325 Stu McLaren Joined Our Mastermind To Talk ALL THINGS MEMBERSHIP!
Top 5 Lessons for Creating and Growing a Membership
with Stu McLaren
Stu McLaren's Top 5 Lessons for Creating and Growing a Membership.
In this episode, Kelsey shares 5 valuable lessons learned from hosting membership expert Stu McLaren inside the WAVE mastermind.
She discusses...
the power of pricing psychology,
delivering content to appeal to multiple learning styles,
the importance of not overwhelming people,
considering an open and closed cart model for memberships,
and the nuances of building a successful membership.
Stay tuned to discover how these lessons could help you effectively navigate the world of memberships and recurring revenue!
Connect with Stu: https://stu.me/start
Episode Time Stamps:
[00:00] Seeking balance between motherhood and entrepreneurship
[08:15] Maximize business growth with strategic pricing psychology.
[11:22 ] Deliver content to accommodate diverse learning styles.
[14:45] The importance of selling the benefits, simplifying steps and avoid overwhelming customers.
[18:00] Close cart strategy and offer bonuses for incentive
To connect with Kelsey:
Access the transcript for this episode:
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You are listening to the Visionary Life podcast. I'm your host, Kelsey Reidl. Each week, I'll bring you conversations with the most visionary humans on this earth in hopes that you'll be able to absorb their wisdom, avoid their failures, and feel less alone on the roller coaster ride that is entrepreneurship. This season, I'll be chatting with creative thinkers, masterful marketers, brick and mortar shop owners, brand builders, and people just like you who have a story to share or a vision that inspires. If I can share one quick secret with you before we get into the episode, it's that we all have a little bit of visionary inside of us. You know, that spark that nudges us to pursue our full potential in this lifetime. But perhaps somewhere along the line, it got covered up. I'm here to tell you that it's never too late to explore that inner voice and access the brilliance deep down inside of you.
It's in you. It's in all of us. Let's dive in. Hey, visionaries. Welcome back to another episode of the podcast. I'm so excited to be here and also just overjoyed because I have my cousin here watching Freddie, and it feels really good and also really bittersweet to be back to work. I feel like, as an entrepreneurial personality type and somebody who derives a lot of their meaning and joy and passion for life out of doing it all. And in the strength finder, I am a maximizer.
It's wonderful on one hand to have these three or four hour chunks in my day now, but it's also really sad that upstairs I can hear my little guy, who's just over three months now, having fun with his auntie and that I'm down here. So it's like, if you've ever been straddling these two worlds of motherhood and entrepreneurship, or maybe two other worlds, you probably know exactly that feeling I'm talking about where you turn off all the music. I don't put my headphones in, and I just kind of, like, listen to what's going on upstairs. So, anyways, it breaks my heart a little bit. But also, you guys know I love the work that I do. I love that I get to sit down with you and podcast, and I'm constantly writing notes and dreaming about what I can create and share to make your life better and easier and to help you tap into your most visionary life. So, without further ado, today I actually want to share five lessons learned from having the membership expert, Stu McLaren come chat inside of our wave mastermind. So if you're not familiar.
Every single Wednesday, we assemble a group of female entrepreneurs, and these are leaders in their field. Ambitious women, people who are naturopaths and lawyers and birth doulas and photographers and gut health nutritionists and dietitians, and people who are coaches and consultants. We meet every Wednesday because we're a passionate group who wants to learn and grow and ten x our businesses. And once a month, we bring in a guest speaker. And so last week, we brought in Stu McLaren, who a lot of you may know, he is affiliated with people like Jenna Kutcher and Amy Porterfield. And he is the go to guy for anybody who wants to build out a membership. And we had the privilege of bringing him to our intimate mastermind, where there's just 20 women. And if you do want to learn more, go to kelseyridel.com mastermind.
And it was so cool to hear him speak and to see him talk about something that he is an expert in. Right? When somebody has devoted the better part of 15 or 20 years to their craft, it's awesome to hear them condense everything you need to know into a 1 hour training. And of course, there's only so much he could cover, but you could tell that he's put so much effort into this. And I think it's easy to look at someone like Stu and be like, wow, he must have just got lucky. But again, he shared his whole backstory, which included launching his first membership over 15 years ago, which I thought was really cool. So today I kind of wanted to just share five lessons that I learned from his training inside of the wave mastermind. And if you do ever decide to join, you will also get access, because we keep everything in our wavelength archive, so you can dig in at any time. If you do decide to join, the first thing I'll say is that I was chatting with a girlfriend who is inside of our mastermind, and she mentioned that Stu was very disarming from the moment he jumped on Zoom, which I very much agreed with.
If you've ever been to more of a formal conference before, and you look up at the speaker and they are wearing a gorgeous outfit, they look so polished. They are on the stage kind of looking down at their participants. It can feel a little bit like, okay, you're the God, and I'm just the. The student learning from you, which I think there's so much merit to that type of learning. And if you go to a conference, that's just the way it goes. However, this felt like more of an intimate workshop where we were all kind of sitting shoulder to shoulder. And yes, Stu showed up as an expert, but he also showed up wearing this cozy, bright Patagonia, a really fun surfer skateboarder hat. His background had family photos and pictures from his past.
What my girlfriend said was that it was very disarming, and I couldn't agree more. So I think there's something to that. Like, if you're ever going to give a presentation, it's like, do you want to be the expert on stage wearing the fancy outfit, looking down on your students, or do you want to be more in a circle, sitting shoulder to shoulder? Maybe you take your shoes off and you're just kind of barefoot, and you're really connecting on a. We're all on the same level, but I just know a little bit more about a topic than you do. So anyways, I found that really refreshing, and I think all of our members did as well. It just set the stage for what was an amazing talk. So Stu actually shared ten ways to ten x your membership, and these are applicable whether you have a membership or even if you don't, and you've been thinking about starting one. So if you're listening to this episode and if you're like, well, I don't have a membership or reoccurring revenue model yet, just know that these takeaways still apply to anyone in business who wants to grow and just know what works and what doesn't in today's industry.
So let's get into it. The first takeaway that I learned from Stu McLaren, the Wave mastermind, is finally here. We've been running a super epic group for female entrepreneurs every single Wednesday for the last year. And you may have seen on Instagram that we recently rebranded to wave, the mastermind. That stands for wealthy, ambitious, visionary, and energized. And these, these are the core values of the women inside of the wave mastermind. So if you are a passionate female entrepreneur looking to catapult your business, and you really want to be part of a group that's going to help you get there, then wave the mastermind is definitely for you. You can head to kelseyridel.com mastermind to apply.
Spots are super limited, and we have so many badass women in this group who are ready to support you. We have lawyers, we have naturopathic doctors, we have health coaches, we have Reiki practitioners. We have consultants and coaches and people who are on the same wavelength as you. They are driven, they are ambitious, they are high performing, and they know that without connection and without having people in your corner who are equally as driven and motivated as you, that you might end up not growing your business as much as you want to in 2024. So if this sounds like something you might want to be part of again, we have a few spots open. Head to kelseyridel.com mastermind. We would love to gift you a free wave method session, which is a four part process, plus weekly business coaching tailored to driven women like you. So again, when you join the Wave mastermind, we are gifting you a wave method session.
This is going to help you to ten x your business with a plan, with a strategy, and we cannot wait to be part of this growth journey that you're on. So again, Kelsey Rydell.com mastermind if you are a driven female entrepreneur, and we would love to speak with you. So again, Kelsey rydell.com mastermind first takeaway, I learned was to break down the price. So if you offer coaching or you're selling a group program or a membership, it'd be easy to say, okay, for a year, it's gonna cost you $6,000. But what we could actually consider is breaking it down to something like, oh, it's only 500 a month, or if your membership costs $30 a month, instead of saying that, say it's less than a dollar a day. So there's so much to be said for pricing psychology. And if you are interested in learning more about pricing psychology, like when to use a decimal, do you add the dollar sign or take it away? Should you round your numbers up or round them down? Should you end in an even or an odd number? Actually, entire books written about this. But the person that I love to follow, and I'm on her newsletter, is Caitlin Burjen.
I'm probably saying that wrong. Caitlin Bergian. Anyway, she's a good twitter follow. She has amazing content in her newsletters, but she shares a lot of this pricing psychology. Like, if you're selling a million dollar home, just popping 1.3 m as the price, versus one, comma, 30 two, comma, eight four three dot, $0.53 with a dollar sign, that seems way bigger. So if you want a number to feel big, stretch it out. If you want to shrink it, you can just put 1.3 million, right? So that's just a quick example of how pricing psychology works. But one of the other ways that Stu used this was that he taught us about this philosophy called price decoy.
Now, this is where you essentially have three tiers of pricing, but tier two and three would maybe be the exact same price, because it kind of, like, makes you look at it going, well, why wouldn't I go with the top tiered model? And you'll have to watch the training that he gave if you want to understand price decoy. But I think that when we compare different prices, people are able to evaluate and feel like they're making more of an informed decision. So comparing a 229, a 329, and a 429 membership, then we're able to say, okay, at least I have a choice in this matter. It's not just one price or 2229. 329 and 329, which I know sounds really weird, but maybe then your 329 and 329 membership, it's very obvious to go with the 329 versus the 229, because there's two options at that same price point, and one is just exponentially more valuable. So little tips and tricks like that. If you can break it down in a membership to here's what it costs per day, it can seem very approachable. So that's lesson number one that I learned from Stu is the power of pricing psychology.
The second lesson that I took away from Stu McLaren's training was to deliver content to appeal to multiple learning styles. So if you're running a membership, if you're teaching a program, if you've created an online course, make sure that you are creating in a way that honors the different learning styles, which would be auditory, kinesthetic, visual. And some people are just more like multidimensional learners where they like it. All right, so adult learning styles, very significant. And it just really reflects the diverse ways which people like you and me process and retain information. And if you can understand these differences and try to make your program or course or membership appeal to everyone, you'll actually have a higher retention rate. Just to cue this up, I will say I recently bought an online program, and it's being delivered through this custom app. And one thing that I find a barrier is that, number one, a lot of the content is embedded into this app, and their level of sophistication isn't quite there yet.
So I like to chromecast things to my tv. So if I'm watching a YouTube video on my phone, I actually display it on my tv, or I'll buy a tv show, and then I'll display it to my tv. I'll do a workout. So if you've used Chromecast, you know how amazing it is, because then you don't have to squint at your little screen. This course in particular doesn't allow that ability. So I'm trying to watch these trainings but I can't chromecast. So that is, you know, one of the ways that I feel this person could improve. I also can't speed up the lesson.
So the way they've embedded their course videos into this app, there's no way to pull it up to 1.5 speed or 1.2 x speed. And if you're somebody like me who loves to speed up slow talkers, I don't know, maybe I'm crazy because I listen to podcasts. Like, if I was listening to this podcast, I'd be on two x depending on the day. Sometimes I'm at 1.5 or 1.8. But regardless, the fact that I have to watch this course at one x speed actually bothers me. So again, have you thought about different learning styles? Auditory learners are about 30% of the population, and they want to hear things via listening. So either video or like a podcast style. Kinesthetic learners are a smaller portion and they like more of a hands on learning, so giving them tasks and, and takeaways.
Visual learners are about 65% of the population, and they really like the idea of looking like watching a video or reading a PDF. And then there's multimodal learners who are. They like the combination of visual, auditory, reading, kinesthetic. So having eventually a variety of ways to deliver your material is super important for retention. So that was lesson number two. Lesson number three that I learned from Stu McLaren is to not overwhelm people. So when people first start online courses or memberships, the tendency is to want to sell the features to be like, there are 946 video trainings, there are 261 templates you can use, there are three coaching calls per week. And it's just like you're bombarding people with all of the features of what you're selling.
In reality, you need to sell the benefits. Like, you're going to go through step one, step two, step three, and on the other side, you will have a doggy daycare set up, right? Don't overwhelm them with all the things they're going to have to do. Just show them that through your method or your path, you're not going to overwhelm them, and you're going to give them the exact steps they need in order to move through this process. So Stu mentioned that the number one reason people quit or leave memberships. And I believe this to be true for any reoccurring revenue, or even if you're selling services, like if you're a naturopathic doctor, if we overwhelm people, that is the number one reason they won't come back. So what we want to do is give them a very clear and manageable path, build them a custom journey, if you can, especially if you have a database of resources. Um, and make sure that they don't feel bombarded with. Like, there are 49 things I need to do before 05:00 p.m., today, and that's not reasonable.
Right. Um, we. Emily and I, have taken this away for wave, the mastermind, because at this point, we've been sharing our mastermind content for a year. So that's 52 trainings, and when somebody onboards, we are so excited to open up the wave archives and say, oh, my gosh, look at all of these amazing sessions we have hosted. However, what we're doing now is we're actually having each new member fill out an intake form, and then Emily and I carefully review it together, and we select two, three, or four trainings that we know are going to change this person's business. Yes. Would it be cool if they watched all 52 and found value in all 52? Sure. But it's likely that we can pinpoint the two or three that if they spend those two or 3 hours in the next 30 days, they're going to see major momentum.
So we're actually doing this custom path so as to not overwhelm them. So that's takeaway number three. Takeaway number four is to consider an open and close cart model. Now, when you think about reoccurring memberships. Excuse me, I'm so sorry. You might think that they're always open. The doors are always open. You can join any time.
However, when something is always available, oftentimes that lack of urgency prevents people from buying, which is not great for us. Right. So Stu encourages us to do an open and closed model where maybe on April 1, cart opens, you can join the membership, but on April 14, it closes until September. So maybe there's only two enrollment periods every year or only a select amount of time that you can actually join. Now, you might be thinking, well, that's kind of weird, because my content is always good, and people should be able to join anytime. If that's the case, definitely. And if it's working for you to have cart open all the time, stay with that. But there is this level of urgency or this scarcity that something's going to go away that actually encourages people to make a decision.
And if, you know, as the entrepreneur, as the marketer, as the person selling this program, that cart closes April 14. My bet is that you're going to show up so much bigger, right? You're going to show up and really push for those two weeks, and then you can kind of sit back and watch some Netflix on the other side. So you don't always have to be enrolling. And if you don't feel like it's ethical to just close your cart for no reason, what about thinking about bonuses? So maybe if you sign up from April 1 to 14th, there are going to be bonus calls that you can join. There's a bonus video training that you know your members would love. But if you join after April 14, you're not getting those bonuses, right. So you're kind of dangling some incentives in front of people, but you can still join the membership or your program after that. It's just you won't get the bonuses.
So you're doing like two or three launches per year that are open close with bonus incentives versus actually just closing and denying people. So you really have to find that sweet spot. What makes sense for what you're selling? What's the best way to launch or to open close your product? Or is it something that should be available all the time and are people still motivated to buy? So that's lesson number four that I learned from Stu. And then finally, lesson number five is that memberships are awesome. They really are. And Stu is definitely the best hype person for a membership. And you should go check out. He's got an incredible free training happening right now on memberships.
And you can also join his membership experience if you want to build one. But I want to put a caveat here that you don't have to have a membership. There are so many ways to deliver your offer. And if you've ever worked with me before, we always talk about what is the current state of your dream client, where do they want to go and what's the best way to get them there. And if it's not a membership that reoccurs as a payment for the rest of their life, then that's okay. Maybe 90 days is all you need to get your clients results. And so you charge more, but you get them the results in a shorter period of time so they don't have to be part of this program forever and not really see an end in sight. Or maybe you just want to work one on one with people and charge a really premium price.
Or maybe you didn't want to do a group program launch or, you know, an evergreen course that people can buy. So just remember that anytime somebody is selling you something or anytime you're scrolling Instagram and you're met with an ad. You are the product, right? We learned this from the Netflix movie. The social network is that when things are free. So join my free training, join my free challenge. You are the product. People are trying to sell you something. It's very similar to how a few weeks ago there was a prominent figure, Jenna Kutcher, promoting a Pinterest course.
And I had so many of my clients ask me, Kelse, should I be on Pinterest? Do I need to be there? Apparently Pinterest is like the latest and greatest. And I'm like, no, like, you're being sold a course on the other end. And yes, Pinterest can be great, but remember, people are saying podcasting is the greatest thing since sliced bread. YouTube is the greatest thing since sliced bread. Building your email list is the greatest thing since sliced sliced bread. Having a better logo is that, you know, I could go on. So really check yourself before you're going to take anything at face value. Just remember there's nuance.
Just remember that what worked for someone is not necessarily going to work for everybody else. You really have to discern, is this the right move for me? And make sure it's a full body. Yes. Before you hopefully pour one or two or three years into building this, because memberships are not easy to sell, you're going to have a high churn. You're going to have people coming and going all the time like not everyone is just going to join a membership and pay you their life savings for the rest of their life, right? So keep in mind that it's not an easy business model, but if you're committed to it, committed to promoting one product for one type of person, for one year at least, then go for it. But otherwise, really check. Is this the time to launch or should I just keep doubling down on what's already going well? So I hope this training was interesting. Those are five lessons I learned from Stu McLaren inside of our membership training program, and I would highly encourage you to go check out his course.
He's amazing. We really appreciate him coming inside of the mastermind to do such an exclusive training for our amazing wave members. And if you are interested in applying for a free discovery call to see if wave is right for you, head to kelseyridel.com mastermind. We'd love to see you. In this group, we are seeing people who are ten xing their businesses, who are launching their memberships with 20 paid clients. We had someone who earned 50k in two months when her goal was just to earn 100k in six months. So she's way ahead of schedule here and there's just so much going down behind the scenes. So again, Kelsey Rydell.com mastermind and if you want to connect with Stu, I'll leave his links in the bio and I hope you guys have an amazing day.
Hey visionary. I want to interrupt this episode to share a little bit more about one on one coaching. I work with clients who want to stay on top of the latest marketing trends, who want to bring more ease into their marketing funnel or just build a marketing funnel in the first place because maybe you don't have one yet and ultimately take the effort and overwhelm out of your marketing plan. I know your energy is limited and just want someone to tell you what to do. Should you be on threads? Should you be creating on TikTok? How do you grow an email list? What does SEO mean? Anyways, this is why I offer private one on one business and marketing coaching for business owners like you who need help with their marketing strategy. You can head to kelseyridel.com privatecoaching to learn exactly what it's going to look like if we decide to work together. And I'm excited because I can give you the precise strategies that will take your business to the next level this year. So if you want to learn more kelseyridel.com privatecoaching of course, it is a bit more of an investment than any of my other courses or offerings, but my private clients are seeing crazy results.
Christina landed a six figure consulting contract. Emily signed six clients in one day. Barb had a Black Friday sale that generated a lot of money and these are all based on the strategies that we've implemented. So kelsey Rydell.com privatecoaching, you can learn all about it. You can see all of the amazing visionary businesses that I've worked with and supported over the last decade and I can't wait to see your application come through. Kelseyreidl.com private coaching now back to the episode of visionary life. I love bringing you these conversations on a weekly basis, so it would mean so much to me if you could help me out by rating and reviewing the show on either itunes or Spotify. It just takes a second and if you don't want to rate the show, you could also just take a screenshot of the episode and share it on your social media platform of choice.
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Mentioned on the Episode:
If you are a passionate female entrepreneur looking to catapult your business and you really want to be part of a group that's going to help you get there, WAVE, the mastermind is definitely for you.
This intimate business mastermind is for women who are running online service-based businesses, and who are looking to plug into a community of other powerful leaders who are ready to grow in their health, wealth & relationships. Hosted by Emily Elliot (Mindset & Success Coach) and Kelsey Reidl (Marketing Consultant).
Click here to apply >>> https://www.kelseyreidl.com/mastermind
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