“Old School” Bookmaker Leverages Membership Model to Dramatically Scale Her Business

Shelli Varela: It’s true what they say, people come for the content, but they stay for the community.   Stu McLaren: There is a big trend brewing that’s revolutionizing the way business is being done. Big companies like Netflix, Amazon, and Apple are jumping on this too but so are thousands of others in all kinds of markets like photography and calligraphy, fitness, finance, meal planning, lesson planning, dog training, and so many more, and they’re doing it by shifting to a recurring revenue model. Hi. My name is Stu McLaren and for more than a decade I’ve been helping tens of thousands of entrepreneurs generate recurring revenue through membership sites. Join our host, Shelli Varela, as she takes you behind-the-scenes to see how these companies are building a thriving tribe that spends with them every single month. Now, let’s get to today’s episode.   [INTERVIEW]   Shelli Varela: Ali Manning, welcome to the It’s a TRIBE Thing Podcast. How are you?   Ali Manning: I’m great. Thank you. Thanks for having me on. I appreciate it.   Shelli Varela: You know what, it’s our absolute pleasure. I am a book junkie so I’m super stoked to dive into your story and what you do now. Your membership site is called the Handmade Book Club. But before you were a membership site owner, you were somebody who had thought about it and wondered if this is for me and I’m wondering if you can take us back to those days and let us know what your backstory is, what your background is, and how you came to be the membership site owner that you are today?   Ali Manning: Sure. Yeah. Definitely. Well, you can probably tell, I’m originally from England and I moved to the US off to college with my husband. My professional background, before I started my business was event planning, which is kind of coming useful and it’s been like a 20-year journey. My business, my friend said recently, “Oh, looks like your business just took off, but it’s been like 20 years,” sort of mirrored my journey as a parent. When my daughter was born, I took up bookbinding as a hobby, sort of making little books for her to show our family who like lived overseas. When she went to elementary school, I decided to sort of monetize it as a hobby just to fund my supplies and the classes I wanted to take. You know, I started teaching the community while I was at home taking care of her. And in 2007 that’s when I started blogging. I think it was on like a type pad or something crazy like that.   Shelli Varela: So, that’s the way back playback?   Ali Manning: Oh, yeah. I think I was on Blogger for a while too but, yeah. And then when she went to high school, I decided to get serious about the business. So, I rented a studio in Lowell, Massachusetts, which is about like 20 miles from my house, and it’s lawless, like an old textile city. So, it’s lots of old converted mills there. And so, I rented a studio. It’s called Western Avenue Studios. It’s like 200 units over five floors. So, I sort of set up a teaching space for my bookbinding and I taught classes there. I sold books in local galleries and during open studios, and I transitioned onto Etsy because I’m still blogging. It’s, “Oh my gosh, you’d sell on Etsy.” I could sell online and it worked out great. It was really good. I continued selling on Etsy. I’m teaching my classes, you know, I upgrade to Shopify. My e-commerce site is more successful. I’m starting to travel to teach. I’m shipping supplies and books all over the US. So, I’m still blogging and I have my email list.   Shelli Varela: How many people would have been on your email list at that time because that’s going back a little while?   Ali Manning: You know, my email list has stayed static. Let’s see, around it’s maybe 1,000 at that time. Not huge. We’re not talking huge numbers. But the issue, I loved my business, I still love my business. I love teaching in person. I’m happy to make books and to ship supplies, but I just found some of the issues I found where it wasn’t scalable. Like unless I was going to hire a bunch of people, e-commerce is not terribly scalable, and my income just wasn’t where I wanted it to be. Also teaching in my studio space, I was kind of caught up every weekend teaching and I really wanted the flexibility to be able to travel more, to visit my family who are all overseas.   Shelli Varela: Well, in that scenario, you have a brick-and-mortar place. So, I guess you’ve got like rent on a physical space.   Ali Manning: Oh, yeah. Yeah, rent a physical space and I have to physically be there to ship product. I mean, I do have an assistant who helps me with that but I’m still schlepping to the post office box. You know, I’m kind of tied but I have a great community going and I have a Facebook group going at this point, people sharing what they’re making with the product I’m selling. But I’d be listening to Amy Porterfield’s podcast for years just because of the e-commerce business I have going on. And then early 2019, Stu McLaren came on for an interview and started talking about membership sites. And then I think Jennifer Allwood went on the same podcast and mentioned that her first membership was like a craft website, craft site. I think she taught like, maybe painting wooden signs like something really niche. And that’s kind of when the light bulb went off. I’m like, “Oh, I do something really niche.”   Shelli Varela: When you first heard the concept of a membership site, did you think, “Come on, that’s got to be too good to be true?”   Ali Manning: Yeah. And I was kind of intimidated by the whole technology piece of it. Like, which I think is from what I understand is pretty common. I was used to teaching and I teach an old fashioned craft. I use my hands to make books. I sew books by hand. You know what I mean? Like, I’m covering a book with leather by hand and they are…   Shelli Varela: Yeah. That’s about as old school as it gets.   Ali Manning: Yeah, that’s such a transition to shooting video and uploading it and buying equipment. I found that really intimidating, I have to say. And also, you alluded to the size of my list. I wasn’t really sure I had a big enough audience to make that work. Because you know, when you think of membership sites, you think of thousands of people like Netflix that have thousands, millions of people all over the world. I didn’t think that my sort of community or my email list, my Facebook group would be big enough to sustain a membership.   Shelli Varela: Yeah. You know, I hear that a lot. I hear people say, “Well, it sounds like it’s possible for sure but I don’t know if it’s possible for me like my circumstances are different or who would want to buy my thing?” And then the immediate overwhelm of all of the moving pieces that you have to get sorted out to, in fact, roll out the membership site. So, what did that look like for you from the time you went, “Huh, a membership site, you say,” to the time you said, “You know what, I’m actually going to put one foot in front of the other, figure it out,” like what were the doubts or fears or obstacles, and how did you overcome those?   Ali Manning: Well, I was completely overwhelmed. And so, I have to say, I figured while I need help, so that’s why I signed up for TRIBE in April 2019. Not to promote TRIBE, but really, I was so overwhelmed that and when I saw how it was laid out step-by-step and I thought you know what, I’m a pretty good learner. I’m a good student so I figured if I can follow those steps so that’s really what I did. I signed up for TRIBE and actually followed step-by-step what I was supposed to do.   Shelli Varela: Yeah. Well, first of all, you can promote TRIBE because it’s the best thing on the market for anybody who wants a membership site.   Ali Manning: Oh my God. Right? It’s so oh my God.   Shelli Varela: It’s like the possibility playbook of membership sites. It’s like the to-do list for membership sites.   Ali Manning: Yeah. Well, it is like to-do list and I’m a kind of logical person, and it just took me step-by-step through what I had to do and I felt a lot less overwhelmed I have to say. So, yeah, that’s the backstory and kind of the fears I had were, you know, the technical piece and the overwhelm with all the moving parts.   Shelli Varela: So, what did that look like as you transitioned from brick-and-mortar business to doing it in the old fashioned traditional way to move that towards a membership site? Because I noticed you said that it wasn’t scalable and it wasn’t making enough money. The money wasn’t scalable also. So, what did that transition look like for you?   Ali Manning: Well, I still do retain the e-commerce piece, although scaled back, and I do still teach in person because I find that I need that connection with people. But I scaled that back to like once a quarter rather than like twice a month. So, what it looked like was I made the decision upfront just to go with Kajabi with a plug-and-play system. If I had decided to sort of piece it together through WordPress or plugins, I’d still be there now figuring it out. So, I just decided to make my life easy by doing some like it’s a plug and play version with Kajabi and I just started out with a founding members launch just out of the TRIBE playbook. So, yeah, that’s kind of how I started out and that was last September, I think. So, September 2019, I did my founding members launch.   Shelli Varela: So, how has your business life changed now that you’ve incorporated a membership? Like what has the membership provided for you?   Ali Manning: Well, a stable income. That’s what, I mean, honest that really can’t be overstated because the e-commerce and the teaching, it was feast or famine. Over the summer, things are quiet so there’s no income. Over the holidays, it’s like crazy busy on the e-commerce side so it’s given me a real stability with my income, which has been huge, like I can take a paycheck now every single month. And that’s just that makes a really big difference.   [ANNOUNCEMENT]   Stu McLaren: So many people in all kinds of niche markets are leveraging their existing knowledge and influence and they’re transforming it into passive monthly income. This isn’t luck. This is a repeatable formula for producing a growing subscription income and if thousands of others can do it, you can too. To find out what type of membership site would be right for your business, visit GetTRIBEGuide.com. Go to GetTRIBEGuide.com and download it today. You’re awesome!   [INTERVIEW]   Shelli Varela: What’s so funny, I hear people talk about recurring income all the time, of course, but I think the thing that it’s easy to overlook is what recurring income means for the human being who’s getting recurring income in terms of stress levels. And because all of your basic needs are kind of met, now, it’s kind of like Maslow’s hierarchy of needs. Once your basic needs are met and that sorted out, now you can look to inspire and to transcend and to create and you have emotional space for that.   Ali Manning: Yeah, completely. Yeah, really, it can’t be overstated, like a regular paycheck for an entrepreneur. You know what I mean? Like, obviously, if I was out working, I’d have a regular paycheck, but my life wouldn’t look like this. I don’t think I would like that. So, yeah.   Shelli Varela: What was the biggest fear you had as you originally thought about starting a membership site that turned out not to be true?   Ali Manning: Probably the technology was a big fear, which I just overcame by making the decision to go with Kajabi. The fear was the size of my email list. I think when I did the founder member launch, and I only did it to my email list. I didn’t put it on Facebook. I didn’t put it out on Instagram. I didn’t do ads. It just did it to my – and I had 2,000 people on my list. I thought that’s just never going to be enough, oh my god. And it wasn’t a very clean list either. My list now is only about 2,500 but it’s clean.   Shelli Varela: So, 2,500 engaged people is way better than 10,000 who are stopping by to kick the tires, right?   Ali Manning: Yeah, exactly. Yeah. So, that was a big fear, but I really didn’t. I mean, I got 250 people from 2,000.   Shelli Varela: Wow.   Ali Manning: On a dirty list for a founding members launch. And honestly, I must have sent like five emails.   Shelli Varela: That’s incredible. So, what did that feel like when you, I mean, because here’s the thing, I want to acknowledge also, you were brave enough to take the step and you were brave enough to take the leap. And first of all, kudos for you because many people will think about it and worry about it and not do it. What did it feel like when you’re like, “Oh, geez, you know, I wonder if anybody’s going to join and my list isn’t actually that big and my list isn’t clean list of people that are super engaged,” and then you get that incredible result? What was that like?   Ali Manning: Yeah, it was pretty amazing I have to say. I was surprised. I’m like, “Oh, I might get 15 like maybe 50 people who kind of know me already,” but no, I was pretty surprised I have to say. You know, we’ve kept most of them. I think our churn rate is like 2% so we have a 98% retention rate. So, yeah, I was pretty gops I have to say.   Shelli Varela: That’s incredible. What’s your biggest goal for your membership site going forward if logic weren’t a thing and you could make it look like anything you wanted for your life and for your business?   Ali Manning: Well, for my life and my business, I would just like to keep growing the site and just have more goals for like the members of my site to be honest, because they’re the most incredible community of people I’ve ever met.   Shelli Varela: Can you talk a little bit about that?   Ali Manning: I’d love to.   Shelli Varela: Because I think that’s fantastic and that’s something I want the audience to hear too is when we first step into the world of membership sites, it can be like you said, daunting or overwhelming or there can be doubts and fears. But once you like dive into the water, you’ll find that your members will help you swim for what they want and what they need and the community that just sort of naturally gels.   Ali Manning: Right. Honestly, that’s been the biggest gift I think from this membership. Obviously, it feels good to have that income, but the community that we’ve created are amazing. So, the level of creativity, they are encouraged within each other. I mean, I think I feel like I have set that up within the group. So, I guess one of the issues I initially came up with was I tried to provide too much content to my membership, which I think is probably a pretty common problem. What I realized is they needed a lot less content and they needed a lot more community. So, that was sort of an issue that I hopefully helped to resolve by, you know, we have a Facebook group in the forum. We have a couple of live calls every month. But what I’m finding is that they’re connecting offline. For example, I have a member who’s in London and she recently went on vacation to New Zealand and met up with the club member there.   Shelli Varela: That’s so great.   Ali Manning: That just thrills me. Really, you went all that way. Each week, I do a member in the spotlight so I highlighted one member last week a woman called Sheila and she had stated that, like, she doesn’t get as much bookbinding done as she would like because she has an autoimmune disease. Well, then someone else in the group said, “Oh, my gosh, I have an autoimmune disease and I live like an hour’s drive from you,” and they connected.   Shelli Varela: Oh my gosh.   Ali Manning: So, things like that like it just makes it worth doing. I was in London recently visiting my family so we did like a London meetup. Now, these people are now like best friends because it was just five of them but now, they have this collection and it’s just things like that really make it just, yeah, they’re going to make you happy.   Shelli Varela: It seems counterintuitive because for those people listening, some people are going to think, “Well, maybe I could do a membership site, maybe I couldn’t but this whole community that everybody talks about,” and maybe have doubts what that looks like, but it really is. I have friends that I’ve met on online that are like dear friends who I’ve never actually met in person.   Ali Manning: Oh, really?   Shelli Varela: Yeah. It’s funny, though, because it’s true what Stu says. People come for the content, but they stay for the community and it really is that that piece.   Ali Manning: So true.   Shelli Varela: Yeah. In a world where we have so much social media and artificial digital connection, what we really want is another human being on the end of the phone to resonate with you.   Ali Manning: Yeah, really, and this is what’s happening. So, yeah, so I cut back on all the content. They only get one piece of content a month, but the rest is all community building and sort of highlighting what they’re doing. I feel like I’ve shifted my focus initially away from what I’m providing them and so putting the spotlight on them, which I really found has been huge for. So, their confidence, their creativity, just this week, and this past week, one of the members created her own tutorial, like little PDF of some sort of technique that she wanted to share with the group so I sent that out to the group. So, like, they’re even creating content for the group.   Shelli Varela: That’s genius.   Ali Manning: Yeah. I mean, I didn’t ask her to, but she just kind of took it upon herself so that’s sort of two-way sharing is really, it’s been incredible.   Shelli Varela: Well, I guess that’s kudos to the safe space that you’ve created for people to share as well.   Ali Manning: Sure. Yeah, definitely. No, I’ve made clear that it’s safe and I’ve had no issues with any kind of – everyone is so supportive. I’ve never once had to sort of pull someone up on like a strange comment or either. You know, they’re a great group of it’s mostly women I have to say, then we have two guys.   Shelli Varela: Last question, if you had somebody that you knew or somebody that’s listening, right now, listening to your story and thinking, “You know what I really see myself in that story and I really, now that I’ve heard about a membership site, wonder if it’s possible for me,” what advice would you give that person?   Ali Manning: I would say just start something. Obviously, you don’t put out like a crappy product, but just start something that you’re kind of proud of but isn’t perfect and then iterate. You know, put something out there, do a founding members launch and then sort of see what’s working, course correct, and then repeat. I’m so glad I just started, but it doesn’t look like it did at the beginning and we’re only six months in and I’ve only had two sort of soft launches but it looks completely different when I began. But if I hadn’t begun, I wouldn’t be where I am now. So, I would say even if your list is small, just start something and kind of move forward from there.   Shelli Varela: Because not only will it change the membership owner’s life that has the ability to change the community that has not yet been created.   Ali Manning: Yeah. So, yeah, it’s a win-win.   Shelli Varela: Incredible. If people are looking for you online, where is the best place they can find you?   Ali Manning: At the HandmadeBookClub.com.   Shelli Varela: Amazing. Thank you, Ali, so much for your time. We appreciate you.   Ali Manning: Great. Thanks very much, Shelli. Bye-bye.   [CLOSING]   Stu McLaren: I hope you love that story. It’s amazing, right? That’s what It’s a TRIBE Thing is all about. So many people in all kinds of niche markets are leveraging their existing knowledge and influence and they’re transforming it into passive monthly income. Listen, this isn’t luck. There’s a repeatable formula for producing a growing subscription income and each week we’re going behind the scenes to show you exactly how they did it. Get the latest stories and actionable ideas from each episode at www.ItsaTRIBEThing.com and if you know one other person who could benefit from this, tell them to subscribe. Tell them to go to ItsaTRIBEThing.com. [END]