The conversation revolved around the importance of focus, community building, and direct response marketing in membership site success. Micah Mitchell emphasized the value of mastering direct response marketing in infancy and shared strategies for building and maintaining an online community.
Daryl Urbanski and Micah discussed the benefits and challenges of implementing membership programs for businesses, prioritizing retention and scaling sales to 500 sales or recurring payments per month. They also highlighted the importance of community, consistency, and having a clear sales message in building a successful membership business.
Here are the reasons why you should listen to the full interview
- Learn how to overcome obstacles in the infancy stage and transition into the next phases of running a membership site.
- Discover the importance of maintaining a steady flow of new members and how a comprehensive sales funnel comes into play.
- Understand the complexities involved in building new products, upsells, and the initiation of masterminds when your membership site crosses 500 members.
Resources
- Thinking Fast and Slow by Daniel Kahneman
- Follow Micah on LinkedIN
- For more Informative Interviews Click Here.
Interview Highlights
Micah Mitchell: The benefits of membership programs for businesses and individuals
- Micah explains how membership programs can multiply for multiple members with different access levels.
- Micah addresses the question of why pay for information when there's free content available, citing the value of personalized tracking and access to exclusive content.
- Micah Mitchell discusses the benefits of buying into a course vs. free YouTube content, citing organization and intentionality as key advantages.
- Micah and Daryl Urbanski discuss the potential for membership programs in various industries, with b2b having higher success rates due to potential for ROI.
Building and optimizing membership sites, with a focus on sales and retention
- Daryl Urbanski and Micah discuss the success of their software, with over 10 million active users and $8 million in monthly billings.
- Micah identifies four stages of membership site growth, starting with infancy (zero to 10 billings per month).
- The main challenge in building a membership site is proving the concept.
- In childhood stage (10-100 members), focus on sales and improving the user experience.
- In adolescence stage (105-1000 members), prioritize retention and optimizing the system.
Scaling businesses with a focus on reaching 100 sales or 100 recurring payments per month before moving on to subsequent
- Daryl Urbanski emphasizes the importance of a steady flow of new clients for business success.
- Daryl advises entrepreneurs to prioritize building a river of flow before investing time, energy, and money into operations and systems.
- Daryl Urbanski emphasizes the importance of reaching 100 sales or recurring payments per month before scaling.
- Micah Mitchell advises against moving on to new products until reaching 500 customers, as it becomes profitable to start a mastermind.
Scaling businesses through strategic sales and retention strategies
- Micah highlights the importance of scaling and diversifying products to build a stable business with multiple revenue streams.
- Daryl Urbanski agrees and emphasizes the need for a repeatable sales process in the early stages of business growth.
- Daryl Urbanski and Micah discuss the importance of balancing sales and retention in the early stages of a business.
- Micah Mitchell suggests that entrepreneurs should focus on sales first, but not at the expense of retention, and that there is no one-size-fits-all ratio for when to prioritize each.
Building a membership site, including hiring team members
- Micah suggests that getting 10 sales with 1-2 refunds is normal, and it's okay to have some refunds as long as they're not excessive.
- Micah Mitchell believes that the number of billings per month is not dependent on the price point of the product, but rather the success of the business overall.
- Sample size matters for upselling, even with higher prices.
- Key team roles include developer, designer, and project manager.
- Micah suggests understanding one's personality type to find a suitable co-founder
- Micah advises complementing one's strengths with an opposite co-founder for better collaboration
Sales strategies for early-stage businesses, including writing a basic sales letter
- Micah Mitchell shares insights on selling membership programs, emphasizing the importance of articulating value properly.
- Infancy: Focus on basic sales letter, then expand to other mediums in adolescence.
Building influence and sales through direct response marketing
- Micah suggests building influence by interviewing others in your space and creating content from those interviews.
- Micah advises learning direct response marketing to grow your business, as it's a skill most people don't know.
- Micah shares success story of shifting focus from technical work to sales to grow business.
Building and retaining an engaged community through various strategies
- Daryl Urbanski and Micah discuss the importance of community building and retention in business.
- Micah advises waiting until a business is far enough along before creating a community to avoid a "ghost town."
- Micah Mitchell discussed the importance of kicking off a community with a personal touch, then gradually pulling back and letting the community take over.
- Creating a free community within a site can attract more people and build a loyal following, with the option to offer a lifetime membership fee for early adopters.
Importance of community and curated content for retention in membership sites
- Daryl Urbanski emphasizes the importance of community in retention, citing ownership and a sense of belonging as key factors.
- Micah highlights the value of a "parent-child" model in B2B, where ongoing training and consistency are crucial for success.
- Micah Mitchell emphasizes the importance of curating content and providing a consistent experience for customers.
- Daryl Urbanski plugs Micah Mitchell's free report on adding value to membership sites without creating more content.
Fundamentals for business success, including membership-based models and sales strategies
- Daryl Urbanski suggests hiring VAs or interns to help with content creation and other tasks.
- Micah is encouraged to provide more information on how to apply the stages of membership-based businesses to other types of businesses.
- Micah Mitchell emphasizes importance of fundamentals in business, citing martial arts experience.
- Micah Mitchell believes that basic techniques, when done well, can outperform flashy new ideas.
The importance of membership sites for businesses
- Daryl Urbanski and Micah discuss the benefits of having a membership site for businesses, including staff training, customer engagement, and affiliate marketing.
- Daryl and Micah emphasize the importance of creating a login-based area for any type of business, as it can improve customer loyalty and increase repeat business.
- Daryl Urbanski thanks Micah Mitchell for being on the show and provides encouragement for his audience.
- Micah expresses gratitude and shares his thoughts on the importance of taking action.
Expertise: Business Growth, Sales, Marketing Automation, Leadership