Surviving Survivor® and Making 6 Figures off a $9/mo Membership Program (with Liz Wilcox)

Sarah [00:00:00]:

Welcome to the frugalpreneur podcast. I'm your host, Sarah St. John, and I'm excited today because I have a return guest. She's hoping if you're watching Who

Liz Wilcox [00:00:08]:

is currently making her laugh, get on with it.

Sarah [00:00:11]:

Liz Wilcox is some of you may know her as an email marketing guru. Other people might know her as, the top 4 finalists for the last season of survivor. Welcome to the show. Thanks for coming back on.

Liz Wilcox [00:00:25]:

Oh my gosh. Yes. I listen y'all. When I first heard of the frugalpreneur, I was like, oh my gosh, that's so me. I love making money. I hate spending money. So I feel like that's what a frugalpreneur is. So I'm so excited to be back.

Liz Wilcox [00:00:43]:

Thanks so much, Sarah.

Sarah [00:00:44]:

No. Yeah. I I would love having you back. I think I've only had 2 other people on my show twice. So you're the the third person I've had on twice.

Liz Wilcox [00:00:53]:

So Okay. And 3 is a lucky number, so buckle up. Maybe you're doing the dishes right now. Maybe you're walking the dog. This is gonna be a great episode. I can feel it.

Sarah [00:01:02]:

And you're wearing your in sync shirt. You're all

Liz Wilcox [00:01:05]:

ready to go. I am ready. If you can't see me right now, if you're just listening, I've got, like, rainbow headband, in sync. I'm ready to go.

Sarah [00:01:15]:

So last time you were on, we talked about email marketing. I wanna talk about your $9 month membership program. But before we get into that, I wanna talk a little bit about survivor, because it'd be kind of weird if we didn't. I remember, you know, it was interesting. We met each other in person at pod Fest in January in Orlando. I didn't even know you were gonna be there. And I just saw you in the hall and I was like, Liz, because you'd already been on my show like months prior to that. So I recognized you.

Sarah [00:01:44]:

And then like, we went out to dinner and it was at dinner that you told us that you were gonna be on the next season, but that's all you could say. You couldn't say anything else.

Liz Wilcox [00:01:53]:

Yeah. Well, literally I couldn't even tell you that, but I was y'all, I was bursting at the seams. It was like 2, maybe 2 weeks before we could officially announce it. And I was like, oh my gosh, you know, I've got, I've got to tell her, like, she's gonna freak out. This is gonna be so cool. And, yeah, so I was on survivor, like Sarah said, I got 4th place. If you don't know anything about survivor, that means you just barely got cut off. So 4th place, the final 3 make it to the end and get to compete for the $1,000,000 in front of the jury.

Liz Wilcox [00:02:30]:

I was 4th place. It still hurts, and it's been like a year and a half.

Sarah [00:02:34]:

Yeah. I was so frustrated, well, for a while there, because basically what got you eliminated was the fire starting challenge.

Liz Wilcox [00:02:42]:

Yeah. So in 4th place, you have to make fire. They put you against somebody and whoever makes fire first goes to the final 3. So it's not like I even got voted out, but technically, I guess I did get, they were like, Liz, she's gotta go. They put this other person in fire who was very much better than me at making fire. So I, of course, lost and had to cry myself back to the jury.

Sarah [00:03:09]:

Well, for a while there, it almost looked like you were gonna win, but maybe that's how they edited it. I don't know.

Liz Wilcox [00:03:15]:

Yeah. That was how they edited it. So the fire making, this is movie magic. Right? It took 22 minutes. And let this be a lesson for, like, if you're watching even other entrepreneurs do their thing and you're like, oh, it's so easy. Even just posting on Instagram, that's like an edited version of their business. Right? And so to Sarah's point with the fire making the way they did it, it looked like I was way ahead of the game. And I was for, like, the first three minutes.

Liz Wilcox [00:03:46]:

And then we had 19 more minutes of me not being able to start the fire, and Kenzie was the other person getting the fire going and winning.

Sarah [00:03:56]:

Mhmm. And then ultimately, she won the whole thing.

Liz Wilcox [00:03:58]:

My only solace is, well, she beat me. She beat everybody. You know? Get over it.

Sarah [00:04:03]:

So I'm curious. We only see certain things, obviously, but is there anything that you wish that we knew or that would be interesting for us to know kinda behind the scenes stuff?

Liz Wilcox [00:04:16]:

If you have watched it or you go ahead and you say, oh, I heard that Liz on a podcast. I'm gonna watch her season. Just know I'm actually a really nice lady. Sarah will tell you

Sarah [00:04:26]:

Yes.

Liz Wilcox [00:04:27]:

The way that I was portrayed is honestly, it's very funny to me. It's not harmful. It didn't hurt me. I was portrayed as this rich kind of very aloof, not really knowing what's going on. Nobody really likes her type of person, and it could not have been further from the truth. I was pretending to be super rich. Most people really liked me. If you watch closely, you'll note that I didn't receive any votes.

Liz Wilcox [00:04:54]:

No one ever voted for me until the very end when they said you gotta go into fire. Because they realized, oh, crap. She's made it to the end, and no one's voted for her on top of some other things. Everybody likes her. She's gotta go. So I think that's an interesting thing is, again, not everything is what it seems. Of course, survivor is a real show, just like when you're watching people share their results. Those are probably real results, but there's so much that goes into making that moment into having that scene into the dynamics of it, that not everything is what it seems, I guess.

Sarah [00:05:35]:

And are they filming 247?

Liz Wilcox [00:05:37]:

Yeah. They filmed 24 7. There's never not a camera on you. And so even at night, they have 1 or 2 people that are filming at all times. The only time they don't film you, of course, is when you use the bathroom. So you have to use code word. If you ever watch the show and you hear someone say, I'm going to Coconut Grove, they normally cut that out. But if you ever hear that, that means I'm going to the bathroom.

Liz Wilcox [00:06:03]:

The cameras, please don't follow me.

Sarah [00:06:06]:

Oh, wow. Interesting.

Liz Wilcox [00:06:08]:

Yes. It's like code for you don't have to follow me. I'm just going to the bathroom.

Sarah [00:06:12]:

Is there anything that you wish you had done differently, or are you pretty satisfied with your everything that you did? And I'm just curious, like, sort of threats or anything.

Liz Wilcox [00:06:23]:

So if you don't know me, I am a kind of 0 to a 100 kind of chick. I don't live life with a lot of regrets and even I got so close to $1,000,000 and you can just Google the way that I lost. It was not gracefully. But I don't I don't have any regrets. What I did got me incredibly far in the game. I guess the only thing I wish I would have done was practice fire more. That was something I did intentionally. I didn't want to go into fire because I do have, like, this weird wrist thing.

Liz Wilcox [00:06:57]:

You can probably hear my wrist cracking.

Sarah [00:06:59]:

Yeah.

Liz Wilcox [00:07:00]:

And so my wrists are constantly popping out of sockets. It's actually really hard for me to, like, make fire. So I didn't wanna go into fire, And so I kept telling people, oh, I can't make fire. I can't make fire. And I kept doing these things that would make someone want to sit next to me at the end, would make them think, oh, Liz could never win. Suppose doing that on purpose, but I guess I didn't do it well enough. I should have been practicing fire. That's really the only strategy that backfired on me.

Liz Wilcox [00:07:28]:

And if I had to do it again, of course I would change it. Of course I would be practicing fire and private.

Sarah [00:07:34]:

Yeah. And I think the scene that you're most famous for or well known for is the whole Applebee's thing. I saw that post about someone going as you for Halloween.

Liz Wilcox [00:07:44]:

So Dragon Con, I think it was. Still like a Comic Con thing. So what Sarah's talking about is someone cosplayed me. I think it's what it's called. So they dressed up as me. If you Google Liz Survivor, this is gonna pop up. I had an epic meltdown on the show, probably the biggest meltdown they've had in at least 10 years, if not 15. I've been told by some of the other survivor greats that it's a top ten moment of all time.

Liz Wilcox [00:08:10]:

I was just very hungry and I was freaking out because I wasn't getting this Applebee's reward. And if you know anything about Liz, it's that I love beef. I eat some kind of beef, like 7 to 12 times a week. And I hadn't eaten. I literally had not eaten 0 calories in 7:2 hours. And I just saw that burger. And this is kind of like in business, you see the thing and you give yourself hope. Right? And that day in survivor and a business, you know, you wanna have hope, but you also wanna curb your enthusiasm.

Liz Wilcox [00:08:47]:

Right? We can't just say, oh, I'm gonna make a $1,000,000 this year. If last year we made $10,000 Right? And so this was me saying I'm gonna eat today, even though I hadn't eaten in 3 days. And I didn't end up getting to eat the burger. I lost. No one picked me for the reward, and I had a meltdown. But what I wanna say is I only had the meltdown because someone asked me how I was feeling. The host asked me. I wasn't gonna say anything.

Liz Wilcox [00:09:16]:

I'm the type of person like, yes, I love attention. Obviously, like on this podcast, I asked to get on the podcast a second time. Right? When you have an online business, you have to vie for attention every single day. Right? But this is not the type of attention I like. And so if you watch the episode, you'll see I'm turning myself away because I don't wanna make it about me. And I only shared because Jeff, the host, asked me, Liz, how are you feeling? And so I told it like it was, I guess.

Sarah [00:09:49]:

You're like, I'm pissed.

Liz Wilcox [00:09:52]:

Yeah. I I screamed.

Sarah [00:09:54]:

Oh, I felt so bad for you.

Liz Wilcox [00:09:56]:

Don't feel bad. It's a game. Look. It's a game that I signed up for, and people are, oh, I feel bad. Liz isn't eating. It's like, yeah. I I know this is what I signed up for. And what I want you to know about that scene, if you if you're listening and you Google it later, is I want you to know how quickly I got over it.

Liz Wilcox [00:10:14]:

Yeah. You do. I did. I had a hissy fit. I did. There's no other way to say it. I had a hissy fit, but this is one thing that wasn't edited a lot. I almost immediately got over it.

Liz Wilcox [00:10:27]:

I took a couple deep breaths. I apologized to the person and to everyone around me. And then I said, let's get back to the game. And that's the same thing in business. Throw your hissy fit. If you do a webinar, nobody buys, and you just spent 3 months planning for it, have your hissy fit. I give you permission, but you have to move on from it. Mhmm.

Liz Wilcox [00:10:52]:

Just like survivor is a game, I had to move on in order to get to the next step. You know, I would have been voted off if I just kept going on and on and on and on and not playing the game. They would have said, oh, we lost Liz. Let's just get her out. Right. But it's the same in your business. If you keep harping on what was or what didn't work, you're not gonna get to the next level. You're voting yourself out essentially of your own business and success.

Sarah [00:11:19]:

I love how you're tying in the different things that happened and that you learned on survivor into how you could relate it to business. So I know one thing with the whole Applebee's quote, unquote meltdown, which it wasn't a huge meltdown. You, like you said, you got over it quickly, but it turned into like this whole social media thing where people would be going to applebee's and hashtagging and tagging you and whatever, ordering the bacon bourbon burger or whatever. So do you do you kind of look back and are you kind of almost glad that it happened because of the extra publicity that you got out of it?

Liz Wilcox [00:11:57]:

Oh, I mean, it happened number 1 for my own sanity. If I'm not had the hissy fit, so to speak, I would have stewed about it. It would have made me sick. Really why I'm glad. But to Sarah's point, of course it was hysterical. I know I'm the type of person that can laugh at myself. And really even in that moment, a couple hours later, we were all sitting around camp and we were all laughing about it. And I think Charlie, someone that was playing the game with me, he dropped something and he started screaming, pisses.

Liz Wilcox [00:12:30]:

I'm within hours, but that's the type of person I've had to become. You have to learn to laugh at yourself, especially in something as serious as survivor and survivor felt serious. It's $1,000,000 at stake. I left my family. I left my business to play this game. Don't get it twisted. I'm taking it seriously, but I couldn't take myself seriously. And so, yes, I love the memes.

Liz Wilcox [00:12:54]:

I love the tags. I love the cosplay If I didn't win, and I didn't win, I have that moment. And every day I talk to people that either just found joy in it, or even people I've had people reach out and say, I wish I would have seen a healthy way to get rid of your anger. Maybe I wouldn't have done the things I did in my childhood, my early adulthood. I would have known how to move through my anger. Because like I said, I I screamed. I got it all out, a few deep breaths, and then I said, thanks so much. You know, I apologize, but I also thanked everyone around me.

Liz Wilcox [00:13:37]:

I said, thanks letting me have that moment. I feel so much better back in the game. Mhmm. And so that to me has been more than the cosplay and the notoriety or the infamy we'll say it's probably survivor infamy or will be is getting to know people that said, that showed me that you can be angry and people will still like you. You can still move on from that anger. And that has been, so amazing for me.

Sarah [00:14:07]:

Yeah. That's a good way to look at it. Another moment that stood out to me, it was kind of towards the end ish, and I forget what the game was. And I wanna say it was Kinsey that you helped. But, basically, it was a situation where you knew you weren't going to to win this particular challenge. So instead of sitting around or, you help someone else win.

Liz Wilcox [00:14:31]:

Yeah. So this isn't something I mean, it's kind of been done maybe once before, but what Sarah's talking about is we were at the last 5. And in survivor, if you've never seen it, they have these individual challenges. And whoever wins the challenge cannot be voted out that night. Well, y'all, I'm really good at making sales with email, but I am terrible at puzzles. And at the very end of this challenge was this puzzle. And I was in between this person, Kenzie, who I was very close friends with, and this other person, Maria, who I wanted to lose. And that day before the challenge, the 4 of us against Maria said, Maria cannot win.

Liz Wilcox [00:15:13]:

1 of us has to win. 1 of us has to win. But to me, the objective was never, I have to win. It was Maria has to lose. And so I'm in between these two individuals and I see I'm obviously not going to win. I'm so far behind on the puzzle. There's no way I can win. But especially being an entrepreneur and being a frugal preneur, even you always have to think outside the box.

Liz Wilcox [00:15:38]:

You can't do things the traditional way. And so I said, well, I'm going to stop my puzzle because I'm forfeiting my win. There's no way I'm gonna win anyway, but maybe I could help someone else win. So that again, the objective Maria loses. And so I dropped what I was doing. I helped Kenzie and online. I got a lot of backlash. That's cheating.

Liz Wilcox [00:16:02]:

That's this that shouldn't have been allowed, but this is what I want people to walk away with. It's not the people that succeed in life. And in this moment in particular are the people that think outside the box are not the people that work the hardest. It's the people that work the smartest. I knew what I was doing was not working to hit the objective. Right? Same as you've probably been in business. Sarah's been in business and we get halfway through and we're like, we just know this isn't gonna work. Right? And is it smart to push through and finish, or do we need to pivot? Do we need to go back and figure something out? Do we need to get a partner, in order to make this webinar work or whatever? Right? And so that's all I was doing in the moment was not working harder.

Liz Wilcox [00:16:54]:

I could have worked harder, but I never would have caught up. But instead I worked smarter and my objective of that person, Maria leaving, it happened. And that's all that matters.

Sarah [00:17:07]:

Yeah. So I think it's kind of a lesson in strategy and also even, potentially, collaboration.

Liz Wilcox [00:17:13]:

Oh my gosh. Yes. Y'all collaborate. Don't hate collaborate. You know, like

Sarah [00:17:20]:

Oh, I love that.

Liz Wilcox [00:17:21]:

You heard it here first.

Sarah [00:17:22]:

Yeah. Get us t shirt with that on it.

Liz Wilcox [00:17:24]:

Right. It's so true. Like that is the fiercest competition I've ever been in. If you don't know anything about survivor final 5, you've beaten out 13 people and you've been starving for weeks. Like they don't give you food. This is a legit competition. But in that moment, I had to collaborate to get to the next step, to hit my objective. I could not do it alone.

Liz Wilcox [00:17:51]:

And I saw that this person, Maria, was going to be all 4 of us and blow up all of our plans. And so I had to collaborate. Right? It's the same in our business. It's the same when, oh, I'm trying to do the webinar. I'm trying to do that. Even reaching out in Facebook groups, do podcast interviews like this, all of it is collaborative effort. I can't stand the word solopreneur because there's no such thing. We all need each other.

Liz Wilcox [00:18:20]:

We all have to have some kind of collaborative efforts in our business in order to get to the next level.

Sarah [00:18:27]:

Yeah, that's a good point. And so I wanna kind of shift into your business. You know, I think we talked about your origin story and all this kind of stuff in the in the previous episode, which I will link to. But I'm curious. There's so many different ways with an online business, especially like an education type business to package things. You could do a course. You could do a mastermind. You could do all these different things.

Sarah [00:18:50]:

How did you decide to do a monthly membership? And then on top of that, a low ticket.

Liz Wilcox [00:18:57]:

Yeah. So listen, speaking of, like, thinking smarter, not harder, working smarter, not harder. Y'all I was in the service based business. I was a copywriter. I was selling high ticket stuff. But y'all that came with a lot of responsibility. If I sell a $7,000 package, guess what? Now I have to deliver $7,000 worth of product. Right? That's a lot.

Liz Wilcox [00:19:21]:

And I don't know about you, but when I turn off my computer, I've got a lot going on. I'm a single mom. I'm a sister. I'm a daughter. I'm this, I'm that I'm a lot to a lot of people. I'm more than just my clients. Right? And so thinking smarter, I was like, how am I gonna create a sustainable business? This is not sustainable for me. This causes me a lot of stress.

Liz Wilcox [00:19:50]:

I'm up at 4 am working on this stuff. I'm chained to my desk. If a client, especially for that amount of money, I personally, this might not be for you, but for me personally, if I'm charging someone 7 to $10,000, I feel like I have to answer their email right away or with at least within that 12 hour frame. Right? And so I felt like I was constantly chained to my phone or my desk to make sure they were getting everything they needed, not sustainable. So I thought again, outside of the box, how can I switch this up? Oh, well, a membership, a membership is no, I don't have to worry about that ebb and flow of client work that was referrals. And as far as the low price, because my membership's only $9 I also knew I wanted to work smarter, not harder. If I just created this high ticket membership, I would still feel that same pressure. Right? If somebody's paying me a 100, $200 a month, that's a lot of money.

Liz Wilcox [00:20:55]:

A month? That's a lot of money. And so I was like, how can I relieve this pressure? So that's when I came up with the $9. For $9, I can turn off my computer and not stress that you just sent me an email 30 seconds ago, and I'm gonna answer it tomorrow. It also gave me, again, with the pressure, I knew $9 wasn't gonna give me a full time income, but I knew eventually it could. Right? Look at Netflix, look at Sam's Club, look at Costco. Those are all really low cost memberships that are in like the fortune 500. Right. And I don't need a million, 2,000,000, 10000 users.

Liz Wilcox [00:21:34]:

Maybe I need a thousand that's $9,000. Oh my gosh. What a dream. If I could replace this 7 to $10,000 client work with $9,000 a month, I can go out and I can find a 1,000 people. Surely. Maybe I can't do it in a year. Maybe it'll take me 2 years, but I got nothing but time here. And so that's kind of where it came from again, thinking smarter, thinking more in the future.

Liz Wilcox [00:22:01]:

What does my future self want? What does Liz want in 2 years from now? I know it's not this, so I better get to work today.

Sarah [00:22:10]:

Yeah. And so now how long have you had the membership that's $9?

Liz Wilcox [00:22:14]:

So I've had email marketing membership. That's the name of it. Mhmm. Since February 16, 2021. So at the time of this recording, it's been about 3 and a half years. Oh my gosh. That's so awesome. I haven't thought about that in a while.

Liz Wilcox [00:22:30]:

I love my membership so much. And for 3 and a half years, I've been promoting $9, $9, $9. The price has never gone up.

Sarah [00:22:39]:

Mhmm. Do you foresee it ever going up?

Liz Wilcox [00:22:43]:

Gosh, I hope not. Unless the dollar plummets tomorrow. And this is why I love this podcast frugalpreneur. Like I run a very lean business. And part of that is so that I don't have to raise the prices. I saw someone who has kind of a similar offer as my annual pass, which is the annual rate of my membership. And her price is more than doubling, I think in like a week or something. And my price was already less than hers and I'm not going to increase it this year.

Liz Wilcox [00:23:19]:

I really love that I can offer it for $9 a month. I love that beginners come in and they're able to get resources that are normally more expenses, expensive. Normally the price keeps going up every year. And so I, I love my price tag it. It if you're not watching the recording, like, I'm smiling so big. Like, I love being able to offer it for $9, and I really don't foresee upping that price anytime soon.

Sarah [00:23:51]:

Yeah. Yeah. I'm in it, and I feel like it's a no brainer because it's got, like, swipe file and videos, and I haven't even gotten through it all, but I I love it. And so how did you come up with $9? Is it just because you wanted it to be under 10, I guess?

Liz Wilcox [00:24:07]:

It's under $10. So for me at the time, my trip wire was $22 So the thing, when you sign up for my email list, you go to a sales page. That's called a trip wire. It was $22 and it wasn't selling the way I wanted it to sell. You know, it was converting. Sure. I think like a 3 or 4% conversion rate, which were for a tripwire is fine, but I don't do fine. I mean, we just talked for 10 minutes about moving on survivor.

Liz Wilcox [00:24:36]:

Clearly, I'm not the average bear. I don't like average results. And so I was like, what is the deal? So that's where I came up with the topic of, oh, they just need me to write their newsletters for them. So that's what I do inside email marketing membership. And then I thought about the price and I thought about when I was first starting and I was afraid to spend money. I was married at the time. He thought I was in some MLM scam. I was literally afraid to spend money on it.

Liz Wilcox [00:25:05]:

And so I thought, what would make me, if I'm kind of nervous or scared to spend money, especially if I'm signing up monthly, which is a whole different psychological trigger or whatever, what would be the price? And I thought, well, it has, it has to be under $10 And so I said, well, okay, 9. And again, that was 3, 3 and a half years ago. People love the $9 price tag. I love the $9 price tag. It's here to stay.

Sarah [00:25:33]:

Yeah. I love it. So I think a big question most people will probably have is, at $9 a month, you have to have quite a volume of customers to have a full time income. So I know you do a lot of podcast guesting. Has that been your main source of getting customers, or what what do you recommend for someone starting a membership, how to go about getting customers?

Liz Wilcox [00:26:00]:

Yeah. So this is what's working for me. This is what I like to do. The price feels good for me. Work smarter, not harder. What do I want my life to look like? And so, yes, it is a numbers game. Like Sarah said, you have to have volume. For me, that volume was, I need a 1,000 people.

Liz Wilcox [00:26:21]:

That'll give me $9,000 a month. That's enough for me and my daughter to live on. Right? Well, then I hired my sister full time. So I was like, okay. Well, now we need more members. Right? Like Sarah said, the majority of the visibility and the advertising I do is podcasts like this one. I don't run ads. That's another way I can keep the cost low.

Liz Wilcox [00:26:45]:

If I was running ads to this, I would need to sell a big funnel, but y'all I'd like to turn off my computer and stop working. Tech breaks definitely have to tweak. So for me, it's easier to just get on a podcast like this, find new people, make the product really good so people stay and keep that volume. So at this time, I think we've got just around 4,000 members. And so you can do the math. I think it's like 40, 45 $1,000 a month, depending on the month and what we're launching. Right. So that is more than any kind of money I ever thought I would make in my life.

Liz Wilcox [00:27:26]:

And I do it again through podcasts like this. I also do summits. I do private trainings. I've got a private training right after this that I hope gets some people signed up. And then the last thing that I recommend, if you have a membership and this makes sense for your industry is to have affiliates. So I do a lot of affiliate marketing. I think Sarah's an affiliate, and you get 50% of that sale. And that really helps me grow because, again, I don't wanna run ads.

Liz Wilcox [00:27:56]:

I'd rather give Sarah. I'd rather give you $4.50 than give Mark Zuckerberg $4.50 and just pray it works. Right? So that's one thing I really recommend that's underutilized is the affiliate marketing for your membership.

Sarah [00:28:11]:

Speaking of which, I will obviously have the link below for you to join the membership, and it'll be my affiliate link. So if anyone wants to help me out, help us both out. So so mainly just been podcast guessing from day 1. Is that kind of been your well, in summits, from day 1. Is that kind of been your, well, in summits?

Liz Wilcox [00:28:29]:

Yes. Yeah. So any kinda so I always say, like, list building or, like, which leads into your offer. Right? Or it should. And visibility, they go hand in hand. Right? It's like Mary Kate and Ashley Olsen. Yeah. I know they're different, but I can't tell them apart.

Liz Wilcox [00:28:44]:

Right? And so the more visible you can become and the more comfortable you can become talking about your offer when you're being visible, the more you're gonna grow. Right? So it's the end of 2024 as we record this. Since 2020, I've been on over 300 podcasts and other virtual stages. I don't plan on stopping anytime soon. I did stop over the summer. I took the summer off after Survivor ended. I really needed a a brain break. You can imagine.

Liz Wilcox [00:29:15]:

I've ramped it up. I think I have, like, 4 or 5 podcast opportunities, interviews just this week.

Sarah [00:29:22]:

Yeah. And then with affiliates, I imagine, like, if every member you got could even just get one more member, then you could multiply pretty quickly. So I

Liz Wilcox [00:29:32]:

Right.

Sarah [00:29:33]:

I'm curious how many people do you know have come in as not as an affiliate, but

Liz Wilcox [00:29:39]:

Through an affiliate?

Sarah [00:29:40]:

Right. Right. That's

Liz Wilcox [00:29:41]:

Yeah. So the 1st year, we had a 1,000 members. Mhmm. And I think we only had about 30% come in through affiliates because it was the 1st year I was just getting the affiliate program going. The 2nd year, we went from a 1000 to 3000 members and 65% of my sales were from affiliates. Now I will say my numbers start to get kind of skewed, and I'm glad we talked about survivor because that's the reason why I was incredibly distracted. I had kind of gone out of the business. I had slowed things down intentionally because I didn't have the capacity to serve.

Liz Wilcox [00:30:18]:

Right? I was going to Fiji. Then when I came back, I lasted 25 out of 26 days. I lost 14% of my body weight in less than a month. You can only imagine the physical toll that takes not to mention the mental toll of just losing something you thought you were gonna win, things like that. And so the 3rd year, I think we went down, it was like 40% of sales came from affiliates, and I have not done the numbers because we're about three and a half years in. So I don't have the numbers yet for this latest adventure. I would gather it's probably 30 to 40%. So it has gone down, but my attention to the program has gone down.

Liz Wilcox [00:31:01]:

So that only makes sense.

Sarah [00:31:03]:

Yeah. I mean, even 30 mean that's why a high percentage. Yeah.

Liz Wilcox [00:31:07]:

Oh, thank you.

Sarah [00:31:08]:

So if someone is thinking about they're an expert on a topic and they wanna educate people, when they're trying to figure out how they wanna package that as a course, as a membership, as a mastermind, as a community, whatever, do you have any recommendations for things to kind of think about or keep in mind or how someone should best determine if the low ticket membership is the the route for them?

Liz Wilcox [00:31:33]:

Yeah. Well, number 1, is it the route for you? Do you like volume? I like getting on a call and 2 to 300 people are on that call. That does not make me nervous. Does that make you break out in hives? Maybe stick with high ticket. If you prefer working with people 1 on 1, do that. There's absolutely nothing wrong with that. I always tell people like the low ticket is not for everyone. We're a special breed over here.

Liz Wilcox [00:32:03]:

It sounds attractive. And, you know, I just told you low responsibility. I can turn my computer off at night, but I also told you I have 5 podcast interviews this week. That takes a lot of work making connections like I've made with Sarah going to events like Podfest. And I've probably gotten 10, 20 interviews from going to that event. Yes. Spoiler alert. I don't have a podcast.

Liz Wilcox [00:32:27]:

I was only there so I could meet people like I've met Sarah on her podcast. And then we met in real life. She's helped connect me with other people, etcetera. You don't just get on podcasts. You don't just get invited to summits. That is the work that I'm doing behind the scenes to get that volume. So really thinking about what we said maybe 20 minutes ago about what do I want my life to look like in 2 years? Do I want that low ticket high volume thing? Do I want my day to be filled with interviews? Because y'all, let me tell you something. I said the same thing over and over and over and over and over again.

Liz Wilcox [00:33:07]:

Marketing is not saying, a 100 different things. It's saying one thing a 100 different times. And so if that sounds boring to you, maybe client work or a high ticket membership where you get to work 1 on 1 with people where you don't have to worry about your volume, is better suited. But if in 2 years you want a life where it's like, yep, I'm turning off my computer, my day is just full of marketing efforts, just full of visibility, then the low ticket might just be for you. And the last thing I'll note, pause if you need to digest that, because I got something else to say. Sarah mentioned something about, oh, I wanna educate people when she set up this question. What if I wanna educate people is let me tell you something. People don't wanna be educated.

Liz Wilcox [00:33:56]:

People want to do. And especially if you have a low ticket, your membership needs to be around action. I don't ever tell people, oh, well, in my membership, you'll learn XYZ. I've never once said that in 300 podcasts, I say you'll write, you will have something to write this newsletter. But guess what? Sarah mentioned I have like video trainings and courses in there. That's where you're learning, but I don't sell that. Right. So if you're thinking about, especially a low ticket membership, low ticket means I just wanna get this in and out, in and out low commitment, low investment, low responsibility on everybody's part.

Liz Wilcox [00:34:41]:

And so making sure you're creating a membership around action. Here's some templates you can use, even if you're business to consumer and you have like a gardening membership that costs $20, but every week you're getting them to do something in their garden. But obviously when they're doing their learning, right? So don't sell the learning. Nobody wants to go to class. Come on now. They want to do the thing. So especially with low ticket, making sure you emphasize the doing of your membership and create from how do I get these people to take action? That's what's gonna set your membership apart.

Sarah [00:35:21]:

Yeah. I love that tip. No one wants to be educated or learned. We've all done that through at least high school, if not college and whatever else. So that's a good point. Thanks for correcting me on that. And that's something I can take away and use in my own marketing. People might be wondering, okay.

Sarah [00:35:36]:

Well, if you have a $9 month membership, is that the only way you can make money? But you have, like, one off workshops and stuff, like, a la carte type things as well. And I imagine sometimes people might just take that, like, sign up for the a la carte, like, the one workshop, and then come into your membership even.

Liz Wilcox [00:35:56]:

Yeah, of course. So you can go to my website and you'll see, on my shop page, I have lots of different products. I have one off workshops, little mini courses, little trainings here and there that range from like $12 to $150. I think it's the most expensive. Well, I do have one course that's $500 because it is an actual course. And, yeah, people come in in all different entry ways, especially as an affiliate. You might want to promote that $500 course because you're getting 50% of that versus $4.50 of this membership. Right? But for me, I always want everything to lead back to the membership because I want that recurring revenue.

Liz Wilcox [00:36:38]:

For me as a single mom, as someone who supports 3 households, I don't want to not know how much money I'm gonna make next month. And so even if you come in on that $500 course, if you tell me, oh, this course is great. I'm ready to launch, but I don't really have an email list. Oh, well, just join my $9 membership. There's some mini courses in there. They're gonna help you get everything set up so that you can use this course you just bought, or you can get better results because I want that monthly member number, that volume to go up. Because that means my monthly recurring, that mostly predictable income, I can say, okay. Yep.

Liz Wilcox [00:37:20]:

We're making 15, $20,000 predictable income here. This is great. That means I can set my salary for x. Patricia, my assistant, she gets y, and we have z left over for taxes and operation. Right?

Sarah [00:37:37]:

Yeah. And I imagine, is your churn rate probably pretty low when it's just $9 a month?

Liz Wilcox [00:37:44]:

Yeah. So, to be frank, during survivor, my churn rate did go. It was higher. My brain was somewhere else. I was barely seen in my business. I don't know if I would recommend going on a reality show and trying to grow your business at the same time this year for me in 2024 with the show airing, my word of the year was maintained. I was not and still am not worried about growth this year. So I've just been trying to maintain those members.

Liz Wilcox [00:38:14]:

So I am still below the industry average. My churn rate right now is at about 8%. The 1st 2 years, it was honestly between 3 5%. So I'm trying to get it back to around that 5%. And in order to do that, I've created an entirely new website for the membership. I created new navigation. I turned old recordings into brand new updated mini courses. I have more customer service support with Patricia, my full time now admin assistant.

Liz Wilcox [00:38:49]:

And I'm just constantly trying to innovate for my people so that they stay. It's still again below that industry standard. And y'all, let me tell you something. A lot of people said, oh, I don't like the low ticket membership because people just leave. The churn rate is so ridiculously high. I have not seen that to be true when you can under promise and over deliver. I always say, oh, email marketing membership. It's just weekly templates, grab and go copy and paste.

Liz Wilcox [00:39:20]:

But like Sarah mentioned, I have other things I do once a month Q and A there's a list building challenge I do once a year. There's a Facebook group. There's foundational courses, there's sales emails in there. There's a pre launch sequence. There's so much more. And that's what, oh my gosh, I can't believe this is $9 And so they stay because they know it's incredibly valued.

Sarah [00:39:44]:

Yeah, exactly. That's interesting that you said people would think that it would have a high churn rate. I was thinking low just because, I mean, $9 a month, almost anyone can probably afford that. So it's if someone's trying to cut their expenses, I would think a $9 month membership would be less likely to go than a $99 one, you know, or whatever.

Liz Wilcox [00:40:05]:

Yeah. Well, you know, I think it's actually the opposite. So think about when you're trying to save money, like in your personal life, was one of the first things you do? Oh, well, let me look at my car insurance and we will switch from GEICO to Progressive to save $5 even though it took us 3 days to do it. Mhmm. Right? Like that's not actually being frugal. Right? Like there's probably some other things you could cut corn, you know, so you could not go out to eat Mhmm. One day less a month, and save 10 times as what you saved in your insurance. Right?

Sarah [00:40:35]:

Mhmm.

Liz Wilcox [00:40:36]:

And so I do get those people to Sarah's point that say, oh, it's just not in the budget. I can't afford it. Or I'm gonna come back when I'm gonna use it more. I don't try to convince them otherwise. I just, in my mind, it's like, oh, well, you're not there yet. So to speak on email marketing, you're not fully convinced that email marketing is for you. And so you need my free emails, but you don't need the membership yet because you're not convinced. I need people in the membership that are like, yep.

Liz Wilcox [00:41:07]:

I know I don't like email, but I believe Liz, when she says it's gonna work, I believe that she says email is where it's at. I'm gonna get in and I'm gonna send these emails. Dang it.

Sarah [00:41:18]:

Well, awesome. Well, I I know you gotta go, and I appreciate your time and talking about survivor and email marketing and memberships and all of that. Is there any last words of advice or anything that you wanted to share?

Liz Wilcox [00:41:32]:

Yeah, of course. So whenever you're thinking about, is this low ticket thing for me, or really any decision in your business, I always ask myself 2 questions and I hope these help you as well. So the first question I ask myself when I'm trying to make that next right step, next decision is, what would this look like if it was easy? Right? And I think I got that from Tim Ferris or something. What would it look like if it was easy? You and I both know sometimes this stuff is just not easy. So I've got a backup question. Okay? Usually between the these two questions, I can come up with a good next step. So the second question is, what would this look like if it was fun? I want my life remember we talked about the intentionality of building a business around the life you wanna live. I want my life to feel easy.

Liz Wilcox [00:42:21]:

I want it to be fun. And so anytime I sit at my computer, I'm done listening to the frugalpreneur, I'm ready to take the next step. I ask myself those questions. What would this look like if it was easy? What would this look like if it was fun? And between those 2, I can usually come up with something that is gonna be my next right step. And that's what I like to leave you with today.

Sarah [00:42:43]:

Awesome. Well, thank you so much for your time. I really appreciate it. People can learn more. Go directly to lizwilcox.com. Or if you wanna use my affiliate link, I will create a link at frugal.showforward/liz.

Liz Wilcox [00:42:59]:

Can't wait to see what everybody does with the email. Thanks for having