How to Create Monthly Recurring Revenue for Your Online Business
The membership model that can transform your life + business
You’ve created a business you love. Every time a new success story rolls in from a client, you sit back in your chair and breathe a sigh of amazement.
This is it, right? This is what you worked so hard for.
And yet…
Instead of enjoying the freedom and flexibility you set out to achieve with your online business, you’re chained to your computer. Always looking for new ways to market yourself, position your offer, get in front of new audiences.
You’re always wondering where that next client, that next sale is going to come from. The worry gnaws at the back of your mind, making it impossible to really relax and actually enjoy your business—or the life it’s providing.
It’s exhausting.
And suddenly, this is no longer feeling like the life you envisioned, that you worked so hard to reach.
It’s a story as old as time. And it’s part of the reason so many entrepreneurs burn out. It’s exhausting to live with so much pressure and weight on your shoulders.
But what if there was a way to have a baseline of monthly recurring revenue that you could depend on from your business?
What would that kind of assurance change for you?
What stress would it alleviate?
What time, joy, and energy would come back to you?
Whatever you’re dreaming up, there’s a really good chance it’s all possible—when you add a membership to your current business model.
The secret to creating monthly recurring revenue: the membership model
Now before you dismiss the idea outright and claim a membership would never work for your specific business or situation or industry—just sit tight.
I’m not asking you to take my word for it. I’m telling you to take it from the membership genius + guru: Stu McLaren.
Stu has spent a lifetime studying, experimenting, troubleshooting, and implementing successful memberships. And he breaks it all down for you and me in his new book: Predictable Profits.
Stu stumbled into the membership arena for a reason I think lots of us can relate to: he craved more quality time with his family.
He didn’t want to miss his kids’ growing up years because he was chained to his desk all the time, drumming up more business.
Developing a membership business model helped him provide for his family the way he needed to, while allowing him to be the present and active father he wanted to be for his kids.
I don’t know about you, but that makes my ears perk up.
But the cool thing about Stu’s book: he’s not just teaching a method that worked for him.
He’s teaching the same repeatable method he’s taught to hundreds of other entrepreneurs who have gone on to launch their own profitable memberships and generate monthly recurring revenue.
I’m not going to break down the whole book for you here, because honestly—I highly recommend you get it and read it for yourself.
But I will give you enough to show you that yes, this is more than just possible for you. It’s totally doable.
And it might be the secret sauce your business has been missing.
Will a membership work for my business?
After helping hundreds of people launch successful memberships, Stu narrowed it down to three filtering questions to help you determine if a membership is the right move for your business:
Do your ideal clients have a recurring problem they’re always trying to solve? (Ex: how parents can remain connected to their kids during the teen years; or how to work out on a busy schedule)
Are your ideal clients wanting to learn a new skill? (Ex: how to paint, how to run a cookie business, how to play an instrument)
Are they trying to simplify or streamline a set of tasks in their life? (Ex: how to meal prep for the week; how to make social media graphics fast + easy; how to decorate a home)
Answering yes to any one of these questions is a strong indicator that a membership may be a profitable and valuable way for you to serve your audience.
How do I launch a membership for my business?
Like me, Stu is a big fan of testing the waters before going all in on an idea. And not in a fear-based way. But in a wise, good business sense kind of way.
You don’t want to spend a bunch of time and energy creating a membership only to find out when you launch it that no one actually wants it.
The way to avoid that dilemma is to validate your idea for a membership before pouring a lot of time into creating it. Stu calls this the Founding Members Launch.
You can validate your membership idea much like you would an idea for any new offer. The point is to test the market and demand for your offer before creating it.
You can do this by:
Floating it to your audience to gauge interest (before you’ve created a single thing!)
Casting your vision for what this membership can become (and that they can help shape it)
Then inviting them to join as a founding member (which will give them special perks)
And finally, serving the socks off these founding members
When you focus on serving your founding members, helping them achieve transformation, and inviting their feedback throughout the process—you’re not only cultivating loyal members. You’re also fine-tuning your process, while generating success stories that you can leverage in your next launch to attract even more new members.
How do I create a high-value membership?
This is where Stu’s method (and his book) really shine, in my opinion.
The secret to serving your members and creating value doesn’t come from the volume of content you provide. It comes from how quickly you can help them achieve their desired results.
This is not about quick fixes or shortcuts.
It’s about streamlining the transformation journey for your people. It’s about taking the stuff you teach and distilling it down into its simplest, purest form.
When people are overwhelmed by too much content and too many complicated steps, they drop off.
They either turn into inactive members who never achieve transformation, or they leave your membership.
Neither of those options is good for you.
In Part 3 of his book, Stu breaks down exactly how to create what he calls a streamlined ‘Success Path’ for your members to follow on their transformation journey.
How do I sell my membership?
Like any offer or product, you’re going to need a solid marketing plan in place to make your membership profitable and sustainable.
When you’re just starting out and testing your idea, it’s best to keep it simple.
Your Founding Members launch can easily be a low-lift, DIY marketing effort with minimal assets. There’s no need to build out complicated funnels or sales pages at this point. You’re just gauging interest and seeing if people are on board with your vision.
Soon though, once you have proof of concept and you’ve built out your Success Path with feedback from your founding members, you’ll be ready to launch bigger and better.
You’ll be ready to start scaling your membership to achieve that monthly recurring revenue goal you set for yourself.
And this is where you’ll want to work with a launch strategist + copywriter. (Hi, hello, that’s me!)
A good launch strategist will walk you through questions like:
What is your launch style?
What’s your monthly recurring revenue goal?
Would a live or evergreen launch work better for you?
Is a closed or open door membership better for your audience?
How long should your pre-launch period last?
How long should your cart be open?
How do you overcome your audience’s objections to joining?
How can you keep members engaged after they join?
When should you consider running ads to your membership?
As Stu points out in his book, there’s a whole buffet of launch strategies and tactics out there at your disposal. Launching is not a one-size-fits-all approach.
That’s what a launch strategist is here for: to help you build a launch rhythm and strategy that works for your life.
A good launch copywriter (again, hi!) will further flesh out the launch strategy for your membership by:
Conducting voice-of-customer research and interviews
Advising on offer positioning based on competitor analysis
Crafting sticky messaging based on research findings and buyer psychology
Developing high-converting sales copy for your launch assets (opt-ins, sales pages, email sequences, etc.)
Hosting a debrief post-launch to review performance metrics and identify areas for further improvement
Once you get your strategy, messaging, and copy all dialed in, the sky is the limit.
Time to Build Your Membership
What would you do differently if you had a thriving membership with monthly recurring revenue you could count on?
Would you reduce the number of 1:1 clients you take and avoid burnout?
Would you have the financial stability to explore a new passion project?
Would you find the courage to take a healthy business risk you’ve been avoiding?
Would you finally have the margin to refine your flagship offer, or create a new offer?
Would you have more freedom and flexibility to spend quality time with your family?
All of this is possible when you create a membership that delivers value and transformation to your people.
If you have a membership idea that’s taking root in your brain, I encourage you to buy Stu’s book, Predictable Profits. And get started validating your idea with a Founding Members Launch!
And if you already have a membership that you’re ready to start scaling, or one that has just plateaued, consider bringing on a launch strategist and copywriter to help you dial it in further.
