48: Membership vs Group vs Mastermind (And How Selling Them is Different)

⭐ MEMBERSHIP GROWTH LAB IS ENROLLING NOW! ⭐ membershipgrowthlab.com Work with me in a small group to take your membership from a trickle of sales to steady growth, any month you want. In this episode: They showed you how to launch a membership. There's even more people telling you how to get hundreds, even thousands of new members... But almost nobody talks about the stage in between: I call it The VOID. (Dramatic, I know!) This is when you have a few dozen members but you can't seem to break through to 100 and you're unsure of what it really takes. In this episode, I’m breaking down exactly what’s required to get out of the void and grow to your 100 member milestone. Links and Resources: Contact Natalie: themissingink.co/connect See how else you can work with Natalie: themissingink.co/services

🎉 Fifty episodes in, I'm taking you behind the scenes of something I've never done before: launching my own group offer, with me in the driver's seat. After a decade of writing launch campaigns for other people's memberships and courses, I'm promoting Membership Growth Lab publicly for the first time. It's been a wonderfully busy season that has taught me a lot about what it really takes to promote with staying power. In this episode, I'm sharing the trade-offs I've made, the skills I'm still building, and the kind of support that's made the biggest difference. If you're growing your membership and want it to become a bigger part of your business, these lessons will help you decide where your time and energy should go next. We'll cover: How to decide what stays on your promotion list when your ambitions are bigger than your capacity (and why the answer is hiding inside your membership) Why promoting your membership is a skill you build, and what the "let it be easy" message gets wrong The difference between support with strategy and support with decisions, and why you need both during a promotion What it means to become a membership-driven business owner, and how the work you do for your membership strengthens everything else in your business

What does it actually look like to double your membership enrollment without a traditional launch — and when you already have 1,000+ members? This episode is the answer. Stephanie Stollar built the Reading Science Academy into one of the most trusted resources for educators learning about the science of reading. By the time she came to work with me, she had over 1,000 members, a great marketing team, three books under her belt, and a speaking calendar that was anything but empty. And yet: she couldn't tell me how she was selling her membership or what was actually working... which meant she didn't know what to do next to grow it. In this conversation, Stephanie shares exactly what it looked and felt like to get strategic about growing a membership that was already wildly successful — including the uncomfortable parts. We cover: Why being deeply in demand can actually work against your membership growth (and what Stephanie had to confront about her own calendar) The first conversation that made it crystal clear: successful doesn't always mean strategic How activator events became the foundation of Stephanie's new sales system — and what doubled her monthly enrollment average What it felt like to try a webinar launch for the first time in years, with 2,500 educators showing up for it The shift from doing everything yourself to letting your team carry the execution — and how to stay involved in the right way Why tracking your numbers changes everything (even if spreadsheets don't spark joy) Stephanie's advice for anyone who has grown their membership through grit alone and is ready for what comes next

Are memberships really the hardest offer to sell... or do they just expose the skills you haven’t had to build yet? There’s no shortage of strong opinions about memberships online. Some people will tell you they’re the easiest path to recurring revenue. Others will tell you they’re exhausting, impossible to grow and not worth the effort. The truth, as usual, is a little more nuanced... Links and Resources: 🎯 The Membership Growth Gameplan: Work with me to grow your membership: themissingink.co/the-gameplan Contact Natalie: themissingink.co/connect See how else you can work with Natalie: themissingink.co/services

What if the membership that grows your revenue could also make your business feel lighter? When Tim and his co-founder Lea launched Mission AI, more than 400 members joined straight away. But after that first successful launch, his question wasn’t simply, “How do we do this again?” It was how to make sure this membership could still feel exciting, valuable, and sustainable five years from now. In this episode, Tim joins me to unpack what happened behind the scenes as Mission AI grew to nearly 700 members, with monthly churn below 2%. We talk about the mindset shifts that helped him add far less to the membership than he originally planned, create stronger member engagement, and build recurring revenue that has completely changed how his business feels. We’ll cover: Why Tim wanted recurring revenue even though his launches were already successful, and how the membership gave him more choice inside his business The one question that completely changed how he thought about delivering value, and helped him avoid building a “Netflix-style” membership packed with endless new content How designing for member action instead of consumption changed Mission AI’s onboarding, including the small win members can experience almost immediately Why building the membership around Tim and Lea’s actual lives matters, and how clear roles, boundaries, and fewer deliverables have made the offer more sustainable What Tim has learned about growth, experimentation, and cringe, including why discomfort can be a sign that you’re moving in the right direction