In this impactful episode, Nathalie Doremieux, CEO of The Membership Lab, shares strategies for building thriving online memberships. If you struggle with trading time for money or scaling solo, you won’t want to miss it.
You will discover:
– What AI tools like ChatGPT accelerate content and marketing
– Why memberships create recurring revenue without expanding payroll
– How to validate ideas by surveying your audience first
Episode Transcript
Scott Ritzheimer
Scott, hello, hello and welcome. Welcome once again to the start, scale and succeed. Podcast, the only podcast that grows with you through all seven stages of your journey. As a founder, I’m your host, Scott Ritzheimer, and having helped 1000s of founders, I’ve come to the discovery that you can almost never achieve scale by simply doing more of what you already do. At these key inflection points, you have to embrace something new, a new strategy, a new tactic, or maybe even some new tools. And so for those of you who are listening today, you’re in that startup entrepreneur, or you’ve decided to stay that successful solopreneur, and you’re trying to scale your revenue without scaling your payroll, we have an incredible set of strategies, tactics and tools that could be that very inflection point for you and your business, and here to tell us all about it is Natalie Doremieux, who is an on who has an online program. She’s also a strategist and membership expert. She’s co founder of new software marketing and the membership lab. She’s been in business for over 19 years, and worked with quite a few coaches, and continues to do so with her husband and her team. They help established business owners scale their expertise make a bigger impact by assisting them to create online programs that their members won’t want to leave. She also uses the power of AI to accelerate her clients results and help get them unstuck. She’s here with us today. Natalie, welcome to the show. So glad to have you here at the membership lab. You help business owners to create thriving online programs. And if there’s anything that I would say I feel least equipped to do other than to create an event planning business that’s to build an online, thriving or a thriving online program. So you’ve got to you’ve got your work cut out today, because we’ll see if we can’t get past some of the stuff that’s in my head, because I know that other coaches and professionals bump into this as well. So who out there listening? Let’s just lay a foundation here first. Who listening? Could benefit from building a membership or online community?
Nathalie Doremieux
Yeah, thank you so much for having me first. Scott, great question to get started. So I know that the membership world is used a lot, right? And it sounds like the Holy Grail. It’s the recurring income. Finally, you don’t have to work through your calendar. You don’t have to try to trade time for money. But the reality is, a membership is not something that runs on its own. It still takes work. So when people have an existing business, like, if you’re a coach, for example, and you’re thinking, Should I do a membership? There are several things that you need to look at. The first one is really to look into, why is this idea even coming up? Because reasons why you don’t want to do a membership. In that case, is like, well, I’m struggling to sell my coaching business, my coaching program let me do a membership because it’s a lower price point that won’t work. The key is really to have a vision for where you want this membership to fit within your coaching business. So I make it really easy for people, because there are only four ways, four and nothing else. So if you’re wondering, these are one of the four ways Way number one is, you have a coaching business. You’re pretty much established, right? You know your thing works, and you have this audience, those listeners. Maybe they listen to your podcast, or maybe they’re on your social media, right, so they’re around you. Maybe they’ve signed up to some of your freebies. They’re on your list, but they are not signing up to your coaching program. Maybe the gap is too big, right? And they probably never will. This is just not what they are looking for, well, if you have that, and you’re wondering, oh my gosh, how can I help these people? But I still want to leverage my time. You have an opportunity for a front end membership where you can charge a low amount, where you could can totally scale this, because you don’t have, like to create a bunch of content. It could be resources you already have. It could be guests that you’re bringing and interviewing, or that somebody else in your team is interviewing, right? And maybe you show up once a month and you do a Q and A call, and that is it. So that can fill your bucket into how do I help these people and still bring some income, right? So that’s number one. So if this is you, if you’re listening and this is you, then maybe this is a direction like to to look into,
Scott Ritzheimer
Great. And you call that a front end membership?
Nathalie Doremieux
Yes, I call it a front end membership. It’s basically, uh, for it’s, you can almost see it. Us, because you can also be strategic about how you build it to make people ready for the coaching, right? So you can be strategic about what you’re sharing, right? And that could be your paid lead gen for your group coaching program, right? So that’s the front end membership. That’s number one. The second one is you might want, and this is something that we see a lot of coaches do is turn your coaching program, instead of it being a six months or 12 months, into a membership. That means that now you include the program inside a membership. So as part of joining a membership, you have a program that you go through, but at the end of the program, it’s not okay, bye, bye, or, you know, re sign up and do it again. There is an ongoing way to support you now to implement all that you learned you were a bit behind in implementing then, well, you still have time, right? So it’s really changing the model of your coaching into something that is ongoing, right? So that’s number two. Number three, we are seeing this when coaches have worked, you know, for quite a while, maybe they’ve done a lot of group coaching, and they want to create what we call a back end membership. That back end membership is usually a little bit higher price point than the front end, you know, 100, 200 300 a month, and it’s by invitation only, and it’s kind of like an exclusive for your alumni. So anyone who’s ever worked with you and you’re wondering, oh my gosh, how can I continue to support them? Well, I’ve got this community. I can invite you in. It’s only for people that have worked with me, and now you create. It’s usually more of a community feeling, but you can still come in, you know, with guests and things like that. And what this does is that not only gives you the recurring income and opportunity to continue to help people, but it’s also a great resource for your VIP days, your retreats and things like that, right? So that’s three. And then number four is if maybe you’re a coach or business coach, and you want to start a membership teaching something completely different, how to paint, how to garden, right? Yeah, because when we are coaches, when we have an established business, you know, we’ve, we’ve got all the motivations, you know, like, we’re excited, and then there is a point where we’re like, well, I want to do something else. Now. This is running. It’s, it’s getting a bit boring to me. And you have this vision of, I’ve always wanted to do something with this. That’s an opportunity. That’s number four. And for this one is going to be, I would say, the hardest one, in the sense that it’s a new audience that doesn’t you know you in that particular thing. So you’re going to have to build an audience and things like that. But the other three are really about, how do I expand on my existing audience and my knowledge, right? And the choice is really going to depend on where do I see myself in five years, like, what do I want to help as many people as possible? That’s the front end. That’s the impact, right? Right?
Scott Ritzheimer
So it’s, it’s interesting, because I can hear folks thinking like, Well, why do I have to choose? Can’t I do all three? And it kind of makes sense, why the fourth one would be a little bit different in that you’re, you’re opening up a new territory. Why is it that that we have to choose between one of those three.
Nathalie Doremieux
You don’t have to choose. You just have to do one at a time. Yeah, excellent point. Yeah, oh no. You don’t have to choose, yeah, don’t.
Scott Ritzheimer
It’s such a good point. And and doing them one at a time is is as well. Now you opened up, and I appreciate the the honesty behind this question, because so many times folks who push strategies like this, it’s like, free money, you know, it’s like, you don’t have to do anything, and it’ll just magically happen. And you open up saying, hey, now this takes some time. It takes some energy. What does that look like? Is it something that that folks should say, Hey, this is my full time job now, is it something you can do in an hour or two a week? What’s a reasonable expectation, expectation for getting a new let’s say front end membership up off the ground.
Nathalie Doremieux
So the key when you start with the idea of a membership is you want to set up some ground rules for yourself on how you’re going to be involved. Because remember, if it’s a front end membership, they should not have the same level of access to you as a coaching program. Otherwise, what is the point? Right? Yeah, so it’s getting really clear on what is this for? What you’re going to deliver, because it’s not going to be the same thing as the coaching, right? And it’s also setting this rule about how you’re going to show up. It is so easy, and I’ve seen it with clients so many times when they’re like, Well, I can do a call a week, and then I can, I can create this for them, and I can do that. And then three months in, they’re like, oh my gosh, this is so much work. So they get excited about the idea I could do this. I could talk about that. And it’s not about that. It’s really about look at the purpose. Is the purpose to give them something that they can start getting some type of result with, right? But set those boundaries, like for me, I do a call a month, and then maybe I have a community manager when I get to a certain point. And by the way, your community manager is probably one of your first members. It’s the best place to find community manager and and keep those boundaries, because if you don’t, it will become a job. So it’s going to the space, the time that it takes you is going to be what you allow it. There are so many different models. I’ll give you an example. John Burgos has a membership. He’s had one for years. It’s called Living in the extraordinary. He does one weekly call, puts the replay in the membership, hundreds of members. That’s all he does. There is not a single resource, nothing, right? So it’s about finding what does, what is that? What is it that does audience wants and just them that not more?
Scott Ritzheimer
Yeah, so many questions. Before we dive in, I want to, because I want to spend a little bit of time on what AI is doing to this space, because I know it’s an area of expertise for you. Before we get there, you’ve talked a lot about coaches, and understand that’s your expertise as well. Have you seen this in other environments as well? For example, like I’m wondering, can a doctor do this or a hairdresser? Or is it something that professional services can do in general? Or is it something that’s unique to coaches?
Nathalie Doremieux
Yeah, no, it’s absolutely not unique to coaches. It’s what is important is to understand that a membership tends to be a recurring solution to an ongoing problem, right? So there are really great memberships on For there is one that’s called IV mastery that we built, like quite a few years ago, and this is for nurses. So a nurse in a retirement home, for example, has to take some exams on how to give IV and, you know, food to people so things like and so they have to take exams every three months, or something like that. So if you have a membership where you sell seats to these people, then they can go in, they do their training. Boom. They get the certification, and they are good to go. Another one is a dog handler Academy, so it’s a membership for dog daycare centers to train their employees. So she actually created that because there is a lot of turnover, and she was tired of training people all the time, so she built this thing, kind of like a course, if you will. And that’s like, well, let me sell this to other dog trainers, dog daycare center, sorry, right? So how to take care of clients, how to take care of a sick dog, you can imagine, right? The whole onboarding of a new employee, right? Well, you have some on teaching how to paint, teaching gardening like it’s, it’s, it’s all about that, that ongoing need that people might have, right? So for AI, for example, there are so many right now, because AI is moving so fast, right, that you can, you cannot it. Should not buy a course on AI, right? Buy it. It’s up so little already, right? So, so it’s so much more than coaches. It just happens that this is kind of like the type of audience that I tend to attract, right? We’ve done also, I have another one, which is for Vettel. It’s called versatile vet. It’s for veterinary veterinarian, but people that are in school, okay, so University will buy universities would buy licenses. They would take the videos, they can embed on their own portal the university. And then students can see how to fix a dog, you know, has fever, all this stuff, like all kinds of animals, right? So those are all memberships. They are all different models, if you will, right? Yeah, it’s always at the core, always three things, content, the knowledge that they want to know, support. How do I get help? If I must? Duck. What are the different ways? That’s where we can talk about AI as well and accountability, because if you want people to stay they have to keep showing up and doing otherwise, they’re going to.
Scott Ritzheimer
Yeah. So you’ve alluded to this a couple of times now, and it’s time to dive in. But where do you see AI making the biggest impact for memberships right now?
Nathalie Doremieux
Yeah, so we were just talking about AI before you press record and how everybody is talking about AI, I would say we have an approach that is quite different than most people, though, people you stop talking having people talk about that. So we started using AI about six, seven years ago, okay? And back then, we didn’t have the tools that exist. Right now the models that exist. So we had to, our background is in software engineering, so we had to develop things. But there were some models that were already available. The way we are seeing AI is as an amplifier and an accelerator of results. So it’s only going to amplify what you know. It’s not creative. It doesn’t have the knowledge. The knowledge needs to come from you. So it’s always you AI, and then you, and it’s the accelerator. So there are actually several angles that you can look at it accelerator for you as a membership site owner, even as a coach, right? How do I get more brains, more research done? You know, the research now with AI, with all the models we have, is getting so easy, right? But the piece where we are really focusing our work and where people come to us is AI to accelerate clients results. You know, when people buy a course, a coaching program, or they are in a membership and there is homework, you have to do the thing, you have to send the email, you have to do the make the call, and people get stuck, and they don’t, they procrastinate, and very often, there is a an AI tool that you can create to help them either practice, give them a draft, do role play, right? And what is it? What is this going to do? It is going to accelerate them taking action, therefore getting results, building their confidence, right? So that’s Cai, is AI, when I consult with people, we look at and they’re like, I want more client results. I want people to get results fast. And I know they they get stuck in here. It shouldn’t take that long, but people stay weeks in that step. Okay, let’s look at the step. What can we create? And sometimes it’s a simple AI form that is going to ask them some questions, that is going to help them make the right decision. Another time, it could be that draft email that you send to create that interest list, because you don’t know what to say, right? So it’s, it’s really in that angle. It’s like, accelerate, build confidence, and practice like role play, role playing, DMS, role playing, sales calls and things like that.
Scott Ritzheimer
That’s excellent. So Natalie, there’s a question that I have for you I ask all my guests. I’m interested to see what you have to say, especially from this perspective. But what would you say is the biggest secret you wish wasn’t a secret at all. What’s that one thing you wish everybody watching or listening today knew?
Nathalie Doremieux
Everything is an experiment, right? People are not taking action. I mean, especially right now, with everything that’s going on in the world, right, and waiting for to have less fear, more confidence, but it all comes with action, right? We’re built entrepreneurs. We are built to fail. We’re going to fail more than we succeed. And the minute we start to understand that, then the quicker we failed, the quicker we figure out what it is that works, right? So so many people, like, are stuck. You should not be stuck. Like, get help and do something, it is going to at least tell you. I just have, like, a newsletter coming out to my list, and I’m like, maybe, if you’re still stuck with your membership idea, maybe you shouldn’t do one. Let’s figure that out, because getting stuck and not making a decision is a decision, right? But it’s not the person you move forward.
Scott Ritzheimer
Yeah. Yeah. So true. So true. Natalie, there’s some folks listening that would love to either get their membership program that exists working properly or to actually set one up in the first place. How can they find more out about you and the work that you do at membership lab?
Nathalie Doremieux
Sure. So they can go to the membershiplab.com, and they can actually go to themembershiplab.com/gift, and I have a couple of free resources for them there, including AI, with the four ways to add AI to a membership if they want to look at that. I’m also on LinkedIn with my name, if you can type it pronounce it.
Scott Ritzheimer
Will include the link for you all. Excellent, excellent. Well, Natalie, it was a privilege and honor having you on the show today. Thank you so much for being here and sharing with us, and for those of you who are watching and listening, you know your time and attention mean the world to us, I hope you got as much out of this conversation as I know I did, and I cannot wait to see you next time. Take care.
Contact Nathalie Doremieux
Nathalie Doremieux is an online program strategist and membership expert, and co-founder of New Software Marketing and The Membership Lab. She’s been in business for 19 years, worked with quite a few coaches, and continues to do so. With her husband and her team, they help established business owners scale their expertise, make a bigger impact by assisting them to create online programs that their members won’t want to leave. She uses the power of AI to accelerate clients’ results and help them get unstuck.
Want to learn more about Nathalie Doremieux’s work at The Membership Lab? Check out her website at https://themembershiplab.com/gift and connect with her on LinkedIn at https://www.linkedin.com/in/nathaliedoremieux/