A couple of weeks ago, I shared that one of the ways I’m increasing my website traffic this year is by writing full show notes as blogs (so full that they can be read completely separately from actually listening to the episode!). But for THIS episode in particular, I’m getting very real and raw about the reasons I closed my 170-member paid membership last year so while I am going to share the highlights here today, this is one I want to encourage you to tune in for! I'm not gatekeeping the membership mistakes I made.
In this episode, I’m talking about all things memberships: what mine was (Breakthrough Brand All Access), how I created and launched it, why it didn't work, why I ultimately shut it down, and the mistakes I made along the way (REAL mistakes that I think you can learn from). Then, come back next week where I share how I closed it, and how I believe you can end offers in your business really well.
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What WAS Breakthrough Brand All Access (My Membership)?
Let's dive in. What my membership was is NOT the main focus of this episode but I do want to give you some context about the membership. Many of you tuning in or reading this may have actually been a part of it, so you already know what it was about. But for those who don't, I'll give you a quick explanation. It was called Breakthrough Brand All Access, inspired by the name of this podcast. It aimed to take the learnings from the podcast to the next level by providing access to me and more exclusive content.
I also want to say - I was genuinely thrilled about it. The membership was a response to the constant requests I've been receiving for years to provide more business content like courses, coaching, and a mastermind, from listeners who are not just designers. It was my way of meeting that demand and creating a recurring revenue stream for my business. I had confidence that people would sign up, and I was excited about the long-term potential it held.
Launching my Membership
Overall, it was a successful launch, where close to 170 people joined during the five-day launch period, which was both exciting and overwhelming. Seeing familiar names among those who joined was especially thrilling.
I won't go into all the launch details in this podcast, but I did a thorough debrief for members. Launches are one of my favorite things to do in business, and this one had more moving pieces and more education around it because it was a new offer. I used email marketing and social media content to promote it, without webinars or paid ads.
The membership required a significant investment of my time to maintain, but it wasn't financially expensive. I made money overall and immediately in the first month. I think a lot of the time when people hear “membership mistakes” when launching their membership, they assume a financial loss but that wasn’t the case for me. Members also loved being a part of the membership so that wasn’t a “fail” either - the membership had a very low churn rate (amount of cancellations per month) compared to industry averages. Make sure to tune in to listen to some of the other wins I had throughout the membership time!
I also want to be clear: while it did take a lot of my time to create and maintain, I don't regret launching it, especially for those who became members. I learned valuable lessons throughout the process and I don’t regret it at all! If you listen to the episode, you’ll hear a little more about this and my thoughts on whether or not I will launch a membership again. You can also hear a little bit more about what was going on with me personally at the time of the membership for additional context!
Read More: Juggling too much? 4 Keys to Maintaining Your Sanity as a Mom and Business Owner with Ashley Freehan
Ultimately, the Offer Was Not Sustainable For Me
There were three main elements of the membership: content, coaching, and communities. These are pretty standard membership features. The content consisted of a monthly audio training (like a private podcast), along with a short podcast episode of encouragement lasting around five to ten minutes each week. Additionally, there was one group coaching call per month, as well as group mingling calls for networking, where breakout rooms were used. We also had an active Facebook community which has now turned into a free podcast Facebook group.
The founding member rate was only $32 per month, with even more savings if you paid for the whole year upfront. It was a great deal considering everything you were getting. While I did plan to increase the cost for future launches, due to the number of moving pieces and content demands, it felt unsustainable pretty early on. For instance, I eliminated the weekly business encouragement episodes pretty early on into the membership which everyone was pretty kind and understanding of. Creating that much content felt like too much to handle along with this podcast, my website template shop, and Booked Out Designer (none of which I wanted to give up!).
Read More: Passive Income Isn’t What You Think … BUT Scalable Income Is What You’re After
Mistake #1: One of My Biggest Membership Mistakes Was That There Was Not A Success Path In the Membership
If you have a membership yourself or have listened to podcasts, taken courses, or have done any learning on memberships, you've probably heard that including a success path is important. Although I didn't take any specific courses on launching a membership, I did research on how to create successful membership. The concept of a "success path", which was popularized by Stu McLaren and has since been discussed by others as well, is essentially a framework that guides members through different milestones, indicating progress. This can be tailored based on the specific stage of a member's business and the corresponding content within the membership.
Success paths are not only recommended for memberships but are also naturally built into well-designed courses. As members progress through the course, participate in coaching calls, and engage in the community, they naturally follow a success path, ultimately achieving the results you promised when selling them the course.
In a membership, there is no clear “end” though and success paths not only help members stay engaged but also provide direction for both the creator and members. I have to admit - despite knowing it was recommended I completely ignored this advice and thought my membership would be fine without one. This was a MISTAKE and I hope you can learn from it so you don’t make the same membership mistakes when launching your own membership. Even if you don’t feel like your members need one, you’ll appreciate it as a creator.
If you are curious, I also talk in the episode about the mastermind I was in, and how I did consider adding in a success path before closing my membership down, but ultimately decided not to.
Read More: 4 Signs That It’s TIME for Mentorship in Your Business
Mistake #2: Everyone Was In Too Many Stages of Business
The second membership mistake I made was not having everyone in a similar stage of their business. The membership attracted podcast listeners and people from Instagram, who were all in different seasons of business, which although was what I expected (and something I considered to be a good thing!), it became difficult creating focused and helpful content because of the varying levels of experience between members. I had participants ranging from complete beginners to those with over 10 years of business experience, with diverse industries represented and it ultimately ended up making the offer confusing.
My advice based on this mistake would be to clearly define your target audience and the type of content your membership will provide. It is expected that there will be members who don't align perfectly with your ideal client profile. For instance, you might specify that the content caters to newbies, but there might be individuals in your audience who are more advanced and simply want to learn from you, and the price is not an issue for them. You can still allow them to join. I feel like looking back, I lacked this clarity, which not only made it confusing from a marketing standpoint but also made it harder for me to decide on the topics to cover each month. I had a long list of different topics and content pieces I wanted to cover even before starting the membership but when I was actually creating the content, I struggled with “who” I should be talking to.
Mistake #3: I Don’t Think I Made a Great Offer and I Only Want to Sell Great Offers
I didn't feel good about the offer. This one feels vulnerable to share but I felt like it just wasn't a great offer and I only want to sell great offers in my business. So, I either need to reinvent it or close it. That's why I changed the membership to a free Facebook group and stopped billing everyone. I offered refunds or one-on-one time to those who paid in full, but ultimately closed it and kept the free Facebook group for ALL podcast listeners today. You can tune in to where I read exactly how I let members know the membership was closing and how I felt about the offer.
I'm not one to continue selling a bad offer just because people were willing to pay for it and because it provided recurring revenue. Even though many people advised me not to shut it down because of these few membership mistakes, saying it was bringing in consistent revenue and just needed some fixing, I didn't think it was a great offer and it bothered me. Fixing and changing it didn't align well with my life at the time (again - listen in to hear more about that) or where I wanted to take my business. I'm proud of my Showit Templates and Booked Out Designer, and ultimately I didn't feel the same way about this membership. I was proud of the members, but not of what I created. We'll delve into that more next week when I discuss how direction played a huge role in one of the lessons I learned.
So, closing it down made more sense. I want to add that I was afraid people would hate me and judge me, thinking I'm a terrible business owner and no longer someone they can learn from. I feared they would be mad because they liked the membership. But, honestly, I didn't receive a single negative reaction. No one was mad at me or made any judgmental statements. Maybe there's someone out there who no longer trusts me, but overall, the feedback I got when I closed it down was incredibly positive. People thanked me for normalizing pivoting and shared their own desires to change things in their businesses but felt unable to do so. They appreciated me showing them it's okay to make changes.
Looking back, I have no regrets about any of this despite these membership mistakes.
It was a beautiful experience for me to feel like I messed up a bit and was going to disappoint people because I really hate disappointing others. And then, to see people react in a way that wasn't disappointing but more like "Great job for trying this.” It was an overwhelmingly positive experience. I saved many of the messages and emails I received from the members when I closed it because they were like, "Thank you. Thanks for supporting me and being there for whatever you do next." That was really cool. So, to those of you listening who said kind things when it closed, thank you.
Deciding to close the membership
Talking about this 8 month later it might seem like I’m making it sound like an easy decision so I just want to end by saying that it was actually a really tough decision. It felt like a big decision - to close or not to close. It felt permanent yet not. Canceling subscriptions for about 160 people on Thrive Cart seemed like a monumental task. Now, a year later, looking back at my prayer journal, I realize it was the right move. Closing the membership opened up new opportunities that align better with my current season of life and the direction I want to take my business.
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