This may come as a shock to you, but when we started, we didn’t have a membership site. We didn’t have tons of content that we were just going to immediately go out and be able to offer.
As a matter of fact, we invited members into our membership and didn’t deliver a thing to them, except for some bonuses until three weeks later.
So yes, we sold a membership, what I would call “pre-sold” a membership, to founding members and invited them in and hundreds of people took it.
What can you learn from this strategy?
Launch it first, then build it.
How do you launch first? Number one, you set a deadline.
In my case, we immediately set a deadline for when we were going to deliver the membership. Now that the deadline was three weeks out, but we said to ourselves, “Hey, why couldn’t we go ahead and begin pre-selling this membership? Even though the deliverables are about three weeks away to be able to deliver upon it.”
And so we set that deadline saying, “There it is: three weeks, the line is in the sand! We’re going to make this happen.” And you know what? A strange thing happens when you set a deadline. All of a sudden the pressure builds; the responsibility becomes prevalent.
If you’re going to set a goal for yourself, you really have to set a deadline. You cannot have a goal without having some sort of time management piece in place. So you have to set that goal and say that, this is the date of when I’m going to launch the membership, or else!
The next strategy is: Send a founding member invite email.
Now I would invite you to not just send one email, but send a series of emails. That would be you founding member campaign that you’re going to invite people in your audience, on your email list, and all your social media to be a part of this membership.
Say something like…
“Hey, I’m starting something brand new. I’m inviting founding members to be a part of it. The great news is you get to grow with it as we grow as a membership. And to reward you as a fast action taker, I’m going to load you up with some bonuses because on (this date…your deadline), you’ll get access to the complete membership and you’ll be rewarded.”
Those bonuses could be anything. It could be gifts in the mail. It could be other parts of the membership that are going to be implemented later on, whatever you want.
You will be amazed at how many people, who desire more from you, will be a part of this. They are willing to grow with you. They are willing to help get this off the ground because they believe in you, they believe in your membership, and they believe it could be a great thing. They want to experience it right alongside you.
Your members, especially your founding members, don’t expect you to have everything in place. So you’re able to send out the founding member email campaign series of emails and invite them to be a part of it and take that.
Which leads to the third step.. Celebrate and reward yourself.
You just did something amazing… you launched your membership and you did it before the membership program even existed. You invited finding a founding members to come into your membership program and they joined and took you up on your opportunity. And I want you to celebrate.
Celebrate all the people who have signed up and who will sign up and not just the months to come, but the years to come after that. Celebrate the fact that you took action. Reward yourself and repeat this process over, and over, and over again.
I don’t want you to launch your membership program just once. I want you to continually launch it again and again, inviting people into your membership program.
Use this process, set a deadline, send out the email, and then celebrate over, and over, and over again.
That’s how you launch it first, then build it.
Are you interested in taking next steps to multiply your coaching business? Here are three ways we can work together:
1. Grab a copy of “High-Ticket Coach.” It’s my brand new book on how to create, launch and sell your high-ticket membership offer. You’ll also get a ton of free resources and tools to help sell your current membership offers.
2. Get a FREE copy of Accelerate: How to Get Your Next 10, 100, 500 or Even 1,000 Members… Yes, you can get a free copy of my brand-new book! In it, you discover more on how to promote your membership, get more members and increase retention.
3. If you’d like to work directly with me and my team to help you create and sell a high ticket membership… If you’d like to work directly with me and my team to multiply your membership… just schedule a free strategy session. We’ll map out a strategy and then take a look to see if and how we may be able to grow your business. Go here to complete this brief survey and schedule your free call.
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