Five Years of Running my Membership: Mistakes, Lessons Learned, and Key Takeaways

Your Dream Business

Today’s episode of the podcast is a solo episode where I share an honest and insightful look into the highs and lows of running an online membership for the past five years. From strategic shifts to personal growth, I reveal what worked, what didn’t, and how my mindset and experiences have influenced my business. Whether you’re a course creator, membership owner, or coach, this episode is packed with valuable lessons and actionable strategies.

KEY TAKEAWAYS COVERED IN THE PODCAST

1. Importance of Niching Down Initially, I aimed to serve everyone, which diluted my focus and messaging. Over time, I learned the importance of clearly defining my target audience and tailoring my offerings to meet their specific needs.
2. Value of Continuous Adaptation The membership evolved significantly over the years, from strategic marketing content to incorporating mindset and personal development aspects. This flexibility allowed me to better serve my members as my own skills and understanding grew.
3. Strategic Pricing and Value Perception I experimented with different pricing tiers and eventually raised the membership fee to reflect the high value provided. I also learned that having lower-priced options could sometimes devalue the overall perception of the membership.

If you enjoyed this episode then please feel free to go and share it on your social media or head over to Apple podcasts or Spotify and give me a review, I would be so very grateful.

LINKS TO RESOURCES MENTIONED IN TODAY’S EPISODE

Membership Momentum Dream Business Club Losing Part Of Me Podcast Connect with Teresa on Website, Instagram, LinkedIn, Facebook or Twitter

Transcript

After five years of having my membership, I'm taking you behind the scenes to share what has worked over those five years and what didn't. Also, how has that membership changed over that time. I share all the mistakes I made and what I would do differently if I was to do it all again. I also share with you what the future looks like for my membership and what things I might be doing differently now. And one of the things I think you'll find surprising is how my own mindset and my own life experiences had an impact on what my membership looked like and what I offered. This is a very honest look into having an online business and running a membership. Hello and welcome to another episode of Your Dream Business podcast. How are you doing this week? Isn't it funny how sometimes things just line up without you even trying or realising? And this is exactly what's happened for the episode this week. Now, I decided I was going to talk about my membership and memberships in general, because of two reasons. One, I am speaking at Membership Momentum. Which is an amazing summit put on by Krista Miller, who also is speaking next week. She's doing an interview next week and the membership momentum is going to run from June 24th until the 26th. And I am doing a session for it all about how launching, I probably should know the title of my session off by heart, but I don't, how I use open houses to basically launch my membership or to sell my membership without feeling sleazy and salesy. And I'm really excited about the talks. I've never done this talk before. It's a brand new one. So I'm really excited to be able to bring that to Krista and her audience. And also it's got an amazing lineup. So I do want you to go and check that out. There will be a link in the show notes. If you had to teresaheathwareing.com/350, then you will find links to the membership momentum event. Also, if you check out my socials and if you're on my email list, then I will be sharing it all over that place. So yes, that's one of the reasons I want to focus on membership. And then like I said, next week, Krista is on the podcast as well, where we'll be talking about more stuff, which is awesome. Okay. So weirdly, this is where the weird date thing comes in. I go to start to plan as to what I'm going to talk about. Yes. Sometimes I plan what I'm talking about, although it may not feel like it sometimes. And I looked at how long I've had my membership for. And this episode comes out on the 10th of June and at this point I have had my membership for five years. I started my membership June 2019. So how weirdly awesome is that, that I wanted to write memberships and then when I looked it was the fifth year anniversary of having my membership. So I thought what I would do on today's episode is talk you through some of the changes, some of the things, the good, the not so good of having a membership, some of the things that have gone really well, some things that I haven't done so brilliantly, and where my membership is today. And then hopefully if you've got a membership, this is going to give you some ideas and thoughts in terms of things that maybe you can try or things that maybe you shouldn't try because I did and they didn't work. Or if you're thinking about a membership, then great. This is going to give you lots and lots of information in order to take forward with your own. If you are not thinking of a membership and have no plans or whatever to have a membership, then this is going to be a really fun look behind the scenes at my business. So hopefully there's lots for all of you. Let's get cracking. So I want to start off by talking about what the membership started as, because this is one of the things I guess has been most surprising is the progression of the membership over the years and how much it's changed and tweaked and moved and just not the same thing. I started my membership, like I said, June, 2019. And it was initially the Marketing That Converts Academy. That's what I called it. And I had a very clear idea from day one, what I wanted the membership to be. And I wanted it to be so that the name Marketing That Converts came from the fact, and actually this just isn't an insight into the membership. It's kind of an insight into the journey my business has gone on. And actually how my personal life and what I've gone through has affected my business. So this really is like a bit of a warts and all. So I started the membership from a point of view of at this point in my life, I was doing a lot of work for online businesses and I was launching online businesses and I was helping online businesses and I was coming from a very strategic marketing point of view. If you are new to me, if you've not heard me say this before, I actually have a degree in marketing and I spent 10 years in marketing prior to starting my own business and then I started as a marketing consultant. So when I say I know marketing, I really know marketing. Like it has literally been what I eat, sleep, breathe since 20 years ago now. And I'm 45, I think. like since I was 25. So the whole point of the membership was people who were trying to grow their online businesses and start their online businesses. And I started it with the premise of this kind of thing of get seen, get emails, get customers, or get sales, and then get fans. That was the last one. So I had these four very clear things of which they would go through or they would work on and they would get successful online business. And then I launched it in a way that wasn't clear enough. In my head, that was how I wanted it to be, but I did the typical thing of, I want to serve everybody. So even though those are my key areas, and actually a lot of what I talked about was online stuff and building an email list and lead magnets and funnels and emails and sales pages and all that awesome stuff, I just kind of opened the doors and when everybody come in, like whether you're a marketer, whether you're a business owner, whether you're this, whether you're that. And within a very short space of time, I'd lost that niche altogether. Right. Not only had I lost it from a content point of view, but from a marketing point of view, I just made a terrible mistake of basically going, Hey, it's amazing club to come and learn marketing for your business. So I started with this brilliant intention. And I remember. planning this out, right? I remember we were sat in San Diego. My husband was there with me. I can even remember the restaurant we were at, the table we were sat at. If you've been to San Diego to the conference, you will know there's a corner restaurant that's French right over the road from the exhibition place. If you, if you know, it's something that you're like, Oh yeah, yeah, yeah. I can hear it now. And we sat in that restaurant on one of the high tables in the sun and I planned out. I think, was Biz Paul with me? I think Biz Paul might have been with me, my friend. Anyway, planned it out, got it all sorted and then obviously ignored all of that and just went and offered it to anybody and everybody. So that was my first mistake, that basically, I just wanted to be kind and let people into my world and have people who I loved hanging around with and let them join the membership. Which is fine, but there was no clear, this is who it's for. Okay, so what is probably a good idea to talk about now is the price when I opened. So I opened my membership at $29 a month, $290 a year. This is pretty typical if you have a membership or thinking about a membership, you would ordinarily give a discounted price for an annual place and that normally is two months free. So just the price times 10. So I did this fine and I opened the doors and I got like 30 something members, which obviously I thought was amazing and is amazing. So if you're starting with 30 something members, well done, you go brilliant. Right. And bearing in mind, I had a bit of an audience, but not a ginormous audience by any stretch of the imagination. Okay. So that's where it started. I, basically did masterclasses every month. I did coaching every month, but even though I called it coaching, I wasn't a coach, but I call, like I did call it a coaching call, but basically it was a come and pick my brains call. I did, what else did I do in the early days? I must've done more stuff, but I can't remember at this point. Oh yeah. We used to do like social media stuff. I think I had, Ann, who used to work for me, come in and do content as well. So we did like a few different things, but all very strategic and practical marketing stuff. So as the membership started to build, and when I say build, I don't necessarily mean numbers, although it did, I mean content. So when you first start a membership, the content that you put in from day one is obviously nothing compared to the content that's in five years later, I can assure you. So, As the content builds, I started putting the price up. Now I want to try and address the price separately, which I might do now actually. Yeah. Okay. Let's, let's look at the price thing now. So I started to put the price up as, and obviously you always start a membership at like a beta price or as a first, you know, with the intention of this is not going to be the price. This is, dirt cheap to get people through the door. So that's what I did. So within a fairly short space of time, probably a couple of months, I upped it to $39 a month. So already it was feeling pretty expensive for a membership, if I'm honest, because a lot of the memberships that I had seen and been in were like 20 pounds, $20 a month. Then I upped it to $49 a month. Then, and I can't remember the timescales. I'm sure I could find that if I wanted to spend that much time, but then I upped it to $59. Bearing in mind, like I said, I've had this membership five years. Then a couple of years ago, I upped it to $97 a month. And now it's $222 a month, right? Which you might be sat there going, holy moly, man, like 29 to $222. Like what on earth are you giving in this membership? How much content is in there for me to justify that lift? Okay. So let me tell you one other thing on the pricing. So. I made a decision and this might feel like this episode's going all over the shop, but like I said, I'm trying to keep it to a kind of light format. When I put the price up to 222, the reason I put the price up is because the membership changed completely, right? In terms of what I offered, how I was doing it, my own level of. What I could bring to the party. I was no longer just doing marketing. I was no longer just doing one particular thing. And actually I had really upped my game in terms of what I knew, how effective I was, what I could do for people's business. So the pricing actually didn't bother me too much. The fact that I put it up, I had been in other memberships at that price by this point, in fact, more expensive, like $300. And they gave nothing in comparison to what I gave. In fact, I'd been in a couple of memberships at that point at that price. And I started to realize that actually I was bending over backwards for my members and I could charge more for that because. And again, I'll get to kind of the membership and the members in a bit as to how it is now, but I know my members really, really flippin well. So I realized that actually the service I was providing was above and beyond where I was at. And also by this point, I had been in my business like six, seven, eight, and now 10 years. So my knowledge was so much bigger than it was when I first started. I made a decision in 2023. So obviously remember what normally happens in memberships is when you bring someone, when you start a membership at a certain price, you grandfather them in, which basically means if you join at that price, you stay at that price. So all of these price increases, the people who joined to $29. continue to pay $29. Like if they left and came back, they would have to pay whatever the price was at that point. So at the point I put the price up to $222, which I am very confident and happy that my level of what you get from me and the club is absolutely worth every single penny. So I didn't have a problem with charging that amount because, and again, there was a big strategy behind why I charged that amount. What I had a problem with or what I was concerned about is I had people in there paying $29 and now I'm attracting people who are paying $222. And there is something, and I'm trying to say this in a really kind way and in a, so it doesn't come across sounding judgmental or anything. 'cause I promise you it's not, there is something very different from someone who is in a business that is giving them the income that they can pay $220 a month or scrap that all together. There's something very different about someone who is willing to pay $222 a month or $2, 220 a year. So that, that didn't sit right with me. I didn't feel right having people in there, the lower costs while I was asking people to come in. So I remember speaking to the membership geeks who are good friends of mine and I spoke to Callie at the time and I said to her, I'm thinking of removing the lower levels, like, as in, the lower cost points, and I said, but that's not the dumb thing. People, grandfather people in, they get to stay on that price. And she said, it's your membership. Do what the F you want. And I thought, okay, I'm going to do that. So I made a decision in 2023, which was probably a terrible timing of for it. Because as you will know, if you've listened to the podcast, 2023 was not a good year for me from a business point of view, because it stood still while I got sober. If you don't know what I'm talking about, then please go back. I will link to the episode where I talk about it briefly. And actually I have a whole nother podcast about me getting sober called losing part of me. So do go check that out if you're interested. Anyway, 2023, I decided that I was going to approach everyone in the club and basically say to them, if you are paying less than $97 I am putting your price up. Now, when I did this, because I do know my members really flipping well, I actually had a list of all of the people who were paying less than 97 and I knew them personally and I had already written down next to each one of them whether I thought they would stay or go for various reasons. Okay. It's not they couldn't necessarily afford it. Some people couldn't afford it and that was fine. Some people wouldn't have put the investment into that. Some people wouldn't have wanted to pay that. There was so many reasons, but I'm basically made a decision based on knowledge of will these people stay or will they go? And I knew they would go. And they did. So I basically maybe halved, if not more than that, my membership overnight. Now, the money obviously didn't half because They were paying a lesser amount, but it was still a massive decision to make, and it did have a financial impact, and it did hurt me a bit that year. But I felt that it was the right thing to do for the long term space of the membership. Obviously what I didn't expect to happen is, I did that at the beginning of 2023, I didn't expect them to sit and do nothing for the rest of 2023. And although I've done a little bit of stuff at the membership in 2024, actually As part of my big business review, the membership is being reviewed. And as you will hear from this episode, when I get to it, there is lots of things that need to change and tweak and be improved. Okay. So that was a big decision to make. Let me talk about some of the changes of the membership and some of the things that really didn't, didn't work. So. I was doing content every single month, masterclasses, man, it was a ton of work, a ton of work. Cause I wasn't just like going on for an hour and teaching something in an hour zoom. I was actually creating a mini course every single time. And it was too much work. I was constantly creating content for them. And in truth, if you have a membership, go and look at how many people have done all the things in your membership. Cause I can assure you, it is teeny tiny in comparison to the amount of stuff that's in there. And actually that's a really good point for me to say that is exactly what a membership needs to be, right? No one should ever come into a membership thinking, right, I'm going to get through all these courses. I'm going to do all this content. That is not what the membership is about. And that is very much how I market my membership now. It is definitely not about coming in and doing all the courses. No way. For me in the membership as it sits, it's about having conversations with me and then me telling you what courses are available that would work or help at that point. So there came a point, probably, and I'll talk about that a little bit more in a minute, but there came a