The below comparison gets into more detail.
But the upside of a subscription service, like a paid newsletter, is that you remove:
- Hours on the phone are required in the coaching model.
- Logistics and management time that membership sites require.
What is a Life Coach?
Lifestyle gurus advise people on how they can make themselves happier through changes in their lifestyle. Life coaches guide their clients to improve their relationships, careers, and day-to-day lives. Life coaches work with individuals who are looking to create a pathway to reaching set goals.
Prospecting with phone calls. Hands down this is the most challenging aspect of life coaching. You will spend hundreds of hours playing phone tag. Often the person you are calling is simply looking to pitch you their product or service. It can be draining. And even if you decide to hire a team (another challenge because of the constant churn) you will need to make the calls initially to know what to expect.
Maintaining Boundaries. One of the hardest aspects of life coaching is the dependency issue. Your clients tend to depend on you and blame you for their lack of results.
Avoiding Imposter Syndrome. Many new life coaches never get over the imposter syndrome. Even after paying for their expensive training to become a life coach they still feel uneasy about the fees and their expertise.
Accent or English as a second language. Some people feel uncomfortable coaching because of English not being their primary language or having an accent.
Coaching requires a lot of time and patience. You wind up providing personal mentorship to dozens of people if you have success.
High Ticket Fees. The high ticket price tag that you are being told to charge can become a problem:
- You may feel uncomfortable asking for these high fees.
- You are encouraged to extend the refund period (sometimes as long as a year!). But shaky clients will often do the “family emergency” refund. Since your fees are so high this can have a huge impact on your bottom line.
- It can take so long to get your life coaching business going that you become frustrated and give up!
Everyone is not coachable. This is a fact that you are destined to discover through many hours on the phone. Insincere students ultimately want you to solve all of their problems for them.
What is a Membership Website?
In its simplest form, a membership website is a gated site that includes members-only content. They’re used by nonprofits, clubs, associations, and even businesses to “gate” content that only members have access to provide additional value.
One of the tricky problems with a membership site is the forum. Ideally, this is where your members come together to communicate and share. But in reality, often these wind up as spam sessions. Worst yet, well-meaning newbies will often give misleading advice.
Competition is high when it comes to membership sites. It can sometimes be difficult to find solid demand.
A membership site business can be a big time and money investment for your customer. You will need a longer conversion process and to stay in communication with prospects.
With membership sites, data loss and security issues may arise. You must understand exactly what you’re responsible for and how to avoid potential issues.
This type of transaction is a significant financial decision for your client. They tend to expect a lot from you. Plus many clients join, download your content and then refund!
Depending upon your products you may need to charge sales tax. If you are selling your products in various states, there may be different requirements. It can sometimes be tricky or expensive to set this up.
Churn. Membership sites can often have high churn rates. Which can make revenue forecasting challenging and unpredictable. It’s important to focus on your churn rates and trends so that you can prevent this as much as possible.
The development process for a membership site business can be quite complex, which may cause delays and challenges when launching and growing your product.
Your membership site business will require a long-term investment due to the need for updates, bug fixes, and security vulnerabilities. It’s important that you (or someone on your team) stays on top of this at all times.
If you bootstrap your business or choose not to pay yourself (or pay yourself less than you were making at your corporate job), this can be financially taxing. It’s important to adjust your lifestyle and set a plan for yourself so you don’t find yourself in a stressful situation.
Time demands. This is one of the major disadvantages of starting a membership site business. It’s important to understand that you may need to make yourself available on a 24/7 basis (or hire someone to do it).
What is a Paid Newsletter?
Paid newsletters are email campaigns that people pay to receive, usually on a yearly or monthly fee subscription base. They let you supplement your business and help make money building their brand.
Flexibility. You can start a paid newsletter on the side. It can fit into almost any schedule. You can start it from home and grow it to 6-figures as a one-person deep (single operator) business.
Rewarding work. Being able to explore your passion and help subscribers looking for solutions is fun and rewarding.
No phone calls. You don’t need to spend time on the phone to run or get subscribers for a paid newsletter!
Scalable. A paid newsletter is very easy to scale. Since we are talking about delivery through email you instantly have a global business.
Affordable! You can earn a great living, start on the side, and charge your subscribers less than $20 a month! Unlike the membership or coaching models when you lose a few subscribers it has no major impact on your business.
Low overhead costs. To get your paid newsletter business started, there are no costs associated with overhead, storage, packaging, etc. This will save you a lot of time and money.
High customer retention rates. Once you nail the product-market fit your subscribers stick. Primarily because they pay very little each month to access your content. This makes your paid newsletter indispensable to your subscribers.
High margins! Even charging a modest fee each month your margins are very lucrative. The gross margins for your paid newsletter business are typically around 83%, which is considerably high and allows you to grow your business and manage costs easily.
Control of workload. Because you are not stuck managing membership forums or making phone calls you choose how little or how much you want to work. You can batch your newsletters giving you the ability to take downtime and even travel if you choose. Plus you have the added advantage of being able to check-in from your hotel suite in the tropics!
Without Sponsors! In case you don’t know sponsors can become a nightmare. They are demanding and sometimes unreasonable. Your paid newsletter gives you the freedom to call your own shots and set your fees.
Unlimited income potential. With a paid newsletter business there is no cap as to how much income you can make. This is empowering and liberating.
Predictable and saleable. Your paid newsletter allows you to predict monthly revenue, plus or minus a small percentage. And paid newsletters are an extremely attractive purchase. New business owners will often pay 3 to 5 times your annual earnings!
You get to do something you truly love. With a paid newsletter business, you get to put your energy into something you are truly passionate about! This makes it easy and fun to devote time to it.
You can work from anywhere! Not only can you start your paid newsletter business from home, you can also run your business from anywhere in the world. This is the entrepreneur’s dream.
Strong Demand & Relatively Recession Proof. The demand for paid newsletter businesses is increasing year over year and the business is known to be relatively recession-proof.
Make money while you sleep. You can earn passive income and make money while you sleep. Plus you can start this venture on the side while working your 9 to 5 job.
Important Point!
The paid newsletter model we promote is getting 1,000 subscribers to pay you $9 a month. (This is a six-figure income that can be run part-time).
Our PaidLetter Course teaches you how to lower the number of subscribers and increase the subscription fee servicing lucrative markets.
FYI
Since you are not wasting time with the logistics of coaching or membership sites you can easily create 2 or 3 paid newsletters with the time saved.