How Pat Flynn Added A Membership To His Existing Course, Affiliate, and Coaching Business!
Listen to the full episode here:
My guest on this week’s Shane Sams Show is my good friend, the one and only Pat Flynn of the Smart Passive Income Podcast!
As many of you know Pat was a huge inspiration and early mentor in our quest to become online entrepreneurs. His story inspired me and my wife Jocelyn to launch our first online business. And, he even encouraged us to launch the Flipped Lifestyle Podcast.
I’ve had the great pleasure of getting to know Pat over the years and even appeared twice on the Smart Passive Income Podcast!
All the years I’ve known Pat I’ve asked him multiple times, “bro, when are you going to launch a membership site?” Well a few months ago I sent him that text and he replied back, “I have a secret - it’s coming soon!” I’m happy to report that that day has finally come and Pat Flynn has launched his first paid membership community - SPI Pro. SPI Pro rolled out of the gates with hundreds of applicants and members, and is already an amazing success story in Pat’s portfolio.
In today’s episode Pat and I are going to go deep his strategy for starting, building, and launching a successful membership community. We are going to talk about using an application process for your membership to create and control the culture of your community. We are also covering how to tie a monthly recurring membership site with your existing course, coaching, or affiliate business. And, how critical a team is to building a million dollar membership of your own!
What You'll Learn:
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Why start a membership in the first place?
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Running an application for your membership 101.
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Why you should scale what doesn’t scale.
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Using third-party memberships.
Show Notes
Why start a membership in the first place?
Pat Flynn does a LOT of amazing things: he’s an investor, he has a lot of affiliates, he does courses. So why did he decide to start a membership? The one thing that was missing from everything he was offering in his courses, affiliate marketing, and all his content, there wasn’t one central place for people who wanted to come together to connect with like-minded people!
Running an application for your membership 101.
Pat’s membership is not content-based. Pat uses an application for his membership as a filter to make sure that the right people are in there. Not that the people who don’t get in are rejected or wrong, they just aren’t the right fit right now. About half of the 2,500 people that applied were actually approved - for those that were not he detailed why they weren’t approved, and what they could do to get approved when they re-apply.
A lot of his membership acceptance is based on business experience, business size, email list size, goals, time available things like that! It was important for the community he was building because they are all on the same page!
Why you should scale what doesn’t scale.
Scale what doesn’t scale. Send hand-written letters, birthday cards, or thank you cards. Send swag. It may not seem like it scales but people will feel more connected, they will ultimately stay longer too! It all goes into the user experience and the overall culture of your membership.
Using third-party memberships. (39:00)
Pat actually uses a third=party site for his membership and is working very well for him!
The problem we’ve had in the past with third-party membership sites is from a core value standpoint we want to control as much as we can. And, we want to teach new people as few habits as possible.
However, the platform Pat uses sounds like something I will definitely be checking out. It sounds like it has the soul that has been missing in every third-party I’ve ever seen!
You can connect with Pat:
- On his website: smartpassiveincome.com/pro
- Pat Flynn on Youtube: Youtube.com/PatFlynn everyday @ 8 AM Pacific
Listen to our interview with Pat Flynn on the Flipped Lifestyle Podcast back on episode 100: https://flippedlifestyle.com/best009/
You can find us on Pat's podcast the Smart Passive Income Podcast:
