Recently I had the absolute pleasure of assisting the Keap Academy team as they hosted an intensive workshop. Keap users from near and far made the investment to show up for 2 full days of in-person, hands-on app and strategy training. As a Keap Certified Partner, they welcomed my presence so that that the attendee/teacher ratio was as low as possible. This was amazing, as many attendees got a lot of one-on-one face time with trainers and experts as they strategized and implemented.

As “normal” as this event was, to be honest I am still blown away weeks later. I often feel a rush of awe and appreciation after in-person events, but there’s more to it than that. I want to unpack and articulate why I constantly feel that way, and to turn it into a learning moment for us all.

Before I dive in, I want to be clear that I can prove there is a lesson and ROI after all. At the risk of sounding self-deprecating, as an automation consultant I can sometimes be the cobbler with no shoes. I often spend more energy on my clients´ businesses than my own (sound familiar?).

And yet, I find my consultancy to be booming despite not having put together many systems in place for myself. After a couple years of beating myself up over a lack of strategy, I realized I had accidentally been employing a strategy all along — this “show up” strategy.

But you know what they all had in common? They showed up. Newbies and veterans sat side-by-side to learn and build automation.

Here’s the kicker, though. The real value they all received at that event had, in my opinion, nothing to do with software. It was the cumulative energy and ideas they got from just being there alongside their peers. They could have watched some of the excellent Keap Academy courses or subscribed to the Monkeypod YouTube Channel, and they would have learned a lot (I still do).

But a limitation there is that they’d be learning from a single perspective, no matter how knowledgeable that perspective might be. The beauty and opportunity lies in the diversity of knowledge, experiences, and expertise combined. (Another example of the whole being greater than the sum of its parts, I think.)

You see, the blessing and curse of automation and technology is that there are so many ways to skin the cat. Even the simplest of tactics could take shape in dozens of ways. For example, something as straightforward as “landing page collects contact info and then delivers a free pdf lead magnet via email” has so many variations that we couldn’t possibly say “just build it like this” and it would work for everyone perfectly.

To some, this is a challenge, for others – like the kind of people who “show up” – it is an opportunity.

Here lies the lesson: You’ll never know what other possibilities are out there unless you mingle with people who have tried it other ways.

None of us know our own blind spots – that’s kind of the definition of a blind spot.

As I write this today is my 5 year anniversary of joining Monkeypod Marketingˋs OG Membership. Many of you know me as the Community Manager there, but before that I was a paying member.

This is just as true today as it was 5 years ago: I get more value from other people’s questions and ideas than from any question or idea I could have thought to ask. It’s not what you know, it’s what you don’t know.. yet.

Maybe more to the point, it’s WHO you know. If I didn’t invest in myself to have the privilege of sharing space with other creative and smart entrepreneurs and experts, I wouldn’t know half of the cool strategies and tricks that I do.

When I signed up, my company wouldn’t cover it so I paid for it out of pocket – I didn’t know what I’d learn, I just knew I was hungry to be around the people from whom I COULD learn.

Even when it comes to tactics and best practices that are too advanced for me or even out of my wheelhouse altogether, I enjoy being around the people who can do the things that I can’t. I surely will need those people eventually.

My partner Brian, a serial entrepreneur, often says that you’re the average of the people you spend time with. What I took from this was to find as many rooms as I could where I was the dumbest one there.

Admittedly, that’s hyperbole. But the lesson is to make sure you’re surrounded by people who know things you don’t – it will naturally start to illuminate and eradicate your blind spots.

So I find them, and I show up, again and again. If you’re searching for a more specific action item, then I challenge you to come to the Let’s Grow Summit, and any and all other events you can swing. Better yet, come find me there so we can hang out and share ideas.

Those Keap Academy event attendees likely think they were fortunate that I was there to share ideas and teach app implementation. But I assure you, I got the better end of the deal.

How about a practical small business example use case for ChatGPT?

ChatGPT buzz is everywhere these days, but if you’re like me, you may be dragging your feet on exploring it.

So when I saw this demo from Grady the other day, I immediately asked him if I could share it.

He graciously say “Go for it”.

Follow along as Grady asks ChatGPT to help him produce content for social, an outline for a webinar, copy for an email series, and a few other relatable small business use cases.

One thing to pay attention to is how Grady gives ChatGPT feedback when he’s not getting exactly what he needs:

Watching this ChatGPT small business example unfold was fascinating for me, I hope you enjoyed it too.

It was useful to see how the ideas blended from one medium into another, and how Grady lead the bot to wind up with content he could use, that wasn’t too salesy, and all felt aligned to the original topic.

What to do next?

If you want more on this topic, check out the webinar we hosted discussing AI trends and use cases.

And if you haven’t yet, try it out for yourself.

Here’s a link to ChatGPT >>

Feel free to take it for a spin, and let me know how it goes.

I started the OG Membership in 2015 and it’s been my favorite part of my business ever since.

For a variety of reasons, but first and foremost is the pride I get from serving this group, and the validation that comes from watching them grow their businesses.

5 Membership Lessons

I’d be lying if I said that 8 years I knew exactly where I was going. There has been plenty of turbulence along the way..

I’ve invested thousands of dollars and countless hours in learning about memberships, and the patterns to how and why they work.

Here are a few of most valuable the lessons I’ve learned while running my own membership, and building an engaged community.

1. Create a Success Path

I’ve written about this before, but the concept of a success path remains one of the most important membership lessons I’ve learned.

What is a Success Path? It’s effectively a set of stages that help illustrate the progress your membership helps facilitate.

It’s the pathway that helps your members visualize the transformation they’re undergoing, but it’s also the framework for the content you produce, and the underlying north star for your marketing efforts too.

2. People pay for less content, not more

As someone who has a blog, and an active YouTube channel, and generally enjoys creating content – this was a tough lesson for me to learn.

But the reality is that if you have a membership, people aren’t looking for you to bury them in content – that’s a quick path to overwhelm.

Instead, your members are looking for help organizing the information and reducing the noise – and generally figuring out how to move forward with confidence.

3. Plan your Member Journey

I’ve talked about the idea of a customer journey at length, but a similar concept can be applied to your membership.

Here’s an example of what those stages might look like:

As useful as that framework can be – each of those stages can represent a weeks or months of a customer journey.

Let’s dig into the “Weclome” stage, and take a look at what a sample membership onboarding might entail.

The onboarding is their introduction to the membership – and the sooner they engage, the likelier they are to see the value in your membership, to forge connections, and to start making progress.

But this same level of detail and planning could be applied to optimizing every stage of their experience.

4. Be the member you want

This lesson wasn’t clear to me initially, but I’ve had enough people point it out now that I feel like I have to embrace it.

This is a little uncomfortable for me to say – but the Monkeypod membership is confusingly helpful. I’m proud of that group, and I put a ton of time and energy into serving it – but the efforts I put into it are a small fraction of what makes it so valuable.

Every day I’m humbled by the way the members show up to help one another. People go out of their way to share their ideas, suggestions, recommendations, and their hard earned expertise.

The way you show up for your members, sets the tone for your membership.

If you’re quiet, your membership will be quiet.

And conversely, if you’re active, helpful, loud, fun, or anything else – it invites your members to be that too.

5. Listen to your members

This one probably seems obvious – but it’s worth saying. Ask your members what they want, and pay attention to the responses you get.

Now, I’m not saying to do everything they ask for – that may not be realistic. But consider what they’re asking, and why – you may find there are some simple changes you can make that address their concerns.

For example – at the core of the OG Membership is our private Facebook group, but it’s a pretty busy group, and not everyone is on Facebook every day – so when members asked us to do a monthly recap email we decided that was an easy win for everyone.

Like I said, I’ve learned these lessons over the past 8 years – mostly through trial and error. But a few years ago I started following Stu McLaren, and he has quickly become the single biggest influence on me for this topic.

What do I do next?

Stu is hosting a free workshop all about Memberships – it starts on April 20th, and you can register here.

It’s probably the most valuable free event I’ve ever seen (and I’ve attended each of the last 4 years).

If you’re a skeptic like me, you’re probably thinking “no one gives away valuable content for free, what’s the catch…”

Here’s the catch: This free workshop is the runway leading up to the launch of Stu’s flagship class, The Membership Experience™.

That’s it.