002: Start Your WordPress (and Wishlist Member) Membership Sites With a Bang

Membership Site Podcast: Passive Income, Online Business

Membership Site Podcast, episode 2. Start Your WordPress and WishList Member Membership Sites With a Bang. I’m Robert Plank, and welcome back to the Membership Site Podcast. My website is membershipcube.com. We’re going to talk today about how to make your membership sites interesting. When we’re talking about membership sites, we’re talking about you creating an online course, that e-learning kind of platform where somebody has a real marketplace need.

Somebody needs to find out how to code webpages. They need to know how to use Microsoft Word, and Excel, and QuickBooks. Whatever the reason, they want self-help. They want real estate, and for whatever path that brought them to you, they join your membership site. They go do what’s called a “sales page” or a “sales letter.” You can see one of those at membershipcube.com. They click a payment button, and after they check out or pay you money, then they have access to fill out a form where they can choose a username and a password, and also in that process, enter an email address for them to log back in, but this is huge.

Membership sites don’t have to be recurring, and they shouldn’t be recurring at first. If you have something to sell, if you can package it into something that’s $10 or $100, that’s something that you will actually be able to complete as opposed to having this pie in the sky dream of a $5 a month or a $10 a month membership site, and you say, “I’m going to update it every single day. I’m going to fill it with interviews. I’m going to get 10,000 members.”

I would rather see you charge something that’s a single payment site and maybe a little bit out of your comfort zone, maybe a little bit where there’s marketplace price resistance, or maybe you charge 100 bucks, 200 bucks, 500 bucks where you aren’t normally used to selling at that price range, and it’s a lot less work to make the amount of money that you need to live a comfortable lifestyle, and because you are providing these videos, or these written materials, or whatever you have in mind inside a membership site, you don’t necessarily have to pile on a ton of stuff.

Now, I want you to write down 4 quick things. I want you to write down the words: want, need, long-term, and Q&A. Why did I have you write down these 4 things? Because this is the structure we’re going to talk about today. In our course Membership Cube, we give you all the tools you need to set up a site, and that is mainly WordPress and WishList Member, which is a plug-in that installs on top of WordPress that protects your content. By doing that, you can take payments using PayPal, or Stripe, or ClickBank, and then control access to some or all of your content.

Instead of trying to pile in tons and tons of stuff, we want you to follow this format, which I’m going to unpack for you today, which is want, need, long-term, Q&A. What we want you to do is to create what we call a “4-module membership site.” Now, the reason someone is going to buy from you is because they are stuck. They have a real legitimate problem, and your training, checklists, materials, coaching, and all that stuff, that solves their problem, and we want you to solve that problem in 4 easy, manageable milestones, in 4 modules.

Now, a module is about a 60 to 90-minute video training session. We’re not talking about lots of goofy little 5-minute videos, but we’re also not talking about having a huge 8, 10, 20-hour training course. We’re talking about 4 hours total, 6 hours at the most where you give someone some real actionable stuff, and this is key, actionable. We’re not teaching the dictionary. We’re not un-turning every rock. We’re not giving people the history of real estate or every possible facet of hypnosis. We’re giving them this solution broken down into 4 modules to their very common problem, want, need, long-term, Q&A. Keep that in mind as we’re moving forward today.

Now, here’s the big reason why this is important because most people only think about generating the content that they’re going to have inside of their members area, right? If I’m telling you that you should have a 4-part hypnosis course … and by the way, you should, of course, have a membership site about knowledge that you already have. If you don’t have any knowledge, then partner up with someone who does, but I would rather that you take some skills that you can already prove, and show, and talk about fluently for lack of a better term as opposed to trying to learn, and make it up, and reach as you go along.

The good news with that is that if you don’t have the knowledge quite yet, you can either partner up with someone or do a thing called “resell rights” or buy private label rights where you can for, sometimes, $10 or $20. Buy the rights to a video course that you can then put into a membership site, and so the whole reason behind this is while you might get hung up on creating the content for your site, and I’ve known a few people. It’s not just one person, but I’ve known people where the person comes to me and says, “Okay. Well, I’ve got some content made, but I need to make 6 months of content. I need to make a year of content. I need 2 years of content before I can start selling it.”

I’m thinking, first of all, that you’re putting up obstacles in front of yourself making money. If you already have any amount of months of content for a membership site, then you should put it online and at least slap a payment button on a sales page to see if it gets some sales, and so here’s the thing is that … So, you make a sales letter. I don’t want to unpack all these stuff about making a sales letter today, but what you can do is make a simple webpage that explains to someone first why they’re here.

Have an attention-grabbing headline and tell them, “Well, are you stuck when it comes to flipping real estate houses?” I don’t know if that’s … Should I call them real estate houses? “Are you stuck when you’ve installed the dream that you could just buy a house and turn it around or rent it out and just have all this free money?” or, “You’ve been told that you can go and find a house for $50,000, and fix it up, and then sell it for $120,000. Isn’t that the dream, but it wasn’t so easy, was it? Well, I tried that too. I tried this. I tried that. I tried all these different things that didn’t work, but finally, I stumbled on the formula, and I had to do these specific steps.”

“By doing that, I was able to, for example, flip this property, rent out that property, and I’ve taken the skills I’ve developed, and I’ve taken the system I’ve refined over the years to flip X number of houses for Y amount of dollars, and I call my package the ‘Super Real Estate System Course,'” whatever you want to call it. You say, “It’s the best course for anyone who wants to make money from rental properties, make money from flipping, stuff like that,” and then we can list the 4 modules and list why they’re important to our buyers.

Now, what are these 4 modules? How are we going to break down this huge problem of buying and selling homes in real estate? I’m sure you can think off the top of your head of some easy ways to break it down, right? You can have one module where you show someone how to use … I don’t know, use some website or use some software to narrow down the neighborhood, and maybe a list of 10 possible homes that they could scoop open by if it meets a certain criteria. Maybe, at the same time, get approved for some kind of online financing to buy that house.

Then, the second module could be how to actually buy the house and go through the paperwork, and how to own it in the proper way. Then, the third module could be how to then rent the house out, and then the fourth module could be how to then sell the house once it meets some other kind of criteria like if the value of the home rises to a certain amount you were expecting or if the house is too much work or something along with whatever you think of along the way.

Now, what did I just explain to you there … By the way, after you list your 4 modules, you say, “Now, here’s all the really exciting and emotional reasons to buy my real estate course, and here’s some bonuses,” so maybe you add a one-on-one coaching call. Maybe you add some extra videos you make or you have your checklists and templates. You say, “There’s a 30-day money-back guarantee. If for any reason you don’t like this course, you can get your money back. Now, here’s the button to buy it.” That is a formula for what we call a “sales letter.”

Now, I want you to pay attention that when I listed … At first, explains the problem, then the solution, and the actual solution was the course as a whole, this super realistic course, imaginary thing that we’ve just dreamt up. Then, I unpack the individual modules of this course where we start off from the beginnings, the basics.

The first module is tricky because … We don’t want to overload them, but we also at the same time want to give them bigger and better results than they’ve ever experienced in their entire lives at this point when it comes to real estate because here is the thing is if you are thinking about making a membership site, or you’re in the process of making one, or you’re stuck with the chore of having to update a monthly membership site, here’s the problem is if you say, “Well, you can join my site called ‘realestatemonthly.com,’ and in this Real Estate Monthly site, we’re going to share some tips. I’m going to interview some successful realtors. What’s in the course? Well, don’t you worry about it because we haven’t made any of the interviews yet, but just believe me, it’s going to be fantastic.”

Also, a lot of high-profile internet marketers and people like that have had a lot of success with this model, and the reason is because they have name recognition, right? If some big name marketer sells anything, people are going to buy just because they like that person, want to be around them, want to hear what it is they have to say, so like if … I don’t know. If like Carlton Sheets who’s a huge real estate person … By the way, I don’t know anything about real estate, but if Carlton Sheets made a real estate course, a lot of people would buy from him.

Heck, I might buy from him just because I know that name, but you’re not Carlton Sheets. You’re your own person, and the problem with listing and unpacking the things in your membership site is … If it’s a monthly site where you keep on adding in new tips, and interviews, and things every month, what do you say when there are some really, really good stuff about 5 months down the road? If you say, “In month 1, you’re going to get all this stuff. Month 2, some even better stuff. Month 3, even better stuff.” But then, once I looked at what’s in month 5, I’m thinking, “Now, I’ve got to pay you money, and I’ve got to wait 5 months, and I’ve got to pay you money every single month just to get to that one thing I wanted to get to in module 5.”

Then, on the other hand, if you say, “Okay. Well, I’m just going to put all my best stuff and module in month 1 and 2,” then they’re going to buy and get a bunch of stuff, and then I look at month 5 on the sales letter and I say, “Well, I’m not going to want to be around the site in 5 months because all your good stuff is at the beginning,” so the answer is to not make your first site one of those monthly sites, to make your first site be something single payment, probably high-ticket, 4 modules, and it starts off where the first module gives them an immediate result.

You notice how I said that in this fictitious, realistic course that we could create. The first module, first of all, finds them a list of homes that they’re going to look into buying and gets them financing. Now, why didn’t I just say, “Well, the first module gives them an intro, an overview of real estate?” Why I didn’t say that the first module of your real estate course shows them how to gain an account to search MLA real estate listing? Because the reason is that sucks. The reason is that I believe that a certain percentage of your buyers are not going to get past that first module.

No matter what you do, they’re just going to get that first module, so why not pack in the biggest bang for your buck? Instead of building up and saving your best stuff for the end, put some really quick stuff you can do in 24 hours or the first 48 hours, let’s say. They join your site, and what’s like some of the craziest stuff that you could help them, and not just teach them, but help them to accomplish within the first 48 hours?

For example, we have another membership site, which is single payment or has a payment plan, but does not have a monthly forever option, and it’s called “incomemachine.com.” This is a course that shows you how to set up a lead capture page, a sales letter, get traffic, get a download page, set up a blog, have this whole functioning system, but if I said that, “Well, by the end of 6 months, you’ll have a blog,” that’s boring. Instead, I say, “You’ll have everything finished in the first … I think in that one, it’s 3 days.”

In our Membership Cube course, in the very first module, we show people how to set up their website, install a WordPress, install WishList Member, which is the plug-in that we use, and on top of all that, have a button where someone could click and buy from you right then and there. Now, do we say we’re going to add in drip content, add in a bunch of different pop-ups, and levels, and even the sales letter at all? No, but because we front-loaded a lot of cool stuff in that first module, when it comes time for me to sell it on a sales letter or on a webinar, then I can say, “You’ll have your membership site online tonight,” and that takes out a lot of the confusion, just, “You’ll have it online tonight.”

What we want to avoid is something called the “big box of crap,” so excuse my language there, but the “big box of crap” means that, first of all, you don’t need to log in and add a new download or video in your site every single day. I used to think I had to do that. I used to think that if somebody joined any kind of membership site, monthly forever or single payment, that if I didn’t go in and add something new every couple days, they’d get bored and refund or cancel. Not true.

The other problem too is this issue of drip content. Drip content means that … Let’s say that you had 20 different modules or videos potentially in your site, and someone joins, and they only have access to one. They went a couple of days, they get access to module number 2, video number 2. Video number 3 a few more days later, and this sucks especially because your buyers are going to be the most excited about not only learning, but also implementing from you in that first 48 hours and especially in the first 7 days after they buy your course, so why would you make them wait around?

The other thing too is I see a lot of people where they will … They’ll make it a point to drip something out every 2 days, 3 days, 4 days, and I’m thinking, “Give them a month’s worth of stuff,” and so if that means that you have a 4-module course, give it to them all at once, and then maybe if you have some other bonuses like a 30, a 60, and a 90-day bonus, those are all extra afterthoughts, but you don’t need to geek out on drip content. In the same way, you don’t need to geek out on creating the content itself.

Then, that also leads us to some evil internet marketers, let’s just call them, where the trend that I’m seeing go away, which is good, but still there. The trend is for people to just add in and load up the membership site with so much stuff every couple of days that there’s no possible way that any buyer could get through the whole course before the end of the refund period. I bought a course a few weeks ago off ClickBank, and it was a $67 course, but it was $7 now, and then I think I waited like 7 days, and then it was $67 more.

If it had just flat up been $67, I’m honestly not sure if I would’ve bought, but I said, “Okay. Well, this is just a little $7 product.” I got in, and there were lots of little videos I had to click through, little 5-minute, 10-minute, and then I had to go through a written part to the next video, and then I forgot about it for a week, and then I was dinged 60 bucks, and I said, “Oh, I got dinged 60 bucks. I guess I better go in and check out the rest of this course.”

The plan that a lot of its marketers put out is to pile in so much content inside a membership site that you’ll join it, and you won’t even get through half of it before the refund period comes up or the re-bill period comes up. I’ve heard of people saying, “Well, you need them to have half of your video on day 29, and then the other half of your video on day 31 after they’ve been re-billed.” It’s all just silly, so avoid the big box of crap. Instead, go for the 4-part membership course.

Now, the most important part of this is that you give them an immediate 48-hour result, so we show them how to get their payment button and membership site online within the first 48 hours. They run their first webinar within the first 48 hours. They have books spoken out within the first 48 hours, and then in future modules, we can have a module where we take that recording that they have, and they get it transcribed. Take the transcription, and then put it online on Amazon, or even better, if we can find a way to swing it where in the first module, they plan and speak out their book. In the second module, they get it transcribed. When that comes back, they publish it to Amazon as is.

Now, that’s really cool, right, because we can say that if you have 56 minutes free coming up this week, then you can speak out a book this week. Then, if you have another few more minutes in a couple days once the transcript comes back, then you can have a book with your name on it up and running on Amazon in the next 7 days or less. Now, that’s way cooler than some of these other sites you might see where they say, “Well, by the end of the second month, you’ll start to have a handle on making a book.” That’s really boring. Give me the 48-hour immediate results.

Circling back around to what I told you to write down at the beginning, can you remember? Did you write it down? It’s want, need, long-term, Q&A, so the first module delivers on that want, right? Delivers on something big, so maybe it’s to have their book done. I think that for authors, that’s the toughest part is to just have the book done, so we have a system at makeaproduct.com where you can speak out the book, have it done.

The second module is to then sneak in what they really need, which is to get the book published, which isn’t super glamorous, but that’s going to be awesome once they have it done, and then we can say, “Like we said, the book is done in a couple days. The book is done tomorrow at the latest, and the book is online by this time next week at the latest.” That’s the second module where we sneak in what they really need.

Now, the third module is a big, long-lasting result, so we can say that in this Make A Product course … I don’t have it open in front of me, but for a book publishing course, we could say that a third module is then to get a cover made, to get it proofread, to get some reviews, get some ads going, get some traffic, so now, that’s really important, but we can’t just sell a book just about Kindle traffic. We want the whole complete system.

Then, finally, the final module ends up almost creating itself, and it ends up being somewhat of a cleanup session where all the little things that were important are now in the final module, and so my thinking, like I said, is to cram in as much action-packed exciting stuff as possible, but we only have about 60 minutes, 90 minutes at the most to explain it, and even in a 60 to 90-minute session, we really only have time to show about 6 things because we need to explain why we’re all here, we need to explain what’s coming up, and we need to explain, “We’re going to go to this site. We’re going to click on this button. We’re going to go to this link.” I list that, then I show it, and then I explain what I already showed.

With all that fanfare, there’s really only enough room for about 6 different things, and so if we’re saying they’re recording a book, let’s think about this. We have to say, “Here’s the hardware you need. You need this headset, this microphone. Here’s the tools you need. You need this software. We need this other software to plan out the book,” and then number 4 could be, “Well, here’s how to use the initial software to plan out the book and figure out the structure.” Then, number 5 could be, “Now, here’s how to speak out the book,” and then number 6 could be, “Here’s how to hand it off to a transcriptionist.”

Already, that’s easily going to take 60 to 90 minutes to show all that, and even that’s cutting it close. Even with that will be flying and screaming, and so there’s lots of other things that we might want to talk about later on in the future like how to go back and improve your book, expand your book, make a multi-book series, how to get a physical book made in addition to a Kindle book, so we can put that on to the final module.

Now, we’re going to glamorize it. We’re not going to call the final and fourth module “The Cleanup Module,” but anything that was a nice-to-have and not a must-have in your previous sessions, you put that in the fourth and final session, and now, this becomes a really awesome, a really action-packed course. There is a light at the end of the tunnel for your prospects and for your buyers because now, they’re going to actually get the thing they wanted. They’re going to get a book published on Amazon.

You know what too? If your objection to me right now is, “Well, I can’t do a single payment site because … where I only have 4 modules because I want to have this passive income. I want money over and over again.” You’re going to make a lot more … Your sales are going to be a lot easier if you’re selling even something high-ticket as opposed to low-ticket continuity, and if something else comes to mind, then that’s your next course, so you could have a course about how to get published on Kindle, and then your final module explains how to also put it on CreateSpace.

But then, you could say, “If you want to put your book on iTunes and Audible, then this next course is for you,” so they almost voluntarily go and buy the next course, the next logical step, which in itself is complete, right? That course is all about getting an audio book online and selling, but someone could buy just that. You don’t have to reference things in the original Kindle publishing books and things like that.

When we’re talking about content creation as we’re wrapping up today’s podcast episode, we’re talking about content creation. A lot of people have the mistake of thinking that content creation is written PDF documents or it’s a lot of live action video where it’s professionally lighted and it’s all scripted. You know what? The best video you could create is something that is a screen capture video where I see your screen. We use a tool called “Camtasia” to do this, but think about that. Show me something. Show me what the end result is, and show me as much as possible of you clicking around doing things on the computer as opposed to just giving me facts and figures because that doesn’t help me.

Think about what kind of a checklist that you could base out of your training, so first, worry about the training. First, worry about how to show them how to buy a property and rent it out or flip it, or whatever, but then go back and say, “Out of the things I showed you, could I put that into some kind of a step-by-step checklist so that even if they’ve watched the video, if they come back 6 months later, they can just go through the checklist and still get those steps taken care of?”

Anyway, that’s a whole another subject. That’s a whole other can of worms, but I want you to use WordPress. I want you to use WishList Member. I want you to have a membership site, and the training for that is at membershipcube.com. Start your membership site with a bang. Have 4 modules leading to an end goal, and those modules encompass, first of all, a want, then a need, then something long-term, then the Q&A, then whatever questions people have or whatever cleanup items you left out of earlier modules. I’m Robert Plank, and that has been Membership Site Podcast, episode 2. Check us out at membershipcube.com to claim your free copy of WishList Member. Get your membership site online and ready to take orders tonight, and I’ll see you on the flip side. Bye for now.