Pivot Your Practice and BulletProof Your Future — Why The Gurus Are Wrong To Encourage You To Create and Run a Membership Site If You Are A Practitioner Moving Online.
Every online business is interested in building a stable, recurring revenue stream, and they can with a membership site.
That is true — but does it work for online practitioners too?
The answer is yes and no. Do not to jump into doing this as one of your early moves to being an online service.
Membership sites are different from the traditional websites that most online businesses are familiar with because instead of creating content from time to time, you create content on an ongoing basis that your target audience pays a recurring fee to access the content. It’s basically a club built around a shared interest topic or difficulty. So the kind of content that you would create will vary, depending on your area of expertise as a practitioner.
That is one reason why creating a successful membership site isn’t easy, as you have to really like creating content and have a very clear plan of what you are going to produce to create value for your members. It is a LOT of work.
And it takes a considerable time to create. So despite what the marketing gurus say in their incessant email broadcasts — a membership site is not the answer to making easy, fast and good money in an online practice.
With one exception which I will write about in a minute.
It is a good strategy if you are been online for some time already, have built up a decent (500+) database of people who are interested in what you are doing, have several really good testimonials from clients who have benefited from your service and have a wealth of material to share so you don’t have to create from scratch.
Memberships Work When You Have People To Offer Them To Who Know Like And Trust You Already.
They are great sources of recurring revenue when you are pretty well established online and have been providing a great service one to one and one to small groups for some time. Two years from now it is probably going to be a real winning strategy. It is not likely to be one today — unless you are well known already.
It is soul destroying to start from scratch with a few ex clients and no online credibility and try to build a membership site. Far better to start with one to one work which you are familiar with offline, then add in group work online, then build short mini-classes and keep building up content and a good database behind the scenes. Only then start to launch a membership site.
If you have been thinking about starting a membership site, think it through carefully and contact us on the Office Hours slots to bounce your ideas around. These office hours are free and no obligation. We are just glad to help. Give us a shout by joining the link below.
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This is a series for coaches and therapists who are passionate about their work and their clients but struggling to find a way to make things work post-Covid as clients melt away and money becomes an issue for most people.
This is a time when most of us are scared. Nothing is known or predictable and many of us are dithering about what to do. In fact, this indecision is paralysing us and that is something that will derail the success of any practice. Therapists and coaches who are successful are people who have learned to do two things.
One is be flexible enough to pivot their business to what will work now — and the other is to break through enough of the fear barriers to get productive again.
Need More Happiness, Freedom and Success? Join The Sage Academy Free Webinars…
If you want quick and easy steps to setting yourself up for a safe and happy future doing the work you love, join me in the Sage Academy’s free webinars. I usually give at least 5 tips for moving forward and implementing in ways that will move you onwards and upwards in all of the webinars. Each is about a certain angle on the issue of Pivoting and we pay particular attention to moving the practice online. People say that the webinars on their own have had an immediate effect on their mood and confidence to make the changes necessary to flourish in Covid and post-Covid times. Get off the hamster wheel and take some time for yourself with our webinars, learn and act, learn and act — that’s the way to start flourishing.
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“Just imagine if the next 5 years is like the last 5 years? How are you keeping yourself financially secure, happy and living your life of purpose by helping other people succeed?” Elizabeth and the team at Sage Academy specialise in helping you Get Your Coaching or Therapy Practice Back On Track. Sign up for the highly-acclaimed free challenges and webinars to find out how to Pivot that Practice to FutureProof Yourself.
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