TRIBE 2019 (Intensive) – Stu McLaren

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Turn What You Already Know, Love And Do Into Recurring Revenue

If you’re looking to create a low stress business that gives you the freedom you want and the steady stream of recurring revenue you need to create the life you love – then reading this letter will be the best decision you can make for your future.

But first, a warning

Recurring revenue (for any business) requires a shift away from old habits. The old way of doing business means you make a sale and hope customers come back again. But chasing new sales every month and hoping customers buy again is stressful and unpredictable.

That’s why I’m thrilled you have an interest in TRIBE.

The system I provide helps you serve your audience in a way that eliminates stress. By simply repackaging what you’re already doing and delivering it through a membership site, you instantly give your business a tremendous amount of stability. This new approach to business allows you to produce high value for your clients while creating dependable, reliable sales for your business… EVERY SINGLE MONTH.

Hi there! I’m Stu

For the last 10 years, I’ve been working intimately with tens of thousands of membership site owners. As the former co-founder of WishList Member the world’s most popular membership platform for WordPress (powering over 60,000+ membership sites) and now co-founder of TRIBE, I’ve been helping membership site owners in virtually every market you can think of.

From photography and calligraphy to dog training, fitness, music, health, meal plans, teacher plans, non-profit, personal development, business development and so many more!

And through it all, I’ve discovered the subtle nuances that make a BIG difference in the success of the sites that thrive vs. those that sputter.

That’s why I was hired by some of the world’s top thought leaders to help them do the same

• Stu is an absolute GENIUS at taking material and breaking it down into frameworks and then making it super actionable.
• Stu shows you that anyone can create a membership site and it can be one of the most profitable parts of your business.
• Stu has got heart, epic smarts and the jaw-dropping strategy to back it up. He has inspired me to dream bigger and showed me exactly how to get there. I’m beyond lucky to be one of his coaching clients and don’t plan on ever giving up my slot!
• Stu broke down our existing material and significantly improved on what we were already doing. Changes we implemented paid for the consulting within a short time. This was the best investment I’ve made in my business in years
• Hiring Stu McLaren was one of the best business decisions I’ve ever made. Stu’s guidance and expertise are priceless. After working with Stu my company has a strong foundation, clear direction and scalability.

And, I’ve not only been teaching it, but I’ve actually been in the trenches launching and growing my own 6 and 7-figure membership sites. And through it all, here is the most important discovery I can share with you…

With the right strategy…

It’s just as easy to make a recurring sale as it is to make a one-time sale

Here’s a fact: major companies like Adobe, Microsoft, and Apple have made a conscious shift away from selling “boxed software” and instead they now sell monthly memberships or subscriptions. Other companies like Amazon and Google does it too.

Why did they make the move to subscriptions?

Because they realized that it was just as easy to make a recurring sale as it was to sell something one time. 

So instead of customers buying once, the same customer will happily spend money with you EVERY single month as long as they continue to get value.

And in the long haul, it was a more profitable, reliable and stable business model. 

Now it has become the cornerstone of their business with millions of subscribers and hundreds of millions in reliable, monthly revenue.

Then there is the story of Blockbuster and Netflix. Blockbuster consciously chose to stick with their old outdated model – just hoping their customers would return to buy from them. However, Netflix built a business model that guaranteed customers would return month after month.

And look what happened…

In a 7 year period, Blockbuster went from $6 billion dollars a year in sales with 60,000 employees, to filing for bankruptcy.

While Netflix grew from a tiny startup to over $7 billion in sales per year with over 74 million monthly subscribers.

HOPE FOR SALES vs GUARANTEED MONTHLY SALES

That’s great for big companies, but what about everyone else?

How do YOU guarantee sales month after month?

The answer… create a membership site for YOUR audience.

Let’s look at the facts.

Every year, there are businesses that you and I interact with every day, who are transitioning to a recurring model. Take a minute right now and think about all of the recurring subscriptions that you have in your life at this very moment. 

Tools you use in your business. Memberships you belong to. Services that instead of paying for one-time, you now pay for on a monthly or annual basis. Subscriptions and memberships are the new way of doing business… and it’s now BIG business.

What if you don’t adapt?

We are in the midst of what I call, “The Recurring Revolution”

Those that decide to stay with their “old school” business model of chasing one-time sales are finding it harder and harder to keep up. 

They continue to hope that their customers will come back and buy again. 

But you and I both know that “hope” is never a good business model.

Plus, with the one-off transaction model, every month these companies are automatically starting at zero again. 

It’s like hitting “reset” button on the 1st of the month. And without some type of promotion, NOTHING happens. 

That’s stressful… even more so when you begin to grow and have considerably more overhead (staff, office, etc.).

So why now is the perfect time for experts, coaches & influencers?

This “recurring revolution” combined with the dramatic rise of online education has people like you and I growing high 6, 7 even 8-figure businesses teaching our audiences through membership sites. 

For example…

Tools you use in your business. Memberships you belong to. Services that instead of paying for one-time, you now pay for on a monthly or annual basis. 

Subscriptions and memberships are the NEW way of doing business… and it’s now BIG business.

And these people also launched their membership sites

(in all kinds of different niche markets)

• Susan Garrett who launched a membership site… to a list of fewer than 1,800 people… teaching people how to train their dog… and had over 61% of her list join her membership (1,000+ members).
• Or Ryan Levesque who transitioned from a consulting model (that had zero leverage) to a membership site… and now serves thousands of members, in a FAR more leveraged way… and has grown his site to over $2 million a year.
• Or Patty Palmer who was once an art teacher and realized that she could take her lesson plans, and share them with thousands of other teachers around the world… which resulted in 923 members signing up for her membership site in the first week!

There are literally thousands of markets being served by experts, influencers and entrepreneurs who committed to leveraging what they know and delivering it inside a membership site. Markets like:

• Strength Training
• Dog Training
• Interior Design
• Ju Jitsu
• Nutrition
• Preaching
• Photography
• Travel Hacking
• Yoga Hunting
• Calligraphy
• Driving Sports
• Origami
• Languages
• Writing
• Food Prep
• Makeup
• Coding
• Running
• Word Press
• Investing
• Blogging
• Personal Style
• Art

And this is only just scratching the surface.

Membership sites can be adapted for any business but…

If you’re one of these three types of people, membership sites are especially effective

• You’re an established expert. Perhaps you’re an author, speaker, blogger, podcaster, coach or consultant and you’d like to continue sharing what you know, but in a more leveraged, profitable way.
• You have an audience… either on social media or an email list… and now you’d like to continue serving that audience… but get paid handsomely… monthly to do it.
• You’d like to start your first online business or scale an existing one and you like the recurring revenue that comes with a membership site. And now, you’d really like to scale it into becoming your full-time venture.

What if you already have an audience…

You’re in a great position too.

Regardless of whether your audience follows you on Facebook, Instagram, Snapchat or YouTube… or maybe you have an email list of people who love hearing from you… the fact is, people are drawn to you.

Wouldn’t it be great to leverage that interest and build a business around it?

Then serving this audience could quickly become your full-time gig… and that’s what you want right?

Plus, that consistent income will give you the ability to invest more into serving them in a bigger way.

Because let’s face it, if you want to grow your audience, the fastest way to do it is by getting your content in front of more people.

That requires one of two things:

A) Producing high-quality content (which costs money) …and/or…

B) An investment in ads to get your content in front of more people

But the money for each of these has to come from somewhere.

And if you haven’t built a consistent revenue stream from this audience, then you’re always caught between wanting to serve your audience but needing to generate income to pay the bills.

A membership site eliminates that tension.

It gives you the best of both worlds – consistent monthly revenue AND the ability to freely create for your audience.

And if you’d like to start your first online business (or you’ve got one that you’d like to scale up)

A membership site is a great place to start because it boils down to identifying a specific need and providing solutions.

And as you’ll discover, in so many cases, you don’t even need to be the “expert”.

John Gallagher is a perfect example of this. He wasn’t the expert but instead built HerbMentor.com around the expertise of others in the community he wanted to serve.

And with over 3,000+ monthly members, it has grown into a thriving business that has lasted the test of time.

Andrew Warner of Mixergy.com is the same. All he did was interview people. Then he asked the people who listened to the interviews what they wanted to learn more about. 

And based on that, he created advanced materials and hosted them within a paid membership site. He didn’t teach any of the content. It was all in depth interviews with other experts.

And there are MANY other examples like this. 

Like TeenLifeMinistries.com and TheFresh20.com, neither are sites based around a “guru” per se. 

They identified a specific need in their respective markets and every month, and their members pay because their memberships provide a needed service. 

It comes down to identifying a specific need and then creating content that meets that need – and I’ll show you exactly how to do that in TRIBE.

Now, even though there are endless examples of companies big and small building recurring revenue streams with membership sites, I often get asked…

What’s the catch with membership sites?

The health of your membership site depends on two important factors.

• Your ability to attract new members
• Your ability to keep your members happy and paying month after month

Unfortunately, despite popular belief, not all members will stay active and paying. 

You will experience “drop off”

But with what I’ll teach you in TRIBE, the overwhelming majority will stick around (retention is something I specialize in).

And with what I’ll teach you, members won’t stay for 3-4 months like most people suggest. My clients find their members staying for YEARS. And when that happens, profitability soars.

Just imagine how it will feel to see the sales from your membership come in month after month. Regardless of whether you do a big promotion.

Imagine being able to finally have some breathing room in your business… knowing that the membership has your baseline expenses covered… while growing year over year.

Imagine having the space to be creative with all that you do… without worrying about generating income to pay for the very thing you love.

Imagine being connected to your audience in a much deeper way. Then, imagine having the resources to serve them in a bigger, better way.

That’s what TRIBE is all about

I’m passionate about this because I know it works. 

But how can I be so confident? For years, I was in a very unique position and…

My secret lab produced an important discovery

As the co-founder of one of the world’s largest membership platforms, I had the opportunity to interact with literally tens of thousands of people running successful membership sites and online communities.

In fact, when I sold my shares in that software company, it was powering over 60,000+ membership sites and online communities. And that’s when I discovered there were really…

Two groups of membership site owners

The Hobbyist

This was the vast majority of people. These people typically launched a site to produce some “side income”. And those sites did “ok”. But generally fell flat after the initial launch. 

The Business Owner

This was a much smaller group. These sites soared in profits, growing month after month producing high 6, 7 and even 8-figure businesses. The best part is, they were structured in a way that required far less ongoing management – more money and a lot less stress.

Needless to say, I paid attention to the Business Owners. And learned first hand the EXACT strategies they were using to consistently grow year after year.

So…

I tested my discoveries 

AND IT WORKED!

After years of working with thousands of membership site owners, I decided to partner with New York Times bestselling author Michael Hyatt. 

I wanted to take everything I had learned and apply it to a fresh new site. I wanted to see if I could replicate what I had found.

And it worked. 

A week after launching, we had 1,100 members. After the first year, 2,500. The second year we finished with 4,500 and after the third year over 6,000 monthly paying members. It just kept growing.

And A Fraction Of The Stress

Best-selling author and speaker Michael Hyatt was tired – even more than when he was a CEO! He wanted to grow his business without spending time away from his family.

That’s when Michael discovered a new way of doing business that changed everything for him, which generated over $20K in the FIRST MONTH alone!

Michael Hyatt

Now he reaches more people from the comfort of his home

Word spread and pretty soon and I was getting WAY more requests for coaching and consulting than I could handle. I became the go-to guy for authors, speakers, and influencers who want to launch, grow and scale an online community or membership site.

And now I’d like to share the TRIBE FRAMEWORK with you

The challenge with workshops is that I can only serve a small group. I knew more people could benefit from what I was teaching. That’s why I developed TRIBE and if you join us, I’d love to help you too.

• If you’re an expert who wants more stability in your business…
• OR… you’re an influencer who has a following and you’d like to turn your influence into a thriving business
• OR… you just aren’t sure where to get started when it comes to building a membership site (and you want to do it in the smartest, most effective way)

SO WHAT IS TRIBE?

TRIBE is a six module training program that gives you the clarity and confidence to launch, grow and scale a high 6, 7 and even 8-figure membership site.

I’ve taken over 10 years of working with tens of thousands of membership site owners and I’ve distilled it down into a few key strategies that will make all the difference for you and your business.

And each module is delivered weekly to help you get maximum results.

This is NOT “dump a bunch of info on you and wish you all the best”. We have intentionally designed this learning experience for you.

When you apply the strategies I outline in the program, you’ll have more breathing room in your business, less stress and a lot more time for the people and things that matter.

Specifically, this course is based around the 6 core strategies for long-term membership success. Starting with…

Your Foundation Strategy

This is all about how to identify who you will serve, what they REALLY want, and how to best serve them with the right type of membership site.

You’ll discover…

The four reasons someone joins any membership site. The REAL reason someone joins a membership is very different than what you’d expect. And when you know this, you can position yourself, your community and what you offer to really stand out. It will give you a HUGE strategic advantage.

The two must-have pieces of research you need to know about your market in order to position your membership as an “I need this” resource vs “maybe I’ll give it a try”. I’ll show you exactly how to find this information and how to use it. Knowing this, members will be MUCH more likely to stay longer – which is what you want because that’s what will give you the opportunity to really serve them and make a lot more money.

The six membership models and how to pick the one that’s right for you. Not every membership model is right for every market. That’s why I’ll walk you through selecting the one that will be the best fit for your market and the type of business you currently have.

The “less stress” membership philosophy. Everything in the Foundation Strategy is intentionally designed around two core beliefs that I have about membership sites – maximize profitability while minimizing stress. There are a lot of things you can do with a membership site. But one of the most important discoveries I had was if your membership site becomes overwhelming for YOU or your clients, it’s going to struggle. I’ll show you how to make it low stress, profitable and fun.

Next, we’ll dive into your Content Strategy.

Your Content Strategy

This is about you crafting content that is easy to deliver and compels people to buy.

I’ll show you exactly how to structure your content so that your members rave about the progress they’re making with the things that they’re learning from you.

That’s why I’ll share…

The “Success Path™”… which, regardless of your market, will provide your audience tremendous clarity and momentum (and that’s one of the reasons they won’t ever want to leave). I’ll walk you through creating your own path.

How to create a year’s worth of content in less than a week. This is NOT about you being stuck on any content treadmill. This is about you designing a content strategy that incorporates massive amounts of leverage, to free up time (while providing a TON of value).

The two types of must have content every membership needs. Most “hobby sites” only have one… and that’s a BIG reason why they fail long-term.

Why LOTS of content is actually the kiss of death for long-term success. If you’re thinking that you just throw a bunch of content into a members area and call it a day, you’re wrong. That won’t work. More content does NOT mean more value – it’s actually the kiss of death. I’ll share how much to provide, when to deliver it and in what format.

The #1 reason people cancel… and how to structure your content to avoid high cancellations. Because did you know that the timing of when you deliver your content can and will dramatically impact how long people will stay? Same content, different timing. It makes all the difference.

The more strategic you are with your content, the more freedom you’ll create for yourself and the more value you’ll bring to your audience.

Once we’ve designed your content strategy, then we shift gears to focus on your marketing strategy.

Your Marketing Strategy

This is your strategy for attracting new paying members.

When it comes to marketing, there are a million things you can do. I’m going to cut through the clutter and share with you the few things that we do over and over again to add thousands of new members with every promotion.

And in this module we zoom out and look at higher level marketing strategy first.

So we’ll talk about…

Open vs. Closed marketing plans. I’ve tried both and they each work. However, one will bring 3X the results with a fraction of the effort. I’ll share multiple case studies on why there is only one option if you want year-over-year increases.

The 7 pricing strategies… and specifically the NEW trends that highlight which ones will have the highest ROI in your market.

How to position your membership as a “must have” resource vs. “nice to have”.

The marketing sequence that leads to the greatest momentum and highest engagement… regardless of the size of your audience.

The 3 promotion types and the “rules of engagement” for when each should be deployed.

“Momentum stacking” and the secret behind maintaining excitement and anticipation in between launches.

But it doesn’t stop there, because then it’s about shifting gears and getting into the nuts of bolts of rolling out these marketing initiatives.

And that leads us to the next module…

Your Marketing Tactics

In this module we get into the “how to” specifics of executing HIGHLY effective marketing campaigns.

You’ll discover:

The tactical step-by-step for growing an audience from scratch… FAST – even if you’re on a tight budget. And if you have the resources to spend on ads, you’ll see how to accelerate your growth in record time.

The subtle pre-launch commitment campaign that generates massive momentum prior to any launch… and virtually guarantees your opening week is a HUGE success.

The simple 3-part launch process and the timing of each part that broadens your reach and boosts your conversions.

Evergreen campaigns, wait list promotions and other tactical blueprints that consistently bring you a steady stream of new members month after month.

The lightening quick launch that requires no videos, no sales page and no webinar… and yet was responsible for adding over 1200 members in less than a week (at $50/month) for one of our TRIBErs!

Practical, “here’s what to say” templates for each piece of the marketing promotion. No more “writer’s block” for you.

Just be warned, many of the strategies in this module wil