When I see people that are doing extraordinary things in their business, whether it’s a membership, coaching program, or course, I want to bring them to you. This is so that we can unpack what they are doing that’s working so you can take some tips and apply them to your business.
In this episode of Art of Online Business I sat down with Faye Cornhill, one of my Accelerator coaching members, who runs a very successful wedding membership business. She’s here to share why her membership works and what sets her business apart from other wedding-based memberships out there.
Faye Cornhill is a business coach to the wedding industry. With her signature mix of positivity, motivation and common sense, she specialises in helping aspirational business owners follow their dreams of making it in the world of weddings.
Faye has an incredible retention rate and she shares how she makes that happen in this episode. She also shares more about her launch methods and how much she works in her business.
In this episode, you’ll learn:
- Why Faye decided to start a membership
- How she prices her program
- The importance of having a sounding board
- How she maintains a high retention rate
- How she encourages independence in her members
- Her launch methods
- The conversion rates she sees with her launches
- How she gets people into an annual membership
- The freedom she gets because of her business
- The charity she started
Links & Resources:
- The Art of Online Business website
- DM me on Instagram
- Visit my YouTube channel
- The Art of Online Business clips on YouTube
- Full episodes of The Art of Online Business Podcast on YouTube
- The Art of Online Business Podcast website
- Check out my Accelerator coaching program
*Disclosure: I only recommend products I use and love and all opinions expressed here are my own. This post may contain affiliate links that at no additional cost to you, I may earn a small commission.
Faye Cornhill’s Links:
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Hey, my friend, real quick, just to remind you that I’ve made some big changes to our accelerated coaching program. So if you’re looking for personalized coaching and mentorship to help guide you to the next level of your business, whatever that next level looks like for you through help with optimizing your sales and marketing, ethical marketing leadership and being the CEO of your business team, building systems and processes, etc.. Go over to Rick Mall Radio.com for Accelerator and fill out the form right there to see if we potentially could work together. All right. Rick Ford, Accelerator. Now let’s get into today’s episode.
It was sitting in my lane, not trying to recreate something that already existed out there. Like most industries will have a membership of some sort. Like, it’s a pretty business model, but just staying true to what I believe people needed. What worked well for me and my life and, you know, I’ve got two kids. I don’t want to be sat answering questions. 24 seven So really sticking clear with why I’ve created this membership and always focusing on the results for my members. And that’s how I make decisions. Like is this going to get a result for my members? Is this going to be good for me and my lifestyle? And if the answer to both of those is yes, then great, we’ll do it.
Hey. Hey. What’s up, my friends? Welcome back to the podcast. Thank you, as always for tuning in today. Super appreciate you. So what I want to do on today’s episode, when I see people who are doing extraordinary things in their business, whether they’re running a membership, whether they’re running a coaching program or their course, or maybe it’s a combination of all of them, I want to bring them to you to kind of unpack what they’re doing so that you can learn little bits and pieces, if you will, from what they’re doing so that
you can apply it to what you’ve got going in your business. And that’s what I want to do. In today’s episode, I’ve invited Fay Cornhill, who’s one of our accelerator coaching members, and Fey is a business coach in the wedding industry. She’s been in the wedding industry for, I think she said, like over 13 years. And she runs a very successful membership called The Wedding Club. And specifically, I wanted her to come on and break down how she has like what what separates her membership from all the other wedding based memberships out there.
Her retention rate, she retains between 96 and 97% every single month. So she has a very, very high retention rate. So she breaks down what she does and to to achieve that sort of retention rate and why she has such a high retention rate, including how she uses technology to do that, how she answers every single question that gets asked. And we break down her onboarding process. We really dive deep on that topic. In today’s episode, we also talk about why and how she launches in her business. She has an evergreen funnel going to the membership. She does an annual event that she leverages to sell people into an annual membership. She does a really good job of running this membership, and this is 95% of her business is this membership, and she only works about less than 20 hours a week, which is what we’re all about inside of accelerator. So without further ado, let’s go hang out and break all this down for you with Fey Cornhill. Faye, welcome to the podcast. How the heck are you?
I’m good. I’m slightly warm. It’s quite warm here in England at the moment, but apart from that, I’m doing well.
You’re melting right now. You just told me it’s like 40 degrees Celsius. Yes. And when I was back in the hockey world years ago, I learned a simple formula from all of our Canadian scouts. And they said basically, take Celsius, double it and add 30, and that’ll give you a pretty good ballpark of Fahrenheit. So I’m doubling that. That’s 80 plus 30 like 110. So I’m thinking like 100 degrees Fahrenheit in the UK.
And we’re not we’re not built to withstand that temperature.
Yeah. So I was like, wait, you’re sitting in the AC right now, right? You get the air conditioning. You’re like, Oh, no, we don’t have air conditioning in the UK.
No such thing. A few fortunate people do, but the average Brit does not have AC in their home.
And at the time recording this, the middle of July, you’re gearing up basically for two more weeks of this.
Yes. Which is really unusual for us, actually. Normally this time of year we’re moaning that it’s raining and now we’re moaning that it’s too hot. So please us.
Well, I want to talk about what you’re doing with your family in here in a couple of weeks. But because I think that’s super, super interesting in your business, the way that you’ve set it up allows you to do these types of types of things. And so I’d love for you to share that in just a second. Before we do, let’s have you introduce yourself to my audience here. You’re a member of our accelerator coaching program. I just think the world of you and you’re doing some really cool things in the wedding industry space. So why don’t you take.
Yeah, great. So my name is Faye Cornell. I am the founder of the Wedding Business Club, which is an online space membership for people who work in the industry. So anyone from a photographer to a cake maker to a florist. And my background is in the wedding industry. So I started oh 13 and a bit years ago as a wedding photographer. And over the years, more and more people just kind of asked me, How are you doing what you’re doing? Can I pick your brains? You know? And slowly that became my membership, the Wedding Business Club. So we have nearly 600 members, predominantly in the UK, but members all over the world. And it’s really funny because my business is now, you know, 95% my membership and the membership model is the thing that I always said I was not interested in doing. Yeah.
Why? Why, why was that?
You know, I always thought it looked a bit silly. I thought like higher numbers of people equals higher admin and higher factor. And to be honest it is, there’s a lot of admin and there’s a lot that goes into the set up, but it’s really not been enough to make it not something I love doing. I absolutely love my business. I started in in 1 to 1 coaching as many coaches. I ran a group program. I did that six or seven launches of that group program. And you know, this is the thing that I really love doing. I love the model, I love the accessibility because it’s a lower price point. It means that I can help support more people. So yeah, I’m a happy camper.
It’s a pretty normal progression, right, Going from 1 to 1 to group coaching to then either a course or a membership style. So you mentioned it’s a it’s an inexpensive price. What what is the monthly price?
So that’s a £5 a month or £385 for the year and. It didn’t start that price. We started lower. You know, it’s nearly three years old now. So my first price point is £29 a month. And slowly I’ve just increased that. It’s been a difficult time for my industry. Clearly, you know, the pandemic, I mean, overnight my industry just closed. So it has been a really difficult time. And I think having that low ticket resource for the members of my community has been invaluable for them because, you know, my my my group coaching program was up in the thousands and, you know, I wouldn’t have had the same. The same platform to sell that from post pandemic. I just know I wouldn’t have I would have struggled with that.
Did you lean into the membership even more during the 100%?
So, yeah, I mean, many days I remember. So I’m in my office, my office at the bottom of my garden. And I remember for a good stretch, day in, day out, I was in this office. Fire fighting that like I’d worked so hard during the pandemic and because my my people needed me to, they needed answers like, what are we going to do about this? How do you deal with a cancellation? You know, I’ve got a client who wants all their money back. What am I going to do? My business is going to go under any second. How do I deal with that? What’s the legality? So there was a period of time where I was just firefighting. People just needed somebody to speak to, somebody to ask questions. And I worked really hard during that period. But also, you know, I love doing it. I’m very protective of our industry because I’ve been in it so long myself. And we really do have just there’s just such an amazing group of people who work in it. I wanted to make sure that they had the answers they needed. And the membership was was the great the the best platform I could have given them to answer those questions.
What’s the makeup of the membership? So somebody joins the membership. Like. We’ll call it the features of the membership, but also what is the promise of the membership after we talk.
About the fees? Yes. So every month we have a specific focus. So in the membership, we have the four pillars of success we call them. So those four pillars are mindset, brand marketing and business. And every single month we have a focus on one part of one of those pillars. So, for example, this month, and some people will be like, What are they talking about? But this month our focus is on start shoots. So I start you is where you basically make a wedding as if it’s real, but it’s not. And we take nice pictures and then we all use it for our marketing. So that’s our focus this month. And we sometimes have guest speakers come and talk to our members about it, but everything kind of comes back to that single focus every other week. Apart from that is a Q&A session. And you know what? When I started the membership, I was really dubious about this idea of a Q&A session. I was like, Well, are people going to have questions for me? Are they interested in my answers to the questions? And I was so close not to including that. And it really is the most popular part of the membership because people just want their questions answered. People just need an answer the question And sometimes it’s the easiest thing for me just to give a five second answer and it gives people peace of mind. And that has been invaluable to my members that.
It’s interesting that you said I almost didn’t include it because I wasn’t sure that the members wanted it. For most people, it’s the other way around. I didn’t I almost didn’t include it because I don’t want to have to show up live every couple of weeks. For you, it was the the opposite. Yeah. So I think that says a lot about you and how you how much you care about the people in the space, in the wedding space, and especially your members of the membership. Is it like a one hour call each.
Week for an hour? It’s not very often, and very often it’s more You’re right what you like. I do really care about my people and I really care about our industry. And I have some very strong beliefs of what constitutes a good business owner. And that’s not just in our space. That’s just generally I have some really strong views on that. And one of the one of the things that I think we do really well and I think one of the things that contribute to our high retention rate is that by every decision I make and every move I make in the membership is based on my own values that I have for my life and my business. And the ripple effect of that in a membership space where there are nearly 600 people listening to everything I say is is huge. And I think as as somebody who’s, for want of a better expression, senior in our industry, I actually think I have the responsibility to to teach people like this is a good way to run a business that is good for you, that’s good for your clients, that’s fair, that that’s win win for everyone, whilst also, you know, ensuring people are protecting themselves along the way. Are being treated fairly themselves.
When? When did you start the membership?
So October 2019.
So not really long. Me three years ago. Basically, when we’re. When we’re talking here. Yeah. How did you and how long did it take? How long did it take you to get to 600 members?
So about.
Two years. Meaning like was it up and down or was it like, were you just like a hockey stick growth from from day one?
Yeah, kind of somewhere in the middle. I mean there’s been we’ve had we have people leave and like that’s the reality of membership. Right. But it’s it’s been a steady growth. Like my growth looks a bit like that. So it’s taken about two and a bit years really. Obviously the pandemic was kind of a weird time. We had our biggest launch during the pandemic, believe it or not. Like ah, because people needed somewhere to go. I think there were other things that were already in existence out there. There were other memberships in the wedding space, but I think the reason it was successful so, so quickly was that I was doing things different. There was a different promise. So the promise is that I will help people grow profitable and successful businesses without having to compromise on their values. Mhm. And there’s, there’s lots of stuff out there for business owners but there’s nothing that breaks it down into those four pillars because in my opinion they’re all equally as important for, for the members and we, we tie everything back to that. Everything we do goes straight back to these are the four pillars. This is, this is the focus. This is what constitutes a successful business. And I know you do the same, Rick, but I tell people like you can have three out of four of these working really well for you, but if you’re missing that fourth one, that’s going to be the problem for you. So that’s where you need to focus. That’s where you need to put your effort. And I think that’s that’s been a big part of the success of the membership, is that a lot of people just didn’t realize that, Oh, you know, I just thought it was about showing up on social media and like, you know, negotiating with people on price. But there’s obviously so much more to it than that.
Sure. Now the membership. Two and a half years ago, you had never you’d never run a membership before, correct? So again, you went from 1 to 1 coach in a group coaching to, okay, I’m going to start this membership. You originally thought that it was going to be a lot of like, you know, more members equals more administrative work etc., etc.. But you’ve had huge success with it. You have great retention, which we’re going to talk about here in just a couple of minutes. You have an annual event that you do that we’re going to talk about here in a few minutes. You launch it and you’ve had a very successful evergreen funnel. So I want to talk to all the talk to you, talk to each one of those things here in just a minute. But why did it. I’m just curious. Why did it click for you? Pretty much right from the start. Was it really the clarity of, Hey, I get what you’re going through? I’ve been there. This is what this program is all about. And speaking through the lens of your values and these four pillars of success, I don’t want to say that’s easy, but was it really as straightforward as that?
Kind of, yes. Kind of. The most difficult thing in the early days was keeping up with the pace because, you know, I’d only have the biggest number of people that I’d work with in a in a group coaching program was like 15, 20 people. And then suddenly there’s loads of different names and and loads of faces. And this question and this question and this question. So from the very start, I’ve been really and I mean, I talk about this all the time with my members, but having really clear boundaries of what is part of this membership and what is not part of this membership. So occasionally I’ve had to go through a bit of a reeducation piece with people, you know, if if I’m if the DMS are flying in, you know, can I ask you this and this and this and this, I have to educate that person that that’s not how the membership runs. And sometimes that can be really hard. And I’m real empath. So when I’m like, Oh, please don’t think badly of me. But also it’s not it’s not good for either parties to have that kind of relationship like it just isn’t. So I had to be really, really hot on that. In the early days, I was running this membership entirely on my own at the very beginning, which from an admin perspective was really, really tough. And that moment when I first employed a BA, I was suddenly like, Wow, this is amazing.
So that was a real game changer. But it was, it was it was staying in my lane, not trying to recreate something that already existed out there. Like most industries will have a membership of some sort, like it’s a really a business model, but just staying true to what I believe people needed, what worked well for me and my life. And, you know, I’ve got two kids. I don’t want to be sat answering questions 24 seven. So, you know, really sticking clear with why I’ve created this membership and always focusing on the result for my members. And that’s how I make decisions, like is this going to get a result for my members? Is this going to be good for me and my lifestyle? And if the answer to both of those is yes, then great, we’ll do it. And and, you know, I’ve I’ve innovated every step along the way. Like the membership area that we have today is not what existed in October 2019 is being through two redesigns. You know we have our as as inspired by you, Rick We have our members only podcast. We just have so much. And it always comes back to those two questions, does it fit with me in my lifestyle and is it helping my member get to their end result? And if it is, and I will do it.
All right. So before we talk about retention, you’re Evergreen Funnel. You’re launching. It sounds like you like you have a lot of clarity around this. Like it’s very build, Like this is what it is. This is why members like it, etc.. I would love for you to share with my like, why did you what were you looking You’ve been an accelerator for a few months now earlier this year, 2022. What were you what was the goal of joining? What were you looking to get out of it?
You know what I was like? I was just in a bit of a. I was in a season of met like it was the membership is was going is going brilliantly. I love it. I haven’t like lost the love for it. But I think things can catch up with you and feel quite heavy. And in the same way that my members need somebody to ask questions of like I was not having any. There was no one for me to ask questions of. And I’m a real advocate of practice what you preach. So how can I preach to my people like you need to you need to to have that hierarchy. You need to have that person where you go and ask questions and and gain advice and knowledge and support somebody who has walked through that same journey. And I realized I just didn’t I wasn’t surrounding myself with the right people. And I think there’s so much to be said for having a group of people where you can just say, I’m struggling with this thing. Can you can you help me find the answer? It’s just so valuable. And if that just tweaks one little thing that you do or changes one thing and that can snowball into something huge, it’s a no brainer, isn’t it?
Yes. I’m so glad you bring that up. If it’s one little thing, most people, when they join a program or what have you or work with a coach or whatever it is they’re looking for, like this massive, like huge thing. And when that and because of that, they lose sight of those quote unquote, little things that can have huge impacts. Just as an example, I was working with somebody the other day and we came up with the name of their new offer. So it was we’re doing a coaching session. The entire session was was around naming this this offer and they were throwing around ideas. And I already knew what name I loved, but I let them sort of like come up with stuff and everything. And so I said, Well, what about blah, blah, blah? And they just started laughing. They said, Oh my God, that was so easy. And that is a brilliant name. So they left that call with a name and the tagline to describe it. And that that that might seem like a small thing. But yet that opens up a huge potential. Right. And so I’m so glad that you see that that it just oftentimes they’re just like little things that as you said so well. Fe like that could have a big snowball effect. And on the rest.
Of the business, I think that’s true for any community, whether it’s a mastermind group or a membership, having that sounding board because most of us. You know, you a lot of us have very supportive spouses, like my husband is so supportive. And every time I go to him with a crazy idea, he’s like, Yeah, go for it. You’ll make it work. I trust you 100%. So I’m really lucky with that. But also, he’s never worked in the wedding industry like he doesn’t he’s not a coach. He doesn’t know. He doesn’t have that that personal experience, I think. All good business owners should be surrounded by other people who who will help and support and pick you up if you’re having a bad day or just go about passing over, that’s being really unreasonable. You stick to your guns. And I think I do think that’s very valuable. I really do. And that’s that’s one of the things that I love about the membership model, you know, same as that as the mastermind model. But just being in that space, like virtually obviously where you’ve got a support network around you, it just I would have given anything to have that at the beginning of my business. And I was working as a wedding photographer on my own at my kitchen table, just sort of twiddling my thumbs, not having a clue about what to do next. So it was guess what.
Would you your your retention is ridiculously high. Do you attribute it to what you just said?
Yes, and lots of things. So our retention rate, month or month is 96 or 97%. So it’s high, which is really funny because it’s all about perspective, isn’t it? Because I always feel really sad when we lose members. I’ve learned to deal with it and people move on. Things change. Yeah, I totally understand that. But I’m really proud of the retention rate and I think I think it’s a lot of things and I have to be careful because I’m not very good at like praising my own work here. But I do think it comes down to. The the values that I hold close to me and the decisions that I make in the business and the fact that I genuinely care like I don’t have to pretend to care because I really do care about everyone. And it’s sometimes really hard, you know, 600 names and faces. I’m actually pretty good at it, but it gets more and more difficult. Obviously the more members you get. But I genuinely care about every single person. And I think a membership is not. I mean, any business is not for you if you don’t care, but when you’ve got that high volume of people, it can it can feel quite watered down as the consumer, as the as the member. I really do care. I take time to do the small things that I know other people can’t be bothered to do. Like, no comment goes unanswered ever on my watch. And it will never, even when I do launches am I have pop up Facebook groups. No comment goes unanswered. Like it just doesn’t happen. Nobody will be floundering for help and support. There will always be an answer to everything. And I think. That that means a lot for some people, especially if that’s the first time you’ve ever asked a question in a Facebook group and you’re so nervous about asking that and then tumbleweed, like just to be heard and to be pointed in the right direction, I think is hugely valuable for people. And I just you can’t put a price on that.
So again, I want to jump in real quick because I can I can sort of put myself in my listeners shoes right now and say, well, I care about my students, I care about my members, but my retention rate isn’t 96 to 97% every month. What are some other things that you’re doing? And they’re also saying, well, like if I answered every single comment, I would be working nonstop. Yeah. So. How like how have you been able to accomplish that within the structure and framework of. Hey, I yes, I have this business, but I have a family. I love spending time with them. We go on trips and all this other stuff, like how do you fit that into the schedule that you keep?
See, I mean, for me it’s been about evolution of how things work. Just because it works like this at day one, you know, things change. My lifestyle has changed, the age of my kids have changed, etc., etc.. So things like. So I just I just pull out a few examples. Questions in a Facebook can go wildly out of control. So I don’t want anyone to think that I’m spending 24 seven answering Facebook questions. Absolutely not. But we have this weekly Q&A session and every single person has the opportunity to submit a question for that session. It’s all automated. The email goes out automatically. Do you have a question for this week session? And then on that session, I sit and I answer all of those questions. So everybody, even if they don’t have a question, they feel as though if they did have a question, they could ask it. Right? So that’s what two is involving technology to make your offering as good as it possibly can be. So on our in our members area, people can search for any keyword, for any key phrase, and it will literally instantly take you to every single time I’ve talked about that thing for every single Q&A call and coaching call we’ve ever had.
And it will take them straight to that point in the video. How are you? So I use a software called surgery. Yep. And it’s just so useful if someone’s like, you know what? I’ve got a question and I don’t want to wait until that weekly Q&A. I’m going to go and look for myself. Let’s say they want to know about wedding shows, and if they type in wedding shows, it will take people exact to every single time. I have talked about wedding shows in every Q&A and every coaching pool. So it’s giving people that instant answer that they need. But also, listen, if you’ve got other questions outside of that, here’s how you submit it. And I will answer those questions every single week. So, like, it doesn’t have to be that you are on tap 24 seven, but just creating that environment of like, I want to help you and here’s the technology that will help you and here’s the process that will help you. Just people feel like, you know, help is there in abundance. And everything I’ve just said is automatic.
Yeah. I was just going to say you’ve created leverage for yourself. To to have a bigger impact within the membership without adding a whole bunch of hours to your to your schedule. I mean, our our whole thing with with the accelerator and what we’re all about in my business is you can have a very successful business and very successful is whatever that means to you. Right. Seven figure six figure, whatever it might mean within 25 hours a week or less working in your business. And you’ve created leverage through this use of technology. I’m curious, how do you leverage technology in your onboarding process? So somebody joins the membership. This is something that I see, especially this year with our members, like this is something that we’ve really, really worked on is what is the onboarding look like because it so greatly affects retention, right? Like how is that experience when somebody joins how easy it is for them to navigate, find what they’re looking for? Et cetera. Have you leveraged technology in that onboarding process?
Yeah. I mean, nothing like uber fancy, but there are core things that work really well for us. So they get an email that says like, welcome. And I just keep that email really short because I personally find an onboarding email that’s massive and like, do this and then do that and do that. Just it’s really overwhelming. So it’s a really quick email that tells people how to log in. Like I’m amazed when I speak to other member membership owners and I’m like, Is the first thing you’re telling them how to log in? Oh, I’m not sure where that’s buried. In an email. You have to make it abundantly clear. So here’s last thing. This is how you log in and I give them the first task. I say, Go and do this. And the thing that they have to do is basically take a quiz in my membership, which helps them understand where they are in those four pillars. So we have 0 to 5 rating in each of those, and they basically answer questions to establish where they are, and then that becomes the measurable of the membership. So I see it almost on a weekly basis. People say, you know, when I joined, I was I was ones across the board and now I’m threes across the board. Like, who would have thought it? This is a miracle. Amazing. So that becomes the measurable thing. There’s also a whole bunch of other stuff, and I have a page in the member’s area, which is literally I mean, I should call it war and peace, because it literally has this is everything you need to know and it tells people cool times, the links, how to ask questions, the weekly Q&A.
And so if anybody ever has any questions, they are directed to that page. And what’s really nice is that when I see people asking, where do I find this information, the other members now jump in and say, Oh, it’s here. And so that they’re directing them to that page, which is really, really useful. So that’s how we onboard people be. The kind of personal touch for me is that I record a video for every single person that joins. So I use one. Doro I know there’s a couple of different options and I just record that little video and I kind of I kind of love that it’s. I record it in any state I’m in. So if I’m just coming out of the gym and I’m in my gym kit, I’ll be like, Hey, Sonny, it’s Fe and you’ve just joined us and I’m so happy that you have. And I tell them basically what to do next. I give them that one option Don’t do this thing, and this is how you can ask for help. And that’s that. And those videos go down really well.
Well, yeah, I love that. And especially you give them one thing to do. What’s an example like they’ve just joined. It’s in general. What do you tell them?
Go and take the success pathways. It’s always that like this is your start point. Always, because there’s a lot of information in my membership, Like there’s a lot, of course, material. And I know from, you know, working with other membership owners now that the number one reason that people leave is overwhelmed, like there’s too much, even though it’s cheap, yet it’s cheap. It’s only £35 a month, but I can’t make use of it. I’m overwhelmed. It’s just stuff everywhere. So if you tell people, listen, you don’t have to do all of the things all the time. You just have to do the things that are going to move the needle in your business. So if somebody has done this success path and they know, like in marketing, yeah, well, I have got my stuff together in in a marketing sense, it’s working well for me is the other areas. I will tell them, go and cherry pick the content that’s helping you in those areas. Don’t focus on the thing that’s working really well right now. Go and get your ducks in a row and focus on the things that aren’t working. Put your time into that because you need all of these things to be working well.
And yeah, so I think you answered that question. I just want to confirm. So when people take the quiz, are you giving them a path specific, specifically based on the results of their quiz?
Yes and no. So they are then directed to our course area where all of the courses are broken down and they can access them any time they want and they’re told, listen, go and cherry pick the things for you. That was for you. So they’re broken down into these four pillars. And then because here’s the other thing, and it’s interesting you should ask this. One of the things that I found very early on was a lack of independence from a lot of members. And I want to encourage this this concept of independence and making a choice that’s right for them. I actually don’t want to create an environment of spoon feeding because that, for me is not somebody who’s going to stick around for years because they just constantly, what should I do next? What should I do next? What should I do next? And I talk a lot about that in the Q&A sessions and in our coaching, cause I talk about like, Well, if you didn’t have me to ask that question of what would you do? What’s your instinct telling you is the right thing to do? And then if I wildly disagree, I will say like, here are the I don’t think that’s a good idea, but it’s your business. You have to make a call on it. And sometimes I do have to offer a bit of tough love because people, you know, struggle to make decisions for themselves. I don’t want that for them. I don’t I don’t want them to feel like they have to be under my wing forever. Know?
Yeah, you all this is such a huge point that Faye’s bringing up here. And this is a this is actually a conversation that I’ve been having with my team over the past probably the past month or so about this exact topic. I mean, in my case, for accelerator members, right? And so like teaching, if you’ve got a membership, if you’ve got a course, the idea is exactly what Fey is saying. It’s like if we just tell them the answer and just go do this, this, this and this, what is that actually doing? It’s not really teaching people to think for themselves and feel like to to be empowered to make the decisions in their business. Now, just like what Fe said, it is a case of if they think, Och, I think I should go do this, I’m going to do this. And it’s like, No, no, no, no, no, no, no. But it’s like you can share that and y and, but it’s not like, it’s not like, wait wait, don’t do that. Do this right. This is such an important point. Teaching people to you know, it’s the whole fishing, like.
100%.
Teach a person, teach a person to fish rather than just give the fish to them. I think this all this plays into this amazing experience that we created the membership in such a high retention rate.
I think I think it does. I think it is the sort of total solution because I’ve I’ve spoken to a lot of membership owners who are saying, like, I’m I’m really struggling. You’re not really struggling. What are we doing differently? And, you know, the good people with great business and, you know, so much to give, but it’s kind of you’ve got to find that sort of sweet spot between all of those things for it really to to work.
Where do you house the membership?
So it’s all a house on my website I use member press.
Okay.
Which is like the gatekeeper and the payment processor.
Gotcha. So I know that people are thinking right now, okay, great. We get all this. You’ve got all these members in here. And I just did some math a few minutes ago. You’re generating between 20,020 £5,000 reoccurring a month at the 600 person level. How do you get people into the the membership? I know that in June, when we had our retreat in in Las Vegas, you had just done the launch. Didn’t go as well as you’d hoped. Are you how often do you do you launches? Let’s let’s talk about that. How do you get members in your membership?
So I launch and I have an evergreen funnel. I know because I really love launching, which I know some people are like, what? People are like, Who are you?
Who is this? And I’m switching off. I, I do. I really love launching. I love the energy of it. I love just meeting new people. I like teaching what I know and what I believe changes businesses. So I really love launching. And I usually and this year I launched in January and I will launch again in sort of September, October time. Being in the wedding industry, the summer period is is not a great time to launch. And I gave it a go in May because I think, you know, we had a conversation if you don’t try things, how do you ever know whether they work in business? It’s like sometimes you have to you don’t know until you try a new pair of shoes. On whether they fit or not. Well, I tried a new pair on in May and they didn’t fit so well because May wasn’t a great month for me to launch and we know that now, so that’s good. So January works really well because it’s, you know, the winter months are typically like hibernation period for wedding business owners. It tends to be less, less events. So those months are my key months for launching. And that going forward, I will I will stick with that and I use a challenge launch. So I call it the Wedding Business Bootcamp and we basically have like five days of well, four of those days. I take them through each of the pillars. So all the time, the whole way through that, that challenge, I call it boot camp, I’m talking about what the end product. So I relate everything back to something that I’m actually going to sell them in the future. So by the time it comes to day five, when I’m talking to them about the membership, it all makes sense. Oh, I see. Now, on Monday we talked about that pillar. On Tuesday. It was that and it all ties back in and I think that’s why the launches have worked so well. I haven’t really changed the format of that launch since the very beginning, and I’ve done that about seven or eight times.
Because it worked.
Because it was inherently like, where’s the path of least resistance here? I will take that one. And if it works, I’m not going to fix it. So.
So people love hearing like, okay, I get it. It’s a it’s the wedding business boot camp as a challenge style launch. Give us like the the specifics of it what date is the the launch.
So so day one of boot camp is the Monday day to day three. Day four. So we go through mindset brand business, marketing, one element of each of them. So I’m not teaching them how to climb the mountain, it’s just to get them on the first rung of that ladder. And then on the Friday we basically have a session where I bring it all together. So I kind of everything people say every time, Oh, like the penny has dropped. I totally get this now. And I talk about how you might have won two or three of these pillars, and you may be focused on that. If you don’t have all four, you will not run a successful wedding. Business like this is probably the reason you’re not successful right now. And most people like, Oh yeah, I get that. And I open car on that day, on that fifth.
Day, on the on the.
Friday day. And it’s really funny because so many people like you open car on a Friday that’s crazy. Well, it works for me so. I don’t think that’s.
Crazy. Yeah. Like over the weekend. But actually it’s always worked really well for me and I couldn’t again on the Tuesday, so I have quite a short period of open call. I learned the hard way the first time I launched. I opened up for a week and it felt like the longest week of my life. Then I changed it just the Wednesday that still felt long. And the Tuesday is just my sweet spot.
I love it. So you do those two times a year. You said January. January in September. So but you also have an evergreen photo and that you use to get people into the membership as well. Tell us about.
That. So it’s a master class and it’s called funnily enough, it’s called the Four Pillars to a Successful and Profitable Wedding Business. And the strapline is exactly remember the words I use, but I talk about like how how these four pennies get you to a say of fully booked because that’s what that’s the language my industry use. I need to be paid. Yeah. And in that master class I walk through, it’s very similar to the boot camp.
I was just very similar.
And at the end of that I open enrollment and people have exactly the same period of time to join and claim a bonus and they go.
And so you all brings up a great point here. And I’ve talked about this before. If you’re if you do a challenge style launch or what, how do you live and you want to do something evergreen and you’re like, oh, I want to do and I don’t want to do the challenge on Evergreen. I want to do a webinar. We’ll just just take what you teach in the challenge and create a webinar out of it. You’ve already you already done the work. Yeah. And so talking about path of least resistance here, that is the easiest thing that you can do to create that evergreen webinar. I mean, now.
That it’s just so key that it’s so, so I can’t even stress this enough. So I’m not going off on a tangent, but it’s really important. So I wrote this book. So I wrote a book and in.
This what’s it called for our.
Listeners? I do say yes to running a successful and profitable wedding business. And in this book, there are four main chapters, and they’re my four pillars. Like, everything leads back to this thing that I teach and. It’s like just having having that that kind of structure and that direction where everything leads back to this is the way I teach. The thing I teach has been. Enormous for me.
Yeah. Your messaging is consistent across the board, whether you’re writing a book, whether you are writing an email, Evergreen funnel, live, launch.
The content in the member’s area, everything comes back to that.
Are you running ads directly to the master class for your evergreen currently?
Not, but outside of the summer period. Is is is a big one for us because wedding business owners, even my members are like, oh, you know, I can’t I’m not even in a position right now to consume the content. So outside of the summer period I will when we’re not launching. So what I typically do is run ads for a month in the run up to the boot camp for the live launch and then a couple of weeks after a live launch has finished, then we’ll kick into the Evergreen.
And it’s and when you’re running that campaign, you’re running ad directly to class. Do you remember? Because I don’t remember what it was. But when I when we first spoke, you mentioned what your conversion rates.
Yeah.
Are in general for your evergreen file. Do you, do you recall what they are.
So they’re about 20, 20% for the Evergreen Funnel and in the live launch there, 10%.
Can you repeat that again? Because for both like you all this is so interesting about what Faye’s doing here. Because in general, in general, across the board, you’re evergreen stats are going to be about half what they are for live. For Faye, it’s reversed. Yeah. So around 20% conversion for your evergreen, around 10% conversion. Live. So there are people right now listening saying, well, why don’t you just do more for training?
Yeah. And that very much is on my radar. Post September launch. Yeah, for sure.
So why do you think it’s higher for Evergreen than life?
I don’t know. And I’ve I’ve had some thinking time on this one, and I just I don’t know because the beauty of the and. My live launch has had conversion rates of like 15%. I’m just talking generally like in order to launch is at 10%. So I have had that result where it’s been higher and that the success of the launch and even that like when I tell people ten, 15%, they’re like, Wow, that’s an amazing conversion rate. Like, Yeah, it is. And I think it’s like that personal. I think it’s that the space, it’s the answering every comment like we
talked about is making people feel seen that the reason that that’s success. So I can really pin pin that down but for the evergreen I don’t know And obviously I’m loath to change anything. Like, should I update it? No, don’t touch it.
Don’t touch.
It. It will not be touched.
I mean, it’s incredible to as for coal traffic coming into this funnel on a membership, which generally, generally is harder to sell to coal traffic because they see it as, oh, it’s a reoccurring payment. I’m skeptical. You’ve got a 20% conversion rate on on Evergreen. That’s that’s awesome. I have two more things I want to cover with you. One of the best ways to increase our lifetime customer value in a membership is to get people to upgrade to an annual membership. You offer them monthly. And I think you said it was like I look at my notes like 350 ish pounds for.
300 and sides.
So a free month.
You do an annual event. That you leverage to one of the things you do with what the annual event is to use that to help upgrade people into a yearly membership. And it works really well for you. It really can you kind of break down like how you do that? Yeah.
So the first year we did the annual event, it had to be online because of the pandemic. So I wasn’t really aware of the power of the annual event until last year when we finally were able to do an in-person event and. But I’m not sure I even had anticipated how many people would have wanted to upgrade because FOMO is a real thing and seeing like part of the community come together. But I would have struggled with that being an accelerator if only half of the people had got to come to the retreat, I’d be like, Oh no, I want to be there. So and also the proof is in the pudding, right? When we did the annual event last year for the for the first time in person, I went all in like, yeah, we went all in. So we had amazing speakers, We had a lovely venue, we fed them, we watered them, we looked after them, we gave them goodie bags. It was the event in my industry that people were talking about. And what I realized was actually this is a really powerful tool because on its own as a standalone day, this is worth the annual membership and some like exposure to the guest speakers, The opportunity to chat to me and other other members and network with people was absolutely huge. So this year we gave people plenty of notice. Our events in November and you know, about two months ago we had the opportunity for people to upgrade and like overnight we had about 20 people up, right?
It’s awesome. Yeah, I love it. Super smart.
And, you know, like, I understand not everybody is in a position or has the personality that is like, I’m all in. I’m very much an all in kind of person. If I see something and I’m like, Yes, that’s amazing. I would just join the annual. I just feel like I’m at that and it’s fine. I mean, it’s amazing, but I understand that some people don’t who don’t know me, and perhaps more from the evergreen people that come in through Evergreen, like until an hour ago, they might have not even known who I was or like my history or my place in the in the industry. So they need to just kind of scope that membership out and be a monthly member for a bit to realize this is awesome to then be in a position to go, Yeah, I definitely want 12 more months of this.
I love it. So I teased at the very beginning that as we wrap up here, your business has allowed you to create a lifestyle that is has a ton of freedom in it. You’ve got two kids. You want to do things with them in terms of experiences, trips, etc.. Two weeks from right now, we’re recording this the middle of July. In two weeks, you’re taking your family to. How old are your kids?
13 and 11.
- You’re taking your family to go climb Mount Kilimanjaro? Yes. Before he record. You’re like, Yeah, it’s seven days of climbing, one day descent. And I’m like, Wait, wait, wait. Seven days of.
Climbing? No.
So you and the reason that you’re and I was like, That is the most bizarre trip ever. But I actually love it. And so what? Like, this is really important to you to give your kids these types of experiences and which your business allowed you to do. So, yeah, like, why do you do these types of types of trips?
Oh, so I mean, there’s a couple of things really. So one is that I don’t really like stuff, like things I don’t have an expensive taste in handbags or watches or cars. I don’t have any beef with anyone who does, but it’s just not really my thing. It never really has been the things that I love to spend money on or experiences. So holidays and not just holidays, but travel trips, culture. So that’s always been really hot on our priority list. And and as soon as the kids were able to, we were like, right, we’re off with Troubled quite extensively with the kids. So far, we’ve done some crazy trips already. And coming out of the pandemic, we were going to we knew we had not had to, but we knew we wanted to do something pretty meaty. And so we’re Googling like ideas for crazy families. And there it was.
And the first thing that’s. You literally Googled.
That. Yeah, like, adventurous, probably.
I love it.
I love it there. It was like Trek Mount Kilimanjaro, which is the world’s highest freestanding mountain. And it’s the highest mountain in Africa. And so, yeah, anyway, it’s a biggie. And so the second we saw it, I have that sort of feeling of, Oh God, now I got to do it because I’ve seen it and I have that constant battle with myself in life. I have that in business as well. Like, Oh, I know this is going to be epic and I’ve got to do it because it’s going to be brilliant. But oh, it’s going to be hard. And we just, I don’t know, we just kind of like that as a family. So coupled with the fact that during lockdown we started a charity. So I’ve always had this idea that I wanted to use my skills in the world of photography to teach underprivileged children the art form of photography, because photography is an expensive hobby like it just is. It’s not accessible to to all children, but. But I will say I think not every child can draw. Not every child can paint like I’m terrible at painting and drawing, but I have such.
I just love photography. So in the pandemic we started our charity lives in Focus and we are going to be offering workshops to kids all over the world, Tanzania included, which is where Mount Kilimanjaro is, to teach them photography. And not just that we’re going to sell their artwork to raise money for local charities with the idea that these kids can learn that they don’t they can break free of what is expected of them. You know, a lot of these kids will become a rice farmer because their dad and their grandfather and their great great grandfather and that’s what they’ve always done. But we would like to show children that there are ways to be financially independent in life through their creativity. So it’s called creative poverty, like these kids who just never have the chance to even try photography or try anything like that. So we’re going to run workshops. So we’ve raised a nice amount of money for our trek and hopefully some more along the way. But that’s that’s why we’re doing it because we’re mad and we want to raise some money.
I love it. I love it. So cool. So cool. Well, I want to make sure that people can connect with you if whether they’re in the wedding business or not. I think you’re an amazing person to connect with and learn what what you’re doing, what are all the way and if people are listening right now are in the wedding space, they’re like, Oh my gosh, I’m going to join the wedding club. What are the best ways for them to connect with you?
So I mainly hung out on Instagram, on Instagram, I’m just very cornhill say with an E for y e cornhill. So come and find me then send me a message I love. In recent months, I’ve spoken to so many membership wannabes or membership business owners who are like, Hang on, how are you doing that thing? So if that’s anyone that’s listening and they want to pick my brain, like send me a message, I’d love to chat. I’m obsessed with the business model, but I thought I was going to hate So.
Careful what you wish for. I have a very passionate audience.
I genuinely I think this this, this way of running my business. And, you know, we haven’t even gone there, but I do not even work 20 hours a week, so just put that out there. I used to, when I was doing all of the other things in my business, it has changed my life immeasurably and it’s affording me to do the things that are really important. So if anyone wants to chat about that, let’s do it.
I love it you all. When you reach out to Faye, just let her know that you heard her on the podcast here and I challenge you to reach out to Fai. I’ve had people tell me in the past past, yes, they say I have been on a lot of podcasts, but never before have I have I gotten so much outreach from your audience. And that’s because I have the best audience ever. So reach out to FAI on Instagram. Fai, thank you so much for coming on the show.
Thank you, Rick.
Hey, my friend. If you are interested in learning more and applying to our accelerator coaching program, we take a few people each month into the program. Now, this is a coaching program, one on one coaching group coaching and a mastermind experience for established course creators. If you’ve got a membership, maybe you’ve got maybe you’re a coach, right? And we are all about helping you grow and scale your business and impact while you are working No more than a 25 hour workweek, right? This is all about helping you create the revenue and the financial independence for you and your family and the impact within a not so normal workweek for you, giving you the freedom to do whatever it is that you want. I know that that sounds cliche, but that’s exactly what we help our members do inside of accelerator. So if you’re interested in learning more and filling out application for it, just go to. And by the way, we’ve really simplified the application process. So if you’ve gone to the page before and you’re like, I’m really I really want to apply, don’t can’t take the time right now. Encourage you to go back there and check it out. So just go to Rick Muller. Radio.com for Accelerator. Rick Muller Forward slash Accelerator. All right, my friends, thank you as always for tuning in today. Super appreciate you until the next episode. Be well my friend and I will talk to you soon.
