In this episode of the Your Dream Business Podcast, I share key insights from my time at the Retain conference in Newcastle, where I heard Mike Morrison’s keynote on membership and online business trends. I dive into why relying on just one revenue stream or marketing channel can put your business at risk, and I walk you through strategies for building resilience through diversified offers, income streams, and engagement methods. Along the way, I highlight Mike’s advice on transparency, tracking your metrics, and cultivating an “anti-fragile” mindset to help future-proof your business in 2026.

What You’ll Hear in This Episode

• Why content sales alone are fragile and limited
• How to design offers that deliver fast, transformative value
• Lessons from the membership industry & Mike Morrison’s perspective
• Why being open and real builds connection and trust
• Tactics to make your business more resilient (anti-fragile)
• A roadmap for strengthening your offer ecosystem

Key Insights I Want You to Walk Away With

• Don’t put all your eggs in one basket.Diversification gives you freedom when one channel or model shifts.
• Transformation > content.People invest when they see fast, meaningful change.
• Trust wins.Being clear, honest, and engaged earns deeper loyalty.
• Resilience is proactive.Prepare for change before it forces you.
• Offer ecosystems matter.When your products and services support each other, you build longevity.

LINKS TO RESOURCES MENTIONED IN TODAY’S EPISODE

membershiproadmap.com Connect with Teresa on Website, (Grow, Launch, Sell), Sign up to Teresa's email list, Instagram, LinkedIn, or Facebook

Transcript

Don't put all your eggs in one basket. We can't just have the one course that we sell over and over and over. We need some other things that we are selling, other ways that we are making money, but also other ways in which we can market ourselves and get to our audience. Welcome to the Your Dream Business Podcast. I'm your host Res Heath wearing. An international bestselling author, award-winning speaker, TEDx speaker, certified coach, and the host of this number one ranked podcast. I am so excited to guide you on the journey of creating a business and life that you not only love, but one that perfectly aligns with you and the season of life that you are in. In each episode, I'll share with you easy, actionable, and insightful strategies to grow your online business. Plus we'll be diving into some mindset, tools and strategies that keep you focused, motivated. And are going to stop you from getting in your own way. So if you're a course creator, membership owner, or coach, you're in the right place. [00:01:00] Let's get started. Hello and welcome back to another episode of the Your Dream Business Podcast. As always, I am your host, Teresa Heath Wareing, and the Eagle Eye of you might be thinking. Hang on. Didn't we have a solo last week? So if you are a regular listener, you'll probably know that I do one solo, one interview, one solo, one interview, and I did, I think, mention that things might be changing a little bit. But we're not quite there yet. So basically in all transparency, I am moving over to YouTube and don't panic, I'm not stopping the podcast. The podcast is going to continue, but we are going to be putting videos on YouTube of the episodes, which I'm really excited about. There's lots of good reasons why I'm doing it, and no doubt I will record an episode at some point to tell you why I'm doing it. But one of the things I've decided to do is not do as many interviews and actually, I'm only gonna bring you really, really good people. Not that I don't have really good [00:02:00] people, but like if I get a request from someone, I'm like, I'd love to interview them, then I'm gonna interview them and we're gonna put the episode out. However, I am not a massive fan of, and this is just my personal preference, but I don't love watching like Zoom recording podcast interviews on youTube. And not that I won't put them up there, but I just don't want to do loads of them. I want to make it super practical. One of the things that I love doing is giving you really good, tangible stuff to do in your online business, and that's where the YouTube channel kicks in, in terms of it's going to be really tangible, really kind of do this, do that. This is good. This is how this works. I want that to be more of a thing, and that's why I'm stopping doing as many interviews. Now I do without saying, I have a couple of really cool interviews coming up at some point, but I stopped taking interview requests because of the fact that I was stopping it, and we were really [00:03:00] hoping YouTube would've been ready by now. But like all good things, it's not quite coming to fruition as quick as we wanted it. And we are definitely still working on it and it is coming in the next few weeks, but I thought I would record another podcast episode just to tide me through another week and hope that maybe it'll be ready the week after. Anyway, with all that being said, you've got a really good solo today because I'm actually sharing someone else's information and kind of giving you my thoughts as we go along. You may or may not know if you follow me on Instagram. If you don't, please come and find me over on Instagram. I spoke at Retain a couple of weeks back. This is a conference based up in Newcastle, which is in the north of the UK, and it's all about memberships and it was for membership owners and it's run by Mike Morrison, who is the founder of Membership Geeks. And. It was brilliant. Everything was aimed at membership owners. It was a really, really good event. Really loved it. He [00:04:00] did a great job, and I got speak, which was awesome, and I spoke about webinars, which kind of made me laugh because I put up a post on Instagram saying that I think it was like back in 2017. I did one of my first speaking gigs over in the States, and it was about webinars too. So I've been doing this some time. Anyway, I watched obviously the other sessions, and that's one of the cool things about going to events when it's a really good event that you get to sit and watch other sessions when you're a speaker and you learn things. And Mike did an amazing session at the beginning. His opening keynote was all about basically state of the nation type thing in the membership industry. I was like furiously scribbling down notes, and I wanted to share with you some of the stuff that Mike shared. Now, if you're sat there thinking, I don't have a membership, that's okay. Because actually a lot of this spans across the entirety of running an online business, whether it's a membership, a course, a coaching program, whatever it is. [00:05:00] I think there is so much you can take from this. And he had three main points, which I'm gonna take you through the three main points and then. Share with you what his thoughts were around it and what my thoughts are around it. But I think if you have an online business, you are going to get a lot from this and it's going to be really, really helpful because it's basically saying what is working now? And like I said, he was specifically talking for the membership industry, but I know a lot of this spans across it. Okay, let's jump in. Number one was, and get ready. 'cause you might panic. Stop selling content. Now this is tough because if you have a membership, if you have a course, you're effectively selling content. That's what you're doing. You are basically putting together your knowledge, your experience, your content about it all, and you are training someone on how to do something. But what he was talking about and what is super important is we are in a world like we've never been in before where content is. [00:06:00] Everywhere. And not only that, we can find out stuff anywhere and we can go to AI and we can search stuff like it's never been as available as it currently is. And that's why as an online business, we can't just lead with the content because the content can be found in all the other places. I remember years ago when I first came into this space, like we used to have to put something up that said, you know, can't I just Google this and. Now it's like they can more than just Google it. They can get AI to write them a course about how to do a thing in a way that they like. So the content focus isn't gonna cut it. So it's not about the hours of training. It doesn't matter if it's the most or best or anything out there, it's not going to cut it. They don't need more information. What your customers want, and I have talked about many, many, many, many times, which is why this was music to my ears, was they want the transformation. If I said to you, I could [00:07:00] give you a course that will be three videos, and each of those videos are 10 minutes long, and by the end of it you'll know how to do something. Or I say, I can give you a course. There's 36 videos. They're each an hour long, and at the end of it, you could do the same thing. You're not gonna pick the 36 hour video thing, are you? You want to achieve the outcome in as quick as time possible, and that's what we need to be focusing on. What's the transformation? So make sure that you are prioritizing the results. And again, if you've been listening for a while, you'll know that I wasn't great at this. I always got very nervous about actually proving that I could help people, which sounds wild, but the truth is, we need to go look, we can help you get the results, and this is how we do it. So if you can solve it faster then solve it faster, he talked about cutting through the noise, solving it faster. You don't need to pad it out, you don't need to make it look big and all the things, which again, really does. Like move away [00:08:00] from some of the stuff that we've been taught and we talk about in terms of like show them everything they're gonna get, show them that there's so much stuff in there now, it's about how can they get to the results quicker and faster. One of the things that you can do from a marketing point of view for this first point is share more case studies, share more places where your customers are achieving things when they're doing amazing stuff. The other thing that he talked about in this section was about elevating your member experience. And again, this really, like I said, isn't just applicable with memberships, but it's not just about selling someone a course or selling someone a group program. It's about how can you make that even better? How can you add in other elements that aren't just the content? He talked about routines and rituals. How can this be part of something that you are getting them to do? He actually mentioned on memberships that people are 50% less likely to leave if they've created a habit attached to your membership. So for instance, if on a Monday morning you do a check-in and they come and do the [00:09:00] check-in, or let's say every Friday you say share a win. Whatever it might be. How can you attach some kind of routine or ritual to your membership or your product so that it's not just the content? Can you add a simple habit? Like I said, sharing your Friday win. The other thing you talked about in terms of memberships is gamification. Again, you could even have this in courses. It's not just necessarily memberships when someone completes a module or once someone shares something, that you identify that and you celebrate that. The other thing he said was about fostering identity and belonging. One of the things he said was, what are your members called? Like, can you do something where you, do you remember the Blue Peter badge thing? Like if you had a Blue Peter badge, you felt very special. I never did FYI. And if you don't know any, you don't what I'm talking about. It was a UK TV program. I think it still exists, but it was definitely as kids. And basically they used to give out these Blue Peter badges, and if you did something good, they would give out a Blue Peter badge [00:10:00] and then. You could use it to get discounts some places or get in free on places like, and that really created a sense of belonging or something that people really wanted, so. Is there something you can do to help them feel more part of your world? So for instance, anybody who buys a program from me works with me one-to-one or consultancy with me, they basically get to join what we call T's world. And that is effectively the kind of membership side of my business. And they get to be part of that and they're in them, the community. And that's adding more than just necessarily buy this course and go away and see you later type thing. Number two was trust is currency. Now we all know, I don't need to tell you that with AI, with fake news, with social media, with not even with any of that kind of technical stuff, but just with people only showing their highlight reels, we are very untrusting and.[00:11:00] It makes perfect sense. It makes perfect, perfect sense. So one of his suggestions was, we need to be more human because of fake stuff, because of AI. We need to show them that we're real. And one of the ways in which we need to do that is show them our face, make connections. And he actually said, roll up your sleeves and get in there. And I totally am boarded this, gone are the days where someone is up on a pedestal and there are still people out there in the online space who are definitely up on pedestals, where they don't get involved with the everyday kind of running of their thing. Their face isn't showing up in places. I have heard horror stories, right, of, I heard this one horror story where basically there was a woman who, it wasn't even like a membership, it was a high priced mastermind thing, but there was like 60, 70 people in it. But it was like thousands and someone I know joined it and they basically went into the Facebook group and tagged in the persons whose mastermind [00:12:00] it was and said to ask a question and this person replied and basically got one of her team to a and said, can you answer this question? Like she was not accessible at all. And if we want people to buy into us, and at the end of the day, we all have online businesses because we're selling us, and I've just said we can't focus on the content anymore, so we have to focus on us. So if we are putting ourselves on this pedestal that they don't get to hang out with us, that we are not doing the coaching calls, that it's very much like, you know, there's a wall between us and them, then that is not all right. And I have never ever sold into that to the point where my own businesses changed. Or no, my, my business hasn't changed the point where I have changed what I want for my business. I used to dream of having the massive launches with thousands of people. I do not want that at all now, ever. I want to be able to know the people I'm dealing with. I want to know their names. I want to know who they are, what their businesses, how they like to launch. I want to be able to get into the weeds with [00:13:00] them, and this is what he was suggesting, that you need to be seen. You need to be in there. Whether you are doing live calls, whether you're doing Q and As, whatever it is, they need to see your face. He talked about in terms of marketing, about showing behind the scenes of your life and business by going, look, this is what I do when I'm sat at my desk. And I mean, mine's really not that exciting if I'm honest. The other thing he talked about is about becoming the trusted voice. So share more about your thoughts, your opinions, your beliefs on the thing it is that you talk about. Ditch the gimmicks, and I, again, am behind this. Now. One of the things that's super interesting is I talk a lot about marketing strategies, psychology strategies that people use when launching, and I am very keen to stress that it's not the strategy that is wrong, it's someone's intent behind the strategy. So for instance, he talked about fake scarcity or like countdown timers that aren't real. That is. That's rubbish. [00:14:00] Don't ever do that. Like I said, the strategy itself isn't bad. The strategy's good. We need scarcity sometimes to basically help us make a buying decision. However, use it for real, like not rubbish bonuses just to add up bonuses, so. Using the gimmicks when they're not real. People will see straight through that. They're not stupid. I've said this for ages. Our consumers are, customers are way more discerning and that is a good thing and I am happy about it. So don't try and get away with some of these things. If you say the cart is closing on a certain date, close the cart on a certain date and have a reason for it. If you are saying, here's some bonuses, make them good bonuses. And then he finished it off by sharing a phrase that I think it was Google he said you used to use, which was Don't be evil. And apparently they don't use it anymore. I'm not sure what that says about them, but anyway, he talks about provide good quality stuff. Now I know if you are here listening to me, you do. There are lots [00:15:00] of people out there and sometimes the online business is the wild, wild west where they're literally just trying to get rich and they are not maybe as focused on providing good outcomes and good results for their customers. But I know if you are listening to this, you are not one of them. But it is a good reminder to go provide good, good quality stuff, have ethics, don't lie, don't trick them to buying, which again. If you're listening to me, you won't be that person. And if you are that person, then you probably shouldn't be listening to me. 'cause we are not gonna get on things like, as a membership, make it easy for them to cancel and don't hide things. Don't, you know if you are, if it's a renewable payment that's an annual payment, tell them it's coming. Like I know that people are like, yeah, but...