1. Your membership site doesn’t have to be recurring. It can be a single payment or even a finance plan

2. You don’t have to create months of content, just stay ahead of your earliest subscriber. This will let you “get it out the door” soon, plus you will end of with better content since you can adjust based on the feedback you receive

3. You can ask your current members to help promote your site as affiliates. Create something that “wows” them so they will tell their friends. Under-promise and over-deliver

4. You don’t need fancy or expensive software. In fact, you can run a membership site with your existing blog and email list. Always make sure you get the right tool for the job.

What is your favorite tip or hint about running or being a part of a membership site?

Play Video

For the last couple of days we’ve been having a discussion about memberships sites.

We’ve been having a discussion about what you need to actually build a membership site, how to build content, how to technically overcome some of the barriers that a lot of you are having producing your membership sites.

I don’t blog very often, but I felt that this was a needed conversation. What I see happening in the marketplace is a lot of the “gurus” are basically telling you things about memberships when

a) they might not even have very many of their own

b) I really feel like they’re doing a lot of the “teaching” that they’re doing with ulterior motives.

So, what I want to do today is have a discussion with you based on the feedback that you’ve given me.

I heard a lot of common themes, and I want to squash the problems that you guys perceived that you’re having with creating your own memberships sites – because as we all know, most of us came online in order to earn a passive, recurring income and that obviously translates into a membership site, but what happens is that we find ourselves working even more than we did at a lower hourly rate than we did at our day jobs and you’re never going to get ahead that way.

I want to discuss with you today are the “membership site myths” that your favorite “guru” wants you to believe.

WARNING!!!

I want to start off with a very basic warning, and the warning is this – that this blog post is only for people who want the absolute truth.

If you follow me at all, if you read my emails, if you read my blog posts, you know that I’m not one to sugarcoat things, and when I see a problem in the marketplace, I like to talk about it.

So, why do you want a membership site anyway?

The reason why I wanted a membership site and based on the feedback that you’ve given me is that you wanted to work less,  you want to earn more, and basically you want to enjoy life.

Just to give you a real quick example, my partner, Robert Plank and I,  currently have over 20 membership sites up and running. Yes, that’s 20 that we’ve created in less than a year, there’s probably even more than that at this point now, but these membership sites bring us in over $20,000 per month passively. And when I say passively, we maybe put 30 minutes to 60 minutes per month of work into it. So, not a bad trade-off. If you ask me, it’s a great hourly rate, and one of the things that it lets us do is enjoy life.

So, just recently, we happened to be at a conference in Las Vegas and we were having a discussion, and Robert says to me,

“Hey Lance, it’s your birthday. I want to take you, your wife, your child, Grace, who is a very cute little girl, I might add, and his girlfriend, Sarah – to Hawaii.”

So, that night we got on the internet, he booked us first class tickets to Hawaii, went there for about 5 days. In fact, we’re big LOST fans. So, he took us on this all-day tour of LOST.

While we did that, our money kept coming in and we didn’t do any work. No work whatsoever. We just relaxed, enjoyed, recuperated. And the reason we were able to do that is because we have the correct setups in membership site, and what we want to do is show you how to do that as well.

The cool thing about this, like I was saying, is it all happened on autopilot. We didn’t even answer emails, log in to the internet, nothing while we were way at Hawaii.

Myth #1 – Use Free Software

I’m seeing this more and more and more over the internet is that “Free software and free membership site setups are good.”

Let me just get this right out of the way.

The argument that these “gurus” are teaching is that you should start with a free setup solution because you can upgrade later.

But let me ask you a question, how many PLR or Resale Rights Products have you bought?

And of those, how many have you actually set up online?

How many sales pages have you said that you’re going to go back and edit and make better?

How many products have you created that you said you’re going to go back and update?

My guess is, if you’re anything like me, you’ve got lots of this stuff and the truth is you never went back and upgraded.

The Truth Is This NEVER Happens

We’re so bombarded with moving our businesses forward that we never go back to do any, to go back and “fix” anything.  So, why not just get it right the first time?

Wouldn’t it be better to start with a solid foundation that you can grow with instead of trying to worry about the headache of how to change your whole system?

What they never tell you is that it’s next to impossible to migrate your setup.   They tell you to put it on all of this free software, they tell you that you can go back at any time once you’ve started to build an income and you can migrate that over.

The truth is it’s near impossible to do that.

Also, what happens if you need support?

Do you really think that the author of a “free plugin” is going to be really worried about helping you if you have a problem with their software?

Personally, I would much rather go with a big company who has a staff that’s dedicated to answering my problems when I have one.

Myth #2 – “I’m Not An Expert”

I hear this over and over,  and this was probably the biggest common theme that I heard from the emails that you guys have sent me.

“I’m not an expert.  Who will listen to me?  How do I get people to pay for the stuff that I want to know?”

“Who will pay for my information?”

Here’s A Little Secret

This is actually an overwhelmed tactics that the “gurus” want you to believe.

Why would they want you to believe this?

Why would they want you to believe that you don’t have enough information to become an expert?  That you don’t know enough in order to teach somebody else what it is that you know?

Well, it’s really simple.  If they can keep making you believe that you’re not an expert, then you have to keep buying their products.  Think about that for a minute.  It makes absolute sense, and if you actually step back and think about the people that are telling you to set up memberships sites, that are telling you to find a niche, and then they’re telling you you don’t know enough, it’s a tactic that they want you to believe.

The truth is, is that the majority of people online are looking for facts, concise information.  Can you find out everything about membership sites or everything about your niche online for free?

The answer, honestly is probably, but what people pay for is that consolidated, concise, no-fluff information.

I don’t care what niche you’re in, there is always a newbie or somebody that knows less than you that you can pass that information onto.  For example, I got started in internet marketing as a list builder.  Now, are there people out there that sell products everyday on how to build 10,000-person list?  How to build 100,000-person list?

Yes.

I couldn’t do that.  What I did was I used my results.

What I learned how to do was build a list of 137 people, and I sold that product. That product sold like crazy.

Why? Because there were people who didn’t even know how to do what I knew how to do  So, I could take them, and as I learned new things, I had continuing information to teach to them.

So, think about that for a minute. You are an expert to somebody and the truth is is that there’s many, many more beginners on the internet in every single niche than there are experts.  There’s very few “experts”.

So, if you feel like you know more than somebody about your hobby, your passion, your niche, as you should, then it’s very easy to market towards people who know less than you.  And as they learn more, you are going to be learning more as well.

So, don’t think that you’re not an expert.  Every single one of you, are and I’ve yet to meet any of the students that we have anywhere from $300 students to $1000 coaching clients that have come to us and not felt like they were an expert after our training – because the truth is it’s just a mindset shift.  Once you understand what’s happening to you in the marketplace, it makes it very easy to see that you actually are an expert.

Myth #3 – “I Can’t Generate Enough Content”

This one drives me absolutely crazy – because the biggest reason that people fail online with membership sites is because they think they have this one big idea.

They think they have this one membership site that is going to basically be their ticket out.  So what do they do?

Well, they try to create years and years and years worth of content upfront before they even launch it, and this makes no sense to me.

So, let’s think about this for a minute.  Why would you spend your time creating 4 months, 6 months, 1 year, 2 years worth of content when you don’t even have a subscriber yet?

Nobody is going to see that for 6 months, 2 years.   So what Robert and I do is when we actually create membership sites, we’re always just staying one step ahead of our longest subscribers.

Re-Think Your Idea Of A Membership

First of all, I want you to think about a fixed-term membership site.   Most of the membership sites that I run are what we call fixed-term, which means that it starts at one point and has a definite end point.  If there is 6 months worth of content, they pay for 6 months, and at the end of 6 months, they have lifetime to access to all the updates, all the information, anything else that we might add/change along the way.

The point is you’ve now moved from something open-ended, which most people, let’s face it, are afraid of pain.  If somebody told you you’re going to pay $47 for the rest of your life or you’re going to pay $47 every 2 weeks for the next 8 months, there’s a big difference in there.  You can actually see the end, you can see what’s happening, and it’s a much easier sell that way.

The cool thing is, is you only have to be one step ahead of your longest subscriber.

Now, this is a huge mindset shift for you and what you’ve probably been taught about membership sites. I know it was for me because when I got started, I thought the same way – I needed a membership site that would last forever. The truth is, is that you don’t know if there’s a market for it, you don’t know if people are going to like your content.

If you create 2 years worth of stuff to go in your membership site, you won’t even know people are going to like the content that you’re creating and you don’t have time to course-correct.  What we like to teach you to do is to actually just be 1 week, 2 weeks, maybe a month ahead of your earliest subscriber, so that

A) you’re not creating content that nobody’s going to like

B) you can course-correct as you go along.

So, if people need different information than you think because you’re going to get feedback, then you can adjust as you go

You also know where people are dropping off. So, you don’t end up with a bunch of empty content that you can’t use.

So, can you create enough content? Yes, you can, as long as you can shift your mindset and think a little bit differently about your membership site.

Myth #4 – “I’m Not A Techie”

Basically, people think they don’t have the technical expertise in order to build a membership site.  Again, this is something that your “guru” wants you to believe. Now, why would they want you to believe this? Very simple again – because they have a vested interested in you thinking that, so that you can buy their training, so that they can encourage you to stick with them and continue to buy their products.

All You Need To Know

You need to know how to set up a website, you need to know how to manage your members, you need to know how to handle payments. And by the way, most of the free solutions on the market don’t do all these, which actually means you spend your time working on these things rather than enjoying your life.  This is why I personally believe the free models suck. It’s too much technical work.

In reality, all that you need to build a successful numerous number of membership sites is WordPress – that’s 100% free product that comes with almost all hosting accounts. If not, you can get it at wordpress.org. Super easy to install, you just click a button, and it’s all done for you.

You need Wishlist Member.  Why do I like to promote wish list member and encourage you to use it?

A) it’s what I use for all of my sites

B) I know that they are a giant company, I know the owners of it, and I know that they have awesome technical support, and they’re always updating with the new versions of WordPress that are coming out and enhancing their features.  By the way, you don’t get that with free solutions.  They have a vested interest in beating things like WordPress upgrades to market.

The third thing that you need is a plugin that Robert Plank wrote, called WordPress drip.  This is a little bit more expensive. It goes for $2,495.00 $47.  (Click here to check out WPDrip )

However, if you’re a member of  Membership Cube, then it comes for free along with your Wishlist Member license and all of the training that you need to get up and started right away.

The cool thing is just knowing these three pieces of software that you need, you can have your membership site up and running today. Literally today, you can have a membership site up and running, and spend your time marketing your site rather than spending your time trying to generate all of your content.

I want to thank you for taking a couple minutes out of your day to talk about these “membership site myths” with you.  I hope that I’ve expanded your mind and helped you understand what actually happening in the marketplace.

I would really appreciate it if you go down to the bottom of the page right now, fill out a comment, let me know what your thoughts are.

Have a great day.

Play Video

Hey everybody, Lance Tamashiro here, and today I want to talk to you about why you need to be thinking about having a recurring income for your online business. Now, a lot of people that I know and that I’ve worked with in the past think “Oh I’m just going to work really, really hard on this one cool ebook, I’m going price it at $7 dollars and everybody in the world is going to come buy it, and I’ll just be rich! The truth is that’s not the case. The whole key on making money on the Internet is to build a recurring income.

Now, that’s the big point here. Everything else that you do is just spinning your wheels, if you’re not thinking of making a recurring income then all that you’re really doing is doing the same thing that you’re doing in your day job, you’re trading your time for dollars, and what you really want to do is get to the point where you basically put up a membership site, get something that’s recurring and get paid for it over and over again.

Now, the one thing that I really want to stress to everybody here is that your niche is not important. Now, a lot of people think, well, I can only make recurring income in internet marketing, I can only make income trying to teach people how to play the guitar, that’s not the truth! The truth is, is that if you have anything at all to teach or a service to give, then, you can start your own membership site.

How do I know this? Well, look around you! Every single business model that is successful both online and offline is based around a membership model. I want you to change the way you think about memberships right now, today!

A membership is not just something where you get new content every month. Its something where you get to bill people every month either for your information or your service, and let me give you a couple of examples, I bet the majority of you have a cellphone. Guess what? That is a membership site, they have a fix term length, usually it’s like two years and you have to pay over and over and over again. Guess what I bet you most of you have landline service if you don’t have a cell phone service. That too is a form of a recurring membership site.

Do you own a car? I bet you make car payments. Do you own a house? Or pay rent? All of those are types of membership sites, and all examples of things that you can do to trade your time for dollars that are recurring instead of one to one, you want to look at this as one to many.

I’ve recently pulled my list and the big thing that I found is that people thought, well Lance this is way too hard! It’s way too hard to setup a recurring membership site, its way to hard to get people to pay me time and time again for my information and I want to tell you right now, that’s false! You need to change the way you’re thinking about this.

So, one of the big things that I found out is that people said, Lance, I don’t have any contents. Am I an expert in anything? How am I going to get people to pay me over and over and over again? Well the truth is that if you know anything at all, then you’re an expert.

One of the big things, especially in the Internet marketing industry that people forget is that there is a huge learning curve. So, even if you just know how to put up a squeeze page, even if you know just how setup an autoresponder, even if you just know a good program, an affiliate program to promote, all of those are information that somebody just getting started doesn’t know that you had to learn and that’s enough information that makes you an expert on somebody, and that’s the key to learning more and more and being able to charge more and more for your membership site.

The second thing that people told me is that it’s way too technical to setup a membership site. Again, false! All you need to know is WordPress, you need to have the right plug-ins and you need to have the right scripts. This is cheap, this is easy to do, and it’s not hard at all. Even if you just re-think your model and rethink of your autoresponder as a membership, then guess what? You have the ability to make a recurring income and a membership site.

So, what I basically want all you guys to do today is to stop overthinking this! It is true, the key to a successful online business or business in the offline world is recurring income but it doesn’t have to be as hard as you’re making it. You don’t need fancy scripts. You don’t need a ton of information.

All you need to do is to start at the point where you’re at, whether it’s beginning guitar. Remember, if you’re learning guitar, you know something more than somebody that is just getting started, and you have something to teach that person. You don’t have to fill-up an entire membership site for years and years when you don’t even have a member, and that is something that is really, really bothers me. The truth is you only have to be one step ahead of your first member.

So, if you have a membership site, why would you spend a year building up content when you don’t even have somebody paying you yet? Wouldn’t it be a better idea to make weeks worth of content, find that first member and always stay one day, or one week, or one month ahead of that one person? It’s been told on the Internet that the average lifespan of a membership site is two to four months, so let’s round it up and call it three months.

If the average time that somebody stays in a membership is only three months why are so many of you spending months and months and months building six months, one year, two years of content? All you need to do is stay one step ahead of your longest subscriber. In that way you’re not spinning your wheels. You can start bringing in money while you’re increasing your own knowledge and starting to bring money into your online business

So, with that being said, I want to know where you’re at today. I want to know what kind of site you have. Do you have a membership site setup? I bet you, if you think hard enough, you probably do. Let me give you a perfect example.

A couple of week ago I was with my friend Robert Plank, hanging out in North Carolina, and we started to have this whole discussion where we were talking about what is a membership site. What constitute a membership site? What “officially makes it” so that I have a membership site, and you want to know what we came up with? It’s that all of these big terms that people are throwing around are untrue.

The only thing that you need to have a membership site is to charge one person one payment or more, and that makes it a membership site. It can be fixed term, it can be open ended, but think about the example like I gave you earlier. You have a car payment, you know exactly how many payments you’re going to have to make until that membership ends and you own the car. If you have an ebook that you sell for $97, guess what if you’re having trouble selling it at $97, make it two payments of $47 and suddenly you have a membership site. So, stop over thinking it, but I want to know do you have a membership site?

Finally, what is your membership site? If you think you have any sort of product at all, you have a membership site, and another thing that I want to tell you is that I personally own a membership site that is made completely of other people’s products. That’s right, I took master resell rights, private label rights, and different types of products, threw them up all on a single website and I charge people month after month after month to get access to these. So, without even owning your own product, you can successfully start your own membership site.

Finally, one of the most important things that you need to know about your membership site is what is that retention rate? And how long do people stay in, and it’s sort of like what I was talking about earlier, what is the purpose of having a hundred days worth of content, if you only keep people on average for 30 days? You’ve just wasted 70 days worth of time, of content that people would never see.

Wouldn’t it be better to restructure that content so that you can build over and over and over, or stretch it out so that you can only have content for the amount of time that people are going to see it?

So, the main point that I’m driving home here is that there’s lots and lots or easy solutions! In fact Robert Plank and I have six proven models that we use over and over again to build recurring income, and most people just think of us as like these “Products Creators” that’s people that are always pimping out new things but the truth is, is that we try to put everything we can into a recurring income because we would rather do the work once and get paid for it many times, than do the work once and get paid for it once, and that’s what I want to encourage you to do.