130: How to Build a Thriving Membership Site featuring Stu McLaren
See the show notes for this Episode here.
This transcript has been automatically generated.
Bonnie Christine [00:00:00]:
Hello, my friends. It's that time of year where I get to introduce to you one of the people who have impacted my life and my business more than anyone else. That would be mister Stu McLaren. So Stu came into my world back in 2019, and I took his course, The Membership Experience. And I took this course, you know, expecting about the same as I do from every other course. And what I found was something that leadership, his integrity, and the way that he taught blew me away as well. And so TME, the membership experience, has been one of the Stu impactful courses that I've ever taken. It's also been, one of the only ones that I ever actually finished, and then have gone back to retake over and over and over again.
Bonnie Christine [00:01:01]:
Now, that course experience eventually led to me meeting Stu and then joining his mastermind. So I've been in Impact since late 2019 as well. And it's been through that, that Stu has become one of my greatest mentors. And he's a guy worth really paying attention to. Again, he has so much integrity. He's got such a big heart. He loves what he does, and he loves pouring into people, and he does it in a way that really no one else has ever done. And so he is a master at memberships and recurring revenue, which is an incredible opportunity for us as creatives.
Bonnie Christine [00:01:45]:
You can think about membership sites. You can think about subscriptions. You can think about subscription Bonnie, so many different ways to add in recurring revenue to your business. And the interesting thing is that Stu serves a huge creative community. And so many, many of us who are in his audience are also creatives. So there have been some just amazing success stories and amazing people that I've got to meet who have been able to put into practice what Stu teaches and truly just revolutionize their business. That's absolutely what happened for me as well. And so today, I am going to bring back up one of our most successful, most listened to podcasts of all time, which is about Stu.
Bonnie Christine [00:02:35]:
So Stu's my guest, and it is about the membership experience and also an invitation to come take one of the most impactful free workshops that I've ever really participated in as well. So without any further ado, please help me welcome Stu McLaren. I'm Bonnie Christine, and this is where all things creativity, design, business, and marketing unite. I'm a mama living in a tiny town tucked right inside the Smoky Mountains running a multi 7 figure business doing the most creative and impactful work of my life. But when I first set out to become an entrepreneur, I was struggling to make ends meet and wrestling with how to accomplish my biggest dream of becoming a fabric designer. Fast forward to today, I'm not only licensing my artwork all over the world, but also teaching others how to design their creative life and experience the same success. I'm here to help you spend your life doing something that lights you up. I'll help you build a creative business that also creates an impact, changes people's lives, gives you all of the freedom you want and is wildly profitable.
Bonnie Christine [00:03:55]:
Welcome to the Professional Creative Podcast.Hello,
Stu McLaren [00:04:15]:
Stu. Oh, hello there. Good to see you, Bonnie. I am so excited to talk to you. This is mister Stu McLaren. Stu, you've meant so much to me over the years, and I'm thrilled to talk to you today about memberships and subscription models. Well, this is something that you know really well because I think you have one of the longest lasting memberships that I am aware of. Like, you have been around for over a decade with your membership, which is amazing, and it's a testament to you, Bonnie, in the way in which you show up for your audience. So huge kudos to you for that.
Bonnie Christine [00:04:43]:
Well, I'd actually like to tell a little bit of a backstory before we get started because, first of all, Stu Stu today, for those of you who don't know Stu McLaren, is Stu, you're I consider you my mentor. You have been for several years. I've learned so much from you. And I think the way that you run your business with so much integrity is one of my favorite businesses and leadership models to follow, and I'm so grateful for you. But before we ever met, I took TME. So TME is the membership experience. It's Stu course, and I took it in 2,019. So my membership, I began in 2,012, like you mentioned.
Bonnie Christine [00:05:26]:
And a couple of things about TME. Number 1, I don't know if you know this, Stu, but this course is the only course that I have not only fully participated in, but finished on time. Wow.
Stu McLaren [00:05:40]:
I did not know that. That's amazing.
Bonnie Christine [00:05:42]:
Because I've taken a lot of online courses, and I have specific things that just help you get involved and get, you know, really into the content. And you do an incredible job. It's my favorite online course that I've ever taken. It's a lot of information, and I always laugh because it's like, I know I gave my membership whiplash after I got out of TME because I'm like, woah. We've been doing everything wrong for the last 7 or 8 years, so we're gonna change some things. And so you might expect that I was an expert at that time. I had been doing weekly content for years, and I could not believe how much I didn't know that I wasn't doing right. And I think one of the things that just really sums it up is that if you look at my income, my monthly income from my membership before TME, it looked like mountains.
Bonnie Christine [00:06:38]:
So peak valley, peak valley, peak valley, peak valley. And I just never could really get very much, wind. I would kinda recover when I opened, and then I would kinda dip. And after I took TME, that graph turned into a staircase. Mhmm. And it went up, and then it kinda went down maybe a little bit, and then it went up. And so if you're listening, you can imagine the difference in those graphs. And so my membership soared, took off, and all of it comes down to what I was able to learn and implement and the membership experience.
Bonnie Christine [00:07:11]:
So that's why I'm excited to talk to you today about, the opportunity of subscription based models, where we're at in society with them, and some maybe hints from you as well on how to do it well.
Stu McLaren [00:07:24]:
Well, one of my favorite early memories of you, Bonnie, was at our, live event, of which, you surprised your mom, to come to the event with your sister. And I remember I remember getting a request. I I think it was from you or your sister who said, hey. Can you send, my mom a birthday message? Because we're surprising her with tickets to come to the event. And it was, like, it was so amazing. And then when I saw you guys live, and your mom was just the sweetest little thing, and, it was just a really, really cool experience. And we have formed an amazing friendship since. Like, you know, one of the things that I cherish is the way in which I've mentioned it, the way in which you show up and serve your audience, and you're the same person on camera as you are off.
Stu McLaren [00:08:12]:
And to me, I I I love and appreciate that consistency and character, and it's just you have so many amazing qualities, buddy. So it's it's no wonder that your membership has taken off. It's no wonder that your membership continues to thrive and your business, and it's, so much to a credit to to who you are.
Bonnie Christine [00:08:29]:
Well, I wanna get into some details, but, first, take us back because, Stu, I know that you have a really unique perspective on membership sites based on your history with Wishlist Member. So can you kind of tell that story about why you have a unique perspective, why you are the membership expert?
Stu McLaren [00:08:50]:
It wasn't by design. Like, I didn't, like, come out of university and say, you know what? Like, I know the exact career path I want. I'm gonna be a membership site expert. Memberships weren't even on my radar, but I started my business, back in 2004. And then long story short, it it led to a point where I was working 1 on 1 with clients. Now we had a great business. We had built a, you know, mid 6 figure a year business working 1 on 1 with clients. It was awesome, except for the fact that I was working a lot, And the only way to grow that business was to work more, and I didn't have any more time to give.
Stu McLaren [00:09:30]:
And I remember Amy, my wife, and I had just gotten married in 2007. And in 2008, we were, you know, having serious conversations about starting our family. And I had this epiphany, which was like, Stu, like, if you really want to be the husband and father that you have always dreamed of being, you can't work these crazy hours and burn the candle at both ends. So something had to give, and that's when I started having conversations with friends and colleagues and mentors and just asking, like, I've got this great business, but the business model is not working. It's not
Bonnie Christine [00:10:06]:
allowing me to grow. It's not allowing me to scale, and
Stu McLaren [00:10:06]:
more importantly, And so one of my mentors, Arman, he said to me, you know, you should just start a membership and teach other people the same things that you're doing 1 on 1 with your clients. And I said, what do you mean a membership? And he said, well, think of it this way. Right now, clients come to you, you are teaching them, or I'm working with them 1 on 1. Imagine if you took those same things that you're telling them and sharing with them, but you could share it with 100 or thousands of people and it not require any more additional effort. Now you can scale without any limitations on your time, and I was like, wow. I'm like, okay. So this Stu 2008, Bonnie. Now the tech back then is not what it is today, and I started going down this path, and I got swallowed up into things like HT access files and server settings and all this tech stuff that was way above my pay grade.
Stu McLaren [00:11:13]:
And I remember moaning and groaning to a friend of mine, Tracy, and I just said, dude, I all I wanna do is just teach. Like, all this tech stuff is, like, overwhelming me. And he said, well, why don't we just create he said, why don't you create your own solution? And I remember, like, hear hearing him say that, and I was like, he is he not listening to anything I'm saying? Like, I'm literally telling him I'm struggling with tech, and he's telling me to start my own tech solution. And I said, dude. I said, no. I can't do that. That's where I'm struggling. He said, well, why don't we partner up? I have a great developer that we can work with.
Stu McLaren [00:11:48]:
And, ultimately, we did, and we went on to create Wishlist Member, as you mentioned, and that went on to become the world's number one membership platform for WordPress. And, Bonnie, that is where I learned so much about the membership sites that were succeeding year over year over year and what they were doing differently versus everybody Bonnie. Because we were powering over 70,000 online communities and memberships. So I had this unique perspective of being able to interact with all these people and see what was really working. And when I started to extract the few things that those sites were doing that were selling every year, that's when I started to see patterns. And since then, I have been teaching others how to replicate those successful, you know, outcomes, and it's been absolutely amazing. And we've now served tens of thousands of people. Our new company, Searchie, has become a incredible platform, and I'm just I'm in a place now where I love what I do, I love who I get to serve, and I've never been more passionate about memberships than I am right now because in a world that is so uncertain, they create tremendous certainty.
Stu McLaren [00:13:06]:
And I believe every single entrepreneur should have some form of recurring revenue in their business, and that's what I'm set out to do is help everybody do that.
Bonnie Christine [00:13:15]:
So my audience is full of creatives, artists, designers, but also, like, handmade artists of all different kinds. And so one thing that is so prevalent in our industry and our business is, like, inconsistency in our income. So we'll have a great month, and then we'll have, like, a dry spell. And then we'll come up with an idea and maybe not have enough time to implement it before we actually have bills that we need to pay. And I just remember spending so many years on that frenzy. Like, gotta have a good idea. Gotta make time to, you know, flush it all out and then hopefully Christine income. And I would just have these spikes all throughout my year for income.
Bonnie Christine [00:13:57]:
None of it felt predictable. And that, to me, felt like stress because it very much all was dependent on how good of an idea I had and how well I could roll it out in the right timeline. Right? And so the membership for me is what finally started to have those spikes and almost create just almost, consistent flow throughout the year Stu where I pretty much know for certain my monthly income, which is, like, almost nonexistent for the small creative entrepreneurs. So talk to us about the opportunity, and then I wanna get into some real examples because I think a lot of creatives are like, I don't have anything I could possibly offer in a subscription based model. But talk to me about the opportunity of this recurring revenue.
Stu McLaren [00:14:47]:
Well, as you said, it alleviates so much stress that a lot of entrepreneurs, and as you pointed out, creatives experience, and that we have these months that are great, and that's perhaps around a particular season or perhaps around a particular Immersion. And those months are awesome, and we're living high. And then those months end, and now we're back to square 1, and we're having to start from scratch. And this is the really the old way of doing business, which is like, you know, you do a promotion, and then you generate sales, and then the next month, you're starting from complete 0 again. Now, the new way with the membership model is that you carry the momentum from the previous month over to the next month, and you're never starting from 0. And it changes the the game completely for all of us as entrepreneurs because, as you said, now you've got consistency. Now you know what income's coming in, and with that, you can plan a whole lot differently, you can hire a whole lot differently, you can invest in your marketing a whole lot differently, and you can do all of those things with confidence because you know where the money will be coming from. And that is a totally different place when it comes to thinking about, how we can grow our business.
Stu McLaren [00:16:06]:
And, ultimately, here's the thing for creatives I want you to realize. Ultimately, it creates more freedom for you to do the creative work that lights you up most. Like, I think of Heidi. So Heidi is an artist, and one of the things that she had built a business around was painting surfboards. But in order for her to not only maintain her income level, but to exceed it, it meant that she had to paint even more surfboards. 1 month, Bonnie, I remember she shared with me, she painted over a 100 plus surfboards in order to, you know, keep, you know, everything moving forward. And she just had this moment of just like, oh Amy gosh. Like, she started to become resentful of painting surfboards when it was the thing that she actually loved in the beginning.
Stu McLaren [00:17:01]:
And the reason she became resentful of it was because she was having to do it. It was like something she had to do, not something that she got to do. And this is why I love memberships for creatives because you can have that steady base, which creates the freedom for you to be able to pour your creative energy into the projects and things that you love without the pressure of them having to produce any income. So when I think of the opportunity for creatives, it's about that steady base, knowing that the consistency is there, the bills are paid, everything is moving forward, and that, more than anything, is creating the space for you to pursue the creative projects that you love, not with any pressure that they have to produce income or that they you have to sell certain art pieces or you have to land certain contracts. None of that. And that, to me, is the ultimate place for all creatives to be because you get to have your cake and eat it too.
Bonnie Christine [00:18:00]:
Yeah. So my start was in sewing handmade aprons and tea towels. And this is how
Stu McLaren [00:18:08]:
know this?
Bonnie Christine [00:18:09]:
Oh, yeah. I had a Etsy shop in 2009. It's how I started. And I wasn't a fabric designer yet, so I was using other people's fabric, and I was sewing. And I loved it. And then I got really tired of it because I didn't wanna sew another apron. And I remember I mean, I had gotten successful enough to where pretty much would sell any apron that I made. And so I remember calculating how much if I made as many aprons as I could in a day, 5 days a week, all year round, how much could I make at the end of the year? And it was, like, right at $40,000, which is not bad.
Bonnie Christine [00:18:47]:
That's not not bad at all. But, oh my goodness, I felt so exhausted at the thought. And we're all so oftentimes stuck in this trading time for money. And it was 2 or 3 years later when I had the same epiphany moment where someone told me, if you could just have if you could just create something that someone was willing to pay for over and over again. And I'm like, I remember the day I sat down and just brainstormed all these things that I thought I was doing that someone would be willing to pay for. And so Amy membership in 2,012 was really I wouldn't have called it this at the time, but in hindsight, it was really a paid email. And it was $5 a month. But that started generating $1,000 a month for me from the very beginning, and then it just grew from there.
Bonnie Christine [00:19:37]:
And it was a exchange for not time for money, but time for an infinite potential amount of money based on how many people I got in. That changed everything for me. And so I wanna talk to creatives who very much feel like, well, that's what I do is my special sauce. Like, I have to do it. I have to trade time for money when really there are certain things that you're doing or insights that you know, even if you're not coaching people or anything like that, that you could turn into a membership based offer. So talk to me about that and what other examples you have, because I can think of a whole Bonnie, in the creative industry.
Stu McLaren [00:20:19]:
There are so many examples that I can point to. Our I mean, if I were to say if I were to divide our community into a pie chart, I would say a good 30% of our market are creatives, meaning they have some kind of membership that is, you know, in the creative space. And I think one of my first favorite memories was, Tamara Bonnie, who came into our world. And I remember her posting in our community that she had done her founding member launch for her membership, teaching people how to create decorative door hangers. And I was like, decorative door hangers? I'm like, what the heck? What the heck are decorative door hangers? And I said Stu Tamara, I said, what what is this? Is this, like, you when I'm at the hotel and I put, like, the do not disturb sign on the door? And she's like, oh, Stu. She's like, no. In the South, she said, we have these beautiful decorative door hangers that go on, you know, people's front door, and each season, people, they swap them out for different things. I was like, oh, okay.
Stu McLaren [00:21:24]:
I get it. I get it. And so, anyway, she had done her founding member launch, and she had welcomed over 400 people who wanted to learn how to create these decorative door hangers. Now, I get for many of the creatives listening, they're going to think, well, wait a minute. She just created 400 competitors who are now, you know, Bonnie to take away from the business that she may have been generating, creating those door hangers. Here's the irony in that. It actually has the opposite effect because when she is she has the opportunity to teach people how to create their own decorative door hangers, and in doing so, it almost creates this heightened level of appreciation for Tamara's decorative door hangers. Right? It's like, oh, gosh.
Stu McLaren [00:22:12]:
What's the interior decorator that's in, like, Texas? She's super famous.
Bonnie Christine [00:22:19]:
Joanna.
Stu McLaren [00:22:20]:
Yes. Okay. So do we not every time we see the show? She's given away all the ideas, showing all the things. Do we not have a heightened appreciation for her? This is why, like, people go in droves down to Texas to go to her barn to see all the things. Like, it actually heightens people's appreciation for your work. So the irony is we, in a in a threatened mindset, we clamp up, and we're like, no way. Can't share anything. But if we just open ourselves up, what ends up happening is we get to help a whole lot of people create beautiful work, and in the process, we actually increase the demand for the work that we are creating.
Stu McLaren [00:22:58]:
It's the irony of it all, but Tamara is a great example. And I could go on and on. Like, I think of Amy Hope. Casey Hope, she created, both a digital and a physical product membership. So she would send out a package or she still does sends out a package each month to her members, and it has a bunch of calligraphy templates that her members can follow to learn how to do different calligraphy. And so this membership, she's got thousands of members. It's thriving. And the fun part is is during COVID, what she realized was that there were a whole bunch of parents like us, Bonnie, who got young kids, who all of a sudden were at home with their kids asking themselves, what the heck do we do all day? Now Casey, not only did she have that physical product calligraphy membership, but she also had an art studio where she was teaching kids how to create art.
Stu McLaren [00:23:55]:
And so in that moment, she realized, wait a minute. Like, I'm teaching kids art. I I could just teach this online as well. And so she created a online membership for teaching kids art, and in the midst of the pandemic, it blew up because parents are like, oh my gosh. Thank you. Because now they had an hour of, you know, sanctity while Casey was walking their kids through different art projects. And before she knew it, she that membership had grown to over a 1,000 plus members simply teaching kids art. So it's a great example of she's just taking what she was already doing, in this case, teaching kids art in a studio, transferred it online.
Stu McLaren [00:24:35]:
Now she can reach so many more people because in the studio, she's maybe working with 20, 25 kids. Online, she's working with 1,000. And so it's amazing when we take a step back and look at the skill sets we've developed as creatives and how there's literally thousands and thousands of people around the world who would love to learn that skill set. And because you are 2, 3, 4 steps ahead of them, it's so easy to be able to walk people through that process, and in that process, be able to serve so many people and create a heightened demand for our own work. I could go on and on for days. Like like I said, there's a huge chunk of our community that are Christine, but I think of, Nicholas Wilton, our dear friend Nicholas Wilton.
Bonnie Christine [00:25:20]:
Yeah.
Stu McLaren [00:25:20]:
He is a a fine art, artist. He's been producing his own work for for years, and he had been teaching people how to create these beautiful, you know, paintings, and he had been doing it in a course. But, inevitably, people were coming to the end of the course, and they were kind of panicking. Like, well, wait a minute. Like, where am I gonna get extra help? What if I got questions about this? Where can I get feedback? And there was all this, like, panic. And I remember him calling me. He was in week 10 of his 12 week course, and he said, dude, like, I'm getting all these types of comments. I know I should be launching a membership.
Stu McLaren [00:25:58]:
Like, I don't have time though because we've only got 2 weeks left. What do I do? And I said, dude, just do a founding member launch. Just put it out there. Ask for if they have interest in being able to stay connected as a community and to continue that experience. And so many people said yes. He He ended up welcoming, I think it was, like, around a 170 members, you know, for his founding member launch, and that was the beginning for his membership. I think of Mim Jenkinson, who is over in New Zealand, and she has the most amazing sticker club membership. So she has thousands of members, Bonnie, in this sticker club.
Stu McLaren [00:26:39]:
She only started it, I think, just a year and a half ago. It's called, the the paper planner club is what she calls it. But, essentially, every month, they are she's walking them through how to create these beautiful stickers and, and where, people can use the stickers, sell the stickers, all the things. And she creates these premade sticker templates that people can modify and use to make the process easier. But it's, again, it's a great example of a creative outlet where she was doing she has her own thriving sticker business, and now she's taught others how to do it, and she's made the process easier by providing different templates. I I also think of Christine Hawkins, who is another friend of ours. I remember when I met Christy, you know, she came into our community, and she was determined to launch a membership. And the reason was her girls were getting at that age where they were in high school and middle school, and they were competing, on the volleyball teams.
Stu McLaren [00:27:36]:
But, unfortunately, Christine couldn't attend any of the volleyball games because she was always doing paint parties every night in her local community, and they were always in the evenings. And so those times clashed when her girls were playing volleyball, and she was feeling this weight like, ah, I I just want to watch my girls, but at the same time, this is her income. So when she came in, she took the same skills, the same principles of what she was teaching in those paint parties, and she transferred it online to teach other women how to paint. And as a result, she's got a membership now with thousands of members. She no longer does the paint parties in the evenings because she doesn't have to. She chooses if and when she wants to do the paint parties, but Stu importantly, she gets to spend her evenings watching her girls play volleyball. And so we could go on and on about all these different I think of, like, Patty Palmer, who was a former art teacher, and she created a membership site that now has it's hard it's it's hard to wrap your head around. She's got more than 8,000 plus members in her membership, and she provides lesson plans for other art teachers.
Stu McLaren [00:28:48]:
So there's all kinds of, like, creative memberships in all kinds of different markets. And, again, the central theme is taking what we're already doing, teaching others, and being able to serve 1,000 and 1,000 more people as a result.
Bonnie Christine [00:29:07]:
So there are two hesitations that I hear from my community all the time that I wanna speak to. One of them is this fear around beginning a membership because nobody wants to get on what they call the content treadmill. And I feel like I can speak to this one so well. Right? Because I've been on it for nearly 11 years, and I'm not I'm not feeling fatigued or tired in any capacity. And there are some hacks around that, like batch planning my content that really helps. But I think one thing that really helped me was also to learn the number one reason people leave a membership is Overwhelm. Overwhelm. And so Stu like, at at the beginning, I felt like I just wanted to give everyone everything and the kitchen sink, and that will make them stay.
Bonnie Christine [00:30:01]:
And then we realized that, actually, that causes overwhelm. And so that, to me, was a relief because it gave me permission to get really clear and concise on what it was that I offered. So can you talk to people who are afraid of being signing themselves up for something they think they might not be able to handle?
Stu McLaren [00:30:20]:
Well, that fear comes from not having a, proven content strategy. Because as you said, the natural the natural instinct for us as creators is to think the more I create, the more value people will be able to get. But the truth is, as you mentioned, it creates overwhelm. And the number one reason across the board, no matter what type of membership site, the number one reason that people cancel is overwhelm. Meaning, either they come into your membership and they see so much content that they are like a deer in headlights and have no idea how to move forward, and so then they're like, I'm out, or they're just not using it. And if they're not using it, then they're not getting value. If they're not getting value, then they're out. And so the key as membership site owners is to strike that balance of providing just enough that, yes, people get value, but most importantly, they're using it and implementing it.
Stu McLaren [00:31:27]:
Because the real reason that people will stay over a long period of time is that they continue to get results. We're in the happy business. Like, as long as people continue to be happy, then they'll continue to stay part of our membership. And so we've got to strike this balance. And I'll give you a real great example of how we can overthink and overanalyze all the content when the truth of the matter is our members just want a piece. I think of Paul Evans. So Paul had a membership site, and he was serving youth ministers. Now, when he started the membership site, he was including all kinds of, like, how to articles and videos on how to be a great, youth pastor.
Stu McLaren [00:32:10]:
He was including, like, a community where people could interact and chitchat. He was doing live trainings, etcetera, etcetera, etcetera. He had all this Stu. And he asked a really powerful question to his members one day, and this is a question I just I have since taught this, after learning it because it is such a powerful question. But he sent out a message to his members, and he said, if we were to get rid of everything in the membership, what's the one thing you would want us to keep? So he said, if we were to get rid of everything in the membership, what's the one thing we should keep? And people responded, and it was overwhelmingly the same one thing. And, essentially, what that was, it was a PowerPoint presentation that the youth pastors could download, make a couple tweaks, and use that in their sermon on Sunday morning. Because the reality was youth pastors, the vast majority of them have a full time job during the week, and they're part time pastoring on the weekend. So they don't have time to prepare presentations, and so what Paul was providing was essentially a lifeline.
Stu McLaren [00:33:18]:
Like, it was giving them a way to save so much time with just that PowerPoint presentation. So they weren't interested in the community. They weren't interested in the tutorials. They weren't interested in the live trainings because they just didn't have time for it. And so Paul got rid of literally 75% of the, quote, deliverables he had been providing and did not see retention drop off. In fact, what he saw was so much more clarity for his members on how they could get value from the membership and more people actually use the presentations and it took off. And so it's a great lesson in that more does not equal more value. Many times in a membership, it is about identifying what are our people trying to do, and what's the least we could provide them to take that next step so that they don't get distracted by all the things that they don't need to hear or don't need to do and can stay focused on the few things that are actually going to help them make progress.
Stu McLaren [00:34:26]:
If we do that, if we provide our members that clarity and they consume more and make more progress, they will stay. And that is the secret to a great membership.
Bonnie Christine [00:34:35]:
That's so good. Okay. The other hesitation that I hear is there are so many subscriptions coming at us, and we see big companies doing it. You know, we Disney did it recently. Stu so many everywhere. And there's this concept of, like, well, I'm not gonna do that because there's membership fatigue. There's subscription fatigue right now. Nobody's signing up for a subscription.
Bonnie Christine [00:34:58]:
And that's not true for me. I'm signing up for subscriptions because of the convenience factor all the time, but also the, accountability that it holds for me. I would almost prefer this subscription based model on the things that I really want to move the needle in for my life and my business. Because to me, it clears up mental clarity. Like, I don't have to think or remember to do certain things. I've got that on subscription. So can you talk to that? Are you are you hearing that, and what is your lay of the land on the industry?
Stu McLaren [00:35:34]:
Well, it's interesting. When I hear people float those comments out there, I always like to ask, who who is who is they? Who who who is telling you this? Who is who is giving you this insight? Because I literally get to work with tens of thousands of people in the membership and subscription space, and I can tell you with certainty, it is not decreasing. If anything, if you look at the statistics, what you're seeing is a massive increase in subscriptions. And this actually was accelerated during COVID because so many people were forced online that hadn't been online before, and they started to realize, wait a minute. There are all so many more convenient options through a subscription than versus, like, you know, having to schlep the family down here or there or everywhere. Like, here's a perfect example. Amy and I were out on a date night last night, and so we switch every other time. You know, she picks, and then I pick, and she well, last night, Amy picked.
Stu McLaren [00:36:38]:
And so she had found this, place in our local community, and it was a float tank. Have you ever done a float tank, Bonnie? It's like it's like a it's like a giant bathtub that you lay in, and it's full of salt. And and, and so you float, and then you close the slit. It's like a really relaxing experience. Really? Yeah. You we'll have to chat about it afterwards. Okay. Anyways, so Amy and I went, and, afterwards, we finished up.
Stu McLaren [00:37:04]:
We come to the front desk, and, the guy says, are are you interested in coming back? I said and I asked him. I said, do you have, like, a membership model? And he said, no. We don't. We we just sell, like, you know, a package here or or this package. And I was like, oh. And I had the same feeling. I'm like, oh, bummer. Like, I I want a membership, like, because it provides that consistency.
Stu McLaren [00:37:25]:
And I think of Mary McLaren Furdett in our community. She's a masseuse. And she used to sell massages like one off, and her clients would book whenever they needed one. She switched to a membership model, and I caught up with her about 3 or 4 months ago. And I said, how's it going? And she's like, well, I haven't actually launched since the first time that I did it. And I was like, oh. Like, I was thinking like, oh, no. What's going on? And she's like, no.
Stu McLaren [00:37:48]:
Like, I haven't had to. Like, it's 3 years ago I did the launch, and over 80% of my customers are still with me today. And she said they love it because it creates that consistency. It creates that accountability that you're talking about. And so gating is a huge driver in why people love memberships. But the other thing that I would say about this is that people will cancel from memberships. People will cancel. They'll cancel from memberships that they are not getting value from.
Stu McLaren [00:38:17]:
And it comes back to the thing that we talked about earlier. We are in the business of keeping people happy. As long as our members are happy and they're experiencing progress, they will stay. Like, I have never heard of anybody canceling from a membership because they're experiencing too much progress or too much success. Right? Like, that just doesn't happen. So as long as we focus on serving our people and helping them get the outcome they're after, they're gonna stay. So, no, memberships are not, you know, on their way out. In fact, if you look at the stats, they're on their way up in a huge way.
Stu McLaren [00:38:50]:
This is why big companies like the Disneys, as an example, are all moving to subscriptions. It's the way of doing business for the future, and big companies are doing it, as well as all kinds of other companies like ours as well are moving to it because of the way in which it creates stability for the business owner and the way it allows us to serve our people on a more consistent regular basis.
Bonnie Christine [00:39:15]:
I asked that because I knew you would have some stats behind it, so I'm so glad.
Stu McLaren [00:39:19]:
You know my buttons, Bonnie. You know how to get me fired up.
Bonnie Christine [00:39:23]:
I think it's one of the most exciting business models ever. And I think something really exciting happens when you think about it for the first time, not only what it makes possible, but also what you have that someone would be willing to to pay for. I mean, my first version of my membership stew was, I think it was really darling. Now it was so sweet and innocent. It was like recipes and printable, like, gift cards and clip art and stuff. And it has just grown with me over the years to where it's something, you know, vastly different today. But I know there's a lot that people wanna wrap their minds around, and so you have a free workshop. Tell us about the workshop.
Bonnie Christine [00:40:07]:
I know it's coming up soon, and I watch it every single year because it gets me so fired up. So I know what you'll be sharing. Tell give us the overview of everything in the free workshop. Well, here's the seed that
Stu McLaren [00:40:21]:
I hope is has been planted today for everybody watching and listening, and that is I, the seed that I want is people thinking, well, wait a minute. How might I incorporate recurring revenue and a membership or subscription into my business, into the work that I am producing? And right now, you may not have the answer to that, and that's the point of this workshop. The point of this workshop is to help give you the clarity about what that membership could look like for you and your business, and what might you provide inside that membership. And, heck, here's the the fun part about this, Bonnie. We will have people during the free workshop who will actually launch their membership. And I know that that sounds absurd for somebody who's like, wait a minute. I don't even know what I, you know, could be doing a membership about. What what are you talking about? I'm gonna walk you through the process of literally getting that clarity and moving so quickly into action that you are launching during the workshop, and I know that there are people listening who are perfectionists, and they're thinking, there's no way I'm doing that because I need to have my audience of this size.
Stu McLaren [00:41:31]:
I need to have all my content planned out. I need to get it all designed. It's gotta be beautiful. It's gotta be perfect. And you're you're already throwing up the barriers, and I just Bonnie encourage you to pump the brakes on that, come into the workshop with an openness for possibility. And I'm gonna hold space for everybody listening in terms of what could happen for you. And my goal in the workshop is to walk you through that process, to help you get the clarity, to help you begin to take action, and, hopefully, help you launch during the workshop so that it can create belief inside of you. Because once that first member joins, and it doesn't matter whether 5 members join, 500 members join.
Stu McLaren [00:42:16]:
But once that first member joins, it is like an injection of belief that, oh my gosh. This is possible, and it's happening right now, and it creates momentum. And that's the momentum I want on everybody's side, and that's the exact momentum you'll get when you come and join us for the free workshop. And the fun part about this is we teach it live, and there's an energy. It's like the difference between watching your favorite sporting event on TV versus being in the stadium. Right? Like, it's a totally different experience, and there's an energy there that moves you to take action, on the idea of launching your membership. And I just gotta I I I get really excited by this, Bonnie, because I know what's possible. We've been doing this for decades.
Stu McLaren [00:43:07]:
We've been helping tens of thousands of people, and I just wanna encourage everybody to come with an open mind and, and have some fun in the whole process.
Bonnie Christine [00:43:14]:
This workshop is so in-depth. You give away so many little things that you just don't know otherwise. You give away secrets. You give a a really nice overview of what the whole thing looks like. And so, it's really, really good. I'll be there watching it this year. But Stu, my audience is full of some serious go getters. And I know some people are like, okay.
Bonnie Christine [00:43:38]:
I'm gonna watch the workshop, but I really wanna know what is the membership experience. So can you tell us what the membership experience is and when it is open for enrollment?
Stu McLaren [00:43:50]:
Well, yeah. Well, the work the free workshop that's coming up, it is definitely gonna create massive momentum for you. And that's as I said, my whole goal is to help create that momentum for you because then, naturally, you're gonna be like, oh my gosh. This is amazing. Like, I Bonnie and I can see it. I wanna make it a reality. And so, you know, if I were to talk about people in our community like Jess as an example, she's an artist, and she came to the workshop last year. During the free workshop, she set aside all the limiting beliefs, and she just said, you know what? I'm just going to I'm going to be open.
Stu McLaren [00:44:24]:
I'm going to follow the process. I'm just going to see what happens. It's an experiment. And she ended up welcoming just shy of a 180 founding members. And and I was interviewing her earlier this week, and people who were live with us, they were doing the math. And somebody typed in the chat. They're like, oh my gosh. That's $54100 a month that she had generated in month number 1 from her founding member launch.
Stu McLaren [00:44:48]:
And and I I reflected that back to Jess. I'm like, Jess, somebody's done the math on how much you made in that founding member launch, and it was $54100, which was translates to over $60,000 a year. And she smiled and she said, I know. She's like, and I had no idea where this would go or what it would lead to. But she said now that membership has created massive momentum for her, and it opened up doors that she had no idea were even available. And that's my point in this is that come join us for the free workshop. It'll then naturally, once you've got that momentum, you'll wanna come join us for the membership experience, and that's where we unpack over an 8 week period of how to get into the nitty gritty of not only launching the membership, but now growing it and scaling it in a way that is sustainable and fun for you while providing high value for your people and helping them get great results. So I'm about a membership, as you said, that grows year over year over year, like that staircase.
Stu McLaren [00:45:50]:
And so in the membership experience, that's what we break down from your foundation strategy, your content strategy, marketing strategy, community strategy, and retention strategy. These are all the building blocks of a membership that lasts the test of time, and that's exactly what we'll show people how to do.
Bonnie Christine [00:46:08]:
Stu, thank you so much. I'm so excited. I'm on fire. I, my membership will probably get some whiplash again this year after I come through again. So thank you. Thank you so much for being here and sharing this with us, and we will see you in the workshop.
Stu McLaren [00:46:25]:
I'm so looking forward to Stu. And I love the creative community. As I said, we have so many creatives in our community, so come. You'll be inspired because you're gonna hear from so many, and, it will plant that seed of possibility. And if anything, I want you walking away with a sense of what is possible for you watching and listening. So come join us for the free workshop. Bonnie, you're a gem, buddy. Thank you so much for having me.
Bonnie Christine [00:46:48]:
See you there. Wasn't that incredible? Stu just overflows with joy and and everything that he does. He's got so much insight and so much wisdom. And his heart really is in helping you find success so that together, we can make a bigger impact in the world and get you up and running with the business that really feels wonderful. So I hope that you enjoyed meeting Stu. I would highly suggest running over and joining the workshop. The workshop is so fun. I take it every year.
Bonnie Christine [00:47:23]:
I also take the membership experience over and over and over again. I think I mentioned that already, but it's the best course I've ever taken. So if you want to dive on in, you can go sign up for that at the professionalcreative.com. We've got all the links there for you. Again, that's professionalcreative.com. And you can find links to join the workshop and the membership experience if you choose to do so. And that would be so fun to see you there. So thanks so much for tuning in.
Bonnie Christine [00:47:55]:
I hope you enjoyed meeting Stu today.
