Five Years of Running my Membership: Mistakes, Lessons Learned, and Key Takeaways

Today’s episode of the podcast is a solo episode where I share an honest and insightful look into the highs and lows of running an online membership for the past five years. From strategic shifts to personal growth, I reveal what worked, what didn’t, and how my mindset and experiences have influenced my business. Whether you’re a course creator, membership owner, or coach, this episode is packed with valuable lessons and actionable strategies.   KEY TAKEAWAYS COVERED IN THE PODCAST Importance of Niching Down Initially, I aimed to serve everyone, which diluted my focus and messaging. Over time, I learned the importance of clearly defining my target audience and tailoring my offerings to meet their specific needs. Value of Continuous Adaptation The membership evolved significantly over the years, from strategic marketing content to incorporating mindset and personal development aspects. This flexibility allowed me to better serve my members as my own skills and understanding grew. Strategic Pricing and Value Perception I experimented with different pricing tiers and eventually raised the membership fee to reflect the high value provided. I also learned that having lower-priced options could sometimes devalue the overall perception of the membership.   If you enjoyed this episode then please feel free to go and share it on your social media or head over to Apple podcasts or Spotify and give me a review, I would be so very grateful.   LINKS TO RESOURCES MENTIONED IN TODAY’S EPISODE Membership Momentum Dream Business Club Losing Part Of Me Podcast Connect with Teresa on Website, Instagram, LinkedIn, Facebook or Twitter Transcript After five years of having my membership, I'm taking you behind the scenes to share what has worked over those five years and what didn't. Also, how has that membership changed over that time. I share all the mistakes I made and what I would do differently if I was to do it all again. I also share with you what the future looks like for my membership and what things I might be doing differently now. And one of the things I think you'll find surprising is how my own mindset and my own life experiences had an impact on what my membership looked like and what I offered. This is a very honest look into having an online business and running a membership. Hello and welcome to another episode of Your Dream Business podcast. How are you doing this week? Isn't it funny how sometimes things just line up without you even trying or realising? And this is exactly what's happened for the episode this week. Now, I decided I was going to talk about my membership and memberships in general, because of two reasons. One, I am speaking at Membership Momentum. Which is an amazing summit put on by Krista Miller, who also is speaking next week. She's doing an interview next week and the membership momentum is going to run from June 24th until the 26th. And I am doing a session for it all about how launching, I probably should know the title of my session off by heart, but I don't, how I use open houses to basically launch my membership or to sell my membership without feeling sleazy and salesy. And I'm really excited about the talks. I've never done this talk before. It's a brand new one. So I'm really excited to be able to bring that to Krista and her audience. And also it's got an amazing lineup. So I do want you to go and check that out. There will be a link in the show notes. If you had to teresaheathwareing.com/350, then you will find links to the membership momentum event. Also, if you check out my socials and if you're on my email list, then I will be sharing it all over that place. So yes, that's one of the reasons I want to focus on membership. And then like I said, next week, Krista is on the podcast as well, where we'll be talking about more stuff, which is awesome. Okay. So weirdly, this is where the weird date thing comes in. I go to start to plan as to what I'm going to talk about. Yes. Sometimes I plan what I'm talking about, although it may not feel like it sometimes. And I looked at how long I've had my membership for. And this episode comes out on the 10th of June and at this point I have had my membership for five years. I started my membership June 2019. So how weirdly awesome is that, that I wanted to write memberships and then when I looked it was the fifth year anniversary of having my membership. So I thought what I would do on today's episode is talk you through some of the changes, some of the things, the good, the not so good of having a membership, some of the things that have gone really well, some things that I haven't done so brilliantly, and where my membership is today. And then hopefully if you've got a membership, this is going to give you some ideas and thoughts in terms of things that maybe you can try or things that maybe you shouldn't try because I did and they didn't work. Or if you're thinking about a membership, then great. This is going to give you lots and lots of information in order to take forward with your own. If you are not thinking of a membership and have no plans or whatever to have a membership, then this is going to be a really fun look behind the scenes at my business. So hopefully there's lots for all of you. Let's get cracking. So I want to start off by talking about what the membership started as, because this is one of the things I guess has been most surprising is the progression of the membership over the years and how much it's changed and tweaked and moved and just not the same thing. I started my membership, like I said, June, 2019. And it was initially the Marketing That Converts Academy. That's what I called it. And I had a very clear idea from day one, what I wanted the membership to be. And I wanted it to be so that the name Marketing That Converts came from the fact, and actually this just isn't an insight into the membership. It's kind of an insight into the journey my business has gone on. And actually how my personal life and what I've gone through has affected my business. So this really is like a bit of a warts and all. So I started the membership from a point of view of at this point in my life, I was doing a lot of work for online businesses and I was launching online businesses and I was helping online businesses and I was coming from a very strategic marketing point of view. If you are new to me, if you've not heard me say this before, I actually have a degree in marketing and I spent 10 years in marketing prior to starting my own business and then I started as a marketing consultant. So when I say I know marketing, I really know marketing. Like it has literally been what I eat, sleep, breathe since 20 years ago now. And I'm 45, I think. like since I was 25. So the whole point of the membership was people who were trying to grow their online businesses and start their online businesses. And I started it with the premise of this kind of thing of get seen, get emails, get customers, or get sales, and then get fans. That was the last one. So I had these four very clear things of which they would go through or they would work on and they would get successful online business. And then I launched it in a way that wasn't clear enough. In my head, that was how I wanted it to be, but I did the typical thing of, I want to serve everybody. So even though those are my key areas, and actually a lot of what I talked about was online stuff and building an email list and lead magnets and funnels and emails and sales pages and all that awesome stuff, I just kind of opened the doors and when everybody come in, like whether you're a marketer, whether you're a business owner, whether you're this, whether you're that. And within a very short space of time, I'd lost that niche altogether. Right. Not only had I lost it from a content point of view, but from a marketing point of view, I just made a terrible mistake of basically going, Hey, it's amazing club to come and learn marketing for your business. So I started with this brilliant intention. And I remember. planning this out, right? I remember we were sat in San Diego. My husband was there with me. I can even remember the restaurant we were at, the table we were sat at. If you've been to San Diego to the conference, you will know there's a corner restaurant that's French right over the road from the exhibition place. If you, if you know, it's something that you're like, Oh yeah, yeah, yeah. I can hear it now. And we sat in that restaurant on one of the high tables in the sun and I planned out. I think, was Biz Paul with me? I think Biz Paul might have been with me, my friend. Anyway, planned it out, got it all sorted and...