42: The Membership Rut is Real - And You Can Grow Through It Anyway

⭐ 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

A membership is a category, not a complete description of your offer. Memberships can range from a $19 monthly content offer to a multi-thousand-dollar annual commitment with high-touch support. They may all technically sit under the same umbrella, but the buying decision behind each one can be completely different. In this episode, I’m breaking down why your sales strategy needs to be built around the specific membership you have, not a generic formula for how memberships are “supposed” to sell. We’ll cover: Why asking “How do I sell my membership?” can lead you in the wrong direction, and the better question to start with instead How price and commitment level change the buying decision, including how much runway, trust, proof, and interaction someone may need before saying yes Why positioning becomes increasingly important as your price rises, and when personal conversations or higher-touch sales assets actually make sense How your membership model changes your expectations around churn and renewal, and why another membership’s numbers may have very little to do with yours Where the ongoing value of your membership should live, especially as buyers move from wanting more content to valuing access, feedback, personalization, and proximity

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