761: Is A Membership Your Next Biz Move?

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26:47Look, I've become kind of a systems nerd and anything that gives me more space in my day, I'm all in. And a reliable connection is a huge part of that because when the internet lags or cuts out, everything pauses and suddenly the simplest tasks take forever. I learned really early on that dependable internet, it's not a luxury, it is a must. Whether you're a content creator like me, a restaurant owner, or running a busy dry cleaning business, you need that steady connection to support your team and your clients. That's why I'm excited to share a solution for my fellow business owners. Spectrum Business keeps businesses of all types connected with internet, advanced Wi-Fi, phone, TV, and mobile services, all with connectivity solutions built for your budget.

27:29And they have a truly incredible offer. Business owners can get free business internet advantage forever when you add four or more mobile lines. It's simple with no contracts and no added fees. Visit spectrum.com forward slash free for life to learn how you can get business internet free forever. Restrictions apply. Services not available in all areas. I mean, I think that we've learned so much with launching of like, there has to be a deadline and a reason. And I think oftentimes these days, so many people just let the clock make decisions for them, right? Like, oh, I'm too late. And so I love that it forces people to be decisive.

28:07And I think that makes better CEOs all around. I think it makes better investments. I think it makes better investors and better results. So let's talk about results here. So I've been a member of some memberships and I'm sure you have so much like data and stuff on it, but like I have found that less is more when it comes to what to have inside of your membership, because I have joined memberships and there is so much content inside. I don't know where to begin. I don't know if I have to do it all in order. I feel so overwhelmed. I maybe watch like one thing and I log out. Like I actually love ones that it's like a monthly training, an extra resource and maybe a template or two, like super simple.

28:53So if somebody is listening to this and they're worried, like, do I have enough information or do I have enough offers or whatever that looks like? Let's talk about that. Cause I'm guessing that I'm probably right on like simpler and streamlined is better for results. Is that right? Jenna, there's a reason that you're so good at what you do because you have your finger on the pulse of exactly the right issue. The number one reason that people cancel from all memberships is not that the content isn't any good. The number one reason that people cancel from a membership is overwhelmed. It's not that they don't like it.

29:28It's not that they're not passionate about the subject. It's just to your point, there's so much that it creates overwhelm. And as soon as the seed of overwhelm is planted, it's a matter of time before that member bails. So how do we combat that? Well, the most important thing, especially in the beginning comes down to your onboarding. And I'm going to walk you through three ideas that everybody should just soak in. And PS, these are super relevant. If you've got a membership and or a course or anything that you are teaching people. But the first C comes down to consumption. We want to drive consumption as early as possible.

30:07And that really boils down to helping people get clear on what they should be focused on right now. So more tactical approach is that when people join a membership that we recommend, we encourage people to have a survey, an onboarding survey to ask that new member a few questions to help gauge where are they in this journey? Are they in the beginning stages or are they further along and much more advanced? Because I'm going to throw it back to you, Jenna. If you were a beginner and you saw a whole bunch of advanced content, how do you think you would feel? Overwhelmed. Like I could never do it.

30:45Exactly. Now let's flip it. Let's pretend that you are much more advanced and then you logged in and you saw beginner content. How would you feel? underwhelmed, underwhelmed. You're like, I'm so beyond this. This is not what I was looking for. I'm out. So if you're providing a one size fits all experience for your members, guess what's happening is you're actually alienating the vast majority of people. But if we can meet people where they're at, ask them a few questions, identify, ah, yeah. Okay. This person's more in the beginning stages. And then we can say, okay, because of where you're at in this journey, here's what I recommend for you.

31:20That clarity lifts the weight off of people's shoulders. That clarity eliminates this, oh my gosh, I got to learn all these things. I got to go through all this content before I can get the result. No, no, no. It's just like, listen, forget about 90 % of it. Just focus on this 10 % right now. And if you focus on this 10%, it's going to help move you closer and closer toward the outcome that you're after. So when I talk about clarity, I'm talking about getting clear on what does that journey look like for that member? That's something that we call a success path that we help people map out. And then asking them a few questions when they first come in to help identify where are they in that success path.

32:00And then based on that, suggest content that is relevant for them. Does that make sense so far? Yeah, totally. And I know I'm taking a membership that you were involved in and helping with. And it was like, even the minute you sign up, it's already guiding you on that path. So you're, you practice what you preach. Well, clarity is a really big deal because people are excited about getting an outcome or a transformation. But as you said before, if you just dump them into a library of a whole bunch of stuff, that excitement disappears almost instantly and it turns into overwhelm and that's not good for anybody.

32:37So number one is help them get clear. Number two is help them connect. so inside of a membership if we can help people create one meaningful relationship it can make all the difference and i'll give you an example of this in real life so a few years back my family and i we moved to a brand new area so we don't know anybody in this or we didn't know anybody in this area and that meant our kids were going to a school where they didn't know anybody so as parents you know you get a little bit like nervous you know you just want the kids to feel settled. And I remember that first day we walked the kids to school.

33:10My daughter, Marla, at the time she was 10. My son, Sam was seven and we drop them off. And I remember Amy and I were just like, please just let them like have a good day. You know, like that's, that's all we wanted. So then we come back at the end of the day and all the bell goes and all the kids are coming out and I'm kind of like watching and, and trying to find my kids. And I see Marla come out first and I'm looking at, you know, the expression on her face to try to gauge, like, do I need to prepare? Like, was this a good day, bad day? She comes out, massive smile on her face. And I said to her, I said, Marla, I'm like, how is this?

33:42She's like, dad, this is the best school ever. I'm like, really? I said, tell me why. She said, well, you know how I went to Montessori school? And I said, yeah. She said, there's another girl in my class that also went to Montessori school. I'm like, that's awesome. She's like, but dad, it gets better. I said, how? She said, well, you know how I love horses? I said, well, of course. She's like, there's another girl in my class that also rides horses. I'm like, get out of town. She's like, but dad, you know, the new barn that I'm about to ride at? I said, yeah. She said, her mom owns the barn.

34:14I'm like, shut the front door. I'm like, are you serious? She's like, yeah. She's like, this is the best school ever. time out. Her framing of this being the best school ever was because she made one meaningful relationship. What does that mean for you and I in a membership? We don't need our members to know everybody in the membership. We just need them to form one meaningful relationship. And we can do that in a whole bunch of different ways. You can do that if you've got a discussion forum and you guide people with questions to introduce themselves. And then when they do, you tag others in the membership who also have similar connections.

34:55You can do this with a member directory as part of your onboarding, asking questions. Like in our membership, we ask, do you have a podcast? Are you open to interviewing other guests? Do you have a membership that you are interviewing other guests? Would you like to be interviewed on podcasts or memberships? You know, would you like to connect with people in your local area? And when they answer yes to those questions, when they come to the directory, they can sift and sort through and find other podcast guests, other people they can interview in their membership. They can collaborate together.

35:24They can connect with each other. There's been all kinds of pop-up gatherings inside from our members who are together in Vancouver, are together in Nashville. And because of the directory, it helps facilitate that connection. One meaningful connection can frame up the whole experience. So number one, help them get clear. Number two, help them connect. And number three, most important is help them get results. So just like we talked about with that success path, many times people only focus on the big wins, right? Like in my case, that would be somebody launching a membership and welcoming thousands of members or somebody, you know, who has launched a membership and has now got a million dollar membership, which there are a whole bunch of examples.

36:06I'm happy to unpack them. But if we only focus on that, we lose sight of where most people are in this journey. They're not there. Where they are is they're looking to do their founding member launch. They're looking to welcome their first members. And those are the stories that are just as powerful. So when we think about the journey, don't think about the end goal as the only success metric. There are all kinds of wins along the way like oh sugar plum oh here it is jenna this right here yeah is is a plaqued picture and this was from 20 years ago in 2004 when i made my very first online sale it was seven dollars and 95 cents.

36:57And I remember Jenna, my now wife, girlfriend at the time, we flew to LA and I had set up this digital product and I was so excited. I'd spent months trying to get this thing ready and I'd set it all up. And my brother-in-law was working with us at the time. And every day he'd come in, he's like, have you made a sale? No. Have you made a sale? No. Have you made a sale? No. Like it was like, you know, he was living ficariously through me, but I hadn't made any sales. And then Amy and I, we fly to LA and I said to her, I said, babes, we got to get up. I got to up to the room. I got to, I got to check the internet.

37:30I got to check my stats. Like there was going to be like this flurry of sales that came in while I was on the plane. Right. But anyway, I'll never forget this moment. It gives me goosebumps, like sharing it again with you, but we get up there and I log in and there it was$7 and 95 cents. And I was like, Amy, I'm like, this is it. I'm like, you got to take a picture right now. Like one day, this will be on the cover of Inc Magazine. I swear. And she's like all excited for me. And she's taking a picture. But the reason that that moment is so significant is because I've gone on to generate hundreds of millions of dollars in online sales.

38:09We've gone on to generate tens of millions of dollars for our charity and our nonprofit. None of that would have ever happened if I had not made that first sale of$7.95? Because in that moment, I was filled with confidence. I had momentum on my side. In that moment, I believed that it was possible. And that belief is the thing that is gonna move anybody forward when they're trying something new. So in a membership, results matter. And not just the big wins, but all the little wins in between. And so we obsess over helping people experience progress. Slow progress is still progress. That's a mantra in our community.

38:54Slow progress is still progress. We want people realizing how important a$7.95 sale is to the bigger goal of building a million dollar business as an example. And the same is true in any community. Like the first time a photographer gets a paying client, that's a huge deal right huge deal or the first time that somebody completes a painting that they're proud of that they want to put up on a wall that's a huge deal or the first time that their dog actually obeys the commands that they're putting and is not chewing and peeing all over that's a big deal so we want to celebrate all the little wins and at the end of the day jenna with all my experience helping tens of thousands of people with memberships i've never heard of anybody canceling a membership site because they're experiencing too much success.

39:47Like that doesn't happen. Somebody doesn't say, you know what, Jenna, I'm experiencing way too much success. I got a piece out of this membership. It doesn't happen. So if you focus on helping them get clear, you focus on helping them connect and you focus on helping them get results, your people will stay and they will stay not for months. They will stay for years. That is so cool. I love that. And I love that story. I was just talking to our mutual friend, Amy Porterfield, not your wife, Amy. And I was just telling her about the first time I ever got my work in a magazine as a wedding photographer.

40:18And like, I remember like skipping out to the mailbox and we lived in a condo at the time. So it's like one of those towers with like all the mailboxes and like waiting to get the magazine. And I love watching people get that win, that first win of like that proof of concept or like that feeling of like, this wasn't crazy. This is all worth it. And so the fact that you get to do that month over month is really powerful, which I think is really awesome. When we were young, we dreamed of castles and fairy tales. And as we grow up, those dreams might shift into building something real, like starting a business.

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41:56Can you believe that we're already wrapping up 2025? This year was packed with travel and so many new memories. One of my favorite moments was our team retreat in Arizona with the incredible women who helped me keep this business running. I also recently took the kids to Nashville during fall break and somewhere in between I squeezed in a trip to Puerto Rico with friends. We booked some of our most memorable stays this year on Airbnb. There's something special about finding a place that doesn't just look great in the photos but actually feels welcoming the moment you walk in. That this feels right kind of feeling.

42:29If you've got trips coming up whether it's a family vacation, a retreat or a work trip, your house will probably be sitting empty while you're gone. Have you considered hosting your home on Airbnb and letting it work for you? It's a simple way to earn some extra income that can be put towards a future trip or home improvement projects. Your home might be worth more than you think. Find out how much at Airbnb.com forward slash host. Can I tell you part two of that story? Yeah. So at our wedding, my brother-in-law is retelling this story to the audience and he's telling everybody how he had watched me like struggle to figure out how to build a website back in 2004 like it wasn't as easy as it is today and and how I struggled to set up autoresponders and the shopping card and the payment processor and how you know I you know struggled and struggled and struggled but I finally got through it all, finally got the product online and how I started buying ads.

43:31And that was one of the things that, you know, I kept hearing people say was like, it's just a numbers game. You know, you just got to get more people there. And eventually it'll come. So anyway, every day he was telling the audience every day he'd come in, have you made a sale? No. Have you made a sale? No. Have you made a sale? No. Then he tells the audience, I was getting so depressed asking him if he had made a sale and nothing was happening. So when they flew to LA, Don't tell me he was the person who bought it. I asked a friend of mine that he didn't know if she could just go and buy the product.

44:03And I remember Jenna, he said that and my jaw dropped. And literally, like, tears start streaming down my face. It gets me, it's moving me again right now. because he had no idea the significance of that moment. He had no idea how important that first sale was in my journey as an entrepreneur. And so he did it as a fun, kind gesture, but that first sale was everything. It laid the foundation for everything. And so it's funny in a sense because like my first sale actually really wasn't a first sale from a stranger. But at the same time, it really emphasizes the importance of those little wins and how they stack up to the big wins.

44:57Just like your first magazine, huge win and it leads to everything else. Oh, I love that. I love that so much. So I want to know before we sign off, what should somebody consider if this sounds really interesting to them or they're like just more curious or maybe they were like me and they were a total skeptic and they're like wait I can be consistent I can get people results I can connect people what would be like the most logical next step for somebody to take well you know this is going to sound bold for a lot of people. But if you have an audience of 200 people or more, you have everything that you need to launch.

45:41And I know that the voices in people's heads are going to start creeping in. Well, wait a minute, Stu, like I'm not exactly clear on everything that I'm going to provide in my membership. Wait a minute, Stu, like I don't know what my content is going to be. Wait a minute, Stu, shouldn't I have like a whole bunch of content figured out? Wait a minute, Stu, what about the tech? What about the setup? Like their heads are starting to ramble. But the good news is you don't even have to worry about any of that stuff. With a founding member launch, you just have to put out an invitation. And what we're doing is we're looking for a group of people who believe in you and are wanting the outcome that you're promising.

46:18You may not know exactly how you're going to get them to that outcome, but they're in for the outcome. And then all we do is wherever you communicate with that audience. Maybe it's on Instagram. Maybe it's on a podcast like this. Maybe it's via email. Maybe it's via Facebook. Wherever it is, wherever you communicate with your audience, you're going to make a post and you're going to invite people to join you as a founding member. And there are five steps. Do you want me to run through them, Jenna? Yeah, let's do it. First step real quick is we're just going to communicate the idea. And you could say something like, you know, I was listening to this crazy Canadian on Jenna's amazing podcast.

46:58And he was talking about the idea of bringing people together who have a shared passion and interest. And it got me thinking, it got me thinking, wow, like what if we did this for people like us, for people who are wanting to accomplish X, for people who are wanting to achieve Y, like, wouldn't that be amazing if we could create this incredible community, a supportive community where we're there cheering each other on, supporting each other, helping each other, guiding each other to that outcome. So first step is talking about the idea. Second step is casting the vision. And you would say something like, now I don't have any of this created.

47:36Right now it's just a raw idea. But here's where I see this going. And boom, you start casting the vision of what you see a potential community becoming. Step three is then we want to extend an invitation. And this is where people get all squirrely because they're like, what do you mean? I'm going to invite somebody to something I haven't created yet? Yeah, just stay with me. So you would say something like, I don't know if this is of interest, but if you're curious at all, I want to invite you to come join us as a founding member. I'm thinking that I'm going to open registration for this at say$30 a month, whatever the price point is,$30 a month.

48:19But if you join me as a founding member, I'd love to give you a substantial founding member discount. If you join me as a founding member, it'll be$15 instead of 30. So, and not only that, but I want to provide that founding member price for as long as you stay a member in good standing. So when we do launch and the price doubles, your price will always remain the low founding member price of$15 a month. So you'll have an ongoing savings. But more than that, as a founding member, like the most important thing is I want your feedback. I want your insight. I want your, to help me shape the future of this membership.

48:59And so if you'd like to join me, and then that leads us to step number four, you want to give them a call to action. Now this is again, people often think that, Oh wait, I don't, I don't have time to go create a whole sales letter, a whole sales video. I don't have time to do a webinar. Like they get all their knickers in a twist. Stop it. All you need to do is just go create a PayPal checkout link. You know, I was sharing this at one of our live events. It was a woman in the audience. Her name was Anna Saucier. She was hearing me say this and she's like, you know what? Like I, she had a Facebook group of 326 people and they were infertility practitioners.

49:33And she's like, doggone it i'm i'm just gonna go for it i'm gonna i'm gonna legit follow like this framework so she was actually there with a relatively young baby like i want it wasn't a newborn i think the baby was like three or four months old but it was still meant that she was like breastfeeding still had the baby in her arms but she's like i'm gonna go for it anyway so she made the post on facebook and followed the exact outline that we're talking about 326 people in the facebook group her goal was to generate$5 ,000 from this founding member launch. And so instead of offering people a monthly discount, she said, I'll give you lifetime access for this certain amount.

50:10I think it was like$300. And so what ended up happening was she started getting responses because all she didn't have time to go create a sales letter or anything. She's at the event. So she just says, if you're interested, just send me a direct message. So people would send her a direct message and she just send them a PayPal link. Well, I'm not kidding you, Jenna. She was legit, you know, event is over. She's going to the airport. She's trying to get back to people on her phone. Like some of the other people in the conference saw and heard what she was trying to do. So they're helping her with the baby.

50:39They're like carrying the baby. She's trying to get back to people on the phone before she gets to the flight. She ended up generating$5 ,024 from her founding member launch from a Facebook group of 326 people. So I share this because the fourth step is you got to give people a call to action. My favorite call to action is send me a direct message because I don't like saying, Hey, say yes in the comments, because what if nobody says yes, then my fragile ego gets crushed. But if, if I just keep it to the direct messages, then nobody knows if one person or a hundred people said yes. Right. And so I love doing it that way.

51:14And then you just send them a checkout link. Just could be a PayPal link. It could be a quick checkout page, whatever it is. And then the final step, number five, is the follow-up. So just because you get a lot of interest doesn't mean you've got paying members yet. So if you see that the people you've sent the link to have not signed up as a founding member, then you wanna follow up and you wanna have a deadline by which the founding member launch closes. But if you follow those five steps, you have a post that first communicates the idea, then casts the vision, then extends an invite with a call to action and then you follow up, you will be shocked at the momentum that you will gain from this founding member launch.

51:59And I could tell you story after story after story. Like Jennifer Chamberlain, who's in our community, she's a 50-something grandma. And she, in her words, would never ever have envisioned herself starting a business. But she had a passion for helping other women her age reconnect with art. So she's like, you know what, I'm going to do it. So she does her founding member launch. She welcomes 20 founding members, which was amazing. And that created the momentum that by the end of the first year, she had grown it from 20 founding members to a hundred members. And then by the end of the year too, she had grown it to 200 members.

52:38And then in year three, she started to realize that self-limiting belief that she wasn't a business woman was disappearing. And she was stepping into that new identity. And she hit her inflection point. She went from 200 members to more than 2000 members in year number three has a multimillion dollar membership, helping women learn how to paint. And it all started though with that founding member launch and 20 members. So when you ask, what's the first thing that people should do if they're curious? Well, if you know, this is something you want to move forward with, I'd follow that five-step process for a founding member launch.

53:19And in that moment, you're going to discover very quickly whether the messaging is in alignment and it's going to create momentum. And you're going to learn so much from doing versus waiting, waiting, learning, researching, researching, learning, waiting, and never getting it out the door. Yes. Oh my gosh. This was like a masterclass in and of itself. Thank you so much for walking through all of that. I feel like people can take literal action today and start to get that proof of concept that you and I talk about that literally changes your life and the trajectory of it forever and ever. Where can people learn more about what you're teaching?

54:00How can they learn more about memberships from you? Well, I have a super incredible free workshop that's coming up and we run this one time a year. And during the free workshop, Jenna, I'm actually gonna walk people through how to get super clear on who is it that you serve and specifically, how is it you're going to serve them inside of a membership? Because most people think they've gotta have broad, you know, markets that they're going. No, like take Bonnie Snowden as an example. She in two years went from zero to a million dollar membership. And she teaches people how to draw realistic animals with colored pencils.

54:41Like listen, how specific that is teaching people how to draw realistic animals with colored pencils. You can find her on Instagram. If you go to Bonnie Snowden Academy, it's amazing. But anyways, during the free workshop, we show people and walk people through exactly how to get clear on your idea, exactly how to know if your market is a good market for a membership. We'll walk through the founding member launch. We'll walk through how to market. We'll walk through how to structure your content and how to retain members and so much more. This is my favorite time of year because this is the time of the year when we bust through all of those self-limiting beliefs, all those fears, all those reasons why people should have a membership and have not moved forward.

55:25We walk through that and there's nothing more that I love than watching people break through those self-limiting beliefs and get into action and make it happen. So it all happens during a free workshop that's coming up. And I think Jenna Kutcher.com forward slash membership is where people want to go. Yes. Everyone go to Jenna Kutcher.com forward slash membership. Learn from Stu. Stu, you have convinced me. I actually have a lot of ideas brewing in my brain right now. We have to get off of this podcast so I can start to take action. Thank you so much for coming on the Gold Digger podcast, Stu McLaren.

55:59This was such a treat. You're a treasure and a treat yourself, Jenna. Thank you so much. I'm not even lying when I say that the wheels are turning in my brain right now. I feel like Stu broke things down in such an easy to understand way. And if you are someone who has been consistently creating content or showing up online, oh my gosh, this could be an incredible addition to your current business or be the business that you begin. If you want to learn more from Stu, which I'm sure you do go to Jenna Kutcher.com slash membership. That's Jenna Kutcher.com slash membership to learn more from him.

56:34He is the absolute master of memberships. And if you want me to create a membership on business and marketing, let me know, slide into my DMS. I want to know if you guys are interested in this idea. And just like Sue said, I haven't created a single thing, but I'm definitely thinking about it now. So let me know if that's something you'd like to see from me and my team in the future. Thank you so much for listening to another episode of the Gold Digger podcast. Until next time, keep on digging your biggest goals. I'm over here giving you a virtual high five because you just finished another episode of the Gold Digger podcast.

57:08Did that go by way too fast for anyone else? If you want more, head over to golddiggerpodcast.com for show notes and all the discount codes from today's sponsors. And if you're looking for a new crew of movers and shakers like you to bounce ideas and ask questions, be sure to join my exclusive community for Gold Diggers on Facebook. The link's waiting for you at golddiggerpodcast.com.