Is an Online Business Membership Right for My Business?

NOTE: This podcast was transcribed by an AI tool. Please forgive any typos or errors. SPEAKERS Lisa Princic, Erin Ollila Erin Ollila 00:04 Hey friends. Welcome to the top coffee Timmy podcast. Here we empower small business owners to step into the spotlight with their marketing and messaging. I’m your host, Erin Ollila. Let’s get started and talk coffee. All right, we are here today with Lisa Trinsic. And we are going to be talking today about memberships and what to think of when you’re considering habit having a membership for your business, kickstarting a membership, that stagnant and what type of copy and marketing you need to consider when you’re creating that messaging around the membership. If there’s something you may not know about Lisa is that she is most fit in the winter, because she cross country skis all the time, and the style of skiing that she just did. She just educated me all about. It’s called skating. And it looks a little different. And it is a much harder workout. So welcome. Thanks for being here. I love starting the conversation with those fun facts, because Lisa Princic 01:08 with random things, yes, they Erin Ollila 01:10 do random things, right. I mean, like we all have these online business personas, I think, you know, we’re known that for our niche for the clients that we serve for what we do, but I think it’s so rare that we bring in the randomness, I totally Lisa Princic 01:23 agree or, and and I have to say that I need more fun people in my life, because I do not bring in randomness. Erin Ollila 01:29 Let’s start off with something easy. I know a lot of my audience is interested in scaling their business, trying out new models of things that they might use to either take their one on one service and grow it or just maybe have a more community aspect of what they’re doing. So I love the idea about talking about memberships. Can you tell me like what’s the benefit to having a membership in your business? Lisa Princic 01:59 Okay, a million things, but let me tell you, the less obvious things because I know everyone’s gonna say recurring revenue, which is kind of nice, like, I’m not gonna, I’m not gonna lie like, you can. It’s you know, sometimes we’re real, our incomes really predictable, especially when we’re selling shorter programs, or we don’t like just go from like client, like, every month, we have repetitive clients or recurring revenue, it is nice to get into that. But then beyond that, the couple of things that I’ve really thought made sense is, if whatever you’re doing with private clients can be more expensive, and yet their learning isn’t over or their implementation isn’t over. And one of the reasons why I started my first membership really was just for my past VIP day clients who we worked on their business model their offer development, you know, the positioning a little bit of messaging and marketing plans. And then they had to go off and implement and it wasn’t like, they really wanted to spend lots of money every month on hand holding from from from me, because they really just needed to do the work and stay on the path without bright shiny object syndrome. So I just invited them into a membership where they could continue staying connected to me and all I did was a calls with them. And they showed up to all the calls because they were getting some continuity. And once people start working with you, and build the relationship and know what you’re good for, and know what how how you help them, they, you there’s no point sending them off somewhere else, knowing that they’re going to need their support. So that can be one of the ways that we just extend the lifetime value of our client, bring in a group component and then reduce the cost for them. So it’s like that’s just an odd like a really obvious thing to do that we don’t always think about. And one of the other things that I really love is I love having a front row seat to them and their problems or challenges how they’re wording things like I learned a lot from my clients sometimes about like new tools and things that they’re doing in their launches. So it’s like about being in relationship with people in a slightly more I wouldn’t say more casual way but it’s not the same as having like, Oh, we’ve got this two hour session and everything has to be like perfect and professional all about them like you’re you’re not there’s not there’s not It’s not like you have as much time for a quick like, oh yeah, I tried this to tell me more like you can play a little bit more you can really be in their in their life more casually. And I think that’s juicy information. Like especially when we’re talking about copy. We’re talking about messaging like what’s really going on for them and get to know them. Erin Ollila 04:33 Yeah, I love that. You said that because I you know, I think what you’re saying like just distill it down is the memberships are not only beneficial to your clients, which is the key, right? Like, if you’re thinking about scaling your business, you want to provide value and the way you do that is continuing the relationship just in the incidence of you know, maybe a one on one service to a membership model you are allowing that client to stay within your circle and provide value, but at the flip side, which I actually think I really don’t hear most people speaking about is memberships are beneficial to the business owner as well. You know, it made my heart sing a little when you’re saying you could hear like their problems, like stay connected to the front to them from that standpoint, because that’s everything that you need for your whole business marketing is just listening to your ideal clients, and who’s better to listen to than the people who have already paid you. They are all and not only just paid you once, they’re continuing to pay you a month’s membership model, because they value that relationship. They’ve built your expertise. So what they share with you whether it’s feedback of something that they’d love to see, and they’re not seeing in the membership, whether it’s nothing related to the membership, but more like inner business issues that they’d like to grow or move through. That’s all key things that you can take into your own business and use to speak to potential leads in the future. And not only in the future, like those very clients, you can increase and improve the client experience, which is I’m assuming one of the ways to continue their membership is just by improving client experience. Because you’re, you’re listening, and you’re actually improving as you listen to what they’re saying. It’s also Lisa Princic 06:17 the people who aren’t vocalizing or aren’t showing up, and then you see their activity, or you finally do hear from them. And you realize they haven’t been participating in the community or showing up on any calls, like I have all three, I have like a community, I have called mentoring calls. And that’s kind of the foundation and then there’s also like a starter course and other resources and trainings. And to actually finally check in with one and they said, Oh, I’ve been going through all the modules, and yet they haven’t showed up to anything physical that I’ve seen, and thinking, Oh, I wonder if this person is doing anything with it. And they’re actually got a lot of value out of it. So it’s sometimes we make an A, we don’t really know what it’s really nice to know what people are actually doing with what we’re teaching them, like, how are they implementing it? What are they? Where are they struggling? How are they getting value, and I think that is pushing us a little bit to to be more open to what I guess countering our assumptions that we will be making like crazy in our business, like no one’s buying from me, no one is using this thing, no one’s getting any value, people are getting results like we can really be harder ourselves. And I think that we have to take some risks in order to see that we don’t know everything, that even if somebody cancels a membership, they could just be too busy and not able to use what would they the what they’ve committed to. And it’s really not all about us not doing a good job. So I think that it’s it’s a chance to grow a little bit more, we need thicker skins in business, when we when we don’t take a step at offering anything that’s more scalable or more group oriented. We’re staying in a really safe zone, and something’s gonna happen eventually to take us out of that state safe zone. So I think that we can start to observe behaviors in different ways. When we’re doing a different kind of program that’s a little more hands off. Erin Ollila 08:16 One of the words you just said was risk. And it really made me It popped into my brain, you know, what type of business is one that does well with the membership model? Like if they don’t have a membership currently, and they’re listening, and it’s really sparking some interest? How would they know that they’re ready for a membership model? And is there some businesses that really just don’t do I wouldn’t say don’t do well, but maybe like, aren’t well suited to having a membership? Lisa Princic 08:42 Okay, so that is a really challenging question. And let me let’s break that down with you. I love analyzing hard things. So that’s what I’m all about. So I love complexity, I’ll be honest. Now, I’m curious. I’m actually trying to figure this out as well. And I’m also challenging my own assumptions, because I mostly serve coaches and consultants and service providers like therapists and people who run agencies and all kinds of people who are in a day to day type of work and their membership is a really good way to get out of the day to day and into a more of a self led model, right so that they can take a step back and they’re not back to back. And, and so that’s the kind of who I serve now. I know tons do well with that. But then there’s also the risk that people who’ve done this very hands on service have a hard time not giving that even in a membership, feel a little like we got it like step into the control about how people are getting value and sort of tend to want to over deliver so there’s that that challenge. It works. It can work for anyone and that’s the beauty of it. It’s so interesting. Erin Ollila 09:52 There’s no easy answer for that it’s yeah, if you’re a copywriter yes if you’re a website designer no like that’s not how memberships to work, right? memberships are more like you say, having the idea, the determination, the drive and the the interest. There are a lot of business owners I know who might have who would have easy entry into the membership world, but they do not want to build community. And that’s fine. There’s nothing wrong with that. Right? So I think, while Lisa Princic 10:20 you don’t have to build community, like I had to say that it isn’t like, it’s all about that. But it does help to people to say when they’re feeling the energy from other people when they’re feeling down, but it doesn’t mean that that’s the has to be the strongest thing. You don’t have to start there. So like, you know, I said, I started with mentoring, I had like, only mentoring calls. When I did my first membership. I didn’t have content, I didn’t have anything else. Some people were like, I only want to deliver content. And then there’s also a community decide. So how this signature thing that you really want to do, and do it best. But it’s also it’s also what I’m saying is that like, you’re going to play with the one to many model, you’re going to play with sales funnels, if you’re going to start selling via email versus consoles, the differences is that you’ve got to find that fun. Yeah. And that’s partly what I was saying to you earlier, how I changed moved from being like a, I had a great brand, I still had a lot of people could land on my website and buy from me, and like make great money as a business strategist. But it wasn’t like I had a really sexy funnel that I was like testing and putting out there because like, I didn’t need all that. And when I decided to niche more, I’m like now I said I’d sell tons of small products on my website. And I’ve got this known for this thing, and I get invited to different things. And eventually I will have way more influence over how much I earn and how because I’ve made the leap. But it’s a different model than just being having your days full. Erin Ollila 11:49 Yeah, no, I love everything you just said. And if anyone is listening, we did an episode early on in the show. I think it was episode three with Malika Malhotra about niching. Down. And I love what you’re saying. Because it’s a lot of what we said during that conversation like, like, what we started with was does everyone need to niche and the keys No, like, if you don’t even know what you’re doing, like, just do what you try things out. Right, like, and in the other regard. If the niching doesn’t work, well, then you just pivot again. But I love that what your transition was, was the business strategist. And you’re still doing that I stopped doing his strategy, a particular client. So I think I think that is a really lovely transition in your own business. And that’s kind of where people are when they’re considering whether or not to have the membership part, right? It Lisa Princic 12:36 is it’s like you’re you’re going from a one to many model to a one to like an ongoing model. And, and you’re learning things and you’re learning as you go. And you don’t have to figure it out already, right, I actually think that there’s no way that you can like set up your membership and go, here’s what we’re gonna do for the next one year, it’s like, no way, you’re gonna after three months go, Oh, I’m tossing that and no one’s using it. Or, like, I’m gonna add this because I love the serving in this way. And you’ll see the things that people like to do. So you get to play. So it is really exciting from a creative perspective. As long as you don’t get that service provider syndrome of over like feeling you have to overdeliver constantly. And I well, I think it’s Erin Ollila 13:19 key that you mentioned that because you talk about play. And you know, previously in our conversation you had talked about like different types of membership models. So do you think you could pause there for a second and talk about how people can consider like, what are some membership models because I think having a general idea of which direction they might go might prevent that over delivering overwhelm. If they just say, Okay, I’m staying in this lane, and I can shift, but I’m not going to feel like upset that I’m not delivering enough because I know what I’m going to deliver is this very thing. So like, do you think that would help at all by like, understanding that type of model? Lisa Princic 13:56 Well, okay, so first of all, you need to understand the transformation that you’re going to deliver. And that’s what your brand promises, right? And that’s what a membership still does, even though it’s a little bit more like user access whenever they need it. You know, you don’t know with even just some people paying and staying tethered to you like meaning like they open up your emails and read them because they’re paying for you versus all the free ones that they’re on. They might actually like follow your guidance more like Oh, I’m doing this event you should come they might be like okay, and then they kind of like signed up to that so you don’t realize how little you need to provide and actually when you start stuffing too much content people were like I’m out like it’s interesting how that’s so how people get so overwhelmed. I think it really is about having some really clear idea of who it’s for. You can’t necessarily at the beginning sell to beginner people and advance people because if you had a membership say all about like copywriting and there were some people who are like copywriters There are verses, I just wanted to copy from my own brand like that eventually you could do but at the beginning, you can’t launch to both those audiences now succinctly, you would have to launch to one and others might come, but you still have to know who you really, really want to serve. So you’ve got to get clear on this, like, what’s the ideal transformation. But you can only do that if you know who your ideal member is. And then you have to think about where do your other services fit in. Because if you actually really ultimately want to sell like a simple how to like $50 a month, like I wasn’t one that was a Facebook ads one. And for people who are running their own ads, and there’s probably other ads, agencies in there, actually, I knew there were, and you would just come up. And it wasn’t a lot of support, though, like you post things in the community and other people would answer and sometimes you get the administrators. And then she did like one q&a Call a month, which wasn’t you know, like, that’s not my kind of mentoring, I love being on a zoom call where I’m like, help is there I’m feeling you know, and so you but she had an agency and I’m sure a lot of people just went okay, I’m just gonna buy from you, like just do my ads for me 1000s of dollars per month, right. So that model is like what I consider a warm up model, I just joined it because someone mentioned Oh, I had some I found this group helpful, it was a no brainer to buy. But again, she has a real agency she’s growing and that her goal probably is not to the membership isn’t the big moneymaker. Now that’s very different from somebody who’s like, oh, like I, I want to, I find like, the only way I’m gonna get people easily into my membership, without it costing so much is to just add, I can sell it at a higher price point is people who’ve already had an experience with me through some kind of starter course, or some kind of program that you then invite people into, okay, that’s what a lot of people do. So those are the two most common and then we see people who have like, all I have is a membership now, that flagship membership is kind of like the dream for me, because I love the idea of serving everyone all in one place. I’m starting to see though more like that is potentially more the dream and that it’s just to start a membership that you think is going to be your end all be all and you don’t have other things that you offer might be a little too dreamy, to to start with. Because it’s it’s not always easy to cut off the way that you were feeding it in the first place, but not having the things that people were naturally buying. It takes a while for that membership to be really figured out and dialed so that it is super clear on who it’s helping super clear on the results. The only you know, you’re fine if that’s the only way you make money. So I think that could be a little bit like let’s just focus on the other two. So are you going to use it as a feeder to bigger programs or private work? Or would you just like to get the community going and you’ve already got some programming I like I think those one of those two ways is the easier way to to start because you don’t have it to have to be the primary earner that has everything in there to make a good for anyone. Let’s say like, you know, let’s not pretend like let’s just not all be massive millionaires, like all, you know, earning millions and say like, yeah, 5k a month from a membership, or 7k would be like, great. Now she could live off that with very little expenses in my business while I grow it. You know, what if someone’s already earning, you know, hundreds of 1000s of dollars, they’re not going to want to do it for that. So you’ve got to transition it without, because obviously, you know, when you’re a million dollar business and you have a team, you can’t just decide to like reduce the income by half because you’ve cut out a bunch of programs. So the point is, is that you’re normally going to phase that in and being like, you know what, I don’t want to do anything else. However I might I might offer something different another level of masterminding or something to that membership. But I do think you can you you don’t you want to be cautious in that. If you’ve got other earnings you need Erin Ollila 18:56 Yeah, no, I love that. All right, so let’s talk about let’s transition to marketing and selling like, I think, you know, they are two different things. And I think that a lot of the times marketing will drive the selling. So when it comes to marketing, I think in memberships, we have to talk about messaging and you mentioned this earlier, like what is the brand promise like what is the transformation? Who are the clients? But do you have any advice for people on how to how to determine what their message is for their membership specifically? I mean, I could wax poetic on things to say here from a copy perspective, but I love that you have like the idea of like, it is different right like so your original brand promise or your brand story is going to have to shift slightly when you talk about your business now as a membership. So how does one shift or what does one even do to start developing that message? Lisa Princic 19:51 Yeah, so my my thoughts on that are probably not that different from a coffee perspective because You really need to be clear on the result. I think it’s very results oriented, because you’re not going to have a chance to course correct, like within a conversation with someone when you’re coaching with them, like me, you know, showing up as a coach showing up as a service provider. It’s like, what do you need? Oh, sure, that’s what it’ll deliver your you will have to really get clear clear on not just like the test, while the results matter, right, the testimonies have to be specific, I would say I would say you’re getting more like, specific, you want a bunch of people to say I got this result, like, and that’s the result you want to actually have written on your sales page. And then you also want to really identify the problem. So I think you have to get more into sales psychology, I really do. So for separate separate out the marketing, I, you know, I mean, I’m actually taking a course right now, that’s kind of pushing me from that level, because I have all this great messaging. But I really need to go a little bit deeper, I think for people to say like, No, this is exactly for me right now. Because it does become a little bit fuzzy when different people get different results. And the price point isn’t under $100, or $50. So I think you’ve got to get really laser focused on on who it’s for. And so I’m working on that myself. And I know other people are, but I just think if you start to so I think it’s worth having more calls with members who are getting great results and finding like really getting clear on their language. Yeah, because you want to nail that because you don’t want to have, you’re gonna lose a little bit of a thread to people. If you’ve been selling things via console, you’re going to not be sure why people aren’t buying. So I’ve also been pushed in this course is like, you know, get like, I’ve heard a few people who said why they didn’t buy the last time I opened the cart. And I actually now I’m going to say, hey, like, I’m going to actually just put it out there on a group that I have a free group and be like, Hey, does anyone would like to do some quick q&a with me? And I’ll give you some free coaching. Just because I think I want to dive into what that is like, what are the objections? I think it’s like, and I think that’s it. I think it’s more objections. So in the past, I always focus on like, what are you experiencing as your problem right now? And where do you really want to go? And I didn’t actually deal with objections as much. Yeah, this is the insight that I’ve had just in the last few days, you have to dive further into objections, because people are buying a bit less of a comfortable thing known when they’re buying a thing where they’re not having a call with somebody. Erin Ollila 22:34 Yeah, no huge. One thing that I think drives me crazy in the copywriting industry is that, you know, you can’t just be a good writer to be a good copywriter, or good marketer in any way, shape or form. You know, prior to coming into the copywriting world, I had a long career in the mental health industry of working either administratively or as a case manager with clients. So I take a lot of like that, you know, the the psychological perspective when it comes to writing. And I think that you don’t have to have a history in mental health to be able to figure this out. I think it’s as simple as two things, one, determining the level of readiness to buy. And to Well, I guess, maybe this should be one, we should flip them, but determining the the level of awareness for the product or the service or the membership, right, though, that’s what will define a message for a website for a membership for a product for anything. So again, are your clients aware of what you’re offering them? Are they aware that there’s even a solution? Like, are they aware of what they can learn? Or what they what kind of transformation they can get throughout the membership? And then we flip it to the other side? Are they ready? And like, they like Lisa Princic 23:47 how well do they know you is one of the things like I had a lot of people jump on my list. And then they joined my launch? Because there was an event and then I think a couple of people are like, Oh, I just met you and it wasn’t ready to buy and I did, you know, try to sell it as an annual, which was kind of more of a challenge. But I think it’s like, you got and that’s the that’s the almost a bit of the marketing engagement piece is like how long does it take people to buy from you because if it’s not $20 a month, like people will buy anything for like $50. You know, we’ve seen tiny offers everywhere. Most people will buy something for $50 Depending on your market. If you’re b2c like you’re mostly consumers or certain age group that doesn’t get to spend a ton of money, then it’s maybe closer to $9 or $7. But if you’re offering that low price point, most people will try it out. Now if you start to offer things for higher amounts, or for longer, they might not. And that’s where you have to understand like what’s it How long did they have to know you or no, have you said it can be harder to sell something for smaller sometimes then a larger amount? So you’ve got to have a warm and ready audience? Yeah, Erin Ollila 24:55 no, I think that’s so valuable. And I mean, I think that’s why I wanted to separate the marketing message part From the sales part, because when it comes to pricing, I think pricing is an entire episode. Right? And not that we can’t not that we can’t touch on it now, but, you know, I always try to tell it’s not. Yeah, I try to tell service providers the right like, can you go from let’s say it’s a web designer, and they sell, you know, $8,000 websites, and now they want to have a membership. Great, cool. But like, can you go from an $8,000? product to a $20? Membership, right? Lisa Princic 25:24 Well, no, because here’s the thing, is your client avatar totally different? Like, does somebody want to join a membership? Who wants to say, because eight grand isn’t like the I know, it’s not a lot in like the corporate world or whatever. But for a solo entrepreneur, it’s not the cheapest they can get either. Because there’s a lot of things that are like a few grand. So like, do they then want to join? No, because, like, they want support. So that is like that. Exactly. Erin Ollila 25:50 That’s right. So it also then that’s where we think about the like, the readiness here is right, so they just got a website, they might want to stay with you because they’re nervous about, like plugin updates, and I’m totally making this up as Lisa Princic 26:06 like, or no, well, they’re asking more about related to the funnel, like they’re like, Yes, I do I do. I need a new landing page. Like they’re like they’re playing with things constantly. Like I could totally see what they would need afterwards. Because often with my clients, I was like, you need a little bit of a website revamp when I was working with them. Right? Same stuff, right? Erin Ollila 26:24 Yes. But then it’s, again, though, when we think of the membership model, and we think of pricing, what do they want to know? And what do they want to outsource? And that goes back to your two models that we were talking about before. So that has to get factored into the pricing of your membership. And then if you’re gonna go the option of model number one, what the upsell is from there. So again, it’s figuring out a whole interplay of the business funnel. So for someone Lisa Princic 26:47 selling a ground websites, and regularly I would say that you probably want an A minimum of $200 a month, follow up mentor follow up community where they literally have like, all they do all they get is, here’s my like, three hours or two hours of office hours every month, come on, ask a question. Get your it’s like, it’s amazing, because like people would much rather get on a call, ask a 15 minute question than, like, sort search through Google for an hour. And they will take Erin Ollila 27:21 you for like a paid go through a course that you have to sit through that does not necessarily even answer that very specific question. Yes, yeah. And I think the flip side to this is that you have other businesses like a website designer, who makes templates, that someone is going to purchase and upload onto their own website, they may be able to have a lower price spent membership, not necessarily lower. I’m not trying to cheat, but like a lower price membership, where people stay in a longer amount of time. And it is less like strategy based maybe it’s more like the community aspect where they’re asking each other questions. Here’s what happens when it goes to like DIY and your plan membership. You have ideas you have things that you’d like to do, you might be over delivering, you might be under delivering, you might be overcharging undercharging, but there’s no real way besides trial and error, a complete hot mess of trial and error, then hiring someone to strategically help you design it, Lisa Princic 28:17 how to trial and error and how to get started with all because there’s so many decisions you’ll have to make, right? You know, and I can help I help people cut through all those decisions. Like why this like someone I did a consult with someone, she’s like, should I use this platform and that platform this or that I’m like, Okay, we got to do this strategy call. But the idea is that you’ve got so many things to make, that are gonna hold you back when the real work actually comes from after you launch it. Because then you have to like experiment. And then you have to literally go like, wow, I just said that I’m going to raise the price point. Now I’m thinking I want to reduce it, you know, like, I just said that. And it’s like, well, it’s kind of like, you feel that you because you want to get a certain value, because it really makes sense to a certain point, you know, the value is higher, but you’re like, you know what, I need 20 people right now like or 30, or whatever that that point makes that isn’t so much financial as like it keeps that community report or people need something from other people. And so I think like you have to figure that out, and you’re not going to get it right. It’s so it’s like, it’s literally been the most humbling thing I’ve done, which is great. growing so much, but it’s been hard because I haven’t I haven’t got it all figured out for my own like, like Avatar, right and, and it’s like, is it a visibility thing? Do I just need more people? Or is it Oh, have I gotta convert better and it’s like, Oh, I did this like workshop for 90 minutes and I got more sales than a bootcamp for four days is like Oh, too much content. So this is like, this is like honest stuff, right? This is not the overnight sensation story and some people will have like better luck right away like because they’ve got a hunger audience. They’ve got a more unique thing they’ve got like, it doesn’t really matter, but we got to stop judging ourselves at work. completely, and just be prepared to be like, Oh, I just told somebody that it was this price point. And that’s the last time I’ll offer it. And then four months later, you’re like, No, I’m going to change everything. And I’m going to reoffer it at a different price. Do it, you know, like, we can’t be holding ourselves to this, like, politician scrutiny? Yeah, no, I love that. not ethical. But this is our boundary, because we’re so sick of achy ethics, like in business, that we’re like holding ourselves to a standard, that becomes so difficult. And when we’re doing that, we can’t earn the same way. Because we’re like, hold, like, we’re like I said, I do it this way. I can’t change. Everyone’s looking at me, I need to be like, and what we’re doing is we’re just getting in our own way. And I think it’s the scrappy people that are actually doing the best because they’re just like, oh, that didn’t work. What can I do next? Erin Ollila 30:50 Yeah, I think that one of my big, like, business tenants or values, whatever you want to call it is transparency. And I, the way I look at it is, you know, there’s just so much BS in this online business world of that overnight sensation, or this being so easy. And I honestly think the only people who I can really trust and I think that other people trust well, are the people who are willing to say, I’m testing this out. And that’s the only in my opinion, yeah, that’s the only way things will work is by testing them out. You know, like, you could get a business mentor. And I think this is great for you to like, I’m sure I’m assuming you agree. But you can have a coach, a mentor, a strategist that says, Try this, because this works well. And then for you personally, you find a dozen, obviously a good strategist who would be like, Great, let’s take the data we learned from that and adjust, right? But there’s no one where asked Lisa Princic 31:40 you what would you prefer? Because you have no idea. But like, if you don’t want to do this, and you’d rather do that based on your personality, then then we’ll analyze it. Absolutely. Yeah, yeah. And I think that’s what you have to play with. Like one thing I am playing with coming up. And this is I just want to add this because I think this is really valuable for so many wants a membership is that I felt like, I got the feeling from my last launch that the urgency around why people needed to be learning this and growing with me. So she was a new audience to me, because a lot of people have said, it just jumped on my list. And those are the ones that sign up for that the bootcamp I did. They were like, weren’t quite sure why they needed it now. And I then I kind of reel or if it was exactly for them. And then I made occurred to me that maybe they need to come in at a point where they got a result. And then they knew who I was what I taught the variety. And then they knew that continuing would be invaluable that they’d be getting a really experienced strategist and coach in everything and memberships at such a great deal. That but without that starter positioning, they wouldn’t know. Like they wouldn’t, they would be like, Oh, I’ll jump into the membership. I don’t know what I’m going to need, because I’ve already figured some stuff out. And I don’t want to walk through a step by step module program without having any conversation because it’s like, I don’t want to learn things that I don’t want need to learn. I don’t want to waste my time. So I’m like, Okay, well, I’m going to just like throw up this pilots like one is going to be for prepping to launch. The second is going to be for building your funnel. And those are really two strong entry points that I’ve realized that are like, because I don’t even know who like who, who needs what, like, it’s hard to say to you, hey, you already have a membership. Do you want to build a better funnel? Or hey, you haven’t started your membership yet? It’s like, how do I do that messaging in a launch? Yeah. So I those two people are both very important to me. And that because like getting growth and learning and marketing, like funnels are super fun for me. So I do want to offer that. I don’t want to just get people who are brand new, I want both, I really want both. And some people are kind of like a foot in each door like I launched. But I don’t know why it was like even slightly successful. And I don’t even know how to do it again. So I think like because they don’t know, their positioning, somebody have to go through that. So I think I’m going to play with that I’m going to see like, and I’m going to literally put up a Google Doc, like I’m promising myself that do not waste any time down the design, drag and drop rabbit hole, even though it’s fun, and I have Beaver Builder and I can do it. It still takes me six hours to come up with a unique page. I’m just gonna put it into a Google Doc, I’m gonna price it what I think is a no brainer. And then I’ll be like, Hey, do you wanna join the membership? Because I think then that gives people an entry into I learned this thing. I got so much value. And of course I want to continue. Erin Ollila 34:26 Right. Yeah, totally. And if anything, everything that you just said there is kind of like permission for those people who are listening in are like the worried about the progress of like the perfection aspect or the over delivering aspect is like, look here is an expert in memberships. And what she’s doing is continuously testing, the best way to approach it in a business. So I absolutely love that. All right, I have a few quick questions for you that I always ask everyone at the end. One that I started doing somewhat recently is homework assignments. So I know we have a varied group of listeners. But if you could have a You know, this is the corny Aaron like, I love learning if the only reason I wanted to have this podcast was to truly give takeaways, because as much as I like, right podcasting, in general, I own I want to listen to something and feel good. So it doesn’t have to be a massive overtaking. But if you could give someone like a very quick homework assignment that could either get them like starting to figure out the strategy or the marking, what would a quick homework assignment be for our listeners? Lisa Princic 35:27 Well, I’ll give maybe kind of like a copywriting sort of value prop exercise, which I think is like, what is the result or transformation that you want to deliver and that your clients want? And look like? Think back from like five? Or three, even of your best clients? What is it that they want? And then? And then the one question that I kind of added that I don’t always go go as deep as like, why does it matter? And ask why it matters to try to get into deeper transformation? And then, you know, what’s holding your clients back? 36:05 Yes, from that, Lisa Princic 36:07 I would just, Erin Ollila 36:08 that’s huge. That’s perfect. I write those down easy and hard at the same time. If it is any sense, that is like a super easy assignment that could really, if you’re gonna do it, well, you’re gonna realize maybe you get a couple bullet points out for each, but then you’ll know you have to expand on that. And it will tell you a lot about everything. Lisa Princic 36:26 I mean, it always evolves. Right, I do it every six months, or three months. No, Erin Ollila 36:30 I love that. Okay, next question is a connection question and is who if you could meet anyone right now for your business? Who would it be and why? And I like to preface this with it can be exact person, it could be a type of person, type of job anyway, you want to take that question? Lisa Princic 36:48 I think I’m intrigued by people who have a very objective way of handling things like and perhaps because I always wonder if there’s two types of not two types. There’s lots of types of people, but it seems to be that the secret to entrepreneurial success is being objective and not being overly emotional. So I think I’d want to spend some time with someone who was very successful, Okay, how about this was very, is very successful, that kind of and was also someone who was emote emotional, but they kind of overcame their, like, self doubt and stuff. Without being like drawn dramatic, you know, because I don’t want to air all that. I think it’d be that kind of person. Because I always sometimes wonder it’s like, are people who are like just firing don’t feel the same level of the self, whatever that is. They just keep plugging away without feeling too terrible if something doesn’t go right. Erin Ollila 37:45 And final question, and this is the one that I was like, literally just come up with last minute. So please excuse the randomness of this. But let’s pretend we talked about how cross country skiing was something that’s like really important to you and you spend your time doing in the winter. Let’s pretend there’s no winters for you anymore. Like you picked up, move to Costa Rica. What would you do to get outdoors and kind of replace that activity? Lisa Princic 38:08 Okay, that’s easy. I probably get into sub surfing on a paddleboard surfing. Erin Ollila 38:14 All right. I love that. Oh, yeah, Lisa Princic 38:16 it’s pretty easy for me because I actually have spent a ton of time in Maui. And that’s that’s actually a kite word too, but not as much anymore. So if it was windy, it would be kiteboarding Erin Ollila 38:25 Oh, love it. Perfect. See, that was easy, right? Sometimes I’m like, Oh, my stuff Lisa Princic 38:29 is easy. I can do this for you stuff. Erin Ollila 38:31 Okay. Thank you so much, Lisa. I really appreciate everything that you had to say. And I just think this is going to be such a great valuable episode for anyone who’s listening. Yeah, you’re Lisa Princic 38:39 so welcome. Such a great conversation. Erin Ollila 38:45 Thank you so much for listening to this episode of Top copy to me. If you enjoyed spending your time with me today. I would be so honored if you could subscribe to the show and leave a review. Want to continue the conversation, head on over to Instagram and follow me at Erin Ollila. Until next time friends