Creating an online course is no longer a new idea, and lots of online marketers have courses on how to create your own online course. (Pretty meta, eh?)

Courses that teach how to put together a successful online membership, however, are more rare. Stu McLaren’s The Membership Experience (Tribe) fills the gap. 

What is The Membership Experience (Tribe)?

The Membership Experience itself is not a membership. Instead, it is a course on how to create a successful, profitable membership that retains members month after month. 

The course is broken down into manageable chunks and the content is dripped out over a period of weeks. Each week covers different material and has a live Q&A session to ensure no one falls behind due to confusion.

Stu does also offer a membership, but only to those who have taken his course first. It makes sense. Without the knowledge of his course as a foundation, members wouldn’t have the understanding to take full advantage of what the membership has to offer.

Is The Membership Experience Worth It?

Although the cost of TME will likely go up, I paid $1997 and I can say, without a doubt, it was worth it. 

Stu is one of the most genuine online teachers I’ve encountered and his team is top notch. The support you receive is fantastic and the team goes out of their way to ensure your questions are answered and you feel supported.

I had always approached the idea of having a membership with a bit of dread. People told me I should have a membership that helped people with their tech, but I couldn’t quite wrap my head around how I would do that. It seemed like a whole lot of time and attention to spend on something that I felt I couldn’t charge much for… 

Stu helps people to understand that the most successful memberships actually provide less content, not more. In fact, the research his team has done shows that the biggest reason people leave memberships is actually because they have too much content and members get overwhelmed. 

Even if you’re not interested in paying for a course, the Membership Experience free trainings that Stu offers prior to the realize of the course each year is top notch. You can sign up for The Membership Experience Workshop here.

Don’t Enroll in Stu McLaren’s Membership Experience (Or Any Other Online Course) If…

I work with people every day who want to launch an online course or membership. Trust me when I tell you there is no program out there that is going to make the process free, easy or magical. If buying TME means you won’t be able to afford an email service provider, a landing page creator, or a way to host a membership, then you should wait to purchase the course until it’s offered again. Before successfully launching any online program, you need to have a warm list of email subscribers who are anxious to buy from you. TME can teach you how to build that list, but you will still need to be able to afford the programs that make that happen.

If you aren’t willing to work hard, really hard at first, TME won’t help you. While the barrier to creating an online course or membership has never been lower, being successful online still requires work and isn’t free. That is the case for any online course not just TME. 

Final words on TME…

Each year, more online courses appear, and I’ve gotten quite jaded after taking many that don’t live up to my expectations. Stu McLaren’s The Membership Experience is one of the exceptions. His content is easy to follow, and fresh – not simply a bunch of recycled articles you can find elsewhere on the internet.  

I think it’s common in many online courses for the content and interaction to become streamlined as the course grows in popularity. One-on-one interactions, surprise bonuses, and touches of, well of, fun fall by the wayside as sheer numbers make such personalized touches expensive and time-consuming.

Well, where others zig, the team at TME zags. As the course has grown, so has the level of engagement, interaction and the types of surprises and fun that most of us haven’t had since we were kids. Not only does it make for a delightful experience, TME provides an excellent model on how to successfully run an online course that surprises, delights and over delivers. 

Want to see more of the courses I love and recommend? Check out Confessions of a Lifelong Learner….