Membership Talk with Stu Mclaren || The Social Easel

the go live button, so hopefully we'll pop up here in just a second.

You never know when we're actually live. That's the tricky part about this.

I know, because on the Zoom screen it says we are, but I'm not showing up live over on Facebook yet. So I'm gonna pull you up on my phone. Okay, we are live.

Yay!

Hi everybody. So this is a different kind of live with me today. This, I want to introduce you guys to my Business Coach, Sue McLaren with TRIBE. Most of you have heard me talk about him before because I owe him everything for the business that I have today. But he is here to answer all of your questions about building a membership online. So, to. I'll let you kind of tell them, tell them what you want to tell them.

Well, listen, first of all, you don't owe me everything. You need to take credit yourself because you put what we are going to be talking about into action, and that is the most important piece. You know, at the end of the day, like, we can learn and learn and learn and learn and constantly be stuck in learning mode, but at some point, if you want to make forward progress in your business and in your life, you got to do and take action. So, you know, I want to, I want to acknowledge you for that because this is the most important piece of the puzzle. But what we're, you know, what I'm here to share about, and I'm happy to answer any questions that anybody might have, so type them in the comments below, let us know. But at the end of the day, why I am so excited about this time right here, right now, is that never before has this been a more exciting time to own a business, particularly for those of us who are more creative because now more than ever we can reach more people, we can help more people, and we can inspire more people through what it is that we do thanks to the internet, number 1, and number 2 is being able to serve them in a way that gives us as business owners a heck of a lot more leverage. And so what we're talking about here is membership sites and subscriptions and it's the same reason why big companies like Amazon, Apple, Netflix, Spotify, they've all moved to a subscription model. Heck, even companies like Walmart and Burger King are moving to a subscription model. And so it doesn't matter whether you have a product-based business, service-based business, a knowledge-based business, or community-based business, you can generate more recurring revenue through memberships and subscriptions. And what I love about you, Christie, is like you are a shining example of how it's being done for those who are in a more artsy or creative business. And there are many examples of this. And that's what's exciting is because it doesn't matter what market you are in, there is a way to be able to do this so that you can continue to serve your audience and grow your business at the same time.

Yeah, absolutely. And you know, when— just so everyone knows, when I started this, it's been a year since I started my membership. I had You guys know I've had a local business for 5 years, but that was it. It was local. I did not know anyone outside of Springfield, Missouri. And I worried about that when I joined TRIBE. And I was like, I don't know, I'm just going to do it. I think it's going to work. And, and he's right. You have to, you have to do the do. You can't just join a course or a membership and then not do what you're supposed to. I did what I was supposed to. I kept doing what I was supposed to. And now the crazy thing is my audience is more nationwide. Than it is local, which is crazy to me because I didn't even think that was possible. And it's allowed me to reach people all over the United States and teach people everywhere. I have women from almost every state and in Canada.

So shout out to the Canadians. That's awesome. And talk about like, let's dig deep into this a little bit because before your business, it was, as you said, you were serving a lot of people locally. So talk to us about what, you know, what that looked like.

So yeah, before I started the membership, and I still do it, I just taught local paint nights. So like all these paintings behind you, you know, I come up with the designs and then I would take them to a restaurant and I would teach. So in that, you know, to about 2 hours span of time, I'd walk everyone through step by step how to do the painting and they would leave with their painting. And so, you know, especially when I was really growing and really busy, I was gone somewhere between 2 to 4 nights a week. And just this last launch with Tribe, my last time I opened a membership for new members, I gained enough members and built my membership up enough that it has allowed me to back that down, which I know some of my local people are not thrilled about, but family first. You guys know I have 3 girls, high school, middle school, elementary. Volleyball is over. Yay. But, but I just, I had a scare with my oldest a few weeks ago and long story short, she was hit by a FedEx truck while we were walking across the street and she's okay and it was a miracle and she's perfectly fine, bumps and bruises and that's it. But when I came home from that, all I could think was, I just wanna be with my kids, that's it. And having this membership has allowed me to step back and not feel like I have to work those paint nights and be gone from my family at night. That if I want to stay home and cook them dinner and just hang out at the house, I can do that now, and I don't have to stress about filling a classroom full of people. So on a deeper level, this, this means a lot to me, you know, and what it's been able to do for my life.

Well, I think you hit the nail right on the head there, Christie. It's, you know, yes, a membership site does produce recurring revenue, and yes, that, you know, tends to be the focus of it, but it's not about the money. It's about what the money makes possible. And, you know, for you, I know that this was a big— the reason, the big driver for you was to be able to spend more time, you know, being with your girls, going to their volleyball games. And, you know, what happened with your daughter is like, holy cow. Horrific. And, you know, I remember when you made the post, like, my heart, like, dropped. Like, I couldn't even think about that happening to one of my kids. And I can understand, like, how comforting it is to know that you don't have to go and do a paint night, that you can be there, be present for the people that matter most when they need you most without that pressure of, like, having to go and hustle and, you know, and generate the revenue. And that's the bigger reason why we do this. You know, like, this is the reason why I get lit up to be able to help business owners in all kinds of different markets. Because again, it's not about the money, it's about what the money makes possible. And whether that's like spending more time with your loved ones, whether that's, you know, contributing to causes that you're passionate about, whether that's having more time to volunteer in your local community, it doesn't matter. It's about what that money makes possible. And what I know for sure is that a recurring revenue stream for any business owner, it eliminates a ton of stress because you're no longer hoping that people are going to come back and buy from you again. You're no longer always searching for new customers. You just take care of the ones that you've already got and they'll take care of you. And that is a beautiful, beautiful thing.

Yeah, absolutely. I mean, as an artist, and I know speaking to other creatives out there, you guys will relate to this, there's always that fear in us when we create something. What if nobody likes it? Like, what if I put this event out there and like one person signs up for it instead of 40? Then, you know, you feel like a failure. But you constantly worry about that. You put all your eggs in that one basket of those events working for you, and if they don't, you've got nothing to fall back on. And this has allowed me as an artist to explore more and not be so worried about that because my members now love me and they signed up because of the way I teach and what I teach. And they trust me and they know that whatever I'm gonna come up with, they're gonna have fun with it and they're gonna like it. And it's allowed me to expand my horizons as an artist, which in turn expands theirs. So it's a really cool win-win as far as that goes too.

Yeah, and especially because like one of the ways that we talk and encourage people to structure a membership site, it gives you a lot more bandwidth 'cause you're not always like promoting, promoting, promoting or hustling, hustling, hustling trying to find new members. So, you know, we have a couple times a year when we sell, but the rest of the time we are all hands on deck with our members. And that gives you that creative space to explore and play and create. And that, you know, is, there's a lot to be said for that without, you know, that constant pressure of like having to, you know, go out there and find new customers, find new clients, find, you know, new people to attend the paint parties and so forth. And so, you know, it's a really important thing, especially for creatives to be able to have that space to have that bandwidth. I know my wife is kind of in that right now. She's in the midst of, you know, writing a book. And, you know, it's a busy season. She's just like, I have no brain cells to be able to, you know, be creative and go deep on this. And so we're looking at that, like we're literally having to carve time out on the calendar so that she can get into that space. And that's why I love membership sites is that you can have that space to be able to go deep, get creative, and unleash that other side of you.

Yeah, absolutely. And it's just been, it's just been awesome what it's done for my, for my members and, and also for me. So I know there are some people, first of all, that are wanting my shirt because I call— this is my TRIBE shirt that I got from Stu. So I don't know if you guys can read that. I'll show it to you later. But we have people wanting this.

That's awesome.

My membership is called Christie's Inner Tribe. So I have some tribers too. So I might have to come up with something similar.

Nice.

But I have, you know, people may be worried about what if they don't have a big enough or what if they're worried they don't have a big enough audience? Like, what would you say to people in that realm?

Well, you know, and truth be told, like I have been helping business owners create membership sites for for more than 10+ years. And I've literally worked with tens of thousands of people in all kinds of different markets. And my background, by the way, is I used to own a software company that was the world's number one membership platform for WordPress. So we were powering over 70,000 online communities and membership sites, and I was behind the scenes and got to see, you know, what were the sites that were growing year over year doing differently than those that weren't. And I started to uncover and notice that there was a whole bunch of unconventional strategies that they were using that the others were not. And so I started focusing on those people and what their strategies were. And I started to see trends and I started to see patterns. And initially, I used to think that you needed an audience of, you know, 5,000+ to be able to do a successful membership site. But the beauty about TRIBE and our TRIBE community is that our tribe community has proven that not to be the case whatsoever. You know, you don't need tens of thousands, you don't need thousands. In fact, you only need a few hundred. And there are many examples of this, like, uh, Wendy Batten is a great example. So Wendy Batten helps paint store retailers, and so tiny, tiny niche. Again, not tens of thousands, not thousands. She had about 460 people in her audience when she launched. She welcomed 59 members into her membership, generating $2,800 a month in month number 1. Now she's since grown that in the last 12 months. She has more than 100 100+ members and it is a huge part of her business. Or there's the story of Marianne Cain. So, Marianne Cain, she had real urgency to launch her membership site because while she was expecting her first child and so she's like, I wanna get this business baby out the door before I have my real baby. So, she launched her membership site to a tiny audience of 250 and it was kettlebell workouts for women. And she welcomed 52 members into her membership. Or one of my favorites is Anna Saucier. So Anna, who was at our live event, we hold an event one time a year, and she was at TRIBE Live and she was hearing the stories of people up on stage and was getting incredibly inspired by the fact that these are real people, like the people I'm talking about right now, they're real people. Christie, she's a real person. And so I'm sharing the stories and then Anna was hearing them share their stories and she was so inspired, she's like, you know what, like I'm gonna go for it. I'm gonna launch my membership site. Right here. And she didn't have everything ready. She didn't have, you know, any sales material. She didn't have any videos. She didn't have anything ready. She didn't even have the membership site ready. But what she did was she just used what we call our founding member script, and it's just simply like an email script. And she sent that to her audience. And again, wasn't tens of thousands, wasn't thousands, it was 326 people. And she sent this email to those people and she cast a vision of what she saw her membership becoming. And she said, if you'd like to join me, just send me a direct message. They would send her a direct message, she would send them a PayPal link, and in the matter of 24 hours, $5,024 was generated. And that created a ton of momentum for her. Now she is in, she helps fertility practitioners, but again, not tens of thousands, not thousands, she had just a few hundred. And so what I know to be true is that smaller audiences is actually an advantage when it comes to conversion rates, meaning that like you will have more people in a smaller audience typically join your membership because you have a more intimate and deeper relationship with those people. You know, when the audience grows, you know, there's an advantage in terms of scale, but you lose that intimacy, you lose that personal touch. You know, overall the conversions come down when, as your audience grows bigger. When your audience is smaller, you have that intimate relationship with them, and so you will see more people join. I mean, what was your experience like, Christie, when you launched yours?

So I did something similar. I had a, I had a base idea of what I wanted because this was right when I joined TRIBE, and I was already in the midst of doing it but didn't know all the right things to do. So it was kind of like I launched it to my local people. And I was like, guys, love painting with me. You have for the past 4 years. Sometimes you can't always make the paint nights. Sometimes you love the painting, but it doesn't work with your schedule. So you're my founding members, you get to come in. And they helped me. And most, I would say like 99% of them are still with me. And they call themselves lifers. They're not going anywhere, but they helped me build my membership. You don't have to have it all figured out. Like, I would give them— it was a lot of Q&A in the beginning. I'd say What do you want more of? What do we think about this? Do we wanna change this next month? Do you guys like this painting? And it's a very, and it's still like that a lot. I give them options at the beginning of the month or the end of the month for what we're gonna do next and a lot of feedback, but yeah, that was the same way I started as well and just throwing it out there.

And what I love about this is like a membership is a living, breathing organism, meaning like it's always changing, it's always evolving, and you hit the nail on the head, Christie Renee Hawkins, that you learned learn so much when you are with your members about how to really help them, how to really serve them, what can you create for them. But you don't get that kind of feedback if you're hiding behind the perfect plan and trying to get everything all lined up and waiting and waiting and waiting. You don't get that kind of hands-on feedback. And that's why we encourage people to launch their membership site even with a tiny audience because you're going to learn so much and you're going to gain so much momentum through the very act of interacting. You know, being with your members.

Yeah, absolutely. I mean, I think, and you know, I'm a, I talk about this all the time because I think because I'm a creative, I fly by the seat of my pants all the time. I come up with an idea and my team loves me for it. I know, but I come up with an idea and they get a message from me and I'm like, hey, I'm going to do this bootcamp and I'm going to launch it on Wednesday. And they're like, what? Yeah, I just came up with it. We're just going to see how it goes. And that's just, I mean, that's just how I'm wired. And, but I do think you learn so much. And no, it's not perfect every time. But what I know now compared to what I knew a year ago, I mean, is just mind-boggling. But it's because of all the processes. And then last time, it was like, and you and I had this conversation after this last launch, I told you, I was like, man, I felt like I was like really myself, like I really figured things out. And now it's just like fine-tuning instead of like, Well, what do I do next time? I know what I need to do next time. I'm just tweaking it and making it a little better each time.

That's exactly it. That's exactly it. And you gain so much momentum, you know. And at the end of the day, like, what helps drive the future of any membership is the progress that your members are making with what it is that you are teaching. It's their stories, you know, like, um, and this is why, like, the sooner you get going, the more stories you can begin accumulating, and they become your most powerful marketing asset. Because at the end of the day, people join a membership site to make progress in some area of their life. You know, for you, Christie, I know it's like with, you know, painting and becoming better with their artistic skills. And other areas, you know, like we have members who have membership sites in all kinds of different markets, from, you know, parenting to relationships to playing the guitar to— heck, Karen Cinnamon has a membership site for Jewish brides-to-be, you know, like there, it doesn't matter. The options are endless, you know, and the reason I love sharing it is because again, it doesn't matter what it is that you are helping people with. What a membership enables you to do is to go deeper with your people and help them make more progress. You know, even like our mutual friend and triber Tamara Bennett, like she helps people with decorative door hangers and she's got hundreds of people in her membership. And the amazing part was, I think you, you attended her live event and there was like, you know, her first event, there's all these people there live, you know, again painting. It's amazing to see what is possible once you get going.

Yeah, absolutely. And I did— that actually ties into what I want people to know about Tribe 2, Stu's Tribe, not my tribe. What makes this so different? So we— he talked about Tamara. You guys all know her because Tamara and I partner together so much on so many things. So Everybody watching knows who you're talking about right now. But so we have this whole creative tribe within Stu's tribe. And I didn't know any of these ladies when we started, and now we're like family, and we talk every day, and we work together, and we partner together. And you guys all know them— Casey and Sarah and Tamara— like, because you hear me share their names and share what they're doing, because I'm doing it too. And anyways, my point in bringing that up is For people who are scared and think, well, that's just out of my comfort zone. I'm not going to have anyone to talk to. I don't know how to do the things. When you get inside TRIBE, you find your tribe inside TRIBE and you guys help each other build your business. And that's another, I mean, just a huge part of it for me is the relationships that I've gotten since joining TRIBE a year ago.

Well, it's been beautiful to watch because, you know, internally here in the office, we call you guys the creative club. And, uh, and but it's been beautiful to watch because, you know, and I did a whole podcast episode on this about you guys because it is not about looking at it like competition, it's about looking at it like about collaboration. And through that, all of you have grown in this last year in an unbelievable way. And it's been like amazing to watch the growth that you have all experienced. And it's because, you know, you consciously made the choice of like, hey, these are amazing people, and hey, we've got a lot in common, and hey, We could help each other. And hey, why don't we help each other? And because of that, like, you have created this amazing support for each other moving forward. You've collaborated, you've helped, you've partnered, you've promoted, you've done all the things together. And, and that is what it's about. It's about like, a tribe is about coming together. It's about having a common connection and then supporting each other. And, and so, you know, this is why like I love what we get to do because we get to bring people from all you know, walks of life. People who have big audiences, people who have no audiences, people who are in the creative space, people who are not in the creative space, people who have product businesses, people have service business, people have knowledge business. It's amazing to watch all of this come together with the focus of, hey, let's work together to build and create more recurring revenue in our business so that we can eliminate the stress that comes from hoping that people are going to come back and buy from us, from always chasing and trying to find new customers. And just, you know, loving on our people and serving them in the highest possible way. And so, you know, we have a free workshop coming up, and I would encourage everybody to come join us for the free workshop. I think— are you going to post the link for everyone?

Yeah, Gretchen's on here for me. She's going to post the link below for you guys to get in on this free workshop. I cannot stress it enough, just do it. It's free, it's not costing you anything. It's going to really open your eyes to what's possible out there.

And that's really at the end of the day what we're gonna do through the free workshop is we're gonna show you like in the first part of the workshop, we're actually gonna help you assess your market, which is really important to know because it's good to know whether the market is a good market for a membership site before you pour a whole bunch of energy into it. So in part 1, we are going to help you assess your market because there are characteristics of a good market for a membership site. We'll walk you through that and then that'll lead into part 2 of the workshop, which in part 2, we're gonna cover the number 1 thing that you need in a membership site. Without this, you're going to have some trouble, but with this, it becomes your guiding light, like your North Star for the content you provide in a membership. It becomes a guiding light for your marketing messaging, and it also becomes the measuring stick by which people will measure their progress, which is really important because as long as they're making progress, even if it's the little wins, they will continue to stay. And so this one element we talk about in part 2 of the workshop and in part 3 of the workshop is where I kinda like pull back the curtain and I share with you the 5 areas of a successful membership site. And I'm gonna give you a mind map which goes into detail for each of those areas. We've had people who have literally taken that membership blueprint and launched a membership. Like last year, example, Coach Tulin, She did it. She is a fitness coach for plus-size women. And so she was so inspired, she took that membership blueprint and she's like, you know what, I'm just gonna go right now. And she's kinda like the quick start that you were talking about there, Christie. So she's like, I'm going for it. So she launched her membership site on a Facebook Live, again, just casting the vision of what she saw this becoming. She didn't have everything created yet. She's just like, this is what I see this community becoming and I invite you to join me as a founding member. So she did that during the free workshop and she welcomed over 400+ members generating over $8,000 in the free workshop. And so we've had many people do this, like Thembi over in Africa. When she first came through the free workshop, she again took that membership blueprint and launched her membership site off the back of it too. I share this with you because we pour a ton of energy into creating an amazing experience for you. You're gonna learn a ton. It all starts April 25th. I encourage you to come and join us, and you're gonna hear a lot of stories of people in all kinds of different markets, from photography and calligraphy to fitness and finance and music, art and health and dog training and so many more. And the point of the matter is, is that the reason we share hundreds and hundreds of stories of real people who have launched their membership sites is 'cause I want you to see what's possible. 'Cause when you see what's possible, It's going to open your eyes to a whole new world of opportunity that creates— that you can create for yourself and your business. It is so exciting, and I hope you come join us. And it's free, and it all starts on April 25th. Look, I even got t-shirts, uh, Chris. I even got t-shirts made with April 25th on them. Like, I, I'm so fired up and pumped up about it, and it's going to be an excellent, uh, fun time. And I'm going to be available to answer questions throughout the whole workshop as well. So come join us, get thinking about it, get started, and I'll be there to support you along the way.

Yes. Well, thank you so much for taking the time and doing an interview with me. And I know they're excited. They're going to learn a lot from it. The link is posted. So I'll be in there again. I'm doing TRIBE again and going to TRIBE Live in Canada. So I'm excited for another year. All right.

Well, thank you, Christie. I appreciate you, buddy.

All right. Thanks.