This post looks at memberships and contrasts them with online courses. If considering one or the other, which is best for you?

Please note that Kajabi is frequently referenced. This is not to be taken as an endorsement of Kajabi by No Bull Marketing Reviews. The reviewer’s opinions are theirs alone.

A full transcript follows:

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Membership site versus online course, which one is best by the end of this video, I am going to walk you through with an unforgettable gym metaphor so that you will be able to repeatedly answer this question any time you need to, for yourself, for the best business legal and Kajabi practical guidance, you are in the right place.

Over the past decade, I have helped thousands of people just like you start grow and to sell their businesses. So let’s get focused on you. There are five simple questions that we’re going to use to help you gain confidence in determining whether a membership site or an online course is best for you.

So let’s get started by laying the foundation. First off, the gym that you are building is your business. Since it’s your business, you get to decide what goes into the gym. When the gym is open, what are the customers and how involved or not involved you are, it’s your gym. So that makes you the gym owner.

Now I know that gyms have lots of equipment in them and different kinds of equipment and group classes, and some have swimming pools. We are going to keep this really simple. We’re going to just focus in on a single weight set. All right, just a single weight set is inside of your business. And we’re going to focus on a customer.

What is that customer doing in relationship to you? The weight set and the gym itself, and also other customers, how they are playing a role in terms of interacting with the customer, the gym and yourself. We’re going to get started with the first two of our five questions. Now, opening a gym. Isn’t easy, starting a business.

Isn’t easy. And so it’s really important to understand these first two questions when you’re starting, because they play such a vital role in our businesses. Question. One has to do with, if you were going to go work out yourself, how does that happen? So I’m going to give you two examples.

One is my husband, Chris, who could go to the gym pre pandemic whenever he wanted. He didn’t take the kids with him. He didn’t have me with him. He was really on his own schedule when it came to his gym, workout, contrast that with myself, I’ve been blending babies and business for a decade.

At this point, when I go to the gym, I had an infant carrier or a toddler with me. I would drop them off in kids’ zone. I had two hours go do my workout, finish the workout, pick up the kids, bring the kids home. Those are very different workout styles. Now, the reason that’s important is that directly plays into the life cycle that you’re in right now, someone that is single with no children with no responsibilities can make different decisions because they have different constraints on their time.

They’re in a certain lifecycle, contrast that with myself, with two small children and running a home and running a business, I have to be realistic about what I can and cannot do because of the constraints on my time. So when you’re thinking about what is your life cycle look like? Are you really unencumbered where you have all the time in the world, you are the ultimate decision maker.

Do you have other people that play into the decisions that you’re able to make? Maybe you have constraints based on health. Maybe it’s because of aging parents, maybe it’s young children. We all have different responsibilities, but that is first and foremost. When you’re deciding membership site or online course, please keep in mind the life cycle that you’re in.

And for me, it all comes down to how do I work out? Do I get to go by myself? And time is at my discretion, or do I need to make decisions on what I do based on other people and responsibilities that are impacting. When I work out, question number two has to do with, do you want day pass customers or membership card customers.

For instance, when you purchase a day pass to a gym, usually you’re traveling, you’re visiting. You only need to attend for one day. Versus when you have a membership card to a business you’re likely a loyal repeat customer. The frequency doesn’t matter. It is the decision point between, do you find yourself being more excited, selling a lot of day passes to different people that are in town visiting just need a workout for the day? Or are you more excited with the thought of having membership card people where you know, Oh, hi Susan.

So good to see you. How is Bob doing? What are the kids up to? Did you get your landscaping planted different kind of interactions when you’re with your day pass customers or your membership card customers? So that’s the second question you want to ask yourself about yourself, which is more exciting to you.

We’re all different. There’s no wrong answer on this one. Since we’re talking about this, what excites you more? When you’re the person buying? Do you like buying a membership or do you like buying online course? Let me know. In the comments below, I’m really curious what you find exciting as a customer.

And is it the same or different when you are the gym owner, the business owner. Now we’re going to go through questions three, four, and five, and don’t worry. I’m going to give you a whiteboard image for both the membership site decision, an online course and a bonus combo platter. So question three is how are you selling the weight set? Are you selling the, you can buy the weight set and take it home with you, or are you selling access to the weight set? Keep in mind with Kajabi you can choose either one to start and it is very, very easy to change it up or layer in something else.

So if what excites you more is I want to sell the weight set from my gym. That is more of an online course. If you are more excited by, I want to sell access to my weight set. That is a membership site question number four has to do with how are you paid for the weight set? So are you paid in a lump sum or perhaps a payment plan? So one payment of a thousand dollars or 10 payments of $100 that is more of an online course decision versus I am paid $10 or a hundred dollars every month for access to that weight set.

Now bonus legal tip here, because it’s so important that you stay illegally zipped up. I just did a video on this for you. That is all about making sure that your Kajabi offers are legally zipped. So if that is news to you and no one has put that on your radar, please definitely check out that video because it is incredibly important.

You can also, as you’ll see in this image, have a combo deal. This is the Peloton arrangement, which I’m going to walk through an entire whiteboard image for you in just a few moments, but know that this also exists. You can have a combo deal, which is an online course followed or preceded by a recurring option, which is the membership site.

That brings us to question number five, which is when can people join your gym. Now this answer has to do entirely with question number one. What lifecycle are you in? What quality of life are you aiming for? You’ll see on this image, if you’re open all the time, that is like to me, snap 24 hour fitness.

I can come and go as a please. The cart is always open. That’s an evergreen model. It has pros. It has cons versus a Y M C a model here is when we open here is when we close. That is an open closed model. Either one of those will apply to an online course or a membership site. It has to do with which one excites you more, which is right for you.

After looking at these five questions, are you leaning more towards a membership site or an online course, and keep in mind, you don’t have to go this alone. I have an entire free resource library that you can unlock for yourself by simply clicking the link in the description below. It has a wealth of resources, all nicely curated and organized to help you, as you are trying to figure out membership or online course, let’s take a look first at the membership image.

So the membership, if you’ve answered the questions and you are finding yourself saying, yes, I’m the gym owner. I have my weight set, and I want to sell access to my customers and be paid on our recurring basis. That is a membership site. That might be the best option for you. Keep in mind that memberships can be something as simple as accessing content or accessing a monthly call or incredibly involved.

What matters is that it’s uniquely tailored to you. I have this entire playlist that is all focused on Kajabi membership sites that you are welcome to check out any time. Now we can contrast the online course with the membership site. If you say, yes, I’m the gym owner. I want to sell my weight, set to my customer, have them pay me one time or perhaps a payment plan.

Then you’re looking at an online course model. Again, keeping in mind, you can always change this up when you’re using Kajabi. We don’t have to mess with our content. We simply mess with our offers. And like I already mentioned, we’ve got a whole video offers and making sure they’re legally zipped up.

So this is ideal for you. If you say yes, one time package it, they take it home. And it is in their court. That is an online course model. And if that excites you, then that is the best solution. Not forgetting that we can blend these two together. We can do the Peloton model for those of you that are also Peloton writers.

I love my Peloton and Peloton is a great example of blending, an online course and a membership site. So we have our gym. We are the gym owner inside the gym is the weight set. We’re going to call that the Peloton bike Peloton sells the bike for $2,000. You take it, it comes to your home. It’s yours.

You own it. That is your bike. Now in order to access the classes and the community that Peloton provides, you buy a monthly membership. So you can start by purchasing the bike and the membership. At the same time, you could start writing a different bike and simply purchasing the access to the online app and just do it that way.

Or you can say, Oh, I’m loving this. I really want the Peloton bike. And they can add that on. So the Peloton to me is a very fluid model of blending. Online course, the one-time purchase fixed fee. You own something with access to a recurring payment model, which is the membership site. There, you have it, my gym metaphor for figuring out whether a membership site or online course is best.

These next videos are just for you to help you keep learning and deciding, which is the best one for right now.

Source Link: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A_G6JjRcM7U

 

 

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