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Podcast- How to Create a Membership Site Autopilot Your Business Podcast Transcription Listen to the audio version of this document HERE Get your FREE Online Survival guide at www.autopilotyourbusiness.com © 2013 AutoPilot Your Business. All Rights Reserved. Note: We of course can't promise that all links mentioned in this document will be live, and if you stumble upon any that aren't, we apologize! Andrew McCauley: Hello everybody. Welcome back to podcast #13, lucky 13 for some. I am looking forward to this podcast. This is going to be a fun one and of course to share with me is Heather Porter. Hey, Heather! Heather: Hey Andrew! Hello everybody. It is good to be back and yes this is indeed a lucky episode because today we are going to talk about a continuity program which in layman’s term is how do you make money over time for settings something up once. Andrew: Yeah, I love setting things up once and making money regularly. It is the Holy Grail of being online and if you can do it, that’s great. I know a lot of offline businesses run this sort of program. Things like gyms run a continuity program. You know you pay a monthly fee to join a gym, then you may or may not use it but at the end of the day, the gym doesn’t care whether you do or not because they are getting their money coming through. So, gyms are good example of an offline business that does it. What other offline businesses use continuity programs? Heather: Well, I mean people do not really think of it like this but one of the most popular ones that we all have to use is the cell phone or mobile phone provider basically because if you think about it, you are paying them a flat fee every single month. Of course, if you go over, you pay more but that’s a great example of one. Andrew: Yeah, I don’t remember the last time I paid the exact same amount of money on my mobile phone ever. So, how do we make these happen online? Now, this is as you said the Holy Grail. If you have got an online business or even if you have an offline business and you want to start making some money 24 hours a day 7 days a week, having the opportunity to have your cash register open, then that is what we are talking about today, right? Heather: Yeah and I think the key thing to think about is that yes there’s so much free content online and we recommend that you do free content all the time to get

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Get ongoing income and leverage your time with a membership site! In this episode we discuss how to create a membership site to sell and share your knowledge. We will cover: What a membership site is and how to use one Membership site ideas Different ways to deliver content What to charge Platforms you can use to set up a membership site. http://autopilotyourbusiness.com/podcasts/13-how-to-create-a-membership-site/

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Page 1: #13 How to Create a Membership Site

Podcast- How to Create a Membership Site Autopilot Your Business Podcast Transcription

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Andrew McCauley: Hello everybody. Welcome back to podcast #13, lucky 13

for some. I am looking forward to this podcast. This is going to be a fun one and of

course to share with me is Heather Porter. Hey, Heather!

Heather: Hey Andrew! Hello everybody. It is good to be back and yes this is indeed

a lucky episode because today we are going to talk about a continuity program which

in layman’s term is how do you make money over time for settings something up

once.

Andrew: Yeah, I love setting things up once and making money regularly. It is the

Holy Grail of being online and if you can do it, that’s great. I know a lot of offline

businesses run this sort of program. Things like gyms run a continuity program. You

know you pay a monthly fee to join a gym, then you may or may not use it but at the

end of the day, the gym doesn’t care whether you do or not because they are getting

their money coming through. So, gyms are good example of an offline business that

does it. What other offline businesses use continuity programs?

Heather: Well, I mean people do not really think of it like this but one of the most

popular ones that we all have to use is the cell phone or mobile phone provider

basically because if you think about it, you are paying them a flat fee every single

month. Of course, if you go over, you pay more but that’s a great example of one.

Andrew: Yeah, I don’t remember the last time I paid the exact same amount of

money on my mobile phone ever. So, how do we make these happen online? Now,

this is as you said the Holy Grail. If you have got an online business or even if you

have an offline business and you want to start making some money 24 hours a day 7

days a week, having the opportunity to have your cash register open, then that is

what we are talking about today, right?

Heather: Yeah and I think the key thing to think about is that yes there’s so much

free content online and we recommend that you do free content all the time to get

Page 2: #13 How to Create a Membership Site

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your message and your voice out there and you know track new leads but the

difference of a membership site is that it’s packaged premium content. So, it’s truly

there put together all in one place to give a result. So, let’s talk through a couple of

membership models and what they are and give some examples so people can really

understand them because what we want to do is excite you guys on what these are

and to see the potential on your business, so then when we actually get some of the

platforms in a little bit, you are writing notes and you are going “Yup, I am going to

use that one and I am to go out there and make one right now.”

Andrew: Yeah, they are not hard either.

Heather: No, they are not.

Andrew: So let’s jump on in.

Heather: Okay. So, one very popular one that exists is just the standard e-learning,

like universities and there is lynda.com. What’s that other one?

Andrew: Udemy; it’s an academy but Udemy.

Heather: Yes, yes exactly. So, these sites are basically where you go and you can

punch in what you want to learn. I know Lynda is more software based but Udemy is

a whole bunch of different information but you can type what you want to learn and

then you have suddenly access to all these incredible videos at your fingertips. Now,

these sites generally will charge you whether a flat fee or monthly fee or you can buy

courses for flat fees as well and then add more on from there. They are all different

price models but the idea is the same and the fact that they are online, essentially

schools, a place where you can go and learn information about something. So, that’s

one. Let’s see. We also have like really a great model that’s starting to happen and it

is for coaches because life coaching has gotten so popular and business coaching as

well where a coach is trying to grow their business and trade, not trade you know their

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hours for money as much anymore and they want to get bigger than just their

individual clients. So, a great way to do that is to actually package their information,

their signature program that they run through their clients with into membership site

so then suddenly overnight they can be coaching thousands of people all over the

world using the same platform and the same concepts that they are using in their

individual sessions plus they can give it to their client as a bonus or for free and that

client can always have a piece of them, so to speak, online in their private

membership site.

Andrew: Yeah. We have seen that done a number of times and it has been really

effective that, as you said, it just enables people to get out there and not just teach

what they know to one person but teach it to many people all at the same time. You

do not have to physically be present when you are teaching those people. So, if you

have got information in your head and you are teaching one person at a time right

now, then start thinking about how can you leverage that and make it go out to more

people than just one.

Heather: So, we will mention a few other ideas as well. A couple that are really big

are challenge websites. So, you come in and to get access to this incredible

information with the outcome of achieving something. So, one that has gotten quite

big here at least in Australia is Challenge by Michelle Bridges which is one of the

Australian Biggest Loser’s coaches and she has put together weight loss challenge. I

think it’s four times a year and you log in and you have like a full-on challenge for a

few months and after that you are on a maintenance program. So, you have an initial

upfront payment for that period and then after that it is a low monthly amount but

challenges are great because again you are building sort of a tribe, a community, and

everyone is in there, active, all with one outcome and that’s to get a massive result in

that short amount of time that they are together. So, you can build up quite a great

community in a challenge as well.

Andrew: Yeah, I love it.

Heather: There is a website actually I love and I always share this with clients when

I am talking to them about the power of a membership site. I still think that the

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biggest membership site that exists in the world is the South Beach Diet which was an

incredibly popular book and what this author has done is basically turned their book

into a membership site. They have millions of members in there and initially they

were paying 5 dollars a month. I know I think it has gone up to 50 dollars a quarter

but it’s incredible. It’s basically the book that has come alive on the internet, millions

of members. What a model!

Andrew: Wow! That’s cool.

Heather: And what is a membership site essentially? It’s a private website. You get

a user name and a password and you log in and you have access to content.

Andrew: That’s a good point. Now, let’s just define how hard are they to set up and

what makes it different than just a normal membership site.

Heather: Yeah. Look, these sites are very, very easy nowadays because of the

incredible ease of things like WordPress and there are even other platforms that you

can buy and login and they are already built for you and they look really amazing and

you just customize a little bit and upload your content and they are almost ready to

go. So, I guess before we just jump in to the platform, let’s talk briefly about the

types of membership model there are. There are two main ones and I want to talk

about this because then as we are going to the platforms then all of you guys will

understand a little bit more about how, I guess, these two ways of delivering

information fit. So, the first one, the most popular one is evergreen. You may have

heard that word being thrown around quite a bit. An evergreen membership site is

basically where you as the creator of the website put a whole bunch of amazing

content in there and it’s all there in one go, somebody signs up, they get access to

that private site and then they have access to all your information at once and then if

you want to add new stuff, you can over time but it’s always there and it’s released to

the person. If John Smith comes along and then he signs up in May and they you

have Mary Smith that signs up in December, both people get access to the same exact

information.

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Andrew: Right, okay.

Heather: And then there is another one. Andrew, tell us about that. What’s the

other one that’s popular.

Andrew: The other one that we have got as opposed to evergreen is drip fed and

drip fed is a membership site where you might sign up for a particular membership

and let’s say you sign up in May, the person who owns the membership and the

content will drip feed it to you over a period of time so that you do not get

overwhelmed, you do not get slammed with all the information at once. These

websites are really good for educational style websites where you need to teach

somebody certain aspects or certain things and you don’t want them to go ahead too

fast or too quickly because they may not understand it fully. So, you can actually drip

feed the content, you may let out Module 1 when they sign up and then Module 2 a

week later, Module 3 a week later after that and so on and so on. So, that’s a drip

feed membership. Now, can you have, I will ask Heather, evergreen and drip fed at

the same time.

Heather: That’s a great point actually. Yes, something like a challenge site, you can

make all of your information available at once for specific amount of time and then

after may be three months or whatever, then boom, you just go on a drip fed model

where may be you just have a little bit of information, drip fed every month over time.

So, you can mix them up a little bit as well. You can also give different people

different access levels to your membership site. Here is a great example. We are

actually building a training program for sales team and with them they are ongoing

sales team, they need to have access to everything that is in that membership site.

So, they have the evergreen model. However, the new sales team that is coming on

board, they want structure and control around how they learn the whole system. So,

they come in and they go through in actual drip fed model where they literally watch

everything modularly. So, they have like a video today, a video tomorrow and that

continues on for 21 days and then after that point they are given access to the

Evergreen area of the site where they have everything but all at once. So, it’s a great

way for corporates, a great way for training teams, new teams, automating your

training process; we are loving the automation stuff. So, that’s a really handy tool.

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Andrew: We do, we do.

Heather: Another key point too is with membership sites there is always this

question of how do you get the people engaged and active in you membership site.

Some membership sites like forums and some membership sites do not. It’s just

literally content and information and that’s a tricky one because if you start out at a

membership site and you are thinking “I want a forum, what activity going on in

there.” If you have the forum open and the comments open but you don’t have any

comments going on, then you risk looking like not a very popular, I guess, website.

Andrew: Yeah, like an empty movie theatre or empty nightclub with no one in it.

Heather: Social proofs are so popular. You can go and you think “Oh, must not be

good”, right? “So, I want my money back.” Look, Facebook is a great tool. I know

one of another site that we built for somebody, they have a private Facebook group

and they actually have a big icon right in their membership site area that says “Have

questions? Want to connect? Join us on Facebook.” and it links them to their private

group and then that’s how they manage it because everyone is on Facebook anyway

and they have had no problems having activity in their private Facebook group which

corresponds to the membership site. So, it’s a great little tool.

Andrew: Right, right, cool.

Heather: Shall we move on? Platform time…

Andrew: We should, we should. Okay, so platforms can be a little confusing. There

are so many different platforms out there. What are the best ones that we are talking

about?

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Heather: Well, let’s start at the beginning. Let’s start with the easiest that at least I

know we are aware of and very popular one. It’s called Kajabi and as always, guys,

we will put the URLs of everything that we talk about in this episode on our website

www.AutopilotYourBusiness.com/Podcast. So, Kajabi – basically what it is, is you pay

them a monthly fee – get that – membership model for membership site. How is that!

You pay them a monthly fee and then you get access to the platform.

Andrew: Double killing, I love it! Double killing.

Heather: It’s great.

Andrew: If you have got a number of membership sites for Kajabi, you can add up,

right?

Heather: Absolutely. I think for the initial 100 dollars a month or 99 dollars a

month, you get three sites. That might have changed, so you want to definitely check

their site out for the most up-to-date information but you could have up to three sites

and from there, yes, it does add up. How it works is they host it, they actually host

your site for you. You can make the URL a little bit special. So, you might have

www.yoursite.Kajabi.com or something like that but ultimately they kind of have

ownership of your platform really because they do own it and you are paying them the

money. You go in and you customize it. Again, it’s made to be very easy. It is, by

far. If you just want to get started, absolutely look at this as a potential tool. So, you

can go and you can change colors, you can upload your logo and it is literally as easy

as saying “I am going to upload a video, I am going to upload an audio, I am going to

stick some word documents on here, I am going to do a PDF for download.” I hope I

am not making it sound too complex because it’s actually really, really easy. You just

kind of say “Yeah, I want this page and then I want this thing to go on that page” and

then it just takes care of everything for you. It’s quite easy. Yes, that’s Kajabi.

Again, one thing that Andrew and I always talk about is with a platform do your best

always have full ownership of it because god forbid if something happens to the

company that has your information on it, they go under or something happens, then

you lose everything.

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Andrew: I am not a big fan of Kajabi for that reason because they house pretty

much everything, right? They host it all. It’s all on their site. If they went bankrupt

or they close down for whatever reason then you lose all you information, right?

Heather: Absolutely, yes. So, it is not the safest. It’s easy but it’s not the safest.

Andrew: So, one of our favorite ones is also Wishlist Member. Now, you haven’t

used a lot of Wishlist member yourself, have you?

Heather: Well, I have set up three websites with it actually and it can get really

complex really fast but I think the thing I always say to people is you don’t have to

get complex with Wishlist. It’s there for growth and scalability and what I mean by

that is you can have unlimited membership levels. So, let’s just take a little baby step

back. Let’s say you have an exercise program and it’s 12 months of exercises and you

want a program that’s for mothers, you want a program that’s for pregnant woman,

you want a program that’s for executives on and on and on and on but you have slight

customizations in that program. You can do that in Wishlist. You literally can have all

these programs running simultaneously where all these different people get access to

different pieces of your content. So, I am only mentioning that to you guys because if

you start with Wishlist, you can grow it; it’s completely unlimited, the potential, of

where you can take it.

Andrew: Yeah. It was developed by internet marketers who knew what

membership sites should really be all about. You can have a whole range of different

shopping cart integrations, you can have integration with your WordPress website

which we recommend. There are so many features, it’s crazy and it is only 97 dollars.

Heather: One off.

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Andrew: 97 dollars once off. That’s not a month; that’s just one-off fee that you

pay for Wishlist member to have access to their membership portal. And it’s hosted

on your site, so you control everything you do and they also have an awesome range

of training videos as well. So, if you ever get stuck, apart from the great support that

they have, they also have a whole range of training videos, so you can just watch

those as you go.

Heather: So, I guess a good point on Wishlist is whereas Kajabi is a self-contained

tool where they do the hosting, they store your content and everything is done for you

with Kajabi, Wishlist is actually what’s known as a plug-in and what you must have in

order to make Wishlist work is you have to have your own domain which is

yoursite.com, you have to have your own hosting which you know you can get

through Go Daddy or there are so many of them all over the world, Go Daddy is a

popular one and then you have to install WordPress and we have talked about

WordPress in many of our episodes before; it’s a free website software platform that

literally is a one-click installation on a great hosting company and they can do that for

you as well. So, you can install your WordPress and then you install Wishlist and

what it does is it basically allows you to lock down certain pages on your website. So,

you can actually just say “I want this page hidden to member, you to log in” or “I just

want this page wide open for the public.” So, it allows you to have a lot of control

around different pages on your website. So, that’s the Wishlist is; it’s more of a plug-

in that you add on to make your site into a membership site.

Andrew: Yes, definitely.

Heather: It’s really cool.

Andrew: One of the trainers at the Ultimate Membership Site Seminar, it’s a

seminar we run once a year in Los Angeles and we use Wishlist for all of those people

that go, so there are 300 to 400 people to go to that event every single year and

that’s the plug-in that we use as Wishlist member.

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Heather: Yeah, it’s incredible. So, a good place to start with Wishlist if you are just

thinking about getting started is go and get it and install it into your current

WordPress website and then you can basically create a few webpages there on your

current site that are private that people can log in and get access to and since it’s just

a WordPress webpage, it can look like anything you want. I mean, you know you

embed videos on it, you can put write-in, you can put audio files; whatever you do

with your normal website, you do with that. The only difference is that there is a little

checkbox up in the top right and you say “I want this page only available to this

membership level” and then you assign all the membership levels in the background

but that’s an easy place to start. I know, Andrew, you mentioned it integrates with

things. So, what does that mean? it basically means that say you have PayPal, what

it does is that you set up a sales page where you are selling your membership

program, people click on the PayPal button, Wishlist allows you to do some fancy stuff

behind the scenes with your PayPal account where if somebody clicks on PayPal, they

get taken into PayPal, they pay and then they are redirected to a page in Wishlist on

your website to assign themselves a username and a password and what that means

is that at that moment they now have access to your membership content and that’s

all automated. Also, if you have an email program, for example, MailChimp or Aweber

or iContact or any of those and you want everybody’s names who signs up to

automatically show up on an email list that you have created, you can do that too.

So, what happens when that person comes back into the site you assign themselves

their login details? Their information automatically gets sucked into a list on your

email program. So, it’s fully automated, like crazy automated if you want it to be.

Andrew: Yes, that’s Wishlist member. I think we could keep talking about Wishlist

forever.

Heather: Can you guys tell we like it? We love it. It is great.

Andrew: We love it, we love it. It’s always upgrading, it’s always doing new stuff

and integrating with new software that’s out there which we will talk about in a few

minutes. Yeah, that’s Wishlist.

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Heather: And if you guys want really beautiful easy template as well, we love

something called OptimizePress. OptimizePress has been built to work with Wishlist.

It’s actually been built to not only have really incredible looking sales pages but also it

has a full membership template and all you do is basically download WordPress , you

get OptimizePress which is a theme and then you install your Wishlist plug-in and

together as a threesome they look really amazing and then you have a membership

site, lock-down pages and all part of that.

Andrew: Launch formula, product launch formula sort of stuff as well. So, that’s

another story altogether.

Heather: Yeah, we will go into that later. In another few episodes, I think for that

one.

Andrew: Alright, what other platforms do we have?

Heather: Well, there are basically plug-ins that other bigger companies have

developed. There is a lot of these but I am only going to cover just a couple of more.

A lot of you guys have heard of Infusionsoft or even Office Autopilot. Now, each one

of those companies have developed their own plug-in and with Infusionsoft I believe

it’s called Customer Hub and what it does is it allows you to lock down certain areas of

your website and with Office Autopilot it is called PilotPress and PilotPress does the

same thing; essentially you install it and it allows you to lock down certain pages as

well. So, what’s different about those is that because Infusionsoft and Office Autopilot

are databases technically, they have a lot more going on behind the scenes, they have

email programs, they have shopping carts and all sorts of things built into them.

When you use their customer or their membership area, I should say, it just

automatically works with all the data that you already have in your system. So, if you

are a bigger company or you are looking to grow quite quickly, you might want to

consider one of those because it all integrates together to one big massive machine.

Did I go too techie on that? Did I? Just a bit techie crazy. For those of you who are

just getting started, absolutely look into Wishlist. For those of you that are more

Page 12: #13 How to Create a Membership Site

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advanced and have a bigger platform already, then definitely consider trying out the

Infusionsoft Customer Hub or the PilotPress from Office Autopilot. So, those are the

main platforms. Again, there are hundreds more but those are the big guys that play

out in the market.

Andrew: Yes, big time. So, you spoke about OptimizePress. Let’s just talk about

that for a quick second. OptimizePress is not a membership site, is it?

Heather: No, it’s a very good distinction actually. It’s a theme. So, basically when I

say theme, it’s built with a lot of different themes inside of it. So, you basically, if you

are writing a page in your WordPress site, you can assign it to either look like a

membership page or you can assign it to look like a sales page. So, it has something

like 20+ different page appearances, whereas a normal theme only has one look and

feel to your entire website where all your pages just pop up and look the same.

OptimizePress allows you to choose a whole bunch of different variations.

Andrew: Okay. So, you can combine that with your membership platform to make

it look really cool.

Heather: Exactly. So your membership area of your site can look really cool, like

you said. You do not even ever have to use OptimizePress as a membership site. A

lot of people use it as just sales pages but you can use it as a membership site if you

bring in an outside thing like Wishlist.

Andrew: Right, okay, okay.

Heather: Good question. I feel like this episode is going a little bit down more of a

technical path but I think ultimately, guys, if you just think in terms of how do you

leverage your time and how do you package that, a great starting point is what you

constantly asked over and over and over and over again that people are happily

paying you money for; that is a great starting point on creating content and sticking it

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into membership site because that’s your signature content, that’s what people come

to you for. So, therefore, you can package that and put that in a membership

platform and hopefully charge money for it.

Actually, let’s talk about fees, yeah, because I know there is lot of people …

Andrew: Yeah, let’s talk about that. That’s a good point. What are people charging

for membership these days and how do you evaluate what you should be charging

people?

Heather: It’s a great point. Starting point is this. You can always increase your

price as you cannot easily reverse your prices. So, when in doubt, always start on the

lower end.

Andrew: Why is that? Let’s give it a rundown on why we think that’s an important

piece to know.

Heather: Good question. So, let’s just say that you sold a hundred people into your

membership site at 47 dollars a month and then suddenly you are not able to get

anymore and you are thinking “Gosh! Maybe it’s a little bit too expensive. I am going

to drop the price to 17 dollars a month” and then suddenly you are starting to get

more people signing up that way. Now, imagine what those hundred people will feel

like if they suddenly think “Well, I was the first person in your site, you know, and

suddenly I found out that hundred more people have been sold the same thing that I

bought at 47 dollars for 17 dollars.” It will start a backlash and people will not be very

happy.

Andrew: Exactly.

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Heather: That is the biggest reason why. Also, if you flip it around and you start

low and then you grow up, the great thing about that is that you can actually start to

do really great sales. So, if you say you are starting at 17 dollars a month mark and

then you think “I am going to up my prices now to 24 dollars a month or 47 a month”,

you can do a big huge sale and say “Okay, our Founder’s Special is ending in 30 days”

and be actually telling the truth that you are going to up your prices in 30 days and

then you will never go back. So, that’s the reason why you do like that.

Andrew: What about free membership sites that turn into a paid membership site?

What about that sort of model?

Heather: Great point as well. With those sites, you want to think about teaser

content. So, you want to offer a bunch of content that gets people engaged and

excited right in that very moment that you are really going to go into the juicy bit, like

really dive into what they want to know. That’s when you can say “I hope you have

enjoyed this. For the actual points, the next three points, that’s in my private

membership area. It’s only 17 dollars a month.” So, it’s a sales tool essentially. You

are still giving great content but just not at the level that it’s still free.

Andrew: Sure, sure. What about trial periods?

Heather: Trial periods as well. I know a lot of people use those and they were

probably more popular in the past as well where your charge a dollar for say a couple

of weeks free to get into the membership site. Now, one issue with that is that a lot

of banks were picking up on that if you were using credit cards, they were saying that

that’s fraud and they would automatically block the credit card of the user and then

get them quite angry. I know that from personal experience. So, the whole 1-dollar

trial, people are now just because of what’s going with the banks, they are offering

that for a little bit higher, more like 4.99 for a trial period and then it will go up from

there. So, yeah, that’s still doable, a lot of these tools. Even PayPal allows you to do

that. PayPal allows you to set a trial period, a lot of shopping carts do that; I think all

shopping carts do that now. So, yes, great question, Andrew.

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More specifically about pricing, actually there is a couple of sweet spots. This has

been just from my research but not only mine. From what I know, Andrew, you know

this and I know that a lot of the mentors and people that we know in the industry use

as well. A great price is 17.97 a month and that’s because the human mind somehow

sees a 7 as less than a 9. So, if you are 17.97 a month, it’s closer to 15 a month

rather than 20 a month. So, that’s a great starting point. A great sweet spot right

now that’s being used for membership sites, again, it’s 29 dollars; it could be 27 but it

is 29.95 a month as well. So, the two I keep hearing about are sort of around the 17-

dollar-a-month mark and then also around the 29-dollar-a-month mark. What about

you, Andrew? Any new findings?

Andrew: Well, I guess that question that you got to ask is, is a membership site

even if it doesn’t charge a monthly fee like maybe a one-off fee of say 97 dollars, is it

still a membership site? Is it still considered a membership site? What have you got

to say?

Heather: Great. Yes, yes, yes, good question actually because we are going doing

that with one of our products actually right now. Yes, it is. Any site that’s closed

down where a person has to log in and get access is a private membership site and,

yes, you can charge money upfront and do it that way. There is another way where

you can have three payments, just three payments for the first three months or you

can charge 100% upfront and get a discount; still a membership site. Exactly right.

Andrew: Good, good, good. Price points for me, here is the thing. It depends on

what you are actually offering in the membership site. If you are just offering

content, let’s say it’s a couple of articles and some videos, it may be 17-dollar or 27-

dollar price point; but if you are offering like something more greater than that, like

may be one-on-one consultation every month or may be a webinar that you do

specifically for members, you may want to charge a little bit more, 87 or 97 dollars a

month. I know there are membership sites out there who would charge a lot more

because they are offering a lot more value to their customers and people are happy to

pay 200 or 300 or 400 dollars a month to have access to it because it’s that valuable.

So, it really boils down to what you have actually got to offer your members in the

first place.

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Heather: You brought up a really, really good point actually. The prices I was

talking about were just for more information-based websites that are not personalized

as far as you giving your time and, Andrew, what you just said is, you are right, there

is a whole sort of mentoring model that exists as well where you can get access to

content on the site but also webinars and live personal content with that person and

definitely charge more for that, absolutely, because that’s your time. Again, we are

coming back to your time and you have think about how much you are going to

charge for your time as well.

Andrew: Yes.

Heather: Good point. So, on that note, I know we have briefly talked about

automation. I guess the thing to keep in mind with your membership websites is

when you are just getting started, you do not have to worry about all these crazy

automation things behind the scene, hooking PayPal up so it does this and they your

email program that does that. Really and ultimately, just to get started, all you need

is a PayPal account and all you need is Wishlist and WordPress and some sort of nice-

looking theme and you can do this manually if you need to just to test the market,

just to initially get something out there. You can get your email from PayPal and then

give somebody access manually. If you really want to take baby steps, you can

absolute do that as well. So, we are not wanting to make it overly complex although

as you grow you will want to go automated so all these sales happen behind the

scenes ticking over and you do not have to do a thing.

Andrew: Yes, I think you summed it up nicely. Membership sites, as I said earlier,

we could talk about this for weeks and weeks and weeks. We have lots of insights and

information about different membership sites. We wanted to give you the overview of

what membership sites were, what sort of platforms are being used out there that are

popular and we have whole range of other platforms we never even spoke about only

because there is literally platforms and platforms and platforms out there that you can

use. We wanted to give you the best of the best and that’s what we did.

Heather: Exactly and I hope you guys enjoyed it and really I think that’s all we are

going to talk about today on that topic because that is a great starting point for you to

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go out there, think about what you are going to sell, how you can package your

knowledge and look at some of these tools that we have talked about. It’s a great

starting point for you guys and we highly recommend that you get out there and start

putting together your first membership site.

Andrew: Send us your membership pages so we can stick them on our resource

guide.

Heather: Yes, please. We can show sample membership sites from you guys. We

would love that and the best way to do that is to go to

www.AutopilotYourBusiness.com/Podcast, find this episode and there is great big

comment field down below the actual itself and the show notes, type in your

membership site URL so we can check it out and see what you guys are up to.

Andrew: And if you are listening to this podcast on iTunes, make sure you leave a

review. Just give us a quick review, tell us what you think, what you learnt. We

would love to hear your thoughts about this podcast.

Thanks Heather for joining us today as usual and I look forward to our next podcast. I

have no idea what that’s going to be but I am sure we will come up with something

before then.

Heather: Thanks everyone for sticking with us again and thanks, Andrew, it’s been a

good little show.

Andrew: Okay, goodbye.

**End of Audio.