Community Memberships: Leveraging Free and Paid Tiers for Lasting Impact with Katelyn Dekle

Community memberships are wonderful for creating a recurring revenue stream, but something Katelyn Dekle does sparked my interest. Inside of her club, a membership for business owners, Katelyn offers both a free and paid tier. She saw value and benefits of serving the needs of both audiences by offering them separate benefits and access within her club. Listen in as she shares how she set up her membership on Circle, what tips she’d give to you, and how she’s attracting her members.

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Guest Bio

Katelyn is a laid-back, laugh-happy, sarcasm-using, coffee-drinking, pet-loving, bibliophile.

Fed up with building someone else’s dream in one toxic work environment after another, getting sh*t for pay and no benefits, she was tired of living check-to-check. After years of side hustling, Katelyn finally took the leap into running her business full-time mid-pandemic in 2020.

She’s the CEO, Squarespace Web Designer & Educator of Launch the Damn Thing® cranking out personality-driven designs for truly wonderful people and she absolutely LOVES it.

Her passion is helping people find success in the online space, by sharing the tools and expertise she’s gained since she started her side hustle in 2015.

Today’s episode is brought to you by DIY Template Shop! Grab the exact email, form, and workflow templates that I include inside the CRM Blueprint Course. Steal my templates and customize them to match your brand and process. Use the code PODCAST for 10% off.

Here are the highlights…

[1:04] Get to Know Katelyn

[2:13] How the Membership Started

[3:12] Attracting Entrepreneurs

[4:30] Free vs Paid Plans

[6:22] Who Katelyn Attracts

[7:23] SEO, Blog Content, and Conversion

[11:10] Converting DIYers to Done for You Clients

[17:40] Hosting a Membership on Circle

[20:17] Drawbacks of Circle

[22:10] Goals for the Membership

[28:42] Tips for Launching a Membership

[33:31] Revising Offerings

Mentioned in this Episode

Episode 60: Exploring Enneagram Types with Katelyn Dekle

Circle

Talk Copy to Me with Erin Ollila

Connect with Katelyn

Website: launchthedamnthing.com

Membership: launchthedamnthing.com/club

YouTube: youtube.com/@launchthedamnthing

Instagram: instagram.com/launchthedamnthing

Review the Transcript:

Colie: Hello. Hello. And welcome back to another episode of the business first creatives podcast. I actually have a returning guest today. Please welcome Katelyn Dekle. She is an amazing Squarespace website designer. And again, today we are not really going to talk about her website design. You know what girl, we’re just going to have to have you on again to talk about this.

I think it’s weird that I keep inviting you to be a guest on my podcast, and we don’t actually talk about your main service, which is super fucking awesome. I’m But good morning, Caitlin. Welcome back to the podcast.

Katelyn Dekle: Thank you for having me.

Colie: I mean, it’s really funny guys. I invited her here today because she has launched a brand new membership, which is actually not officially launched, but if you, you know, follow the secret links, you can find your way in.

But after I realized that she was putting together a membership, I was like, do you want to come on the podcast and talk about this? So again, today, we’re really not going to talk about website design. But third time’s a charm when I have you back again, we will finally do it. If you did not listen to Caitlin’s first episode, it is episode 60.

It will be available in the show notes. And we actually talked all about Enneagrams in that episode. It was amazing. And you know, I’m really not like an Enneagram girl, but. I tell you what, that episode is one of my favorites. And so if you haven’t listened, please go listen to it after you listened to this episode, cause that has nothing to do with this.

Are you ready to get started, Katelyn?

Katelyn Dekle: ready.

Colie: Okay, so let’s talk about your membership. Because, first of all, why did you want to build a membership? Like, what was your reasoning? Did you just wake up one day and you’re like, Uh, I want a membership with business people.

Katelyn Dekle: No, I was invited to be a co coach with Paige Brunton, so I do the monthly calls with her for her students. That happened in February 2022, and I’ve loved it, so I just wanted an additional space to do that with people that hang out with me because I’ve gotten really good engagement in my emails lately.

On my blog comments and everything, the YouTube channel is working really well, so it’s like, people seem to want more of Caitlyn, so,

Colie: I

Katelyn Dekle: I will give

Colie: of Caitlin, I don’t blend them.

Katelyn Dekle: so, I will give them a space.

Colie: Well, so let’s talk about who the membership is for. Because, It’s just business. I mean, it’s any kind of business owner. Why did you choose to be like really wide instead of, you know, they say the power is in niching down and blah, blah, blah. Like why did you choose to make the membership open to just anybody who owns a business?

Katelyn Dekle: That’s a good question. I don’t think that it really had a strategy because I tend to just attract a certain type of person and I enjoy those people. So whoever ends up in there, like tolerates me and my occasional cursing or whatever. And so that’s typically who ends up in the, the freeloaders plan, which is the free plan.

And then on the paid plan, it tends to be like new web designers specifically, but they’re in different niches.

Colie: So that’s really interesting. So you’re actually attracting different people to your different levels. So let’s talk about the levels because first of all guys, I literally almost spit out my coffee when I got the email from her about the freeloader plan. Like I was like, number one, that’s so fucking brilliant, but number two, only you would use language like that, which I immediately went and joined as a freeloader.

I, I feel a certain kind of way about being a freeloader, but we’ll get to that later. But so you’re attracting all business members to the freeloader. Why do you think that web designers are the ones that are choosing the paid plan? Like, what is it that’s differentiating between the free plan and the paid plan?

To where web designers are like, yeah, I want to pay you every month to be in your world. Caitlin.

Katelyn Dekle: It’s typically access. So, I’m in the Freeloader group. I post every Monday some random mindset piece or occasional meme that I find is funny. I recently bought this gem on Amazon.

Colie: Okay. Fucks to give. Oh my God, guys. She literally bought a bottle that says fucks to give and it has fucks inside of it. Jesus Christ.

Katelyn Dekle: So, I share, so I share random goodies in the Freeloader group, but I don’t tend to, like, actually answer tons of questions in there, because there’s more people in there than there are in the private space, and I just can’t. So, in the private space, they have monthly call access to me. They can ask me questions, send me DMs, like, whatever they want to do.

I have Loom video responses. So it’s mostly just access. They want to be able to pick my brain, basically.

Colie: So, and I find it very interesting that the web designers are the ones that want to pick your brain. Why do you think web designers are attracted to you? Like, do you have any offers that are specifically for web designers outside of like the paid tier of your membership?

Katelyn Dekle: No. I don’t yet. I don’t yet. No. It is in the works. It is outlined and needs to be recorded, but there will be a course that will be part of it. So not available yet. And in the interim, I’m just kind of using the people that are in there to help me figure out what they want to know so I can record that and not what I think they want to know.

Colie: So Caitlin, you’re basically doing paid market research off of your membership. Guys, I That’s absolutely bloody brilliant. And you know that I think this, , I will say though, why do you think that people find you and want to learn from you as a web designer, because I have theories, so I want you to tell me what you think first, and then I’m going to give you my unsolicited opinion, because this is my podcast.

Katelyn Dekle: I want your opinion. So, I think one is that because I’m a co coach with Paige and I’m in her audience world, they know me, they’re often in the calls, so they know they have access to me through that and a few of them have joined the paid membership with me because of that. There’s Yeah, there’s also a fair number that found me through YouTube that love my teaching style.

They find me relatable, approachable, friendly,

Colie: All of those things are true.

Katelyn Dekle: Yeah, so, I, I mean, that’s best guess scenario. I tend to attract a lot of that. All of my blog content before the YouTube channel was also very, like, DIY friendly because I’m trying to attract the people who have found me. done and fucked up their websites.

Colie: Girl, yes.

Katelyn Dekle: So for my personal services. But it also tends to attract the people who are like me, but like eight years ago.

Colie: Mm hmm. Okay, so you touched on why I think people find you. Girl, I think that your SEO is amazing. I think that your blog content brings in a lot of people. Because I will say, The few people that you and I have in common, they have specifically told me that they found you because they googled something related to like Dubsado and then they saw the nice little shout out that you gave me at the bottom that was like, and if you need help with your Dubsado, please come check out Colie because she is the magician that rocked my world.

I mean, I think I’ve literally heard this five times in the last 30 days. Exactly. Like you, you see your face, but no, like seriously, like people are like, I Googled this and I found you through, and I actually had a discovery call. They didn’t end up hiring me, but I think it was last October. And how she found me was because she was trying to use QuickBooks to get paid.

Like you were when I initially set you up and she had Googled something related to it and she found the blog post where you mentioned that you had worked with me. So she came to me thinking that I was going to give her like some magical answer. And I was like, yeah, no, it doesn’t do what you want it to do.

Katelyn Dekle: No, it

Colie: you can either hire me and we can, we can figure out another way. And then I think at that point you had stopped using the thing that we had set up together.

Katelyn Dekle: Oh no, I’m still using it. Just slightly different.

Colie: Okay. And so I was just like, I’m not even sure that Caitlin’s doing it that way anymore, but it was just this weird, like, I was like, Oh my God, like, how can I get Caitlin to write more blog posts about me?

Because clearly her SEO is really kicking my SEO’s ass. I was just like, okay, like, this is super amazing. And I was thinking to myself, how can I get all of my past clients to just blog about their experience with me? On their own websites and like link back to my website. So I feel like if people are in, like you said, the DIY stage.

They’re going to find you, especially if they’re trying to do a Squarespace website in particular, because you do other things, but like, that’s your jam. And then I feel like you’re also getting the website designers because you talk a lot in your blog posts about your process and the mistakes that you’ve made and the, you know, the fixes that you found.

And then also more recently, I’ve come across a lot of people who are talking about like your templates in terms of managing your client experience. And so I think all of those things set you apart. But the reason that people are finding you is that SEO component.

Katelyn Dekle: Yeah, I think so, too. I built the blog first, and still to this day, for the last, three to five years, that’s where the majority of my actual, like, paying clients come from is Google searches. So Mm

Colie: I had a guest who was, it will have aired by the time this episode airs, but she said that the most common mistake that she finds entrepreneurs using is, or that we’re guilty of rather, is we have a done for you service. But we are trying to convince people to DIY.

I mean, that’s not exactly what she said, but it was the messaging. It’s like your messaging, like you’re telling people how easy it is to DIY, but then you’re trying to sell them a done for you service. So how do you think that your blog posts are still kind of like, this is what you could do the DIY, like what’s your spin that’s still making people come hire you either to build their website or to like get all of your web designer, you know, knowledge out of you.

Like, how is it that you’re presenting it? that it isn’t a problem when you’re talking about like the DIY stage, because almost every business owner goes through a DIY stage. And I talk about it a lot. Like I know you want to DIY your systems. And when you get tired of watching endless YouTube videos, please just come find me and I will help you solve it, you know, very quickly.

Katelyn Dekle: hmm. That’s exactly what I was gonna say. All of the people that have found me through those types of blog posts, because they were trying to solve a problem, they realized, ultimately, that either they don’t have the time or the skill, or they’re just not good at it. Like, they can figure out how to do it, but that doesn’t mean it looks the way they want it to look.

And so, ultimately, That’s what drives them to work with me because they realize at some point one of those things is true And they’re not okay with it. They want help Yes,

Colie: interviewed you for a case study on my work with you, you gave me that absolutely fantastic quote that if I could, I would like tattoo it on my chest. You said that I was able to do for you in one day what you couldn’t do in five years.

And I just think that summarizes like every single entrepreneur’s DIY challenge. Anything that you are spending a significant time learning, there is always someone that you can pay to make it go faster, to make it better. And so it’s like a seesaw. It’s like, at what point do you decide that you’re tired of balancing and you just want to hop off and get that, you know, that magical fast pass, if you will.

I’m sorry, I’m having Disney withdrawals. So I’m going to talk about like, it’s like a genie pass. It’s like you pay a little bit of money or a lot of money. And you get to jump to the front of the line and then your stuff is just done immediately.

Katelyn Dekle: Yeah. Yeah, cuz I can do it in two weeks. It might have taken them six months to feel like crap about it. So

Colie: Yeah, but then the website is done and it’s beautiful and I think that, you know, there’s that perfection piece where I feel like there are a lot of people that are like, okay, I’m really tired of DIYing, but I also don’t have my shit together well enough to hire someone and they don’t just think to themselves, but the person that you hire is going to help you figure your shit out.

I feel like that’s that piece that’s missing. People are like, okay, but I don’t, I don’t know what my processes are. Well, that’s okay, because I’m going to be here to tell you what your processes should

Katelyn Dekle: Or, even better, I will figure out the website shit and I will send you to Colie so she can figure out your website

Colie: processes! I mean, we are working very well together in that respect, Katelyn. like, it’s the same thing with the website.

Katelyn Dekle: Mm hmm.

Colie: People will be like, Oh, but I don’t know what I want my website to do. Yeah, that’s okay. When you hire an expert like Caitlin, they’re going to help you figure that out. We do not expect you to come to us with all of the answers.

We just want to be able to talk to you. And through that, that is how we get, you know, the end result as we see it. I mean, I recently on a strategy call. Two hours and 45 minutes of talking. And it was the last 15 minutes that I was like, Oh my God, I got it. And then I’m just scribbling like all the steps, all the forms that they needed, all the emails.

And the client was just staring at me. And I’m like, okay, I know what I need to do now. Is there anything that you felt like I missed? Because I’m ready to go. I’m ready to get started. But I mean, literally two hours and 45 minutes into a three hour call. And I am just asking her question after question.

My favorite thing to do is give people pushback. Like they’ll tell me they want something and I’m like, okay, here’s why I wouldn’t do that. I lay it all out. Now, if you still want it. You’re paying me. I will set it up that way, but I highly recommend that you don’t do that. But like you’re paying me for my expertise.

You’re paying for someone else to help you figure it out and then actually implement it. So making sure that everybody knows that. When you hire a professional, there’s usually a strategy piece along with the implementation piece. And guess what? We don’t expect you to know the strategy piece before you get to us.

That’s our job. We’d love

Katelyn Dekle: Right, and if they did know that, then maybe they wouldn’t need us in the first place.

Colie: Maybe they could do the DIY.

Katelyn Dekle: Right, exactly, yeah. I’m

Colie: Okay. So that was like a nice little tangent and I apologize everyone. We are going to get back to this membership talk. So let’s talk about. Why did you decide to have the freeloader tier? Cause I just, I think it’s so brilliant and I, I’ve heard of people doing like a free initial trial, but like, you’ve just got this.

Hey, you join and it’s just free for the foreseeable future. Why did you feel like that was an important part of building a membership for you?

Katelyn Dekle: One, I think, was cost effectiveness. Like, because I happen to know a lot of my audience crosses over with Someone else who they’ve paid good money for the courses for. It feels a little bit like, well, I really need the access, but, like, I just bought this. It’s a two or three thousand dollar thing or whatever.

So how can I get access without getting access? But also because I really kind of wanted like a Facebook group, I started with that. And then I thought, actually, no, I don’t love the idea of Facebook just because like, I don’t know. It’s Facebook.

Colie: I mean, and you feel like every time you go on Facebook, if you want to go for like a personal reason, you feel obligated to go check your business reason. And that’s just, I have a very, very big love, hate relationship

Katelyn Dekle: I do, too. Yeah, it’s distracting, so when you’re in there, like, you’re getting notifications for other stuff, and if you’re anything like me, you’re in, like, 50 groups, and it’s not doing anybody any good, and

Colie: So, I mean, let’s talk about where the membership is because we, that’s like the elephant in the room, I guess that we haven’t addressed. You decided to build your membership on Circle. And I do think that for us who were in like the business world, It is much more common for you to have outside, outside groups, outside resources on things like, circle or heartbeat or any of those other, type of membership places where you can have a community.

But like, I still feel like in photography, we’re really stuck in Facebook. Like when I had my very first course. Don’t laugh at me, Katelyn. I built it on a BB bulletin. Is that what it was called? I don’t even remember. This is like 10 years ago. I don’t know. But I put my course on like a BB Bulletin thing, and then I tried to move the support group off of Facebook there and my, participation plunged, like absolutely plunged to a halt, but I just didn’t want to go on Facebook anymore.

And so I was okay that it didn’t happen. It plunged. I was just okay because I wasn’t willing to go back to Facebook and like have that, I want to be on here for personal reasons, but I feel obligated to answer every single ding that I get. But you chose Circle. Tell me why. What was it that just screamed that this was a good place for you to put your membership?

Katelyn Dekle: I am actually in I don’t know. Six other memberships that are in Circle, besides my own, and I’m familiar with it. It also feels very similar to Facebook in like, the way that you expect to interact with things, liking and commenting and following things and whatever. Um, but also, the, uh, descriptions and comments and stuff like that, they have like, code snippets.

Which is great. So if I need to paste in a code to like help guide somebody through some CSS or if I need to troubleshoot something with their Dubsado forms or whatever, like that’s really easy to do. It’s a lot harder to do that kind of thing in Facebook. If I do the next tier up, they also have like live streaming rooms and stuff like that.

So I could do the calls in the group, store the videos there. So there’s a lot of upsides. I tried Mighty Networks. It’s not a fit for me. It’s confusing.

Colie: I’ve actually heard that a lot. I’ve actually been part of, several, I guess, groups that were attached to like memberships or courses. And like you would be on Mighty Networks and then like 60 days later, okay guys, we’re going back to Facebook or okay guys, we’re going to try Circle or whatever else it is that they decided that they wanted to try.

I do feel like there’s a lot of flip flopping because it’s hard. It’s really hard to know. what software is going to work for you until you actually put everyone in because you could think that it’s a perfect fit and once you actually get numbers you’re like okay no actually this is shit how can i easily move everyone somewhere else as quickly as possible

Katelyn Dekle: Right. So, that’s the baseline I started because I was familiar with it, from being a member in some other groups. And I know there’s like, Uscreen and some other options too, but like, I’m just, this seemed like the easiest place to start. If I didn’t want it to be on Facebook, and I didn’t. I mean, also, like, it’s really hard to have a paid membership if it’s on Facebook because you’ve got, like, routes of other platforms to use to get people in and out, and then you gotta manage their billing, and I don’t want to manage any of that.

It was kind of like, join when you want, cancel when you don’t. I don’t care.

Colie: with no work from you so let’s talk about that you are for the paid tier They are signing up through Circle and they are paying you through Circle. Now, I know the benefits. You don’t have to do the administration. What’s the drawback?

Katelyn Dekle: Um, there are I don’t know if it’s my tier, like what I’m paying for, for the service, but like, I actually don’t get notified when I have new members join. I don’t get notified when people cancel, so I do have to like, go in there manually and check. Those aren’t great things, but they’re not really deal breakers, and if I change my tier, I’m sure I can sapier some stuff together, but not on the one that I’m on, so,

Colie: was going to say you can’t even set up a ZAP now because literally I know you saw the words about to come out of my

Katelyn Dekle: I did.

Colie: That is interesting to know.

Katelyn Dekle: Yeah, no API access on the basic. You get it on the next level up.

Colie: Okay, so how has it been thus far? Is running the membership actually costing you money or are the paid members that you have actually paying for the software that it takes to build this community?

Katelyn Dekle: They are paying for it, essentially. It’s, I think last year, it came out to 3, 500, 4, 000, something like that, with six to ten members,

Colie: Okay, so you’re not paying out of pocket for the software or anything like that. That’s great. I mean, you know, I like to ask everybody, I don’t care what it is that you do. I’ve most recently been asking a bunch of like photographers that are coming on, talking about opening studios. I’m like, okay, but like, break it down for me.

Your lease versus what people are paying you to rent it. Like, when did you break even? When did you start making a profit and it didn’t cost you? And I was just so shocked that like, The last few studio members that I’ve asked, one of them was like, Oh no, I was in the green before it actually opened. Like I had enough paying members to where it covered my lease and then some.

And I was just like, that’s like the dream. Okay.

Katelyn Dekle: that is

Colie: So Caitlin, long term, what are your goals for the membership?

Katelyn Dekle: So, introverted, never would have thought that I’d be teaching, be on podcasts, have a YouTube channel, none of that stuff. That said, when I started teaching clients in the offboarding process on their one to one services, and I started realizing that I get a lot of positive feedback from my teaching style and how I explain things.

And so that kind of morphed into, okay, I could actually be a decent teacher. And people seem to be relating to me quite well as a teacher, so maybe I could actually do that. Now I’m at the point now where I think I want to split my year, essentially, between client work and education, and so the long term goal would be to put a course in the membership that comes with the membership or purchasable separately, and that would be probably process based, like what it’s like to do the thing that I do for one to one clients.

Colie: Website design. I just felt like I had to say that and remind the listening audience because I feel like, and earlier in this series, when I talked to Brittany McBean, we actually talked about when you choose to do the education or the templates or whatever it is that you do beyond your services, you usually choose one of two paths.

You either create something to educate the clients that you actually work with. or you create something to help people do what you do. And so you are choosing the second path. You are choosing to create something for other website designers, um, so that they can do better at their one to one client work, which is amazing.

Mm

Katelyn Dekle: time. Like, when do I send them access to this or that thing? When do we transfer ownership? How do we get their content? How do you get better content? All of these questions. And after this point, where I’ve been doing this for a few years, I’ve got it pretty nailed down.

And They’re always shocked that, like, my discovery calls are actually only 20 to 30 minutes tops. And they’re like, how do you get, how do you know what you’re doing? How do you know that’s right? I’m like, it’s practice, experience. It’s so, over time, like, as you keep getting the same questions over and over again, you’re like, okay, clearly people just want the answer specifically from me.

I mean, I know the answers are out there from other people, but they’re all doing other things. So if they want to know how I’m doing a two week website or a three week Brandon website in Squarespace specifically and what that process looks like getting the, and now I’m starting to get testimonials from these members where they’re like, Oh my God, dream client.

It’s going great. I’m booked through February. I’m like, yes, this is working.

Colie: Yes, it is working. And I feel like all of us, you know, shortcuts, get a bad name. I can’t remember. It was an episode on talk, copy to me with Erin Alilla. And I can’t remember who she was talking to, but they were talking about, you know, everybody wants a shortcut. And I’m like, a shortcut is not bad.

As long as it’s a shortcut that is applicable to you. And if you need to tweak it, you take the time to do it. And you said people could learn from other people and that’s true, but the danger of like letting YouTube University be your guide or your educator, if you will, is that you try to take pieces from all the different people that you love.

And while each of those pieces work for those people, there’s specific reasons that they work for those people. And when you take all those things, and you put it together, there is bound to be some things that like, knock up against each other. And it’s like, okay, no, you can’t do that and this. But you don’t actually have enough knowledge to recognize that to make changes.

And so I do highly recommend for something like this. Like if you can find a guide or an educator that is giving you their path of how they do something, it is a shortcut. And after you’ve implemented it and you’ve gone through it, that’s when you will be more knowledgeable in how you. and your service is different from the guide or the educator that you’ve chosen.

And then you can kind of take what they’ve given you as like, you know, this roadmap, and then you can start to diverge and make different choices and add in additional steps that make it more your own and aligned with your actual business.

Katelyn Dekle: Yeah, that’s exactly the whole, that’s what I do, because I actually just met with somebody on a discovery call a couple of weeks ago that had that exact problem. They were like, I have DIY’d my website, I am actually a web designer, but I don’t feel like it sounds like me. And he, he was saying like, I’ve gotten copy inspiration from all these places, and I was like, that’s your problem.

It’s not, it doesn’t sound like you, because you didn’t get the inspiration from, you got it from like 10 other people.

Colie: Mm hmm.

Katelyn Dekle: that, so it sounds like 10 other people.

Colie: Mm hmm.

Katelyn Dekle: And the same goes for your processes, too. I think if you pull little bits and pieces together from 10 different people, when you don’t understand the relationship that they have with each other, You can’t make it a cohesive process or a cohesive website design or a cohesive strategy because they’re like different pieces coming together.

They don’t make one puzzle.

Colie: Yeah. Absolutely. So Caitlin, I know I’m going to push you. Okay. If you wanted to set a goal for your membership and how many members you needed, give me a goal that you can shoot for so that I can check back in with you and see if you’ve hit it. So like by July or by the end of 2024, like what’s your goal?

Katelyn Dekle: My goal. That’s a good question. I really like the size that it is now, which is about 15 people, and that feels manageable on video, like group video calls. I feel like if it got much bigger than that. Then I might have to start turning people away, at least until I have the capacity for that.

Colie: Yeah.

Katelyn Dekle: Um, but the membership itself is, I’m gonna top it off for now at 100.

So I don’t want to get any bigger than that.

Colie: I like it. So just one final question, if anybody in the listening audience is like, you know what I’ve been really thinking of, like, creating a membership in whatever you do. I mean, Caitlin is general business owners and her freeloader. I just never get tired of saying that in her freeloader tier.

And then she’s got about 15 paid members in her paid tier. And those are, those seem to be two distinct audiences now, but if anybody is like, I want to dip my toes in memberships, like what advice would you give them so that they can learn from the mistakes that you’ve made while you got yours off the ground?

Okay.

Katelyn Dekle: any clear mistakes. yet, I don’t think, because I’ve been very strategic. When I first opened it, I sent an email to five people maybe on my email list that had been very engaged in my emails recently at that point. And I was like, Hey, I’m opening this thing. If you’d be interested, here’s early access.

The price is going to be different now than it will be like six months from now. So they joined. I have used that kind of as a founder’s level. to figure out what needs to be added, what I can tweak. So, I don’t really have any mistakes, but I think that’s because I’m listening to what they’re asking

Colie: did slow growth, which, Hey, but I also think that people can learn from the fact that you figured out who you’re most engaged. In other words, your warmest hottest leads for those of us that think in that language, like you went to them first to say, Hey, I’m creating this new offer.

Would you be interested in a founder’s price? And I think you and I would agree that that’s solid advice. Regardless what the new offer that you’re making is, whether it’s a brand new VIP day or a new templated, uh, offer, or, you know, whatever it is, if you go to your hottest leads, they’re the ones that are likely to take you up on a founder’s rate or whatever it is.

And they’re also the most likely to give you that feedback that you need going forward so that you can make tweaks before you, and you know, you invite the whole world. To

Katelyn Dekle: Well, I have to say, when I emailed them to tell them about the new thing, it was like, this is what it is, but it’s not open yet. Here’s the sales page. Help me, like, figure out the wording a little bit. Like, see if this is a good fit for you, basically. Several of them, I kid you not, wrote me like a thousand words in feedback. And they were like, this phrasing sounds funny. That name of this could be this or that, like, Freeloader was, like, hitting kind of wrong for them, and I wrote back and explained. And so I wrote back and was like, actually, I don’t really mind if it sounds, I don’t want it to sound derogatory, but I also want to call it what it is.

Like,

Colie: definitely your personality though, Caitlin. I don’t mind being called a freeloader from you. I take it all in jest. I think it’s awesome.

Katelyn Dekle: Good. That was the

Colie: And you want to attract people that think it’s awesome. So if they read that and they’re like, uh, no, those are probably not your people. Those are not the people that you want to be in your membership.

Katelyn Dekle: Yes, that is exactly what I told her. So I think in that process of them like reading through the sales page and helping to give this the direction that I wanted, it helped me get the sales page more defined into the audience that I thought was going to use it the most. Several people wrote back and were like, holy shit, when can I join? And several people literally told me some things to the effect of, I was reading it and thought, Nope, not another thing. I am not buying another damn thing. And then they, they ended up deciding at the end of the sales page, they were going to join. And so I was like, okay, it’s working. Yeah. So it was good feedback.

It helped me revise it. It also helped me bring in founding members. And then from there we’ve kind of adjusted. I would say one mistake that I have made was that I thought. I would like to do weekly calls.

Colie: Okay.

Katelyn Dekle: I do like that. However, I do not have the time for that.

Colie: Okay.

Katelyn Dekle: So, I guess that would be my number one takeaway, is like, to really think through how Yeah.

Mm hmm. Long term. I did it for six months, though.

Colie: one also, like I would have done the opposite of you. I would have promised bi weekly calls or even monthly calls. And then, you know, Hey, I’m going to do a bonus one this week. Does anybody want to join? Like, I think I’m bare minimum and then really go in versus promising the kitchen sink and then taking it away.

I mean, yeah.

Katelyn Dekle: Yeah, that’s what I ended up doing. So, when I took it away, I had to figure out the pricing structure because I was removing access to me on some levels. So, there were two tiers originally, and that was also something I decided

Colie: were two paid tiers.

Katelyn Dekle: there was a VIP and then there was a basic level, and I just, that plus the free was like,

Colie: A lot to manage.

Katelyn Dekle: it was a lot to me, and it surprised me.

So, I decided when I took the calls away, the extra ones, then I would. Pull it back and meet in the middle. Yeah.

Colie: Simplify, Caitlin. That’s that word you’re looking for,

Katelyn Dekle: Yep. It was much better.

Colie: I mean, we all love that, right? I mean, and sometimes we just don’t know what we don’t, what we don’t know. And that’s why it’s so important to number one, be open to feedback, but also number two, be open to revising your own offers. I feel like so many people put something out there and they’re just like, no, I just, I can’t revise it.

Why not? Who told you that you weren’t allowed to do it? Last time I checked, you own your business. You can do whatever the hell you want. As long as. You are not taking something away from someone who, from someone who’s already paid you for that thing. But the brilliant thing about a membership is, I mean, if you’re, if you’re adjusting what the offer is, you could also adjust what the price is.

And you know, as long as you fulfill for the month that they’ve already paid for, you get to do whatever you want.

Katelyn Dekle: Yeah, it’s been, it’s been a good transition and I’ve had lots of candid conversations with the members talking through this and just being very transparent and saying like, I love these weekly meetings. But I don’t see myself being able to do this forever, so I’m glad that I had the opportunity to do that, but I’m gonna have to cut it back down to once a month.

How does that feel? Like, if I take that away, what would you like me to add? So it’s really nice to have the sounding board to know that I’m not disappointing them. I mean, I want them to get their money’s worth every month that they’re in there, so they can leave whenever they want. I don’t want them to leave, but they can.

Colie: yeah, I mean, let’s throw this out there though. Like, I feel like what you’re giving them is very valuable. It’s a synchronous opportunity to have access to you. But I have heard more and more, I mean, myself included, of moving to things that are asynchronous. So have you ever thought about doing like Boxer access or creating a private podcast where people can ask you questions, but rather than getting live on a call, you’re answering them and just basically putting the answers in this private podcast feed.

I mean, I’ve just heard of a really. I’ve just heard recently of a lot of like really nuanced ideas on how you can still give people access, but it’s not tied to you having a specific availability inside of your schedule.

Katelyn Dekle: I have thought about Voxer Access. I don’t think podcasts would be a good fit because a lot of the questions that I get are visual.

Colie: That’s what I say. I mean.

Katelyn Dekle: Yeah. So, I think that would be a little bit hard. Like, I’ve done a lot of notion troubleshooting. I’ve done some Squarespace guidance and stuff like that. So, it’s very, like, on screen.

And that would be hard, but also Voxer would give me one other god awful app that has notifications. Yes, I just, I am not there at that place yet, but they do know that they can message me in the group and they do have audio voice messaging in the direct messages, so I can get audio messages in there.

And I do have two or three members that message me directly in the group a lot, like,

Colie: With audio.

Katelyn Dekle: Yeah. So, it’s kind of the same effect. They have that level of access to me in between the monthly calls. And then the monthly calls I don’t cap. So, I leave my afternoon open when we have them.

Colie: So that you get through everybody. That’s great.

Katelyn Dekle: So it’s not just limited to an hour.

I don’t like the, I do have a hot seat thing where like I ask everybody how they’re doing. I have a zoom timer on the call so it shows on the screen they have their five minutes or their ten minutes or whatever, depending on how many people show up live. Yeah. And then I just host the replays and they can watch those later.

Colie: This all sounds great. Caitlin. I can’t wait to see where you go with this membership even being in your freeloader group If people want more information because we said your name at the beginning But we also didn’t say your business name Which is always funny because I like to say your business name as much as possible So tell the listening audience where they can find you on the internet cuz guys her name is not her business name

Katelyn Dekle: No, you can find Launch the damn thing, at launch the damn thing.com, the sales page for the membership so you can learn all about it is slash Club. So really easy to find. It’s also navigation in several places. And you can join the free Freeloader plan anytime you want to. There’s also some hidden link somewhere that will actually give you two weeks of free all access.

If you want to check it out.

Colie: a hidden Easter Egg

Katelyn Dekle: Yeah. So you got to find it.

Colie: Okay all right, guys.

I hope that this episode has been very helpful for you. If you’ve had this inkling in the back of your mind that you have wanted to try out a membership and just have no fucking idea how to do it. That’s it for this episode. See you next time.