Membership Site or Password-Protected Area?

How do you generate income in your business? For an infopreneur, there are broadly four types of income streams:

Active income: You get paid for turning up and delivering value - for example, speaking at a conference, facilitating a meeting, delivering a training workshop or coaching a client. If you don't turn up, you don't get paid.
Bundled income: You still get paid only when you turn up, but now you get paid more because you offer more than just yourself. For example, you speak at a conference and sell products at the back of the room.
Recurring income: When you turn up, even if you don't get paid for that engagement, you generate an on-going income stream. For example, you speak free at a conference and sell access to your membership site.
Passive income: You don't even have to turn up to get paid. For example, you sell products directly on the Internet, or you generate rental income from investment properties.

Most infopreneurs generate most of their income from active income, and many would like to generate most of their income from passive income. However, that's a difficult path to follow. You generate active income because you're a topic expert; you generate passive income because you're a marketing expert. And few infopreneurs are marketing experts - at least, when they're not there in person to do the marketing.

But what does this have to do with membership sites? Glad you asked!

Consider the two middle levels: Bundled income and recurring income. A membership site can be a very effective way to boost those two income levels. For most infopreneurs, this is far easier than by trying to generate passive income.

Let's look at recurring income first.

Recurring income

As an example, to generate recurring income from corporate clients, sell them access to your membership site, possibly at some special rate - for example:

Free access for 3, 6 or 12 months, and then an on-going subscription fee.
A "multi-user licence", where they pay a fixed subscription fee that allows all their employees to sign up.
A discount on the subscription fee, as part of the overall contract.
Some variation of the above.

You can use the same principle for other types of presentations - such as training workshops, public seminars, even individual coaching and consulting. In each case, you offer them membership at some special rate not available to other members.

This is very nice work if you can get it, because you generate on-going income from a single sale. However, before you jump right in and start promoting this to all your new clients, consider these potential limitations:

It's difficult to sell, because you're asking your customer to make a commitment to an on-going payment.
You have to keep up-to-date with your area of expertise, because your members are expecting you to give them current information, not out-of-date information. On the other hand, if you simply sell them access to a memb
You have to keep devoting time to the site, to keep your members satisfied.
If you only have a few members, you might not be happy with what you're getting paid for your time.
Regardless of how good your membership site is, members will leave from time to time, so you have to keep bringing in new members.

This doesn't mean you shouldn't build and promote a membership site; it just means you should think carefully about it.

Another option is to create a simpler site, based on bundled income ...

Bundled income

Instead of trying to create an on-going income stream from each sale, you can simply increase your fees by bundling in more value to your presentations.

For example, with a corporate client, you can sell them access to your "Members Resource Centre", which is a password-protected area of your Web site. Again, the same applies to coaching clients, public seminar attendees, workshop participants and others who buy you.

You still generate more income this way, but it's not on-going income. However, that might be better for you when you weigh that up against the on-going efforts to market, manage and maintain a full membership site.

Key words: membership sites

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Gihan Perera is the author of "Get Active: Web Sites for Speakers, Trainers, Coaches and Consultants" and "Fast, Flat and Free: What You Need to Know to Stay Ahead in a Connected World". Visit http://GihanPerera.com and get your complimentary copies now.

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