Why Memberships Are Brilliant For Your Business

I’ve been running memberships since 2013 and I’ve always had at least one on the go since then (some of my original members are still with me). I love having memberships in my business for lots of reasons. Let me explain:

Memberships Give You Steady, Predictable Income

I’ll give you an example. I recently talked to a friend whose mum is poorly. My friend can’t really work at the moment as she’s helping her parents a lot, but when we were talking she said ‘thank goodness for my memberships’ and I knew exactly what she meant. Her memberships bring her in a chunk of money each month, like clockwork, even if she’s not working. She only needs to find an hour or two each month to manage her memberships, which she can find even if she’s flat-out busy. Her members are happy, they stick around, she can rely on that money.

It’s the same for me. My memberships have kept me afloat through some tricky times, including when my dad died and through the worst of my brain fog.

Because I have light-touch™ memberships and amazing members who tend to stay a long time, I can predict with fairly high accuracy how much money I’ll receive in membership subscriptions each month, and when those payments will come in. It gives me huge peace of mind. It also means I can PLAN around holidays, around time off for other things and around financial commitments. And then, if things ever go pear-shaped and I unexpectedly can’t work for a period of time, I know I can rely on income from my membership subscriptions. I also have a contingency plan if I needed content and coaching calls, that includes a couple of classes waiting as ‘back-up’ and a trusted coaching friend who could host Q&As for me.

Memberships Give You A Constant Offering

Another reason I love memberships is because I always have something to offer to new clients who want to work with me. If I don’t have any courses open at that time, I can send people to my membership and know they will enjoy it AND get the benefit of working with me in a group.

For many people, the time in between running courses or opening their 1:1 books is ‘dead’ time with no income other than maybe payment plans. I’ve never had that issue. My memberships are a constant.

Memberships Build Community

I love memberships because of the community aspect. There’s a saying that people come for the content and stay for the community and that’s definitely true for my business. I get to know my members and in turn they stay with me. Being able to chat to them in the group and on calls is great, as I get ideas for new training, blogs and podcast episodes every time I’m in my groups. And I’m happy to say that real friendships are formed in my membership groups, with members from all over the world.

Memberships Give Increased Customer Lifetime Value

That’s business speak for ‘they spend more with you on an ongoing basis’. Because of the recurring income subscription model, my members pay each month or year and therefore the income I make from each member although spread out over time, is often more than someone would pay for a single course.

Memberships Are A Great Source Of Sales

My members are usually the first people to buy any course or class I offer. That’s great for me because I haven’t had to pay for ads to get those sales - my members are existing customers who already know me and trust me so they are happy to jump right in to anything new I create. I also know that if I offered a VIP-level membership, certain members would upgrade immediately. Did I say my members are amazing? They really are.

Memberships are Scaleable

Online memberships are easy to scale. It doesn’t matter whether I have 100 or 1000 members, or even more because they can all access the membership content any time they like, day or night, wherever in the world they are. Even my Q&A calls are recorded - lots of the attendees are there for the live call, but even more watch the replay when it suits them. If I ever started getting too many questions to answer, I’d simply get members to submit questions in advance and I’d choose those I wanted to answer on the call while then creating blogs/videos/podcasts to answer any other questions. The only thing I would have to do is increase my community management team. We manage great with myself, my business manager (and little sister) and community manager, Mo but I could easily ask Mo to recruit and manage additional admins if required.

I’m sure there are even more benefits I’ve not covered here but I’m sure these are enough to convince you that memberships are brilliant for business.