In this two part mini-series, I’m going to be exploring the four main reasons why you’re not YET making the income you want from your Membership – and what you need to do to address these four areas!

Click on the video above to watch, on the Podcast below to listen, or scroll down to read the transcript 🙂 

Hi, welcome along to a brand new episode of the recurring revenue rocks show. I’m Laura Jeffrey is great to have you beds today. So I wanted to talk about a really big topic, which is why aren’t you making more sales, more income from your membership. So this is actually a really big topic. And from my point of view, after having worked with so many membership owners,

I’ve basically narrowed it down to four key areas, four main reasons why people aren’t making the money that they deserve to be from their memberships. So those four areas are spark selling systems and structure. So these are like four quite big areas. So I’ve decided to do a couple of episodes on these key areas of your like, so for today’s episode, I’m going to be talking mainly about spark and structure,

because these are two really, really big areas where people are basically just kind of missing out on enjoying their membership more on running it in a way that feels good to them. And therefore people are picking up on that. And they’re just, they’re not, they’re not kind of taking the bait if you like, they’re not, they’re not going in and actually investing in the membership.

So let’s break these down. So, first of all, when I say spark, what do I mean by that? So when I say spark, what I’m referring to here is the feeling that your in love with your membership, that it does something for you that it lights you up, that it makes you feel like a good person. Like it makes you feel like you’re doing what you were put here on earth to do.

It’s that spark. It’s that feeling that your in alignment with the best you, that you’re actually doing the work that you were put here to do. So if you’re missing that spark, if you’re feeling the it’s heavy or it’s hard work to run your membership or to make sales in your membership and something is seriously wrong, hair is kind of like, it’s like,

if you’re dating a new person, you say, you know, when you’ve, you’ve really got a chemistry with someone, you’ve got a spark with them, right? If there’s no spark, it’s just not going to go anywhere. You’ll be going through the motions. You’ll be feeling like it’s hard work. You’ll be feeling like the conversation isn’t flowing very easily.

You’ll feel like there’s no attraction there. When the spark is missing. Things are just so much harder than they should be basically. And the same goes for when you’re running your membership. If you’re not feeling that spark there anymore, or you’ve never felt a spark for your membership, then I really want you to address this because it’s just a great big red warning flag that something is wrong.

You’re running the wrong type of membership for you. You’ve maybe chosen a topic that doesn’t light you up. Maybe you’ve chosen a topic because you thought it would be profitable, but not because you’re actually an expert in it. Maybe you’re doing it because you think you should. There’s something wrong here. And I don’t want to gloss over this because this can actually be the biggest reason.

Like the biggest reason why people aren’t making the money that they should from their memberships. And I want you to spend some time with this. If this is resonating with you, if this is kind of like setting off an alarm for you, I really want you to pay attention to that. Because when you have got your spark, everything else is going to flow so much more easily,

and it’s going to become a breeze. Well, not necessarily always a breeze. It’s not necessarily going to be like a piece of cake, but everything is going to feel so much more easy because you’re going to be doing something that you love, like to take it back to the dating analogy. If you’re going on a date with someone who you’re just not that fussed about whether there is no spark,

it feels like something you’re almost dreading, right? You’re you’re like, oh gosh, I’ve got to go on this day. And I don’t know what we’re going to talk about. And I don’t think I even like him that much or her that much, you know, this is, this is not cool. I don’t want you feeling like that about your membership.

I want you feeling like, yes, I can’t wait, shared his next bit of content with my members. I can’t wait to launch it again because I’m so excited about sharing what I’ve got with people. You know, I’m so proud of this, all those feelings come when you’ve got that spark with your membership. And this is why I want you to spend some time with this.

If you’re not having those feelings. So, you know, take a notebook out, do some journaling on it. If you need to or go for a walk and just have a think about it. I always do my best thinking about work weirdly enough, when I’m cooking. So when I’m in the evening, like cooking up some dinner, I’ll be kind of mulling things over and different ideas pop up.

But I, this is going to take you being brave. Potentially. If you’ve set up your membership in an area or on a topic that doesn’t suit you, that doesn’t make your heart sing, you’ve got to make a change because it’s not going to get any easier. You can’t force yourself again with the dating analogy. You can’t force yourself to like someone you can’t force that spark with someone.

You can’t force that chemistry is either there, or it’s not. You’ve got that synergy or you don’t. And the same thing goes for your membership. And the reason I’m saying this is because the majority of people who are struggling with their membership and they’re getting this kind of perfectionism problem of all, you know, it’s not quite right. Or, you know,

just feeling like it’s hard work or you’re procrastinating. I think this is a really big warning sign, as well as when you’re procrastinating a lot. If you’re putting things off, like launching, like having sales conversations with people like going live to talk about your membership, if you’re putting that off and procrastinating on it, why is that? Why are you putting it off?

This is so important because if you were so proud of it, if you were so happy with it, why I always say there’s wild horses, wouldn’t be able to hold you back. You’ll be out there. You’ll be doing whatever you can select. You know, it’s so awesome. You know, it’s so good. You know that this is in your zone of genius.

You know that this is like where you are at your absolute hottest. This is you on fire. If you don’t have those feelings, you need to change it so that it is on the topic that you feel like that, and that is on you. I can’t do that for you. Your members can’t do that for you. It is on you.

And I don’t want you to shy away from that. And I know that might sound a little bit harsh. Like I should maybe sugarcoat that a bit more, but I can’t because it is on you. And I always think like something that really kind of helps me, I suppose, in my coaching. I know like it helps me to help my clients more is that I hold them to the same standards that I hold myself to in my work.

So I know that this advice that I’m giving you right now is absolutely advice that I would follow myself. So if something is feeling hard, then there’s something wrong and you need to do something about it because you know, for the next two years, five years, 10 years, whatever, I don’t want you to be dragging your feet through your membership and finding it really hard.

Like it’s hard work to get new members in something’s wrong. You need to make a change. So that is the biggest thing. When I say spark, this is where once you’ve got that spark in place, once you recognize that you’ve got a spark with your work, with your membership or your program share, it’s easy or it’s easier, but there’s always going to be hard work.

Of course, like, I’m not going to say that there isn’t, because there is like, you’re always going to have to do the work at some point, but you enjoy it. Like enjoyable work is totally different from dragging, dragging yourself along through, at work. Right. Totally different thing. So really have a think about this. What’s what’s missing is your spark missing.

If it is, you need to do something about it, you need to, because it’s not going to get any easier. So that is the spark issue. So let’s move on to the structure issue. Now, those of you who don’t know my story, I set up a Netflix style membership a few years ago and I was enrolling a lot of members and I’d set it up.

I say like Netflix store membership is in its low monthly price. And the idea is that you go out to the masses, you deliver your content on mass and you’re charging a low monthly fee and you’re getting lots of people in to reach your targets. So that is a really great business model. Lots of clients that I have in monetize your membership own that type of membership,

happy days, if it suits you that structure, that Netflix style structure, if you like works brilliantly. It’s great. I always say that that type of structure is really good for you. If you are on a mission to help lots of people like you’re like, I need to help the masses with this. Like the whole world needs to be doing this thing.

Like I always say a perfect example of that is Carrie green from the female entrepreneur association. So Carrie green had a vision for kind of helping all these female entrepreneurs who are on their own in their little offices, all around the world and uniting them and helping them to kind of learn together and collaborate together and connect together to have a better happier way of life,

less lonely way of life. So for Carrie green, she was on a mission. I say, for people like that, and Netflix, Dom memberships are perfect. Like that’s such a good business model. They also work really well. If you are like influencer level, like if you’ve got a really big following really big audience say someone like Gabrielle Bernstein,

she, you know, she’s got her membership and it makes total sense because when you’ve got a big member audience like that to have a low price point membership, which lots of people can join, it makes perfect sense because they’re there anyway. And if they’re not investing in your other things, you might as well offer them a membership so they can have a certain level of,

of content from you. It’s a great idea. But for me, when I was running that type of membership, it just didn’t sit. Right. So for me personally, I really like giving people quite a high level of touch, high level of service. That’s just me. That’s the way I am. I’m quite kind of, I really, I I’m a giver.

I like to really connect with people. I like to know about their businesses. I like to find out about it. And the problem is you can’t do that on that. You can do it with hot seating. So you can do it for say one, one person a month. You could kind of hot seat them so that everybody can benefit from that hot seat,

but you can’t do it with everyone. And my urge is always to kind of go out to everyone that I’m working with so I can help them the best I can for me personally. So I’d been running my membership for a few months in the Netflix style way. And I was kind of like getting quite a lot of members kind of flooding in, but the problem was I was charging 25 bucks a month for,

for membership. And I was including group coaching calls on that. So the more people were coming in and I was trying to help all of them on these group coaching calls. It’s simply it wasn’t the model wasn’t working for me. So I knew that I had a structure issue with my membership. So again, this is on you as it was on me at the time,

we can’t kind of keep bumbling on and hoping that things get better without making a change. Like we need to change things. We need to take the bull by the horns and make a change ourselves as business owners, you can carry on feeling resentful of your business because it’s kind of like a drag, like a draw on your energy. It will just make you feel pants about your business.

And obviously we don’t want that. So with me, with my story, what I decided to do was I changed my business model of my membership from a Netflix style membership across to a program ship style membership. So when I say program ships, this is a term that I’ve coined to describe a membership, which is a premium. So you’re charging at least a grand for membership for a set amount of time for my own program ship hit six months.

So you’re charging a premium fee for a set length of membership, and you’re not going out to the masses because it’s more premium fee. So say for me, I, I knew that I had a goal of, I think at the time it was like 300,000 a year. That was my goal to get towards. And I knew that I’d have to sell so many fewer places at the higher price point to reach that goal.

And it would mean that I’d be able to kind of provide that higher level of touch. So that was perfect for me, but I had to make the change. And that was hard, you know, because I had however many dozens of members joining up and I had to kind of go, right, I’m going to have to change this because this isn’t working for me.

So I want to put that to you. If you have set up the structure of your membership in a way that doesn’t feel good to you, that is making you feel in some way wrong or bad or heavy. I really want you to pay attention to that because you can change it. So I always say to people like, honor, honor, what your promises are.

So say for me, I’d sold in my membership, the Netflix style membership that I’d initially set up. I had sold places for full year, like 12 months for the price of 10 kind of thing. So I always say, you’ve got to honor your promises. You can’t just be like, okay, bye. I’m changing it. And you’re all going.

Now you’ve got to honor your promises. So you either refund those people or you take them along with you for the ride, which is what I did. So with my membership, I was like, I’m going to have to change this to a premium offering to a program ship model. So those people who had paid like 200 quid for the year suddenly got like a ground’s worth,

you know, because I was like, I’ve got to honor my promise. I’d enrolled them for a year and I’m changing the structure of my membership, but I’m taking them with me along for the ride. And you know what, happy days, because those clients got an amazing service from me at like 20% of the fee that everybody else was then paying,

who was joining on from that point onwards. So as long as you always honor your promises and look after your clients, like, absolutely, you could give them a refund, but you know, in business, you don’t really want to have to do that because that’s just like giving money away. Right? You don’t want to do that. So I just took them with me along for the ride and you know,

what some of those clients turned into my best testimonial stories, my best case studies, because it’s like, you look after people and they will show the results for you. So there are different ways to sort out the structure of your membership. Don’t ever feel that you’ve signed your soul away and that you’ve got stick to doing it in a certain way forever because you don’t,

you can absolutely change things up like I did. You can do that tape. So I really hope that that has given you some food for thought today. So what I’m going to be doing in the next episode of the recurring revenue rock show is I’m going to be talking to you about selling and about systems and about how you can sort those out as well,

to help you make more money from your membership. But I hope that has given you some, some inspirations data have a think around. And that is like the biggest thing I can say to you is just be honest with yourself. And if you would like to have some help with this, for me, actually helping you, like sitting with you on a zoom call,

going through this stuff, actually kind of working out where your spark issues are, where your structure issues are. That is what we do inside magnetize, your membership pro, which is my own program ship, where I help business owners, who’ve set up a membership and who simply aren’t making the money that they want from it. It’s like you’ve put in all that work and effort to get it up off the ground to get your first members in.

But now you’re like, now what, how do I grow this? What do I do next? If that sounds like you, and you want to get my help, my personal attention with you going through this together to actually work out these problems and get a plan in place so that you can actually start growing your membership in the way that you want to hit 5k months and beyond just have a look at my website,

which is recurring revenue, rocks.co.uk. And you’ll see, along the top, there is a little tab there, which is magnetize your membership pro click on that. And you’ll be able to see all of the information about how we can work together closer. So I really hope that you’ve enjoyed this episode and I can’t wait. See you next Monday for another session of the Recurring Revenue Rocks Show.