#1: How I Built My Low Ticket Membership & The Lessons I've Learnt

Kylie Kelly [00:00:10]:
Hello, my loves. And welcome to this private podcast series called Low Ticket Membership Lab where I'm gonna take you behind the scenes of what it's been like to create my own low ticket membership, the spotlight club, and the lessons that I've learned. Now this series is 6 episodes long, and each episode is short packed full of value with lessons learnt and takeaways in case you were considering starting your low ticket membership. Or perhaps you already have one and it's not doing or performing the way you like. So over the next 6 episodes, we're gonna dive into, firstly, why I decided to start a low ticket, high value membership and also the benefits of this type of business model. Then episode 2, we're gonna navigate the planning phase. We're gonna talk all about the initial planning stages of creating the spotlight club. I'm gonna discuss with you some market research and the way that I determine the content and the benefits of the membership.

Kylie Kelly [00:01:01]:
Episode 3, we're gonna cover how I built out the membership platform, my tech stack, the tools software that I need. I'm going to be fully transparent about my overheads, how much it costs, what it all looks like. Then episode 4, we're gonna talk about launching and marketing the membership. We're gonna then move into member experience and engagement, and we're gonna wrap it all up with some lessons learnt and the future plans I have for the club. So lots to dive into. I'm so excited to do this with you. If at any time through listening to this series you have a question that you want to ask me, I really want to encourage and invite points for those because I feel like voice messages are a little bit of my love language and I will get back to you. I'm so passionate about this business model.

Kylie Kelly [00:01:47]:
I want you to know the pros and cons and really pull back the curtain so you can then evaluate whether this is gonna be a good fit for your business and, ultimately, your life. We're here to build a life on our own terms. So let's dig on in. So in case you don't know me, my name is Kylie Kelly. I call myself an email growth strategist. I help female entrepreneurs now grow their email list fast without social media or paid ads. So normally that means that it's relationship based strategies. Things like summits, bundles, freebie swaps, podcast guesting.

Kylie Kelly [00:02:18]:
That is what my now membership, the spotlight club, is all about. That's what I'm helping my members do. But it wasn't always this way. If I rewind the clock back, I actually used to be a wedding photographer. I had a wedding photography studio for over a decade leading up to the pandemic, then weddings were cancelled. I had to refund, like, $40,000 worth of deposits, almost sent me bankrupt. I have 2 little boys. And I was like, what do I do now? What do I want to do now? It was this beautiful time in my life where the world stopped.

Kylie Kelly [00:02:44]:
Right? The world was on pause and it gave me an opportunity to really reflect and see what I wanted to do. I also didn't really get a choice because, let's be honest, my business went down the toilet, so I had to do something. But it meant that I could put some more time into thinking about what that would be. So I pivoted to an online business. Now at the start of that pivot in 2020, I had no idea what sort of business I wanted. I invested in some high ticket masterminds because the coaches told me they had the answers. That's another discussion for another day. And they did help me come to the place that I'm at now, but it took me a while.

Kylie Kelly [00:03:15]:
It was a good 18 months before I even knew what I wanted that to look like. And let's be honest, my business and my offers are still evolving. They're still changing and I think they always will. But the first thing that I got really clear on was who I wanted to help. I knew I wanted to help women that were building a business whilst they raise their kids like I was trying to. Right? I knew that piece. And then throughout the journey, it's now morphed into what I'm super passionate about, which is email marketing and email list building, which I would have never guessed coming from a creative wedding photography background. So it was all a bit of a surprise to me, but I can't imagine my life any other way.

Kylie Kelly [00:03:51]:
Now the spotlight club was actually a bit of an accident. It was a surprise. I've never liked memberships. I'd only really been a member of 1 membership and that was to my local gym. And let's be honest, most of the time, I wasn't going enough. So I wasn't getting my money's worth. So there was a lot of negativity that circled around me when I was thinking about memberships, especially fitness related ones. And so the fact that I am now a membership owner is quite hilarious.

Kylie Kelly [00:04:17]:
Now remember when I mentioned those high ticket masterminds that I joined a few minutes ago? So one of the coaches there also sold high ticket. So she believed that that was the way that business is done. Right? And so I was led down the path of selling high ticket. I created this incredible program. I put my heart and soul into it. I launched it. I did get a sale. Now the terms high ticket and low ticket mean different things to different people.

Kylie Kelly [00:04:42]:
Right? It's all relative as to how much money we make and the experiences that we've had. But for me, anything high ticket is like $1,000 plus. Right? So when I was selling this high ticket course, back then it was priced at 2 and a half $1,000. It was a lot of money. Right? And when I went into the 2nd launch, it just didn't feel good in my body. In my gut, it didn't feel right to then be selling something at that price point. Now I think a lot of that comes from my own past and my own money baggage. Right? Because there's been, especially around the pandemic, my husband and I were both self employed in creative industries.

Kylie Kelly [00:05:14]:
So there was a lot of financial challenges that came around that period of our life. So all of that to say, when I was trying to then sell high ticket, it didn't feel good for me. I kept hesitating. I wasn't confident. And so I didn't sell any places. So fast forward through that launch, I saw it out because everybody says you have to see things out, right? So I saw the launch out and I remember being in the shower crying, going like, what the hell? How am I going to build something that provides income for me and my family that actually allows me to have this flexible lifestyle where I can be the mom that does school pick up that I want to be excited to serve? How can I get this message out to more people about how they can grow their email list quickly and easily? By that point, I'd hosted virtual events, and my email list had gone from 0 to 1200 in 2 events. So I was like, how can I teach more people this if it's not through this high ticket program? Right? So how can I spread the word? And I just had this idea of the membership of the Spotlight Club drop into me. And my first reaction was like, hell no.

Kylie Kelly [00:06:17]:
I do not want to own a membership. I do not I don't want to do that at all. But what else was I gonna do? Right? Here I was coming off the back end of a launch that had totally failed, made no money. I was doing a lot of virtual assistant work and just, like, doing whatever I could to make any income for my family. My husband and I have been very 5050 with everything always. So it was on me to provide for 50% of what we needed and he provides the other 50%. Right? So how was how was I going to meet that without trading my time for money like I was doing as a virtual assistant, as a social media manager, as, like, all the different hats I was trying to wear, a podcast editor. So when the membership idea came up, it was appealing for the fact that I was like, well, this is gonna be reoccurring.

Kylie Kelly [00:06:59]:
If people want this, this is reoccurring revenue. And so that felt safe. That felt good in my body thinking like, well, that means at the start of every month, I'm not starting from 0. At the start of every month, I have something that is reoccurring that puts me, like, a step ahead of where I am right now. And that got me excited. So I decided to do something. I decided to just, like, float the idea. I'm a big believer in pre selling things anyway to see if people want it before you go and create it.

Kylie Kelly [00:07:26]:
So I thought, well, you know what? Let's just, like, float it out and see what the reaction is. So I emailed my list. At that time, there there might have been about 1500 people on my list. So I emailed them and said, hey. I've just had this crazy idea. This is what I'm thinking. Like, would you be interested? And I had an overwhelming amount of yeses hit my inbox. An amount that I couldn't deny.

Kylie Kelly [00:07:46]:
Right? It showed me that, okay, there's there's something in this. I don't know what it's gonna look like yet. I don't know how this is gonna all unfold or work out, but people want it. So that is step number 1 tick. So then I started thinking about the price point. Now, originally, I thought that I'd love to end it up at around $50 a month. Right? But we need to to drum up a bit of momentum, to drum up a bit of It's not even ready yet. There's nothing there.

Kylie Kelly [00:08:17]:
But if you commit to me for $19 a month, I will have something amazing for you when I'm ready to go. And then it increased. Then it went to 27. Then it went up to 37. And then it was gonna end at 47. So my plan, my complete launch plan, which we will get into in way more detail in episode number 4, but was to have these, like, timed price increases so that that excitement and the urgency was building. So I started at the $19 and from the moment I opened that checkout, I had people joining. I had something like 20, 25 members join at $19 from the start and there was nothing there.

Kylie Kelly [00:08:50]:
I hadn't done anything. I hadn't built anything. I think I might have had a welcome email to say like, thanks. I'm so excited. It's coming soon. And that was it. So I started building things out and again, we'll get into this more into further episodes where I go into more detail about each specific thing. But I started to build the membership out and I started to increase the price in line with my plan.

Kylie Kelly [00:09:09]:
When I got to a certain number of members, I was increasing the price. So the first first one was, like, 25 people. And then it was going to be 40 members, and then it was 50 members. And, like, whenever I hit this, like, really random number, I was increasing the price. So that there was this excitement. Oh my god. What number am I need to get it now? And that was really, really fun for me and it was fun for my audience as well. And then when it got to the 47, something of me went, This is good? But suddenly I don't feel as excited as I did before.

Kylie Kelly [00:09:37]:
So I made this crazy decision to slash it and just make it 19 for everyone. So that meant refunding all the people that have paid more than 19, refunding them the difference and letting them know, You know what? This might be crazy, but it's just $19. I want everyone to be able to afford this. And again, coming from that experience that I'd had where it had been financially really tough for us as a family, And I'd committed to these high ticket programs and then felt this, like, pressure and strain when it was really hard to fulfill my commitments. Right? And so I don't want that energy. I don't want that vibe around the membership. So why don't we make it 19? Crazy. Right? I'm gonna over deliver the socks off them.

Kylie Kelly [00:10:16]:
Make it $19. Make it worth every single cent, and then maybe down the line, have an upgrade. Maybe down the line, they can buy 1 on 1. Maybe then I can have other little upsells or value ads where I can create more income for my business and my family. But let's play that low ticket, high value game so that it's like this almost risk free way of people entering my world. I get to really show them what I'm about. They get to make sure that we're a good fit. They get to make sure that they like how I talk, that I they don't mind me swearing a little bit that that they wanna partner with me.

Kylie Kelly [00:10:48]:
Right? And it only cost them $19 to figure that out. And then if they want to upgrade, if they want to stay, if they want to invest more, they already know it's the right decision. It's not asking somebody to risk investing a higher price point and then possibly feeling like I did in some of those other high ticket programs, right, where you kind of regret it. I don't want anyone to ever feel like that that when they invest in me. And by doing it this way, by having this low risk entry point means that the people that are staying are the people that really wanna work with me. They are there for the right reasons. They totally are on board with the way that I coach, the way I teach who I am, and then they get to invest more. And the people that come and they pay $19 and like, doesn't feel like a good fit.

Kylie Kelly [00:11:28]:
That's okay. Like, then it's only cost them a small amount of money to figure that out, and that feels good for me. That just makes me sing. So knowing that about this model means that it's a volume game, means that that I have to be constantly talking about it, constantly selling it, constantly promoting it and putting it out there in spaces that I haven't before to get enough people in so that the game is having enough members at $19 that I can feed my family. Right? And then anything extra is bonus. Then I get to scale. Then I get to actually create a bit more wealth. And that's then the icing, the bonus.

Kylie Kelly [00:12:07]:
That's then if I do my job well, if I over deliver, if I provide opportunities for people to upgrade, if I'm doing everything that I can, I feel like that's the reward? So anyway, that's kind of why I am obsessed with this low ticket, high value membership model because I feel like it just builds so much trust with you and your audience, and it feels good for them too. It's not this risk for them to dive into your world. So that was my messy path to get there. I would not recommend, if that sounds good to you, start there. Don't go and charge more and have to refund people and then slash the price. And then that was a little bit of a messy path to figuring that out. But I'm so glad I did it. I'm so glad that I continually stopped and asked myself, like, how does this feel? How does this feel? Does this feel fun right now? How does this feel? And by doing that, by being in tune with those answers means that you're always making the right choices for the right reasons going forward.

Kylie Kelly [00:12:54]:
That's a little bit of an overview into the spotlight club, into the path that it took to get here, into how it was created, and why I love that low ticket, high value membership model. Of course, if you're listening to this and you're not in the club and you wanna learn to grow your email list really fast, I can't not invite you. I would be silly to not invite you. So please come and check it out. You'll find the link to the sales page in the show notes below. It is amazing. There's over 200 women in there at the moment, and we just cheer each other on to grow their email lists without social media, without paid ads, in ways that feel really good for them. So go and check that out.

Kylie Kelly [00:13:28]:
Please come and join us if it aligns with you and the way you wanna grow your business. But stay tuned for the next episode in this little series where we're going to navigate the planning phase. I want to take you through the initial planning stages of creating the content in the Spotlight Club. I want to talk to you a little bit about the market research that I did around my ideal clients, and I want to share the process that I took that determined the content and the benefits that I chose when I brought the membership to life. So I hope you found this interesting. As I said, if you have any questions, drop me a DM on Instagram. You'll find me over at Kylie Kelly or send me an email at hello at Kylie Kelly dot com, and I'll be more than happy to chat whether this is a good fit for you and give you my thoughts and answer any questions that you might have. Thanks again for being here and I'll see you in episode 2.