Several times in recent years, I’ve watched big
names release products talking about what a great
money-maker running your own membership sites is.
Being as skeptical as the next person in internet
marketing, I usually stepped back and asked what
are they really teaching, how are they making
THEIR money, and are they doing what they teach.
As often as not, they made MORE money from selling
you a package on how to set up lucrative membership
sites than they did from running their own.
Often, they made BIG bucks from selling you some
over-priced membership site package. With these
expensive packages they often used scripts that are
available for free, and that may even be pre-installed
on your hosting account!
They may spend $100 to get their tech guy to configure
the script and pocket the other $2000!
So, I wisely, didn’t bite 
Besides… the hardest part is NOT setting up the
site, it’s getting and keeping members!
I did slowly build a number of membership sites
over the year, and some of them did quite well,
and continue to do so. I learned the business in
both “the school of hard knocks” and sitting down
and talking to those operating membership sites
over a beer at a seminar.
I stopped drinking, so I bought them beers, and
when sufficiently lubricated, they shared their
juiciest membership site secrets with me. I made
notes, and wisely used the things that they freely
taught me
Fast-forward to today and I have a fairly simple
formula for new membership sites. It’s using
Joomla for content management and aMember for
billing and subscription management.
Let me break that down for you…
Content management is just organizing everything.
Having a place to upload, store and grant access
to videos, audios, ebooks, software, forums,
chat rooms, training sessions, etc. A good CMS also
lets your users interact… which is one of the BIG
things that keeps members around!
The biggest headache in operating many of my
earlier membership sites was actually managing
access to the site. I used systems where I’d set
up Paypal as my payment processor, and then after
they’d pay, Paypal would deliver members to a page
where they completed registration.
Then month-after-month, they’d pay, and things
would chug along smoothly UNTIL their payment
didn’t go through for some reason. At that point,
Paypal kicked out an email saying a payment failed
and I had to manually log-in to my membership site
control panel and decide whether or not this was
a temporary condition and whether or not to lock
this person out.
Then I discovered a really nice 105-video tutorial
by my long-time friend James Maduk. In his videos
course, James explains how to integrate aMember with
Joomla.
James explained that with the aMember integration,
when the payment doesn’t go through, Paypal (or any of
60+ other payment processors) talks to aMember and
updates the database. At the appropriate time, the script
automatically locks out the former member.
Doing it manually, I had to either make a note of the
exact date when the person should no longer have
access, or just lock them out when the payment failed.
Amember is smart enough to keep track of that and allow
your members access UNTIL the appropriate date.
You can check out James’ tutorials at:
http://WillieCrawford.com/MembershipSites/
I have actually wanted all 105 videos:-)
I saw the benefit in mastering the topic and simply set
aside the time to do it!
If you already have a membership site up and running,
and want to maybe just switch over to an automated
solution for managing billing and controlling access,
then you may want to just grab a copy of aMember.
Get aMember at: http://WillieCrawford.com/aMember/
I now know aMember inside-out. I could map out how
it works in my sleep. I gained this total mastery
of the script from watching James’ video tutorials.
I also digested another tutorial series - exclusively
on aMember.
That tutorial told how to integrate aMember with
Paypal, 2CheckOut, Clickbank, 1ShoppingCart, your
own merchant account, and 60+ other payment management
systems seamlessly.
You can get the aMember tutorial at:
http://WillieCrawford.com/aMemberTutorial/
Back to how I now set up membership sites…
In my “old age,” I’ve grown lazy and risk averse.
So, most of the memberships sites that I now set up
are actually partnerships. I partner with online
marketers and even local business people.
I provide the technical know-how in how to get a
membership site set up in just a few hours that will
run flawlessly for YEARS. I also provide the
marketing know-how that will be necessary to get the
flow of members started.
My partners typically provide ALL of the content.
They also funnel a lot of their contacts, clients,
and list members to the new site (as early members).
I typically turn members into affiliates, so my
sites grow themselves once they get started!
James’ tutorials provide a lot of the business
know-how in getting and keeping members.
James also teaches you how to configure your
membership sites so that your MEMBERS generate the
majority of the content… and your members also
bring in new members and keep old members around.
The TRUTH is that for most poorly managed membership
sites, the average member might stick around for
three months. With a properly managed membership
site, members will stick around for years.
So, yes, running a successful membership site IS
all that it’s cracked up to be. Just imagine having
a site with only 1000 members paying just $20 per
month. If you only have to spend an hour or two
per week on that site, wouldn’t you consider that a
great money-maker.
You could even outsource the management of your site,
and after paying your helpers, you’d still be doing
“OK.”
Anyway, I’ve just shared with you my system for
building and operating lucrative membership sites.
I’ve also shared where I learned what I know, so
that if you prefer going to the source, that’s an
option too.
Willie