferences represent plenty of opportunities for anyone running a membership website. Check out the 10 ways that membership owners can really get the most from industry conferences.

When it comes to membership sites, you’ll often find that people will come for the content, but they’ll stay for the community. An active community is the glue which holds a successful membership together. It’s where your members will form relationships, where they’ll receive and give support, where they’ll build connections and even make friends. It’s things like that which will keep people subscribed to your membership for months and years to come. However starting a community from scratch can be daunting. Which platform should you use? How do you get your members to participate? How do I avoid my community becoming a ghost town? Getting that initial momentum for your community is key to it becoming successful long-term; so here are my top tips for getting started with your membership community.

Have you ever thought about writing a book? Perhaps you already have? Being a published author can be a huge feather in the cap for anyone running a membership site - particularly one which is based around a personal brand, where you're the expert or thought leader. Chris Ducker knows just how powerful writing a book can be for membership owners. His first best-selling book Virtual Freedom played a huge part in laying the foundations for what has now become his Youpreneur community. And it's that very community that has since fuelled his brand new book 'Rise Of The Youpreneur.' To celebrate its release, I invited Chris back on the show to discuss how the book factors into the growth of his membership site, and the how being a membership owner has affected the process of writing a book. Episode Summary: How having a membership is beneficial to the process of writing a book. Where your book fits into your membership business. Tapping into your member-base for case studies and testimonials. Which should come first: writing a book, or launching your membership.

Your membership content comprises a large part of the ongoing value your site offers. But how do you keep momentum going once the ideas and inspiration for what content to create start to run dry? In this episode of The Membership Guys Podcast, I discuss a few effective ways to generate a continuous stream of awesome ideas for fresh membership content. Episode Summary: Ways to "crowdsource" content ideas for your membership How to identify and take advantage of knowledge gaps in your industry Methods we use ourselves inside Member Site Academy to solicit content ideas from our members What to do with the ideas that you generate

The most successful memberships are those that cater to a specific niche. Having a niche makes your offering more targeted, which increases the likelihood of someone identifying with the problem your membership solves. If you want to stand out from the crowd, you can’t just blend in with the crowd. You need to have a specialty. But how do you figure out your niche? And what happens once you’ve become successful in a specific area? Should you stay put, or expand your reach? I answer all of these questions and more on this episode of The Membership Guys Podcast. Episode Summary: Why being a specialist beats being a “jack of all trades” The biggest mistake people make once they become successful in a niche The 3 different ways to pick a niche and differentiate your offering Why “For X” is the most powerful phrase for positioning your membership

If you're trying to make more money from your membership business there are two ways you can go. One is to try to increase revenue from your existing membership site - and the other is to look at opportunities for offering additional products and services to your customers. In this episode of The Membership Guys Podcast, I explore the 7 main options worth exploring - along with the 3 avenues you absolutely should NOT go down... Episode Summary: The no-brainer areas you should focus on first to increase membership revenue How putting your price up can actually attract (and keep) more members What complementary products and services make sense for membership owners The 3 revenue streams you should stay clear of

Far too often, creating content gets confused with delivering value. Membership owners find themselves on a treadmill of grinding out epic course after epic course because they're convinced it's the only way to keep their members happy and - ultimately - keep them subscribed. It's not as simple as that. Memberships aren't a competition to see who can give members the most "stuff" - it goes deeper than that, and often you can deliver a lot of member value for a relatively small amount of effort. In this episode, I look at 4 no-brainer ways that you could be ramping up the value proposition of your membership. Episode Summary: Why providing value doesn't mean just grinding out epic content How to use your podcast and blog to make your membership more valuable The benefits of giving members priority access and preferential treatment A key part of your role as community leader that's also a major value-add

Membership pricing is an inexact science. It's natural to wonder whether you've found the sweet spot in terms of what you should be charging your members. However we've seen an increasing amount of people taking completely the wrong approach due to not really being able to wrap their head around the membership model, and as a result making some poor decisions when it comes to setting their membership pricing. In this episode, I help you to figure out whether you're actually undercharging for your membership, or if you're just thinking about it the wrong way. Episode Summary: How to determine whether you're at the lower end of membership pricing Terrible reasons for wanting to dramatically increase your monthly fee The main factors that determine the pricing 'sweet spot' What 3 choices you have if you do want to raise the price of your membership

In those early stages of running a membership, your priorities are pretty clear. Most of the time you're mainly going to be focused on getting enough new members to pay the bills, and making sure you're doing enough keep them happy. But what happens once you find yourself on solid footing with the basics? What comes next? Once you're over that initial hump, it's not all plain sailing! Truly scaling your membership comes with it's own set of challenges. In today's episode of The Membership Guys Podcast, I highlight the core things you need to be prioritizing in order to grow your membership and take it to the next level. In this episode: The most effective way to improve membership sales and retention Why (and how) to escape the day to day grind and focus on bigger goals "Solid processes are the bedrock of successful membership sites" How you can work with us to plot out your entire years membership strategy

Anyone who has followed us for a while will probably know that we tend to put more effort into talking people out of starting a membership than we do to trying to convince people they should start one. Simple reason is that there are countless snake oil salesman out there portraying memberships as something they're not. We try to save people from that. In fact we kicked off last year with a show all about the reasons NOT to start a membership! However, today's episode of The Membership Guys Podcast breaks from our norm as we take a look at some of the most compelling reasons you should consider starting a membership website in 2018. In this episode: Why Mike usually tries to talk people OUT of starting a membership website! The upsides of recurring revenue for both profitability and business stability How working 'one-to-one' limits you in more ways than you realise The importance of being fulfilled as a business owner, and how memberships help