Why is it that people pay you money for your services, products and memberships?
It really helps to figure out not just how people found you, but what is their reason for joining your community? That way, when you send emails and write sales letters, you can appeal to all the groups.
I can’t speak for anyone else, but here are the reasons I buy your stuff…
The Entire Step-By-Step Training
Four years ago, I joined a Membership site from Jim Edwards that taught everything I needed to know. It taught how to create videos, how to make reports, gave me tips on sales letters… And a lot of the things I learned were not taught directly to me. They were things I observed from his marketing and his videos.
I joined that site as a relative newbie because I wanted to learn and apply one hundred percent of what he showed me.
That training helped me get over a lot of obstacles. For example, I had not ever created video. I had some idea in my head that I needed to have green screen, that I needed to have different camera angles and different screens. But most of his videos were simple PowerPoints. At the time, PowerPoint videos were not very common. And that was the biggest benefit I got from learning and taking all his training, was making PowerPoint videos.
Eventually I outgrew that training and quit. But I short-cut a lot of things that I might have taken a long time to figure out, or maybe would not have figured out at all.
The Quick Fix
I have joined other membership sites, just to get one piece of the training. It is very important that when you join some kind of site, you know what your goal is.
Jeanette Cates delivered a three-month training program about product creation. And although most of the things she taught I already knew, I joined because I wanted to get motivated enough to record more audios. That was my one goal from joining: to record more audios.
I joined the site, picked up some extra tips about how to make my audios better, recorded them and then showed them to her for accountability. I also used those audios to build my list, and I reported back to her about how many opt-ins they gave me and how many sales those led to.
More often than not, I will join someone’s site just for one particular thing. This is why, in addition to explaining the step-by-step of what they are getting in your sales letter, go into the details. Tell them EXACTLY what result they will get from your training – because you never know what outcome people are looking for.
Community
I have joined a number of monthly membership sites, just to get my name out there. It is one thing to leave blog comments, or post on a free forum. But the audience there has not been proven to buy anything.
On the other hand, if you join somebody’s “$100 per month training” and are allowed to leave comments or make forum posts, you know that every single person reading your messages has at least $100 per month to spend on some form of training.
Also, because it costs money to get into this community, it is more exclusive, which means it is a smaller crowd, which means you have less competition as far as getting your information read.
Some of my best connections came from the inside of these communities.
Brownie Points
When a friend of mine, Stu McLaren, offered training about his WordPress Membership Software, I joined – even though I had previously taught similar membership training.
I joined this site basically to become the “Star Student.” I listened to all the training calls, read all the blog posts, and when he had call-in days, I made sure to have some kind of question, to make sure I understood all of the content. And I contributed a couple of things just to make sure all the bases were covered with his training.
Although you should definitely position your sales letter and marketing materials to “Why newbies can best benefit form your course,” keep in mind that some experts may join, to keep their own training up-to-date, or even show support for you.
And those are the four reasons why I buy eBooks, reports, services and memberships. Did I leave any reasons out? What is the top reason YOU join someone else’s community or pay them money for something?
Let me know down below, in the form of a very brief comment.
