Simply Build Community Identity

0:00We are inundated with new things, new ideas, new apps, new websites, AI, politics, like the world feels overwhelming. And so what's really powerful about a membership are the ways that you can create something that simplifies the world for your customer, for your member, in this case, freelancers. The overarching thing I want to encourage you to do is think about, okay, I don't just serve a freelancer, but I serve an overwhelmed freelancer at different transitions in their journey.

0:50Hey, I'm Gina Bianchini, and welcome to the new season of People Magic, the easiest way to create a$1 million community. As you can tell, we've switched things up a little bit here at People Magic Podcast HQ, and I am really excited about what we're going to tackle. So maybe with that, we'll go ahead and kick off this episode's question. Hey, Gina, I run courses for freelancers looking to scale their business, and I want to create a membership that feels like a no-brainer to join, but also keeps people engaged for the long haul. How do I craft an offer that's simple, compelling, and built for long-term retention?

1:28I'm so glad you asked this question. I am getting it more and more. Even though at Mighty Networks, we actually support both memberships and courses, what I am seeing more and more is that people with courses are either exploring an additional membership or in some cases, they are wholesale reimagining their courses as a membership. So what are the benefits of that? So from a customer, from a member perspective, what's so nice about a membership is that it is simpler packaging for a customer who, like all of us, is totally overwhelmed today. We are inundated with new things, new ideas, new apps, new websites, AI, politics.

2:23Like the world feels overwhelming. And so what's really powerful about a membership are the ways that you can create something that simplifies the world for your customer, for your member, in this case freelancers. The overarching thing I want to encourage you to do is think about, okay, I don't just serve a freelancer, but I serve an overwhelmed freelancer at different transitions in their journey. journey. So this is super important. The whole point of People Magic is to look at your ideal member in the context of the transitions that they are going through. And I just want to add one thing overarching and on top of this that is so true and so acute.

3:12I'm having conversations all the time with people. Everybody's overwhelmed. So as you start to think about your membership, You want an offer that first and foremost goes back to these people magic principles. Identify the member and which transition they are in that you want to serve. So that's probably being taken care of by your courses. And you sort of know, is it for beginner freelancers? Is it for a freelancer who's leveling up, taking on more than their first client? What is it taking on their first virtual assistant? Whatever it might be. So as you think about your offer, I cannot stress this enough, be very clear what is the transition that freelancer is going to be able to successfully navigate with your membership.

3:59And then think about how you can simplify their life, solve their problems. Simplify their life, solve their problems. So first things first, the more that you are clear that my frameworks or my courses are going to help you navigate a transition and ultimately get to your best year ever or achieve the results and transformation that your members want and cannot get on their own, that is the first thing to really nail. nail. And again, nail it with the view towards, I serve somebody who is totally overwhelmed. Then in terms of the concrete parts of your offer. So first things first, figuring out a price.

4:48You already have your prices that you know work or don't work with your courses. So you might be at a mid-tier course, or you could be doing high-ticket courses. All of those things are possible with freelancers as your ideal customer or your ideal member. So you want to have, number one, you know, what are the results in transformation you're going to help them get through the transitions that they are going to navigate as a result of being a member in your membership or in your community? So that's going to be the qualitative and the quantitative. What will their life look like as they successfully navigate the transitions that we talked about, like starting as a freelancer or leveling up as a freelancer, being a freelancer who is also a parent for the first time?

5:38All of those things are really great at attracting the right people to your membership. Then, as you are able to articulate, what are they going to get for being a member of your community? not concretely like things you're going to give them like swag or X number of Zooms, but rather what are the results and transformation they're going to be able to get. And then you want to look at replacement and respect. Those are the other two pieces of how you come up with your price. So what's the value of the results that you're generating? What are you replacing with your membership? And you might be replacing your courses or it is how do you take the promise of your courses and deliver it more efficiently and effectively to people because of your membership.

6:26And finally, respect. And I think about this as people pay attention to what they pay for. And so what is going to be a price point that they are going to respect the membership and be motivated to contribute to your membership? And what's a price for you to respect what you are building? You've got a lot going on. You're as overwhelmed, if not more so, than you're a member. So having this really clear, this is who I serve. These are the transitions I'm going to help you navigate. This is how we price with the results and transformation you're going to be able to get. The replacement, this is better than X, Y, or Z.

7:08And just a note on pricing. We see across Mighty Networks, the average price, successfully sold price of a membership is$48 a month or$575 a year. So whatever you are building, hopefully you're already well beyond that. But if you're at that low 5 to 10, wait a second, I couldn't possibly charge for something that's more. I don't think that's the case if you are building a professional membership with and for freelancers. But just to keep those price points in mind, we found is really helpful for people. So what are members going to get for joining your membership? Now, this is a place where so many creators are like, oh, my gosh, I have to offer all of this content.

8:00I have to offer all of these calls. I have to do all of these things because they're here for me. This is a myth. You are bringing them to this membership. But the ultimate value of the membership is, number one, the results and transformation that they get. And how are they going to most effectively get those results and transformation? Build the most amazing freelance business that they could possibly imagine? They're going to get it from each other. You've created the framework in your membership. And the whole idea is that people then are stepping into it to apply your frameworks, apply your ideas, apply your course material together.

8:43And that is incredibly powerful. So what does that look like in practice? It looks like a community design plan with monthly themes. What do monthly themes bring you in a membership? Novelty. So you want your monthly theme, and maybe it's something like getting new clients or how to build a profit-first business, freelance business. Whatever that might be, you want to have something that introduces novelty, a new monthly theme every month. Then what you want to have is a weekly calendar. This is what you use to build a habit, and specifically a habit between your members so that they can get to know each other.

9:28So that might be the question of the week. That might be a weekly mastermind Zoom. That might be a profile of different members. People love to learn from the stories, experiences, and ideas of each other. So one of the easiest and most effective ways, especially if you're building a new membership, is to do member profile stories. And that is one of the fastest, easiest ways to really have members understand who else is here and what are the other folks' stories and what are they doing and how does that work? And then I love this one for a weekly calendar. You profile a member of what is their story, what's one thing they have to give and what's their one ask for the community.

10:16And then you open it up to everybody. And now it's your turn. What's one give that you have this week? What's one ask that you have this week? This is so much fun, so much fun to do and really shows the value and the power of your membership. Then you want to have regular daily questions, polls, not because it's helpful for you, although it really does work extremely well to host a community or host a membership where you're learning from your members, but rather members are able to meet each other because they might answer a question and then the conversation in that question becomes something that is more and more and more rich and interesting and people are sharing their stories, their ideas, and their experiences.

11:09You can also do small groups. One of the things that we're seeing a lot of excitement and energy around across Mighty Networks is the ability to use questions that you ask your members to automate or automatically put them into a small group or a space together because they're in a specific location or because they're in a specific location and they're brand new to freelancing or they are thinking about whether or not they want to go join a larger consulting firm or a larger creative agency. You can organize your members into small groups as well as another benefit of your membership. So to recap,$48 a month or$575 a year or more, we see a lot of memberships at significantly higher price points than that.

12:03But as you are thinking about it, really tailor your offer to your ideal member in a transition. So as you zero in on people's transitions, they are much more likely to join. And then you don't have to offer a lot of other bonuses and PDFs or extra courses or things like that if you're really clear and really effective at, I'm going to bring folks in. There's going to be amazing results and transformation that each and every one of you are going to get because I've got frameworks for you to be able to take and apply in your life. And you're going to do it alongside other freelancers who are on the same path.

12:46Why is this model more effective at creating long-term retention and really strong relationships between members? Because it is about something deeper than 15 bonuses. Now, I love a bonus. Don't get me wrong. If I can give somebody an extra PDF or if I could help them with a custom GPT that is all about how do you use AI as a freelancer, definitely those things are helpful. But not at the expense of getting those core pieces of creating that kind of people magic right. And I think that's the really important thing. Let me offer one final thought. And it's the ultimate community result and the ultimate thing that all of us as community designers, as entrepreneurs, as folks who are creating brands want to build.

13:45And that is identity. What does that mean? My friend Seth Godin says it in such a beautiful way. People like us do things like this. So as you're building this membership, people like us do things like this. That's why I just spent so much time talking about how important it is that you identify so clearly not just freelancers as your ideal members, but the transitions that freelancers will be able to navigate as a result of being a member of your community or your membership. And so as you think about what real long-term retention looks like, the more that you can create relationships between your members through what I talked about, monthly themes, a weekly calendar, daily polls and questions, the more you are able to create those connections, the longer your members will stay, the lower churn or cancellations you will have.

14:44When you are able to tap into people like us do things like this, especially for freelancers or something that is professional in nature, people don't want to leave because they're actually leaving their friends and they're leaving the thing that they have a strong identity around. So the more that you are able to create this lightweight framework for an overwhelmed person, so something real easy for them to be able to come in and instantly see the value and be able to meet other members, the stronger their bond is to the membership that you are building. And when it comes time to renew, if you do an annual membership or comes time to renew each month if they feel like they are making progress, getting results and transformation that they cannot get on their own, meeting really cool people that reinforce their sense of self and sense of belonging, and ultimately have a stronger and more clear and really pride in the identity they have as X type of freelancer very rarely.

16:00And that's the power of a membership. That's things that membership and community can bring that a standalone course, as much as I love standalone courses, they don't get you that type of identity, that type of relationship between people. And honestly, that is the future. In a world of overwhelm, a world of infinite content, Your course is not nearly as valuable as the framework that people can take and apply in their lives alongside other people who are on the same path. And that is what all of us have an opportunity to build towards and create not only incredibly long retention, but a community that essentially runs itself.

16:49So the more that you can play the role of amazing host or mentor and you spend your time thinking about the relationships that you can build between members as opposed to more content that you can produce and more content that you can produce more effectively and efficiently because of AI, the more that you are thinking about those relationships and who in your community or membership should meet and build relationships with each other, the more profound the membership will be that you are building in the lives of your members. And that's what we're all here for. We're all going to make a lot more money if people are having an incredible experience and making the best professional contacts and ultimately the best friends of their lives.

17:34That's the North Star for any successful membership and the most effective way to be able to build something that's not only incredibly predictable, monthly recurring revenue or annual recurring revenue, and something you don't have to spend a lot of time on unless you want to and unless it's fun. I don't know about you, but that's why I do the work I do. And that's why I love bringing more people into becoming hosts, becoming creators of communities and memberships that really create extremely strong relationships in people's lives. So hopefully that's helpful. I think we did this topic justice.

18:18So with that, I'm Gina Bianchini. And until next time, this is People Magic. Woo!

18:29Thank you for being a part of People Magic. I could not do this show without you. If you want a deeper dive on any of these topics, how to build a community, run a membership, choose your pricing. I have a nine part free People Magic Masterclass on our website and the link is in the show notes. This is something that I'm so grateful to have the opportunity to share with you. So hopefully you'll find it valuable. And I can't do this show without some burning questions. So everything that I tackle is something someone just like you has offered their idea or offered their question, we take it and turn it into a show.

19:09So in the show notes, there is the link to leave me a voice memo, and I hope you'll take advantage of it.