Memberships and subscriptions are some of the hardest products to sell. Your marketing gets me excited about a problem, promises that you’ve got a solution, and just when I’m ready to buy what you have to solve my problem, you explain you are going to give me the solution in installments over the course of several months. I want a solution NOW!

I understand that you want a member and a subscriber, so that’s why you sell a membership. But your member doesn’t want a membership. He wants a solution to his problem. And if you dilly dally around, providing information rather than delivering solutions, your member will tune you out and disengage — lost forever.

Once your customer believes in your system and his own ability to do it, and has clarity about what to do, he’s ready to start. This is one of your biggest decisions — where to start your new member.

I’ve seen hundreds of products that start their customers with a long planning process. While planning is an important exercise, you can spend a lot of time planning and not experience any benefit.

Rather than all that, what is your single fastest and most effective strategy for results? If you are selling financial or business improvement, then give your new member the fastest way to make money.

When an auto repair shop owner joins Automotive Training Institute’s Re-Engineering Program, that shop owner wants more cars driving on his lot, above all. Shop owners believe that if they can get more cars, they can get more money. However, marketing for new customers is difficult, expensive and time-consuming. Most of all, it’s slow. Bryan Stasch, Director of Coaching at ATI, discovered that if shop owners would fix their margins, they could make a lot more money by the end of their first week in the program without increasing their current car count. In fact, a lot of shop owners are able to recover their investment in the re-engineering program by fixing their margins within the first couple of weeks. This is a fast win; for auto repair shops, the fastest way to put more money in the bank at the end of the week is to fix their margins. This is where the first step of the ATI Re-Engineering Program now focuses new members.

While Michael Rozbruch ships his product to CPAs and attorneys who purchase it, he sends out the first module via email so the new member can get started immediately. The first module is a referral letter that can generate new clients with IRS tax problems within the couple of days it takes for the product to arrive to the new buyer. Can you imagine how great these members feel when they are generating revenue even before the package arrives? And you and I both know how powerful these stories of members getting immediate results are for Michael’s future sales efforts.

Perry Marshall has implemented similar strategies within his new 30-Day 80/20 Reboot. Perry introduces his new members to a simple exercise that instantly eliminates more than 50 percent of the email messages you have to deal with in a day. It’s a brilliant strategy that creates mental space and relief from the constant onslaught of incoming messages. It an easy way for Perry to deliver a quick victory for his newest New Renaissance Club members.

There’s an important psychological component to getting your member to take action and get a quick result. For years, you may have had a desire to play tennis. You see people on the court. You’re forced to decline invitations to play from friends, because you’ll be embarrassed. Your level of interest in tennis won’t change until we get you on a court with a racket in your hand, hitting the ball across the net. Now we can sell you lessons, equipment and outfits. Member lifetime value skyrockets once a member takes action.

There’s no value in information. The value is in delivering motivation, distillation, and prioritization. I’ve taken you through each one of these together with several examples so you can see how to do it yourself. If you’d like to ask me to review your onboarding sequence, reach out to me via email at RS@RobertSkrob.com. Many membership marketers have discovered that they can get this completed a lot faster and a lot more effectively with my help than they can going it alone with their team. Send me an email if you’d like help lowering refund rates, slowing cancellation, and increasing your recurring revenue as quickly as possible.

About Robert Skrob

The problem with subscription membership programs is that members quit, I fix that problem. For more than 20-years I have specialized in direct response marketing for member recruitment, retention and ascension in diverse subscription members environments including non-profit associations, for-profit publishers/coaching, subscriptions and SAAS companies. For an evaluation of your current churn rate and how I can improve it, contact me here. I discover there are often two or three quick wins you can implement within a week to lower churn immediately, let’s talk about your quick wins.