Build a Membership Without Giving More of You

0:00We can predict with 93 % accuracy whether a community will succeed or fail based on one factor alone. It's not the amount of content. It is the number of relationships that have been made between members. That's the secret. The kind of obvious secret.

0:26Hey, I'm Gina Bianchini and this is People Magic, where I show you the easiest way to create a$1 million community. I also answer your burning questions. So with that, what's up? Who's next? Hi, Gina. I have a problem. I absolutely love creating content. I love writing my newsletter. I love public speaking, but I find my followers always want something from me. I feel like launching a membership or community will mean I have to give them even more of me, but I also want another revenue stream. I'm torn on what to do. Well, first I will say how great it is that you are self-aware enough to know what are the things you like to do and that you have clarity and self-awareness around the things you love.

1:18You love inspiring a group of people. You love being able to share your stories, your experiences, your ideas, your expertise. You want people to take what you're offering and have it be meaningful and valuable to them in their lives. That is fantastic. I also think that even though I run a platform that unlocks community and memberships and courses, and basically, you know, it's a community platform that you can monetize with memberships, with courses, with challenges and events.

2:03That's not right for you or not right for your idea, don't do it. Don't do it. Now, there are things that I've observed that content creators tend to do when thinking about or starting community that also gets in their way from being successful and scaling. And just to sort of zoom out, we've been very fortunate at Mighty Networks to work with some incredible creators, but also a lot of people that, you know, start one way and assume things are true about community and our ability to like shift their thinking, what we call people magic and people magic profit. That's why we call this podcast people magic.

2:45It's a different way of thinking about what a community can be. And specifically, here's the difference. When you come out of the content world, you think in followers and audience. I talk out at you. You talk back at me. I don't actually think anybody's really talking in the comments. And I'll take it one step further. I have seen things in the comments that makes me very hesitant to put my audience members in the same room together because they seem to have really bad ideas. I've heard that from many creators. That's not true for my followers or, or fans or community. So when you're, when you're thinking about that, I talk out at you, you talk back at me, but no one's talking to each other.

3:33That is going to be a very difficult road. If, if you're trying to take that model of an audience and just like slap it into a chat or slap it into an activity feed or slap it into even a course. It just doesn't work that well. My definition and our definition at Mighty of Community is bring a group of people together who are navigating the same transition and I'm introducing them to each other and I am giving them things to do that they can go and apply in their life. That model is actually more similar to say public speaking or a specific brand of content, which is not about an expectation that your audience is just going to consume it, but rather your members, just listen to the difference in the language, that your members are going to apply that thing in their lives and then come back and talk to each other or do it together with each other in pursuit of results and transformation that they can't get on their own.

4:44in pursuit of results and transformation they cannot get on their own. So what I have observed is that content creators take what they know, being kind of the center of attention, being the place for expertise, and they try to shoehorn that into a community or a membership where it's still about them. And then the only way that they can make it about them is if they start offering more and more of themselves to paying members. So now you actually have the worst of all worlds where everybody wants something from you and now you've actually asked them to pay you and you've given them, you know, the option of coaching or the option of, you know, my exclusive content.

5:33You're now having to do more and more and more and more stuff for them. That is not the goal. That is not the goal. So you can love content. You can love public speaking. And if you build a community that is about how your members are finding and building relationships with each other, it should not be a drag on you. Now, what do creators say when I say that? They're like, but Gina, you don't understand. Man, my members are there for me. My response to that is when you create a culture in a community, and every community has a culture, whether you've, just like every brand actually represents something to people, whether you have been explicit about it or not.

6:25When you are building the culture of your community, you want to build it explicitly so that they are able to see the value of each other. They are able through monthly themes, a weekly calendar, and daily polls and questions or daily actions, they are finding and building relationships with each other. And if you can create that dynamic, it will not be the drag on you that it will be if you're offering coaching and you're offering brand new exclusive content absolutely every week and that it's about you having to create it all. Our data is really, really clear. We have a billion data points at Mighty Networks.

7:10Like we are a platform that actually has scale in the world of community and courses and challenges and events. And what we see is that we can predict with 93 % accuracy whether a community will succeed or fail based on one factor alone. It's not the amount of content a content creator produces and adds to their community or what they offer their members in terms of exclusive time with them. It is the number of relationships that have been made or contacts that have been made between members. That's the secret, the kind of obvious secret. And so what that means is that you can absolutely create something really valuable in a membership that can scale.

8:03But if you make it about yourself, you are absolutely going to be exhausted. And if you make it about the transition that your members are going through and that that's the reason they should join and that the way that the community will be structured is so that they have their own groups that are applying your concepts in their lives and sharing their stories, experiences, and ideas with each other in pursuit of their best year ever, which is just another way of saying results and transformation. That's where the magic happens, man. That is where you can create a really compelling business. That is where you are going to be able to have something that is sustainable and that you can go write a book, that you can go travel the world public speaking and decide if you just want to spend your time making content for social media.

9:01All of that is great. You don't have to rely on brand deals, but you also have a community or a membership for brand deals. And we see a lot of folks, a lot of folks who are able to get premium brand deals because of the community of 30 ,000 members they have. So things that you can get as a content creator by having a membership beyond the revenue stream and the revenue diversification that it offers is just profound. It's just profound. And so kind of coming back to where I started, if it doesn't feel right, don't do it. But if I could offer one way of doing it successfully or at least trying it successfully is don't set yourself up as the hero in your community or the most important person.

9:59Offer, well, if you join, I'm going to give you unlimited one-on-one coaching or even like three hours of one-on-one coaching every month, you will blow yourself out and it's not fun and it will make it so you're not actually that stoked about people. The nice thing about content is that it can be very clean and like predictable and people are messy. But when you set people up with each other as the main reason that they are there, they are there to navigate a transition with each other, then it's really fun and really energizing. They're stoked you've brought them together, but it's not about you.

10:38It's not about you. It's about what you are creating and facilitating for your members to meet and build relationships with each other. And that is where the value is. The most successful content company in the world is Disney. They fluctuate in their value, but just think about them as like$85 billion in their market cap. market capitalization, which is like what the stock market says that they are worth. This kind of membership or this kind of network, those businesses are worth$1.5 trillion. So the difference between the value created through content and specifically your content is always going to be a fraction of what value you can create when you are facilitating and connecting people to each other, especially people who are on the same path, who are highly motivated to navigate a transition together, that are excited to take action so that they can have their best year ever.

11:45You tap into that. And first of all, it's just really fun. I think it's like one of the most fun businesses because it's not the kind of business that you put something out and you get zero views on it. You can bring people together and what they create and the energy and even at times the gratitude is just infectious. It is infectious and just so much fun. So hopefully that gives you a good sense of the difference between a membership, this approach that I put forth in People Magic Profit is so powerful if you don't like people that much because you're basically trying to host a party where you can quietly go upstairs and go to bed.

12:32And why I'm so passionate in advocating for it is because I have seen it work. There is a reason why there are more$1 million communities following these nine pillars than any other platform, any other framework. It's because it works and it works consistently over time. So with that, I'm Gina Bianchini. This is People Magic and I'll see you in the next episode. If you want to know exactly how to build a$1 million community, click the link in the description to get access to our full free course. Nine pillars. All you have to do is follow them step-by-step and you are going to be on your way to a really successful community.