Let’s imagine you and I are together enjoying a cup of coffee.  And what if I asked you, “Hey, how many new members did you pick up in the last week or last month even?” You might say, “Well, Scott, I picked up five new members, seven new members, 12 new members,” whichever it may be. I would say, “Congratulations.”

But if I went to those five members, seven members, how ever many members who signed up and I was to ask them, “Are you a member of X, Y, Z membership,” they would most likely say to me, “Well, I just signed up for it.”

Think about it. You think they’re a member but they just signed up for the membership.

I’ll even take this a step further.

I recently signed up for a gym. Now, admittedly, this is not my first time signing up for a gym. I’ve signed up for gyms before and I’ve done nothing with it.  But if you would ask me, “Are you a member of that gym?” I would say, “Well, I just signed up for it. I’ve started going. So yes, I guess I’m a member.” 

That’s not really what you want out of your members. “I just signed up for the membership.” That’s what they’re thinking. That’s what’s in their mind. They’re not fully engaged, fully assimilated, into your membership program quite yet.

If you ask your members, those of you who have members that have been with you 6 months, 12 months, or longer, do they consider themselves a member of the membership? They would probably say, “Of course I am. I’ve been a member for a long time. I don’t even know how long it’s been since I’ve been a member, but yeah, I’m a member. I’m getting this, I’m getting that. I’ve been able to make this happen. I’ve been able to do that. I’m getting the benefits and the outcome that the membership provides.” That’s what they would say. But new members would say, “I just signed up for it.” Those new members are not fully engaged yet.

So how do you turn them from a sign up into a fully engaged member?

How do you assimilate them? What does that process look like? Well, you have to ask yourself a series of questions: 

1. What do you want them to receive?

When you think about somebody signing up for your membership, ask yourself what are your members receiving in the first hour?  What are they receiving on the first day? What are they receiving in the first week? What are they receiving in the first month?

That’s part of assimilating them, that’s part of getting them to engage in the actual membership to utilize what your membership provides them.  So what do you want them to receive? 

A great way to process through this question is to go sign up for your own membership and go through the entire process and pay close attention to what happens… and what doesn’t happen.

2.  What do you want them to achieve?

When somebody comes into your membership, what is the very first thing that you want them to achieve that will lead them to the outcome that your membership provides?

What does that look like for you?

I know what it looks like for me, I want my members to get members. I know the more I help my members get members, the longer they’re going to stay in my membership program, because I know they’re looking at me and saying, “Hey Scott, you’re helping me get members. You’re helping me help more people. I want to stay in your membership.”

So what is that, for you, you’re saying to them, “Do this, achieve some success, get some of the outcome that the membership provides, and then go onto the next step.”

If you think about your membership as being a membership pathway where they are achieving one success after another, after another, and you want them to have what I call a “quick win”, where they are getting some level of success really quick so that they can continue on the pathway.

Now, as they stay with you longer in the membership, that success might not come as quickly because they have to do more work.  They have to put more into the membership, exert more energy into the membership. So then the success may be a little bit longer in between wins from success to success.

So what do you want them to achieve in the first month of their membership?   And then…

3.  What do you want them to believe?

Now I saved this one for last because what you want them to believe is really kind of specific to your membership.

I’ll articulate it this way. I like to pick on some diet programs, well, mostly because I’ve tried them all. I’m not a big guy or anything like that. But I try to work out. I try to live a healthy lifestyle. I also travel a lot. And I do enjoy some good barbecue every now and then. (Ask me for recommendations on your next trip)

I have tried different diet programs and here’s what I found: they all lead to the same outcome. Or they all promise the same outcome.

What is it? That you’ll be healthier, that you will lose weight. Ultimately, that’s what they’re promising. But they all have different belief systems around it.

I mean, think about some of the main ones that you see on TV. For example, Jenny Craig. There’s a belief system about Jenny Craig and that diet system that is different from, dare I say, Beachbody. I mean, Beachbody has a completely different belief system around how you can lose weight. Or if I was to mention the keto diet, I mean what is different from Beachbody, that is different from Jenny Craig, and it’s a completely different belief system.

The way you assimilate your members is by creating a belief system around your membership program that gets them assimilated.

And what you’ve done is created your own culture within your membership program. That’s the one thing that your competitors honestly cannot copy, they can’t rip off your belief system.

You want to protect the value of your membership program, right? Well, it’s done with the belief system of why your membership is different than all of the others. And I truly believe it is. You just maybe haven’t articulated it quite yet.

So if you really want your membership, and not just your trial membership, to succeed and you want your new members to be fully engaged in your membership program, ask yourself these three questions:

What do you want them to receive? What do you want them to achieve? And what do you want them to believe?

If you’re ready to multiply your membership and money, here are four more ways we can work together!

1. Get a FREE copy of Accelerate: How to Get Your Next 10, 100, 500 or Even 1,000 Members… Yes, you can get a free copy of my brand-new book! In it, you discover more on how to promote your membership, get more members and increase retention. Kim wrote the foreword – you’ll discover more about her membership.  Click here to get your free book now!

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4. Are you interested in growing your membership by 300% in the next 12 months? If you’re looking to get more members in a week than you did all month and you’re tired of “sending and hoping” people will sign up…just send me an email and put “MULTIPLY” in the subject line… tell me a little about your membership and what you’d like to work on together, and I’ll get you all the details!

About Scott Whitaker

Scott is an expert in creating and building membership programs within businesses, giving greater value to customers and multiplying income. Using his "Seven Systems of a Healthy Membership Program," he will help you get new members, increase retention and structure your membership program for long-term growth.