Starting and building a successful membership with Stu McLaren

Your Dream Business

English - October 18, 2021 00:00 - 30 minutes - 27.7 MB - ★★★★★ - 34 ratings
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Today’s episode of the podcast is an interview with the amazing Stu McLaren who a membership expert and the owner of TRIBE – a course that teaches business owners all about memberships and generating a recurring revenue. We talk all about memberships - how you can get started with your own and build it for success.

KEY TAKEAWAYS COVERED IN THE PODCAST

Memberships are not guaranteed to succeed - It takes some tweaking and figuring things out!Key components for a webinar:Get people to registerEnsure people show upMake an offerAny type of business can be turned into a success when you understand which piece of the puzzle needs you to spend energy onIt is really important to get clear on what matters right nowDon’t get overwhelmed by all the things then take no actionHow can I get started in the most simple way possible?The noise does not matter!Founding member launchCommunicate with an audience on social media or via your email list and let them know about your ideaCast the vision for where you see the idea goingInvite them to come and join you as a founding memberFollow up – send them how they can joinJust get going and beginOnce you have momentum on your side, everything else becomes easierIf no one is interested in your founding idea – you have saved a lot of time!Your membership should give your members solutions to ongoing problems or new skillsWhen you are outlining your membership, you want to create contrasts between now and the future – the journey to where they want to be.Use 1 and 3-word phrases to describe how your audience feels right now and then to describe where they will be.

THE ONE THING YOU NEED TO REMEMBER ABOVE ALL ELSE…

Don’t give up! Ask the right questions and work it through.

HIGHLIGHTS YOU SIMPLY CAN’T MISS

An introduction to Stu 06:33Making your business/membership a success 09:45Getting started with a membership 13:09Your membership roadmap 23:05

CHECK STU OUT:

Website

RESOURCES MENTIONED:

Tribe

Transcript:

Hello and welcome to this week's episode of the podcast. How are you doing? So this week I have an interview and I am very honored and lucky that Stu McLaren was able to give me some of his time and come and talk to me about memberships. As you know, I'm sure I don't need to tell you, well, you maybe new here today as if you are new.

I have a membership. I really liked my membership and therefore it was very nice to talk to Stu about memberships. However, before we get on with today's interview, I want to ask you a favor. Now I love doing the podcast. It's one of my favorite things. And I love getting lovely messages from people who said they've listened to it and they enjoyed it.

And maybe I made them laugh sometimes you never know. And I'm asking a lovely favor that if you wouldn't mind sharing this with one other of your business friends, family, Whatever, whatever, like if you're happy to share it, I would be so very grateful. If you enjoy any of the episodes, if you just want to DM them, post it on social media, whatever you want to do, I would honestly be so crazy grateful for that. You know, you know, and I know that marketing is hard and, you know constantly trying to keep yourself out there is work.

It takes work. So I would...

KEY TAKEAWAYS COVERED IN THE PODCAST

THE ONE THING YOU NEED TO REMEMBER ABOVE ALL ELSE…

Don’t give up! Ask the right questions and work it through.

HIGHLIGHTS YOU SIMPLY CAN’T MISS

An introduction to Stu 06:33Making your business/membership a success 09:45Getting started with a membership 13:09Your membership roadmap 23:05

CHECK STU OUT:

Website

RESOURCES MENTIONED:

Tribe

Transcript:

It takes work. So I would really very much appreciate that support from you as one of my lovely listeners. So thank you for that little advert over. So let's get to today's episode and interview. So hopefully, you know who Stu McLaren is. He is the guy who talks about memberships. He has a course called Tribe where he teaches people to do memberships.

Now I've had my membership for years. I help other people launch memberships and talk about them and know about them. And I never bought Tribe, never, not for any particular reason, but just didn't. And then I was working with someone who did my 90 day program and they bought it and they raved and raved and raved about it.

And I hate to say it. I got FOMO. I seriously thought I need to see this stuff. I need to go in there and look at this stuff. And I'd always liked Stu, had seen him years and years ago, uh, trafficking conversion conference. And I knew I liked his approach. So I thought, 'You know what, I'm just going to buy it to see how he manages it and what he does and what his system looks like.'

And I am like an open book when it comes to anybody else's stuff. I constantly want to see what's happening, what they're doing. Like, how they do things. So I bought Tribe and I wasn't disappointed. Now, obviously I would like to think that I know a bit more than the average person about memberships and running memberships and marketing them.

However, there was still definitely stuff that I learned because you always can learn new stuff. I don't think anybody should ever and will ever be at the point where there's not something to learn. And it was great. And one thing I loved about Stu when, because I'm not very good at like getting involved, this sounds really weird, but I'm not great in Facebook groups.

Like I struggled enough with my own and it's mine and it's part of my academy, but I am, I wouldn't even say I avoid it, I just don't. I, I just miss stuff all the time and I don't, I don't use them the way people should use them. So anyway, but I watched a bit of Stu stuff and I saw obviously when people were launching and I watched him on a couple of videos and what I loved about him was he talked about people and he celebrated launch.

Launches and openings with like, 'Oh my God, they've got 10 members. That's amazing.' And it was so refreshing because I think there's too many people out there who talk about and show examples of people who have made hundreds and thousands and millions from things that they've done. And they only use those examples.

They only use the examples of so, and so did this thing and it was phenomenal when actually when you look at the small print often says, this is not a typical result. So I love the fact that Stu was like, oh my gosh, they've launched, they've got ten members, high five. So I think he's really genuinely a nice guy.

Also, you may recognize the surname McLaren cause I had his lovely wife, Amy a few weeks ago who is also a very lovely human. So I should imagine they are just very nice, genuine people from what I have had experience of. I'm going to leave you to listen to the lovely Stu and I can't wait to see what you think.

Okay. I am very excited to welcome a very special guest today to the podcast. Welcome the amazing Stu McLaren.

Stu: Ah, I, I, that, that just feels good to be called the amazing Stu McLaren. If my kids would walk in, say, it's my amazing dad. That would be, you know, that'd be epic.

Teresa: To be honest, tapping your children a bit younger than my daughter.

She's 11. If I could walk in a room without ever even looking at me, like I was, I don't know what then that would be amazing.

Stu: So nowadays I get, 'Oh dad, you're so embarrassing.' You know, like, I, I will, I gotta tell you one, uh, one dad, when so I was in the car and I'm always trying to encourage my kids to like sing along with me in the car.

My daughter's always like, no, it's too embarrassing. But one day I was like driving, uh, her and her friends and I put on like Taylor Swift, shake it off. And Marla's friends, they were just like singing at the top of the lungs with me. And I was just like belting down and Marla, my daughter, she was like, 'oh, like maybe this is fun.'

And it was like a turning point. So like now, now she sings karaoke with me all the time. So fun.

Teresa: I love it. Honestly, you and I both I am the embarrassing mum, cause I think I'm really cool. And like, they just look at me. I have stepchildren.

Stu: We are cool, they haven't realized that yet.

Teresa: As parents. We're super cool, but like I've got 18 year old stepson and he just like, he's like, 'Yeah T. Yeah, you try it, you try and I'm alright, thanks.' Stu I am confident you do not need any introduction, but if someone has been under a rock somewhere, please tell my audience who you are and what you do.

Stu: So I help business owners create more recurring revenue in their business with membership sites, and they could be all kinds of different types of membership sites, um, from product based memberships, service-based memberships, knowledge based memberships.

Uh, but the point of the matter is, is that I help business owners generate recurring revenue. Now, how I got to this point was because I had a business myself where I was limited in how I could grow. It was a consulting business and it was really great and successful. But the point of the matter is, is that something had to give, because, uh, I got to the point where I could, the only way to grow the business was to give more time and I didn't have any more time to give.

And so I was just like, how do I fix this? Because I don't like being limited like that. And one of my friends and mentors, this was back in 2008, he suggested that I create a membership. I knew nothing about memberships, but once I dug into it, I was kinda, I was getting tripped up with all the technology. And I was dealing with things like HT access files and server settings.

And it was just way over my head. And so I was moaning and groaning to a friend of mine about this. And he said, well, why don't you just create your own solution? And I looked at him like, 'Dude!' Like, 'Are you not hearing what I'm saying?'

Teresa: I can't do the other stuff.

Stu: I can't program something like that's the whole reason I'm struggling.

And he said, well, why don't we team up together? Because he had a programmer that he was working with to create a solution. We did, a month later, we had the beta version of what then became known as wishlist member. And then a month after that, October 22nd, 2008, we started selling it and it took off. And before I know it, we had the software company that was powering tens of thousands of membership sites all around the world.

And that's where I learn. Behind the scenes of like what works and what doesn't as it relates to growing a membership, because there was a small group of membership site owners that we were serving that were growing year over year, over year. Whereas everybody else, they kind of just like would flat line. And so I was like, what, what is that small group doing?

It's growing year over year, differently than everybody else. And that's when I started to discover that there are best practices that ensure that year over year growth versus what everybody else is typically doing. And so since that, uh, I have begun teaching that and for the last five years, uh, we've been teaching it serving tens of thousands of people, uh, in helping them launch successful membership sites.

Teresa: Amazing. That feels like such a great place to learn from. That you've got these people and you're looking, going, hang on a minute, because I think this is maybe this is kind of one of the myths that frustrate me a little bit, that every membership is just going to fly and be amazing. And that just isn't necessarily the case. Is it?

Stu: No, sometimes you just got, you got to figure stuff out, but like, You know, saddens me is when something doesn't go right for somebody. And then they throw the baby out with the bath water and they say to themselves, 'Oh see, see, it was just, it just wasn't meant to be like, it's not gonna work in my market or nobody's going to buy it from me or who would want to listen to me.'

Like they throw all this future and potential possibility out the window because something didn't go according to the plan. But here's the reality, like in any business endeavor, regardless of whether it's memberships or not, but in any business endeavor, it's going to take some tweaking and a dial-in and figuring things out.

And you just got to ask yourself questions like, okay, 'Was everything a complete failure?' Well, 9 times out of 10, you're going to see no, not everything was, but what part of it was, uh, you know, uh, you know, uh, things fall through the cracks and what you might discover is that like you fix that one thing and everything else changes.

I'll give you a quick example. A client of mine, Lisa, she had come for a one-on-one private consultation. So I reserved one day a month to work one-on-one with clients. So she flew in with her husband and, uh, you know, during those days we typically tackle, you know, one specific area of the business. Um, so then at the end of the day, they, the client is walking away with like a specific plan for that.

So in her case, she said to me, she said, 'Stu, I just, I really suck at webinars.' And she said, my, 'I just can't, I can't sell.' And I said, 'Well, is that like a whole truth?' This is again like I'm asking, 'Is that a whole truth?' I said, 'Let's look at your numbers. Let's look at your webinar process. Now in her case, essentially, there's a few key components to a webinar.

Like one we need get registered people register, two, we then need to ensure that people show up for the webinar and then three, we then make an offer on the webinar. So we have these three points that we can look at. And she was assuming that she sucked at sales, but when we looked at the numbers, that was not the case.

She was actually really good at the sales. The problem was that not enough people were showing up to the webinar. So once we realized that it's just like, 'Oh easy-peasy.' Now we strategize about how to fix that one component. We fixed that one component, everything else takes care of itself. And so this is where I, you know, sometimes just wanna, you know, give, you know, entrepreneurs will kick in a butt like when they, you know, are going and they're giving up on themselves, I'm like, don't give up on yourself.

Like, no, it's just a matter of asking the right questions and, and thinking it through and working it through. Um, what I can tell you is like virtually any type of business, you can 100% turn it into a success when you start asking the right questions and identifying the right pieces of the puzzle that you need to spend energy on.

Teresa: Yes. It's such a good point. Cause like you said, and coming back to those facts and stats and like actually working out and you're right, you know, How many people did you get sign up? How many people did actually turn out? Then how many people converted? Because often when you do do the thing, if you're passionate and you're good and you're, you're going to convert them, it's going to convert because people can't help themselves.

In my experience anyway, you know, I do some bootcamps occasionally. And when I do a whole week with a bootcamp, like they get to the end and they're like, 'Yeah, yeah, what's next?' Like, but it's getting those numbers in the first place. Isn't it? And working out that startegy.

Stu: So, yeah. And like, and I would say to that, sorry to cut you off.

But I would say, I would say it's like, it's really important to just get clear on like what matters right now, you know, so often, like, you know, uh, for example, this week I was talking to a friend of mine, a high school friend of mine, who I hadn't talked to in more than 15 years. Reached out and, uh, the reason is because she left her, uh, you know, corporate job and now she's looking to start her entrepreneurial business.

And she had her knickers in a twist, worried about all kinds of things that quite frankly did not matter at this point. And what, when we chatted, I said, 'Look Michelle, the only thing that you need to worry about right now are these three things.' Which is for her which is beginning to build a teeny tiny audience.

She didn't need to get worried about like what shopping cart to use and this and all of that, blah, blah, blah. That's like down the road. Right now her focus just needed to be, I need to, uh, begin creating, uh, building my audience and building my email list. And in order to do that, I'm going to do this activity on a consistent basis.

All the other stuff it's not necessary right now. And my thing that I would encourage everybody is just like what matters most where for you, where you are right now, everything else you can just like, press pause on the worry for all that stuff. Just focus on the few things that matter to you right now. When you focus on that everything else begins to fall into place and you build momentum. And the clarity comes from being able to take action, but too often, people get overwhelmed by all the things, and then they never take action on any one thing. And then they're just like sitting there, like, uh, uh, you know, standing still type thing.

Teresa: I had someone in my membership talk to me about they wants to launch group coaching program, ongoing kind of membership thing. And they were like, for weeks they kept coming to me and going, well, what's the system like, and is this system going and how do I have you tried this on? And what's this like, and in the end I got to go and talk to her and like 'Okay.' So. We've talked about all the systems. You've looked at them all, what do you actually need to serve them today? Like if I said, start today, what do you actually... She was like, 'Well I'd need maybe a Facebook group, zoom, emails.' And I was like 'So you don't need a system then.' I said, so 'Can we just start? Like, can you just offer it?'

And she said, because she was telling me I've got people waiting for it. But why are you, you know the amount of changes? And you must see this all the time and especially in your own business as well. Like the membership, how I started on day one and how it looks today is so different. Like, cause I've learned so much stuff.

Stu: Yes. Yeah. And the question that I encourage everybody to write down is how can I get started in the most simple way possible? How can I get started in the most simple way possible? Because when you start asking yourself those questions, All of the noise you quickly realize does not matter.

At the end of the day like what matters is that you put it out there, like, I'll give you an example. So one of the things that we, uh, teach, uh, our clients and customers, our audiences to do what we call a founding member launch. And a founding member launch, you don't have to have all the bells and whistles and all the things set up.

In fact, it's involves five simple steps. So the first step is like you just communicate either on a Facebook post or if you do have an email list, create an email list, or if you, uh, if it's an Instagram channel or YouTube, wherever you are communicating with your audience. Right. And so the first step is that you communicate with this idea came that you are, uh,...