Membership Site Venture with an Expert

[dalvia]

Hey Everyone,

There has been plenty said with the Continuity Blueprint about teaming up with experts and creating membership sites.

In others words, you create and publish the membership site AND your expert(s) provide the content to add to the site.

My question is: What would the profit share be? I don't think it's 50% as the publisher of the site has marketing costs in running the site, but it has to be a big enough incentive for the expert to keep providing content.

Any thoughts on how these deals are done??

Thanks everyone,
D

[Ken Preuss]

My first answer is that the % split is whatever both parties agree on. No one has the upper hand in that relationship. Without the expert, the publisher has no income from the membership site....but the reverse is equally true.

In my experience the split would typically be 50/50 after agreed upon expenses.

Best regards,
Ken

[Kyle Tully]

Depends entirely on the deal.

Does the expert have ongoing involvement? Or are you just licensing their content and taking care of everything else?

Are you just setting the site up and letting them do all the work running it?

Are you splitting the work load between you? If so, what's the split?

There's no one-size-fits-all solution.

[Kyle Tully]

Originally Posted by BlogBrowser

It's MUCH easier to learn how to run a membership site (or simply hire someone to do it for you), than it is to become an expert in any money-generating field and keep on creating quality content on a weekly basis.

Let's be honest here: the publisher's role is somewhat redundant once the website is out, rolling and getting its first loads of traffic. From that point on it's all about the expert and how good his content is. Within two or three months he could easily take the business away from the publisher once he's learned how the membership website thingy works.

Running a membership site is easy enough, but marketing it is the real skill. Doesn't matter how good the content is if you don't have a steady stream of potential customers coming to the site, and an effective sales funnel in place and constantly being tested.

Few experts are interested in learning marketing nor have the time.

[Kyle Tully]

Originally Posted by BlogBrowser

Yup, but once the site is rolling, if the content is good the word will spread around over internet forums and stuff, and at one point you won't need to do any marketing at all.

Marketing is important to get the word out, enroll some affiliates, etc. But you don't need it anymore once the site gets rolling. If it's good, people will find you.

That why I said that once the website is out, rolling and getting its first loads of traffic, if your content is good the publisher's role becomes MUCH less important than the expert's role. After those initial three months (two, three, four... the exact figure doesn't matter), the success of the project relies entirely on the expert and very little on the publisher.

That's FAR from the truth.

Marketing is an ongoing affair and not just "to get the word out."

Good content is virtually never enough.

If you build it they won't come -- unless you're constantly promoting.

[Ken Preuss]

Originally Posted by BlogBrowser

Good content (the expert's part of the deal) will beat good marketing (the publisher's part of the deal) any day of the freaking week. Any blogger or membership site owner will tell you that much.

Each of us has our own experience, and I can tell you for me what you say here has NOT been true.

I've worked with several content experts over the years who weren't making a DIME from their knowledge, and it wasn't for lack of wanting to. It was because they didn't know how to position, package and otherwise market their expertise.

While I understand the point you're making I assure you it is by no means the rule.

Best regards,
Ken

[JJ-Undercover]

I think Ryan Deiss said the publisher gets the big chunk at first then after awhile you can even it out with the expert.

[Ken Preuss]

Originally Posted by BlogBrowser

Absolutely! which I why I stressed on the "once the website is rolling and getting traffic..." part.

Gotcha. Then we certainly agree here.

I might also add that many of the content experts I've worked with have not been effective at writing persuasively, be it copy or blogging or even e-mail sequences.

This makes me realize something important. As time goes on I become more and more thankful for my annoying grammar and writing teachers who had what seemed like ridiculously high expectations.

Effective communication through the written word (in any form, not just copywriting) may well be the true million-dollar skill in IM.

Ken

[Frank Bruno]

Bringing an expert on board for membership sites probably works betterwhen targeting experts who are not that savvy on the web.

There's a lot of attorneys and doctors and professionals off-line that are experts but they have no clue or do not want to know how to market online.

Internet scares many of them when it comes to technical things.

But one thing good about experts is that they're usually business savvy (many of them are just not Im savvy) so they should be receptive to deals that you bring to them.

Frank Bruno

[dalvia]

Thanks for your advice everyone. (and the debate between Blogbrowser and Kyle:-)

I know Ryan Deiss has got a few sites in different niches, like fitness and forex. I'm be interested to find out what he splits at,

Thanks again,
D

[obiswill]

I'm going to divert from the conventional wisdom given and simply say it's best in both the long and short term that you develop and market the site your self. I can assure you...no promise you, that you will run into problems with a partner in a membership site. To many issues will come up that I won't get in to. Just remember Content is King! If you have a a problem with developing content, there's many freelancers who would be more than happy to work with you on a monthly basis..this way as the site grows, so will your income..and without the partnership hassels.

[Kyle Tully]

Originally Posted by BlogBrowser

Kyle, after second consideration I realize that maybe you know something that I dont. That's why I have purchased your WSO on membership sites so I can dig a bit further into your take on this matter. I look forward receiving the content. Thanks in advance.

You need to create a WSO telling me how I can get a site rolling and never do any marketing I'd buy it in a second!