167 Thinking About Starting a Membership? Here’s What I’ve Learned in 4 Years

Sumantha: 00:00

Over the past few years, I've noticed more and more memberships appearing in the education space, not just from tutors, but from business coaches, providers supporting schools and so on.

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It's a model that's definitely grown in popularity and it's no surprise really. Memberships can be such a fantastic way of supporting your clients on an ongoing basis.

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📍 I've been running the Mastermind for, I think around four years. I'm either approaching or I've just passed four years, and I genuinely love it.

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I get to work with entrepreneurs at different stages. I get to support them through the ups and downs and really witness their growth firsthand.

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But running a membership isn't about just opening a community space and showing up occasionally. There's a lot that goes into it, but what's really important is that it's sustainable for both you and your members.

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So in this episode, I'm taking you behind the scenes and I'm sharing five lessons that I've learned. The good, the surprising, and the challenges. Enjoy.

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Welcome to the Upgrade Your Education Business podcast. I'm your host, Samantha, and I'm so pleased you are here. As an education business owner, myself and a former teacher, I understand the nuances that only apply to us. So in this podcast, I share fluff free, tailored, and actionable ideas. That you can mould to suit your needs.

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If you'd like to take this conversation further, please do reach out. I would love to meet you. And finally, it would mean the world to me if you could leave a review. That way you'll be helping me help more people. Thank you for tuning in. Enjoy.

Sumantha: 01:49

Okay. Before we dive in, let's look at how a membership really compares to something like a course and who it's best suited to.

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Courses will typically offer a fixed journey. There's a start point. There's a finish point. You learn something quite specific.

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Now, they are great for delivering defined outcomes and giving people a very clear before and after.

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Memberships, on the other hand, are ongoing. They allow for real time support. They have evolving content and generally there is a huge community or a huge part of it is a community and you are part of it for a longer period of time.

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Now, that said, they're not for everyone, both from the customer and the owner's points of view.

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If your audience values independence, if they enjoy flexibility and they have a degree of self-discipline, then they will do really well in a membership.

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Interestingly, memberships also suit people who like structure as long as the membership is designed to offer it.

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Inside the Mastermind, we have organised training by topic. Each session is really structured and actionable, and we have regular events.

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We have themed support to help members really focus.

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However, if someone needs more handholding, maybe closer accountability or more personalised input, then they may find memberships a bit overwhelming or too hands off.

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And from a creator, from a host's perspective, you have to be really clear on your boundaries and create something that's sustainable for the long term.

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So this is where I'm going to start with my first tip. It's really important to build a sustainable schedule from the start.

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One of the biggest mistakes I see is throwing everything into a membership from the beginning. Weekly calls, constant updates, loads of live events.

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It's very natural to want to offer great value, but remember, this is ongoing.

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What you create should be something you can maintain for years, not just months.

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For example, I now run a combination of monthly themes, one-off events and courses that members can dip into as needed. We have once a month really structured training.

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However, I started doing a lot more. And here's where it got really interesting.

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I have to admit that I had felt quite early on that I'd made a mistake with the structure. I realised fast that I could not sustain that kind of schedule for years, but I didn't actually have to make the decision to change how I was running things because the members fed back and they said that I was offering too much.

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They appreciated it, but it was too much. They couldn't keep up with taking that regular action.

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So things actually changed to something that was sustainable very organically, and it gives the masterminders a space to pick and choose what they want to learn and to really think, instead of just being on this treadmill of taking action, writing emails, posting content, and just doing, doing, doing.

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So that leads to my second tip, and that is to structure your membership as if you are going to delegate the work that goes into running it.

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Even if you never hire someone, imagine that you will. What would need to be in place to make things clear, replicable, and smooth?

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This principle has helped me immensely.

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It has helped me streamline everything from how I store resources, to how I organise events.

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And it also means that should you ever want to delegate or automate or get the help, whatever you want to do, you've already set things up in a way that makes it really possible.

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People aren't going to feel like you're somehow abandoning them because you've delegated a part of running the membership to someone else.

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I have a growth plan for the MA Mastermind and I actually divide it into phases.

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And in one of my later phases, I would love to have a membership manager who really gets to know the community.

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I want to be able to facilitate more in-person events, more co-working sessions instead of the current once a month one we have now.

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That's just the official line, but I encourage members to have accountability groups, which they do, and you know, there's a bunch of them who meet weekly.

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So since that's something that I want to do in the future, it makes sense for me to set things up in a way where someone else can get involved without it being a culture shock to the masterminders.

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But even if I hadn't planned that, it still helps you systemise things in, you know, in a way that doesn't lose that human touch.

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And that adds to the sustainability and the experience that members have because remember, a membership isn't linear.

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It's not like a course where you complete one module, let's say, and then move on to the next, and then you finish. It's a hub of training where you can explore, where you can choose what to focus on.

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So presenting things in a clear way, helping people navigate is really crucial.

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Now for my third tip, and I touched upon it earlier, co-create with your members.

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You may have this vision for your membership, but it will evolve and it should.

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My members shape the Mastermind all the time. I listen to their questions. I notice patterns, and I adapt content, and I respond accordingly.

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That's what really makes a membership powerful. It's a living, breathing offer that grows with your community and it evolves with your community.

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So as a host, it's really important to have things in place that really helps you hear from your members.

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Although memberships are often referred to as the Netflix model, as a host, it doesn't mean you can be hands off.

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It is not really like Netflix where we don't really have much input, where we never really meet the owners. You can't be hands off.

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Now, you can be to a point, and actually it's a good idea to be hands off, to a point to keep things sustainable, but it really depends on your structure.

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The thing that I really want to focus on here is that retention is a huge factor in memberships and to boost retention, you need to be listening and responding.

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To your members because they are, after all, who will give your membership stability and they'll recommend it to other people.

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Now, on that note, my fourth tip is not to just focus on sales, focus on retention.

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It's really easy to put all your energy into getting people in, but keeping them is just as important.

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I never really thought of that. I kind of took retention sort of for granted.

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I thought, well, people will stay for as long as they want. They'll leave when they want. They'll come back when they want. And that's true.

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But I realised over time that actually people are staying for a really long time. I mean, I think my longest serving member has been there from the beginning. I'm not—I say I think—he has been.

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People stay on average in my membership for… At the moment, it's around two, two and a half years, but my membership isn't old enough for me to know whether it's actually more.

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And retention is huge because you really build relationships in a membership and those relationships just get stronger over time.

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So retention is really important. Of course, sales is as well, but retention is super important with the membership, and that means creating an experience that your members want to stay in—not through pressure or making it really hard to cancel, but through ongoing value, relevance, and clarity.

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Inside the Mastermind, I focus on helping members make progress every single month so that they feel supported, seen, and not lost in a sea of content.

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Now for my fifth lesson, keep it simple and keep members in the loop.

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Memberships can get overwhelming really, really fast. Different events, new content, group posts.

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It's a lot to keep up with and that's why communication is key.

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Every Saturday my members receive a roundup email. It includes what they may have missed, what's coming up, any quick links that they need.

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Even though all of our updates go into our community, which is currently hosted in a Facebook group, people are busy and email becomes that go-to source of clarity.

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Think about your own members' habits and how you can really consolidate the noise for them to make it really easy for them to be a part of.

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So to quickly recap, the five lessons I've learned from running the Mastermind are: create a sustainable schedule, structure it for ease and potential delegation, develop it with your members, not just for them, and prioritise retention alongside sales. Finally, keep members in the loop.

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Very simply and very clearly, if you are thinking about creating a membership or you already have one, I really hope that these lessons give you a more grounded and practical insight into what it really takes.

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Thank you as always for listening, and if this episode resonated with you, I'd love for you to share it or to leave a review. It really helps others find the podcast.

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And of course, I'll be back on Wednesday with a short PS episode to keep you inspired midweek.

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Would you like to take this discussion further? Perhaps you have some questions or you'd like more ideas on tailoring your business. If so, book a free discovery call through the link in the show notes.