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Every membership owner I work with is in a battle:

The battle between keeping members for the long-haul — and creating a membership that doesn’t burn them out.

It goes something like this…

You want your membership to be wildly valuable.

So, you fill your membership with classes, courses, resources and downloads that should (in theory) get people running to find the “join now” button on your sales page.

With each launch or promotion, you add even more bonuses to the membership to entice new people to join.

Harmless, right?

“What’s wrong with adding value?” You wonder… until all the promises you’ve made start adding up.

Today, your average week might be full of things like:

Giving feedback to members
Coaching them on calls
Answering questions in the community
The constant *ping* of something new in Slack for you to review
Creating regular content for the membership, month after month…
… and trying to keep the rest of your business running, too.

While you’re doing your best to keep up with all the moving pieces —

Members start telling you that even though they love the membership, they’re overwhelmed.

The same response shows up again and again on your “why did you cancel?” survey:

“I just didn’t have the time.”

It feels like when you’re not in the room, members aren’t engaging or making progress. Getting people to engage in your community is like pushing a boulder up a hill — or drinking from a firehose. There’s either too much going on, or not enough.

The clutter grows as you add more, more, more.

Your member retention stalls or even starts trending down…

And you’ve lost visibility of what your members actually need from you in order to be successful.

A little voice in your head starts to wonder if a membership is really the right offer for you.

Your standards are high — and the content you’re creating for members is SO good! Why aren’t they using it?!?

Instead:

Your member retention isn’t where you want it to be
Which means your recurring revenue isn’t growing either
Your private community isn’t the calm, vibey space you envisioned…

Even though you know there is so much gold inside your membership — you’re not sure how to help members take action on it, so they can get the result they’re paying you for.

If it feels like I’ve just read your mind, it’s because I’ve seen this exact scenario play out time and time again.

And it’s why I created an offer I’m going to tell you more about today: the DESIGN intensive, a 1:1 experience for membership owners.

Whether you decide to work with me inside DESIGN or not, stay with me. This episode will reshape how you think about your membership.

You don’t have to choose between delivering “value” to members and creating an offer that feels sustainable and profitable for you to run.

The approach I’ll share with you today is the future of how business owners like you will design, deliver and grow a membership that stands the test of time.

It begins with breaking the pattern of running your membership like a course creator.

Why selling (and running) your membership like a course creator doesn’t work

I’ve been working with memberships since 2017.

In my role as a messaging strategist and conversion copywriter, I drove the strategy behind dozens of launches for online courses, group programs, high-ticket masterminds — and of course, memberships.

I’ve helped grow memberships that have 40 members, all the way up to memberships that have up to 8000 members (in companies that generate 8-figures of revenue annually) in almost every niche you could imagine.

I didn’t just see what it was like to launch a membership one time… I saw what was required to sell the same membership for two, three, even five years at a time.

It became obvious to me very quickly that memberships needed a different approach.

When it comes to:

Selling your membership
Helping members consume your content and take action
Keeping members subscribed for the long-haul

We have to break the habit of thinking like a course creator.

When you have a course…

People buy your product ONCE, and pay you once for that product
You take people through ONE learning journey, from A to B
You create your course content ONE TIME, then sell it over and over again

But, when you have a membership:

Members make the decision to buy from you (or cancel) every month
Members repeat a series of behaviors, instead of going from A to B
You might have core membership content that doesn’t change, but you add new things to the membership frequently, which means…

DESIGN Principle #1

Courses are LINEAR.
Memberships are CYCLICAL.

Courses, digital products and most online learning experiences are linear. They have a clear end-point and the purchase happens once.

In contrast, memberships are unique because we’re asking members to repeat a cycle of actions and purchase behaviors — and in turn, we repeat a cycle of creating new content for them.

➡️ If your membership isn’t designed to help members complete the cycle, they’ll get overwhelmed and leave (and you risk over-giving, while wondering why your membership isn’t making the money you want it to make).

On top of that, when it comes to how you make your money…

It’s less about securing the initial sale, and more about what you do after your new member finds themselves on the other side of that “join now” button.

Because lifetime value is everything when you have a membership.

The bulk of your revenue from your offer will be made on the backend — the longer members stay, the more money you generate.

I noticed that if my clients weren’t optimizing their marketing and member experience for lifetime value, their results suffered.

The problem? Most people try to keep their members around for longer by giving them more:

more classes to watch
more events on their calendar
more bonuses check out
more things to consume
more “stuff” to fit into their already busy lives

This creates clutter in your membership that overwhelms your members.

More is not better.

How to give LESS and guide MORE, so your members get the result they’re paying for

Have you ever noticed that when your to-do list is miles long, it feels impossible to get started?

Yet, when there’s just a couple of things on your list — and the next steps are simple, straightforward and clear — you’re almost unstoppable?

Let’s apply this thinking to your membership, too.

It’s time to shift your approach from sharing information with members to helping them take action.

Because what really gets people to stick around inside a membership is a feeling of progress, which means…

You need to make it insanely easy for your members to do the thing!

I’ve written conversion-driven copy for some of the biggest online brands. (When a sales page you’ve written generates $4 million in sales in a single week, you quickly learn that words have power.)

The way you communicate your ideas can either make progress feel natural to your members… or almost impossible.

If you approach your membership with a course creator mindset, you’ll fall back into “idea thinking”, which looks like:

Do I like this idea?
Am I excited by this idea?
Is this on my mind?
Has it helped me?
How can I share it?
What topic should we talk about this month?

“Idea thinking” is one of the most valuable things you can do in your business…

But it’s not a helpful default when you’re deciding what to create for your members.

DESIGN Principle #2

Build Your Membership Around Actions First… Ideas Second.

The currency that fuels your membership, your recurring revenue, and the success of your members isn’t ideas or information…

It’s action.

“Action thinking” is the antidote to your retention problem — and the feeling that you just can’t step away or even think about doing “less”.

It begins with deciding that you’re officially in the business of translating your ideas and knowledge into specific actions your members can take, with minimal friction.

When you have that, you’re onto something special:

It’s work you do once that streamlines everything else
It’s a system — and a way of operating — that drives your membership forward (and your recurring revenue up)
It guides your decision making
It shapes how you create content
It helps you set boundaries
It removes you from being the one who has to “move mountains” to help members succeed…

Because you won’t be asking members to read between the lines anymore.

You’ll stop filling their brains with brilliant ideas that they don’t know how to implement.

You’ll start making their next step feel obvious and easy…

And you’ll make the swap from giving members “stuff” to giving them the spaciousness and structure they need to succeed.

DESIGN Principle #3

Spaciousness & Structure ALWAYS Beat Stuff.

Spaciousness means you’ve thought about how your membership fits into your members’ lives. It means asking less of your members, so they can get more of the right things done.

Structure is about so much more than how you organize your member dashboard. Good structure is about the way you present your ideas at every touchpoint to help members stay on track.

Every single membership owner I’ve worked with can improve in this area — even if you’ve already put a lot of thought into your onboarding, learning dashboard and member experience.

If you’re frustrated with your member retention and results, it’s almost always because you’re not following one or all of the three DESIGN principles — and members are getting lost in the fray.

The members who are consuming your content, engaging consistently, and getting results are the members who will stay for the long-haul.

Here’s how I help you make it happen when we work together.

What makes the DESIGN Membership Intensive different

No membership owner should have to choose between sales, member experience and their own wellbeing.

Make no mistake: memberships do require dedication and focus.

And while they’re not “set it and forget it” offers (but what is, truly?) it makes me so sad to see membership owners giving everything to their members… and getting so little back in return.

You deserve to have a high-impact membership that is profitable, serves your business and feels good to run.

That is what we’re here to do when we work on creating the “next chapter” of your membership together.

Here are just a few ways this is brought to life inside the DESIGN intensive:

The GRIT Framework

GRIT™ is my proprietary method for creating sticky experiences that members love.

Most people plan out their membership by first thinking about what they’ll put in it (the content), which is a recipe for over-giving and overwhelming members.

GRIT flips this approach on its head by asking:

What the real Goal of your membership is
The ongoing Rhythm of actions you want members to take
How you’ll Interact with them and guide them, and then finally…
What content and Teaching you’ll include to support them along the way

By the end of this process, your membership will feel focused, refined and completely de-cluttered.

You’ll know that what you’re offering to members is the best of the best, strategically organized and uniquely curated.

You’ll also know the exact content to deliver to members and how to communicate with them so they can take action, consistently, with ease.

Every client who goes through this process with me walks away with:

Fewer ongoing tasks on their plate
Better systems in place for supporting members

Which means less manual effort for you and your team, and a better-than-ever experience for your members — like one of my clients with a membership for early childhood educators:

96%+ retention and a better-than-ever member experience:

“I am now hyperfocused with my time and energy, and seeing a bigger payback. What Natalie brings to our conversations is the full picture… where to focus and what is a waste of my time.

We got better results from our last 2 launches with half the work. I also have a better realization of my team behind me, which feels just as valuable as the additional revenue.”

An actual thought partner and 1:1 strategic feedback

Making decisions about an established membership is difficult. You have something that is already in motion and members who are paying you right now.

Most people who come to me want to change things about their membership, but are afraid to upset the balance.

You need someone who can help you navigate this process thoughtfully.

You’re too close to see what you need to stop doing, what you could start doing, and opportunities to elevate your membership without over-committing. I can help you with those blind spots and make your next steps clear.

Most of all, you need someone to help you think things through and the implications of the changes you might make. I’ll help you find a path to make your membership more profitable, more impactful for members, and to lighten the load required for you to deliver it.

A common side effect of our conversations is that you’ll walk away feeling more excited about your membership than you have in years.

From a client with a membership for artists:

“I came out of our conversations feeling so optimistic.”

“Natalie was able to see and understand what I'm looking to create, not just with the membership but with my business as a whole.

I can see a path that feels both valuable to the people I help, and true to who I am and where I want to go.”

Your membership doesn’t exist in a vacuum.

It should be an offer that helps you create more of the work you want to see in the world, the vision you have for your business — and how you want to work inside it.

Money-making, retention-growing assets done for you

Your membership is at the stage where it doesn’t make sense for you to do everything on your own.

There’s few better feelings than having the most important parts of your member experience outsourced to an expert — so it’s off your plate and completed at the highest standard.

I take all of the decisions we make and turn them into a series of assets you can deploy in your business in the next 90 days, including:

A member onboarding email journey that gets members taking action and creating results from day one

A full month of member emails — written to get members excited and engaging with your membership consistently → a template you can easily repurpose month after month

A revised calendar of what happens in your membership and when — so you’ll know that every week offers something valuable to members, without creating clutter or overwhelm

In addition to these done-for-you assets, I’ll give you feedback like this:

A detailed walkthrough video on how to adjust your member area for maximum engagement

A suggested outline for your member "orientation" and even a starter course for new members (because great orientation is about so much more than a dashboard tour!)

Custom ideas to spark meaningful conversation in your member community — the kind that aren’t cheesy icebreakers or random questions

… just to name a few.

DESIGN is the ideal blend of “done for you” asset creation and strategic feedback.

It will elevate every aspect of your membership and give you back hours of time every single month:

Your excitement for your membership will go up
The time you spend delivering on it will go down
And your member experience and recurring revenue will be better than it’s ever been before

Surprise! Improving retention is actually a sales activity in disguise

You don’t have to choose between working on the backend of your membership or getting more customers.

When you work with me, the backend of your membership (what you deliver) and the frontend (how you sell it) are part of the same machine.

When you improve one, the other gets better too.

Our work together often reveals new sales angles to position your membership as one of a kind — like my client with a marketing membership found:

“My emails feel on point. I’m more focused on what happens when members join.

I feel like I have a solid launch strategy, and [that we’re] positioning the membership so well. I LOVE the new additions.”

If you think you don’t have time to work on the backend of your membership because you want to get more members first, think again.

The work we do together will make your membership easier than ever to sell, because it will be positioned around a sharp and meaningful result — and a way of achieving it — that only you can provide.

The future of your membership begins now

When done right, memberships can be truly exceptional offers.

Instead of sharing access to information for an ongoing subscription fee, you have a unique opportunity to help your members take the small, consistent steps needed to create massive change in their lives.

I get excited just thinking about it — because there’s so much untapped potential in your membership, just waiting to be unearthed.

I’m working with the next generation of membership-driven business owners who are growing profitable memberships that move the needle.

To be clear: being membership-driven is not the same as being membership-beholden.

(It also doesn’t mean that you can only offer a membership. Most of my clients sell a mix of courses, products and programs alongside their membership.)

The former is about being committed to your membership and aware of what’s required to make it successful.

The latter is a path to burnout, frustration, and almost inevitably… shutting your membership down.

Letting go of the course creator mindset and embracing a membership-driven approach is about saying yes to less, so you and your members can achieve more.

It’s about deliberately choosing to refine, to curate, and to only put your best, most thoughtful resources into your membership… within a strategic structure that helps members put your ideas in motion.

When you set this standard for yourself, your members will rise to meet you...

And your retention and recurring revenue will, too.

That’s why I created DESIGN.

Your next step

If you want to create a member experience that is exceptional in every sense — so you can grow your recurring revenue without adding more to your plate — working with me to DESIGN your membership is your next step.

We can achieve a lot together in 90 days. Learn more and let’s work together here: