Timing and the four stages of Member Sites

Timing is everything.

Back when I was just a youngster on the internet business scene, I had this genius idea (they're all genius ideas isn't it? :D). I'd gotten pretty good at web development and I was trying to figure out how I wanted to use the new skills I've acquired to create my own online company.

When I was at that time I was employed part-time at a local restaurant and had just completed building them a website.

It was a considered...

"What if I got every local business to provide coupons for their items and created a site people could join in order to access those coupons?"

Sounds familiar, right?

It was four or five years prior to when Groupon was created, which means that there was little or no basis for this kind of thing. As I moved from business to business pitching ideas...

Nada.

I got one business to join... the one that I was employed at. Then, he signed up very reluctantly. It worked, and we managed to drum up businesses as a result however it did not achieve the same effect when only one company participated and eventually I gave up in the end.

Alas!

A few year later, Groupon appeared on the scene It became an instant hit and I would spend my evenings screaming at the skies! It's not that bad, but I was thinking, "Hey that was MY idea."

I'm sure you've had similar experiences.

It demonstrates the importance timing.

This is the major principle behind our faithful leader (our Chief Executive Officer), Micah Mitchell, calls the 4 Stages for Membership Websites:

1. Infancy

The time to start is the moment you're starting out. The 0-10 member level is where you're at. The main issues you face are:

• Tech: Get your website developed
• Selling: Finding a way to communicate which can get the right people to join
• Information: You're never sure the things you're not aware of.

Therefore, the advice is to keep it simple. Start with a website that is basic and really focus on your marketing, and coming up with your sales messages, as it's the most important thing here. In the beginning, you'll need to recruit a few new customers and getting your membership off the starting point.

2. Childhood

It's a sample of 10-100 people. The biggest challenge here is the sales. You really want to increase your sales to get into the next step. That's the point at which your membership site can go from being a hobby to a full-time enterprise.

Here's the suggestion:

• Lead sources for more
• More partners
• Different ways to sell the same membership

In the end, if you're able to gain 10 members, you should be able to get more than 100 members through additional sales and marketing.

Micah employs magicians as an illustration. If you're a magician you could expand your business in either of the following methods:

1. Modify your routine. Always come up with an act or new feats to perform and go again to the same audience.
2. Change your audience. Get your act down and then find other audiences to perform before, since the act is new to them.

Successful magicians perform what they do best... They change their target audience. It's similar with membership sites. You have a membership in place, you got that established in the first phase. What you need to do is in figuring out the best way to promote the same product to different types of customers.

3. Adolescence

The members range from 100 to 500. The biggest challenge is maintaining the membership. There are so many new members signing up each month and have probably maxed out the audiences they can reach, but the best way to grow your audience is decreasing churn, and keeping members within your group.

4. Adulthood

With 500+ members. In this case, the best way to expand is to create new products. Your audience is at its peak... you've done your first "act" before all the people you can, and now it's time to consider adding more "acts" -- the creation of new products.

How is timing a part of all this?

It's about focusing on the appropriate issues at the appropriate time. Below is a checklist of the implications that come from this:

• At the beginning, put a basic site up and proceed to the next step since it's marketing and sales that matter
• Do not start a community right now because you're not surrounded by enough participants to make it useful
• Be patient when creating other products until you've got the necessary memberships to back these new products.
• In the beginning, do not worry about retention. It is important to concentrate on sales.
• In the future, it's retention that is where you'll see the greatest development, so retention should be your main focus.

And, so on.

Make the right choices... at the right time.

The added benefit of this method of evaluating your membership is that it provides you a roadmap of exactly the steps to take to establish the membership-based business you want to run:

• Create your own site
• Dial in your sales message
• Market to multiple audiences
• Determine the retention
• Profitably increase your revenue through new product offerings

You end up with a complete membership business... created step-by-step making the correct decisions when it is time.

Another thing that can help is understanding the options there are for you in the form of membership models. Since there are many profitable ways to build your membership site and one might be better suited to your preferences and the way you like to work. Picking the right one is a great way to ease your membership building process. We've created a free course where you can learn each model and decide which fits you best. You can grab that free training below:

Take a look at the 10 Membership Models Video

Discover the 10 Most Profitable Ways to Earn Recurring Revenue From a Membership Site                                                       First Name                                                        Email                                                          Yes, send me the video!

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