Pivoting From Members To Clients

Inflation.

Lot of people talking about it these days when it comes to money. I mean, massive money printing on a scale never seen before in history. Prices going up.

I could go on, but don’t worry… this isn’t an economics discussion. 😇

Inflation hasn’t only happened with money.

See, what is inflation?

It is where they print more and more money but without value increasing, therefore the value of money drops and prices go up.

In other words, lots of supply. Value drops.

It has happened with information, too.

And it has happened with a lot of different content and product formats.

Remember when the ebook was a new thing? People would sell ebooks and make a killing. Then, everybody got onboard and the value of those ebooks went away. Nowdays, it can be hard to give one away as a lead magnet.

Remember launches? It was a big event on the internet – especially in the marketing space. But, everybody started doing it. It got to a point where people were thinking “another one?” And the big guys had to keep ramping up their game to full Hollywood-style studio productions just to stand out.

The same is happening to online courses. Seems like everybody is trying to do them now. Sites like Udemy and Skillshare have commoditized them to the point where the perceived value has dropped.

Don’t get me wrong… with the right marketing and positioning and value, you can still launch an online course and do very well.

But, perceived value has dropped. Now, you even see courses as freebies in some cases.

It’s inflation.

Increased supply more than demand was keeping up.

Then, you saw membership sites. And a lot of sites now offer a lot of online courses all in one place with a kind of “all access pass”. Like Netflix, but with courses being the product.

This is more or less how the LAB works now.

It is the membership business model.

I’m a big fan of it. Obviously. 🥰

But, I still see the inflation issue.

In a world of information inflation – and social media vying for everybody’s attention and literally creating attention and focus issues in people – then even the membership model has it’s flaws.

A lot of members don’t get results. And that’s mainly because they’re too distracted. They literally don’t focus enough to get the job done.

You can get out of some of that if you charge enough money, but then that gets us into…

Clients.

Moving from having members, or students…. but having clients.

Clients are people you work more closely with.

It is a different kind of relationship.

Also a lot harder to inflate.

Here’s another thing…

It is a lot easier to get people results, too. They pay more, but they’re getting more.

I’ve been doing more client work lately. And in fact, I am pondering some potential pivots to the focus of the Blog Marketing Academy as a result.

There will always be a membership. Not much will change on that front.

But, clients are more fun. 😎 I can get better results.

I’ll be honest, member signups have dropped over the last several months. Mainly because I haven’t been promoting it as much. But, interestingly, my revenue has not dropped at all. It’s just that… my focus has shifted.

Getting people real, tangible results and doing it for them is pretty hard to inflate.

Sure, it can happen. Sites like Upwork have commoditized even things like website development, graphics design, etc.

But, that’s just a marketing issue.

Here’s the powerful combo…

Real content. Good content. Building trust. THEN… attracting clients and charging accordingly.

That’s the business model.