This is a listener Q&A episode of the podcast, and the question comes from the amazing Claire, who wants to know how to scale her membership program to over 100 members.
If you’ve been thinking of starting a membership program, or you’ve got one that you’d love to scale to larger audiences, this is going to be a really helpful episode for you.
Let’s jump on in.
This listener question comes from Claire Riley. You can find out more about Claire on her website claireriley.co.
Claire asks:
“How do I scale my membership program?”
Claire has been running her membership program Batch It Crazy (yes, that sounds like something else but that’s not what it is), for three years. She’s got 35 active members as of when she submitted the question, and she’s had over 70 members go through this membership in the time that she’s been running it.
She said that the members are engaged, they love the program, she loves the content and the delivery, and she also said the launches work both with time-sensitive launches AND evergreen funnels.
Claire wants to know how she can scale this to bring in more members and perhaps even have some more self-study content.
This is a really awesome question.
Before I get to the specifics of Claire’s question, I want to start by saying that I think memberships are absolutely brilliant. I especially love Claire’s membership which I’ve been a part of before.
Memberships are great because:
- You get access to recurring revenue
- You get to create an ongoing, longer-term relationship with your clients
- They do work really well with evergreen sales and funnels – especially when they’re set up really well to bring in new members and induct them into the membership
Whenever it comes to getting more people into a program – whether it be a course, membership or a mastermind – my core marketing strategy comes down to the three core things: reach, conversion and mindset.
The really interesting thing about Claire’s question is that she said when she launches it and when she sets up evergreen funnels, they both work.
The real question that I have for you darling Claire, is why aren’t you scaling it?
It clearly looks to me like your membership is doing well, it has a great conversion rate when you put it in front of your audience, and people buy it – so why haven’t you actually taken the action to scale your membership program?
If you know that you want to get to 100+ members, you know both launches and evergreen funnels work, to me it’s a simple proposition of more reach at the top of your funnel equals more conversion into clients at the bottom of the funnel.
What I want you to do specifically darling Claire, is to get clear on what the negative consequences of having 100 members in this program are.
There may be a clue in the last part of your question, which was about creating some more pre-recorded self-study content.
That gives me a clue that potentially you’re worried that if you have more members coming into your membership, you’re not going to be able to handle all those extra members. You’re feeling like maybe there’s something that isn’t scalable on the inside of the program. The marketing of your membership is completely scalable, so for me, the first thing to look at is not reach or conversion, it’s actually mindset.
Deal with the mindset stuff and also look for capacity issues.
Stressed woman at desk too busy to scale membership program
Is it because you feel too busy?
Is it because you feel like your marketing strategy is too busy right now?
Why haven’t you put in some really strong scalable strategies to get your launches in front of more people?
The most simple and obvious way to scale this membership is to simply put more money into your ad spend when you are launching, or put more money into your ad spend on your evergreen funnels.
If they work, then the next step is to scale them up.
Your homework for this episode is to deal with those mindsets things, and have a think about what the negative consequences may be.
You might think that there aren’t any negative consequences and you want 100 people in your membership, but there’s a reason why you’re not scaling it.
I find it’s always best to spend some time getting really clear and honest with yourself, and allowing yourself time to really go there.
Go to the dark side of this success and what it might mean.
If you have a subconscious fear that more than 50 people in there at a time is going to burn you out, then that’s going to stop you from bringing more people in.
If you have a subconscious fear that more than 50 people in there is going to mean that your older members are going to feel like they get less time with you and they’re not going to love it as much so they’re going to drop out, then that’s something that you need to be conscious of.
We need to bring those thoughts and beliefs to the surface so we can address them – both from a mindset perspective but also from a practical perspective. Is there something you can do to give extra love to people who’ve been in your membership for over a year?
In the Heart-Centred Business Academy, when I used to run it, I had a VIP level of membership.
The only way to become a VIP was to stick around for a year.
VIPs got an extra call every month, so that was how I could reward people for staying a little bit longer, and make sure that those longer-term clients would feel like they’re getting that extra time and attention from me without me having to give extra calls to every single person who was inside the program.
Have a look at those negative consequences, deal with any of the mindset or the practical ways that you can address that, then get that ad spend up and let’s get more people into Batch It Crazy.
Thank you so much for joining me for this episode of the Heart-Centred Business Podcast, I hope it’s been helpful for anyone reading as well.
I’d love for you to come and have a chat in the group about this episode. If you’re wanting to scale your membership program and yet you’re not scaling it, or if you feel like you’ve hit your limit on how many people you can get in per launch, let’s bring this conversation over to the Heart-Centred Soul-Driven Entrepreneurs Facebook group and continue the conversation there. All you need to do is use the #podcastaha, let me know you’ve been reading episode number 235, and share your questions, comments, aha’s, lightbulbs and discussion points about this juicy question that Claire has asked.
Until next time, I cannot WAIT to see you SHINE.
