The I Am [Dot. Dot. Dot.] Podcast

Ep #50 I Am…Wondering How I Can Add Recurring Revenue into My Online Business

September 15, 2024 • Kristen Werner & Mia Steel • Season 1 • Episode 50

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This week you can discover how to break free from the burnout of traditional 9-to-5 jobs and build a thriving online membership with us, Mia Steele and Kristen Werner.

We share our transformative journey from stressful careers to creating a six-figure membership platform, now rebranded as Recurring Revenue Society.

Learn how clear messaging can attract potential members and why we believe our new name perfectly encapsulates our mission of helping creators achieve sustainable income. Plus, get the details on our exciting new brand ambassador program, where you can start earning recurring revenue through affiliate marketing.

Ever wondered how recurring revenue can change your business and your life? 

We dive into the stability and peace of mind that come with consistent income, giving you the freedom to focus on meaningful community engagement instead of constant product launches. Hear our experiences firsthand and see how investment in a dedicated membership community can lead to deep connections, real-time transformations, and lasting success stories. 

We also discuss the practicality and convenience of subscription models, whether it’s educational templates or meal services, and how they can contribute to a sustainable business that supports both personal well-being and client success.

Tune in to hear how we turned small communities into profitable memberships and how you can do the same.

➡️ 🪩 JOIN our Membership Recurring Revenue Society now and let us teach you how to grow your social media & build a profitable online community.



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Speaker 1:

First of all, should we just let everybody know what's going down in the membership. I'm Mia, a mum of two, a former burnt out ambo who sold it all to Travel Australia in the caravan and turned a single TikTok idea into a six-figure content creation business leveraging UGC. And I'm Kristen, also a mum of two with over 15 years experience in branded marketing. I went from the corporate world to being made redundant and decided to back my idea of starting a branding business and a successful wedding venue side hustle generating six figures, all whilst living on the vineyard. One random DM between us sparked more than just a friendship. It ignited a passion to mentor women online around the world. We know what it takes to make it work online and we're here to show you what's possible. In less than 12 months, we built a six-figure membership together. And here's the kicker we have not met in person yet. That is a kicker. We're here to show you the power of reoccurring revenue and how achievable it really is. We don't sugarcoat things around here. We talk about the real shit, the good shit and the bullshit. So buckle up, let's go. Welcome to the I am dot dot dot podcast, the podcast for busy creators who want to consume useful shit for their biz and their life and learn how to turn their audience into a paid community. I am Krista Werner, joined by Mia Steele. Hey, mia, hey, hey, how are we going? Oh, pretty good, you're a fine self. Yeah, not too bad. Oh, there's me, kid, hey Jude. Kids in tow, all the things Welcome aboard Kids, dogs, everything. But that's how we roll, because we're busy mums and, yeah, can't get around around it. This week on the podcast, we wanted to talk to you a couple of things. First of all, should we just let everybody know what's going down in the membership? Yeah, we've made a couple of changes, not big ones, well, kind of big ones but changes that we think will make it more clear for not only our members but new potential members coming into this space. So what have we done, kristen think will make it more clear for not only our members but new potential members coming into this space? So what have we done, kristen?

Speaker 1:

Well, as you guys know, if you've been listening to the podcast for a while, you will know that we are mad for a bit of just trying testing messaging, and messaging is so incredibly important in your business, and when we started our business, we started knowing what we wanted to do and we've learned and grown and we realized that Hive Hub Collective that is our business, that is the kind of the top level part of our business, and the membership was the Hive Hub Collective. That's cool, not a problem. But then all of a sudden, like we're drilling down and drilling down and we thought, hang on a minute, like what Mia and I love the most is showing people how to create recurring income, right, how to generate income that sets you up, that is reoccurring, that is constantly there for you and your business and your life and sets you up for everything that you want. And we're like hang on. But then when we try to describe the membership, we're kind of describing it differently. Like the Hive Hub Collective kind of means nothing unless you're part of our community.

Speaker 1:

So we went about deep diving, researching, doing messaging and we've come up with a new name, not for our business but for our membership. What do you want to do with me? I don't mean to do that. Well, have we got any effects in here? We are calling our membership Recurring Revenue Society. Now, that new name, it's all about messaging and that name to us just makes so much more sense to someone who stumbles across us and isn't really sure what we do if our name is just High Pub Collective, so naming the membership Recurring Revenue Society, it's just encompassing everything that we're trying to do with our members to get recurring income for them every single month so that I can build a sustainable long-term business in this space, because recurring revenue to us has just changed the whole entire fucking game, basically. So, and we want to, yeah, we want our members to go on that ride as well, yeah. So nothing inside the membership changes. It just is streamlined and now it allows us and our members to be able to really articulate what it is that we do, and I think that's so important.

Speaker 1:

And we talk about messaging. We will be talking about messaging more. We do talk about inside the membership, but on the podcast we're going to share more of those things. But I suppose for us, that is our big news is Recurring Revenue Society is the name of our membership. Doors are open. Come. Revenue Society is the name of our membership. Doors are open. Come on in, check it out.

Speaker 1:

And the cool part is is we do have a little reoccurring revenue for you. If you become a brand ambassador, which is a member of ours, you can earn reoccurring revenue with 40% that we will pay you each and every month when somebody joins through your link, and that is called affiliate marketing. If you haven't heard about it, we've talked about on past podcasts. It's part of Mia's story, really a huge part of Mia's story. It's a smaller part of my story because I've done it in a smaller way in my business, but these are all things we're going to touch on. So we're going to jump into today's podcast, which is all around reoccurring revenue and the power of reoccurring revenue. Like what does it actually mean, first and foremost? So that if you're like, okay, I've heard of this, but it sounds a bit too big for me, or it sounds like something that you know huge corporations do, I'm just a somebody with a few hundred followers but a beautiful community. How can you turn that community into a paid community? And that's what we're all about.

Speaker 1:

So one thing that I did find one little stat of Rudy I want to share with you here, mia, today, with all the fine folks listening I know we love a stat Is businesses with reoccurring revenue model. They grow five to eight times faster than those without. Pop that in your pipe and smoke it. There you go. We'll take that one I know, and the other one that I found, which was all on the same kind of topic, is that a subscription-based model has an average customer retention rate of 85% higher than those without a subscription-based business. So subscription-based business for those who are wondering things like Netflix I know who Gives a Crap the toilet paper brand, there's HelloFresh. You know all those subscription things. Even you know most of the website things now are subscription-based ChatGPT, all that kind of stuff. So they have a higher attention rate than those that don't have it.

Speaker 1:

So this is what reoccurring or recurring revenue looks like. So the different types of recurring revenue. Do you want to talk through that, mia, what that actually looks like? If people kind of want to know the different business models, I suppose yeah. So there's slight changes and variations in these business models. So subscription models, like you said, that's sort of something where you're getting the same thing over and over and over every single month. So, like, who gives a crap? Everyone needs toilet paper. You sign up to a subscription base and you get that toilet paper every single month.

Speaker 1:

Or there's memberships, like our membership, where you join part of a community and you get exclusive content or a service or what have you every single month, so it can change month to month. But you're in this membership community, I guess you could say, whereas a subscription doesn't really feel like you're in a community. You're just getting a service to you every single month Retainers so you can have a retainer client that they're paying you every single month for a service and you don't have to go and chase new clients all the time, so that money is coming in every single month. And then you've got service contracts as well. So Kristen's done a lot of that contracting yourself out to provide a service over a set period of time, and that might be six months, it might be 12 months, but every single month you know that that money is going to come in.

Speaker 1:

And both Mia and I have done these kinds of work inside our own businesses before we met to create the membership and also kind of as we're building. Even there are certain points that we turn to this with inside while we're working within the membership to kind of keep diversifying the income which we recommend to absolutely everybody is diversifying that income and you know, like Mia just said, I've done it with design and social media and branding and content, and Mia's done the same with content creation, ugc, and contracted our services out to other people on a retainer base. So that you know, in that situation you are solving somebody's problem by providing a solution on an on-term basis Now that might be a few months, it might be a year, it might be, you know, a couple of weeks, but that's still reoccurring that you can kind of gauge that income coming in because you've signed a contract and you've you're working for them, so you know that that income is coming in and that's what we talk about with recurring income. And you know, inside the membership we've got some incredible members that are doing this now, whether they know they're really doing it or not, which will be interesting to have this conversation with them, because sometimes you don't realize you're actually doing it. But one of our incredible members, belle, is traveling Australia in a caravan with her two kids and husband living the high life and she's a VA. So she is a service-based retainer business owner that provides services to her clients all over Australia. I think she's got clients all over Australia that she's working with consistently bringing in reoccurring revenue. So things like that are so incredibly key to this process.

Speaker 1:

We've got other members like Tracy, who we're so excited about. Should we give Tracy a little shout out as well, because she's doing some amazing things? Yeah, we love Tracy. One of our members has been with us since the start of our membership and she's done so well with UGC. She's a beautiful content creator. She's in her fifties and she's just she's. You know, hit those big five figure months in UGC and now she's just released her own fitness app for people in menopause. So that app is going to bring her recurring income on a subscription based model. People sign up, they get access to an app every single month and the difference between having a retainer client and selling your service you can't really scale that. But the minute you start bringing in a membership or a subscription model where you're one person and you're giving your services or content to many, that's when you can start to really scale it and it becomes more passive. So Tracy's app is going to bring that passiveness for her, which is just incredible.

Speaker 1:

And one thing that you know we're quite passionate about and what we're certainly seeing inside the membership is and even ourselves is creating content constantly. It's exhausting and overwhelming and confronting at times and you know if you're selling a course or something like that, it's a great opportunity to share your education with others, obviously, but there is the need for you to sell that course over and, over and over again to a new audience. And so if you're building on social media, right now you're spending all your time and energy to build a community, and right now it might be a free community, Like you just want to become magnetic to an audience. So you're building, building, building, building. And you're like, okay, I'm building to sell something. My community love me, they're engaged with my content, they seem to really enjoy it. And you're like I'm just, I'm going to sell them a course. Cool, that's a great option, absolutely. Create a course and sell it to them.

Speaker 1:

But think about okay, once that's created, maybe I do a backend membership where I know that they're going to learn. You know cause? You shouldn't, you should never. This is a topic for another day. But let's not give everything ever we know possible in one course. We just want to teach somebody something in one course, right, but then you know that your skills maybe go further than that. So creating a backend membership is a great option because people have been through your course. And then you're like hey, cool, now you've been through that. You may be having questions about X, y and Z. Here's the backend-end membership.

Speaker 1:

And most times I was going to say, if you're multi-passionate or multi-potentialer and you're selling one course on one problem, it's going to do your head in because you've got all these amazing ideas and you can't build course after course after course after course. So, bringing that, like you said, back-end membership onto it, then you start to see that recurring income coming in and you get to be your multi-passionate self inside that membership and teach them all about all the stuff that you know. If it relates to you know what that target audience actually wants. Yeah, and it's one of those things that you know. You might not ever want to create a course, also fine. But you might still be building that free community where you literally got and it can just be hundreds, it doesn't need to be thousands and thousands, some people have that.

Speaker 1:

But even if you've just got a few hundred but they're engaged audience, they're asking you questions and they want advice on different things then being able to say to them hey, look, I've got this membership, I've got a paid community, I'd love you to come in. We all share XYZ every single month, whatever that looks like. We have whole podcasts and conversations inside the membership and on the podcast you can go and listen to about that. But then you can turn that into a paid community and it might only be that you have a paid community of 20 people, but 20 people paying you let's just say, $47 a month. That's still reoccurring income and that can only grow unless you're like, no, I only ever want to work with 20 people. Cool, do that. But 20 people turns into 21, 22, 23, 300, 400, 500.

Speaker 1:

Like that's what we're talking here and I think sometimes we get caught up or you know, we're looking at all these gurus and seeing people just churning money online. I'm like, fuck, how do we do that? But it starts with one person paying you going I want what you have and I'll pay for it every month. You just stack it and you're not starting from zero at the start of every month, which is what has absolutely changed my life, because you know stuff happens. You might need a break from social media, you might not be feeling well, your kids are sick, you're going on holidays, life just lives, but that money coming in every single month, whether or not you show up on social media is the biggest blessing in disguise and we talk about this all the time inside our membership. Everyone gets it.

Speaker 1:

Career to burnout happens and some of our members who are doing really well with UGC, they love it because they don't actually have to show up on social media all the time, because they've got their return to clients, they're busy doing the UGC videos, so it just gives you that breathing space and I know a hundred percent that recurring revenue or recurring income is the main reason why I'm still in this space, because you know it. Not only does it keep you afloat when you're feeling a bit off or what have you, but it's just that security and you and you really start to enjoy this space when you know that the money is coming in, regardless of whether you show up and sell a course or not, and you don't have that desperation every time you show up on social media to like, oh shit, I've got to make a sale, I've got to make a sale and then your content becomes desperate. And if you don't like launching, because launching can take it out of you, then a membership and recurring income. You don't have to launch all the time if you don't want to no, and you know the other thing, as you were saying that, I to no, and you know the other thing, as you were saying, that I was thinking the other thing is how much better is it Like I, we love creating content, that's how we built our business, like we love it and, like you say, the burnout is so goddamn real. But how much better is it to then put that energy and that love for creating content into your members, the people that are paying you? So it's not like you go and create a membership and then you go cool, they're paying me every single month. Amazing, I'm just going to go get more clients. You kind of flip that and you go cool, they're paying me every single month. So I'm going to give them my everything because I love these people, I'm committed to seeing them grow. And then on the outside, you get to do the content creation of selling people into the membership, sharing the success stories and showing what goes on. And I think that's probably why we love the membership model so much is because the content we create gets to be with the people that we truly connect with, that we get to watch their stories and the stories we've seen in 12 months of our membership have been so wholesome.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, and when you're selling a course, it can be really hard to collate and collect success stories because a lot of people will buy a course and they won't do it. They'll do a couple of modules, they'll drop off and that's the end of it. Or some people might do a course and get good results and tell you about it. But when you've got a community, you're taking them on a journey, you're seeing the transformation right before your eyes and you're touching base with them all the time. So your success stories and your transformations become so much more powerful because you can tell the whole entire story and you're with them every step of the way, holding their hand, and they're going to get a better result than if they just did a course by themselves. So that's another big thing.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, testimonials are everything and it's one of those things that you know. I think you know. We've said and touched on the fact of you know the who gives a crap. There's coffee clubs, there's HelloFresh, they're all convenience, like such convenience which is an excellent model, that's the subscription. And then the community, like me has just said and we've just touched on, is this wholesome, organic and beautiful thing that you get to be a part of somebody's success story, and I think you know that's not for everyone, obviously, and it might be as simple and I'm all quotation marks over here but it might be as simple as you're creating templates for teachers, so that's still helping them, like, that's still something you're doing to solve a problem for them, that you can show up each month and just create those and they go. My god, thank god, I'm part of this community or whatever that looks like. I'm gonna stay and pay every single month. This is great and the thing that you know we love, which we touched on before. But I think we should kind of double down on it here, just so it's really clear, because I had a raging blonde moment, uh, about a week or so ago, but I did a cheeky post about it because and yes, I do have peroxide blonde hair and yes, I do, I'm very I just had a moment right which was the whole potential, like our truest potential right, and we were like, okay, so if we want to reach X goal, how many we're going to need how many people each month?

Speaker 1:

And in my mind I was like, okay, I think I figured out. Let's just say we need 1,000 members each month. And I was like, okay, holy shit, that means we have to find 1,000 new people each month. And then you do like, because obviously we know the numbers. So then you work the numbers how many leads does that need? And I was like holy shit, like we're never going to reach our goal. And then Mia replies she's like, so you do realize it's like reoccurring, like it's a thousand members. All we need to do is like keep them. And then each month they're the same people. I was like, oh damn, and I did the same thing too. I'm like, holy shit, we're never going to reach this. But then it's like, oh no, you don't have to find new customers every single month, they're the same customers.

Speaker 1:

And that's a whole thing, too, of customer retention and lifetime value. A lot of our members bought things from us that we've released outside of the membership. Yeah, and you're getting that customer lifetime value extended because you know they trust you. You've built that trust and you're not out trying to find new clients all the time and you're getting that value from them every single month. It's a bit like an email list, too. Like you make so much more money, the bigger your email list is, because they might buy from you a few times every time you launch something or release something. It's a bit like a membership too. They can buy external products as well.

Speaker 1:

So yeah, the uncapped potential and the numbers are pretty freaking incredible when you start to sit down and write it out, and especially when you know if you're working a nine to five or you're, you're a mom and, like most of us, or like most mothers, have to work kind of that part-time, and pay for the child care and all the kinds of things that come along with it. You can only earn what you earn if you go to work at nine o'clock and you leave at five o'clock. You can only earn that. But if you work at home, then to make everything else up so that you don't miss out on your work, even though you know we've all done it right, you can't earn anymore.

Speaker 1:

And I remember when I worked at my corporate role I worked with um, a guy who he was taking it for an absolute ride and we were in the same role, but he was senior because he was an older man and look, let's just put it down to that he really worked the system to his own time frames and there was times there that I documented, when he came and left work, the lunchtime breaks he took. Yeah, I was like I'm actually doing all his work and I'm getting paid less than him, because I was a female that was younger and he was a male that was older, and that's just how the industry works. And I calculated that each week he was gone seven and a half hours that is a whole day of work. He was not there. Yeah, yeah, I was doing all of his work and he was having basically a day off a week, but I wasn't getting paid anymore. And even when I brought to my boss he was like, oh, I day off a week but I wasn't getting paid anymore.

Speaker 1:

And even when I brought it to my boss he was like, oh, I don't know, like is that really happening? I was like, do you want to document it? But I still, you know, like it's that kind of thing that I think that kind of ground my gears so much so when? But then when you look at this and you go, all that means is that we just have to nurture X more people into our membership and we can earn more, or you might only, like we said, want 20 people and then all of a sudden you open the doors again or you find 10 more people that just love what you've got and they come in. You're like, oh cool, now that's an extra, however much a month. Like that's the difference this can make to your life. And, as a mother, like how glorious is that to know that you have uncapped potential selling something you are passionate about to people you care about and you get that relationship back and forth from people. I think you know the power of that is absolutely undeniable.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, and for me and my journey, like I've, the minute I started to catch on about recurring revenue, I, that was it. I was sold. I only chose affiliate programs that had recurring income commissions and, you know, setting up the membership and working with retainer clients, like really wanting to get those kind of jobs instead of chasing because, yeah, I would have just burnt out if I had to just, you know, set up income streams that were just one-offs, because it's just, it's too much, especially with a brain like mine, spicy brain, and you know, I think it's. It's something that when we started the now recurring revenue society, when we started that, mia was the one that said, hey, should we do affiliates, like, should we create affiliates? And and you know, when people join, if someone buys of them, then they have the affiliate model. And I was like, oh, it's not many memberships that that do that in this kind of space. And you know, to be honest, I was a bit like I mean, I don't know, will it work, will it? Anyway, we jumped in because that's what we do and that's what we love about it.

Speaker 1:

Now, more than anything, is actually paying out our members who have got that reoccurring revenue that we know they're helping us build our brand and our business and we get to help them. Like that is cool. And so, you know, that's the kind of hey, they get a taste of that recurring income coming out, with them not having to do anything and we're paying. You know, we're paying our first thousands every month and that's just on autopilot and it's just yeah. When you get a taste of it, it's like, oh, okay, yep, this is cool, yeah, so, if you are considering or you haven't thought about a reoccurring income model, the reoccurring revenue society, the membership that we have yes, just told you about at the start of this podcast. We've renamed, so it's already fresh. I keep wanting to call it the hive, which it's still under the hive hub collective, but it's the reoccurring Society.

Speaker 1:

That's exactly what we're doing is showing you how you can generate reoccurring income in your business, in affiliate marketing, in memberships, in subscriptions, in whatever that looks like, all whilst diversifying your income. So you know, if the membership's ticking over nicely, just nice and slowly, and you're loving and it's growing, do some UGC, get some other paid gigs elsewhere, go and do some VA, go and outsource your services. Like everything, like this is what we love about our membership and our members is that's what we are teaching Not just one thing, but teaching you how to be able to do it well across all areas so that you can turn to those income streams and put your skills to service at any time. And that's really exciting for us because obviously we're passionate about it. We are, we are. Yeah, if you're thinking about that in your business and you don't know how to start, we do have a cheeky little freebie that you can grab. It's in the show notes. Name it Mia, because I'll put up again. It is called three oh, now I can't even remember what it's called, not secrets three simple ways to turn your instagram audience into a paid community. So we have to change the name of that because it's not catchy enough for us to remember, but it's basically. It gives you a really really simple, clear way to go. Oh, this is possible. Like that's so easy. That's what we love about it. It is really. It makes that whole membership model look really simple. So that's what we want for you, guns.

Speaker 1:

And if you have time for love, don't love. Yes, I was just going to say if you're inside our email subscription sequence, you'll also receive eight secrets to top performing memberships. So that's another goodie as well to get. But you'll get that inside our email sequence, all right, yes, I'm gonna go and get drunk with my friends. So do you want to do love? Don't laugh, I mean, do you have time for that? Because if not, just go get drunk and I'll be like bye, that's my love this week girls brunches. Do you have a love? Don't love. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Well, love's girls brunches. And my don't love this week was just a school term routine. I'm hanging for school holidays. I know a lot of parents like, oh no, school holidays, I've got to hang out with the kids all the time. But you can sleep in, you can go places, you can. I don't know. I love it, I hang out for it. So, yeah, don't love school routines.

Speaker 1:

My loves, don't loves, the don't love is pulling olive trees. So we own a vineyard and there's lots of birds. There's olive trees around us, the birds have crapped everywhere, there's olive trees all through the vineyard and I have literally been pulling olive trees for the last few days. Question yeah, go, can you not just grow olive trees too and sell all? I mean not as lucrative as grapes and pain in the butt to like just to harvest them? Yeah, and now, because there's so many, I don't ever want to see another olive tree in my life. Um, but at the same time, the love of that I mean I've got've got.

Speaker 1:

My love is dancing, because after my birthday I just want to dance all the time because I loved it so much. But I would say the opposite to my don't love right now would be love just being out in the vineyard in the sunshine, gloves on hands and knees, dirty work, listening to music love that. So that's my don't loves, don't loves, don't. Oh, fucking, just go and get drunk and I'll sit here and not. I don't know if we lived in the same town. We're like, oh, you want to go get drunk? Yeah, let's do it. No, they'll just be like, hey guys, do you even run a business like I don't know, I don't know? Uh, anyway, let's wrap it up, because I'm going so many good ones too.