In the podcast, I tell some stories about how I got into the paid content business plus some of the things I’ve learned along the way that I haven’t talked about before.

You can check it out here.

Izzy and Tim ask some great questions – a great example of how to interview well, actually. So if you don’t listen for my killer business tips, listen just to pick up a few interview tricks.

After I wrote that sentence I thought, “ContinuityKing.com is a great domain name – wonder who owns it?” Ryan Lee does.

I called Ryan to do a quick interview about his thoughts on membership sites, growing an online business with integrity, and dealing with the time pressures of being an online entrepreneur.

As usual, four different ways to listen, watch or read:

1. Listen to the audio here (click on the triangle play button):

2. Download the full mp3 file here
3. Read the transcript (below the video)
4. Watch the video:

Transcript:

MemberCon.com: Hi, everybody Tim Bourquin here from MemberCon. I’m going to talk with Ryan Lee today and a lot of you probably know of ryanlee.com. He’s a pretty much a leader in terms of membership sites and giving advice and education and coaching for membership sites, but I met Ryan at Blog World Expo really briefly. Ryan thanks very much for joining me on the phone today?

Ryan Lee: I’m excited to be here.

MemberCon.com: I watch your videos and of course you notice right away that the domain is your name, you’re branding yourself as the product, was that a conscious decision because I always think down the road of selling it and branding yourself as a person is tougher to sell while, but you make more money while you own the site. Was it a conscious decision to kind of make it your brand?

Ryan Lee: Yeah. And you know what it’s a great question because for years I fought it. I fought branding myself because of your exact reasons like it’s really hard to exit, but for me this is one component of my business is something I’m going to do forever. Like I’m Ryan Lee, just like Donald Trump, he’s Donald Trump, Martha Stewart is Martha Stewart. She’s not going to sell Martha’s. She’s always going to be doing whatever she’s doing, but what I’ve also done is build a lot of other business that aren’t depended on my name. I own a lot of membership sites. I own one called strengthcoach.com. My own software called Fitness Generator, a Nutrition Generator, and I own a lot of different properties that are not necessarily tied into my name. So Ryan Lee is kind of the umbrella for a lot of my Internet marketing stuff, but there’s still a ton of things that I own that are not my name. Like I have a new magazine coming out, it’s going to be called Dot Com Lifestyle and I could have called it like I could have been kind of an egomaniac and called it Ryan Lee Magazine or something like that, but I wanted to build a separate kind of brand, and I set up some separate corporations for some of these and separate merchant accounts. So if I were to sell those, it’s easy to just slice off little pieces of it.

MemberCon.com: Yeah. I’m glad you brought up about the magazine again too because I want to talk to you about that. You’ve got the recurring revenue report, which is a printed newsletter and a CD.

Ryan Lee: Correct.

MemberCon.com: And then you talk about doing an actual print magazine now?

Ryan Lee: Right. In case, I don’t have enough on my plate.

MemberCon.com: OK, you’re right, exactly, exactly. But I’m curious about that decision because of course prints are having a tough time right now and Internet is all about making it easy for digital downloads and things like that, did you find that people are signing up more for membership stuff these days if they get something physical on mail?

Ryan Lee: Yeah. Well, think about what I just said before, right? What did I just say?

MemberCon.com: Everybody’s doing it, yeah.

Ryan Lee: When everyone’s doing one thing, I like to do the other.

MemberCon.com: OK.

Ryan Lee: Because there are always opportunities. So you’re right, a lot of people are going digital, but right now my business 95% of it is digital and online, but there’s still something about getting that physical thing in the mail. It’s still hard to sit on the toilet with your laptop. As disgusting as it sounds, but it’s still hard to go to the beach with a laptop and read it in the airport, like there’s still something about that magazine and what a magazine does and in physical products, it still gives you a lot of credibility. If you think about it, emails, membership sites, all these, there’s still not a 100% deliverability, but something physical coming in the mail, a CD, DVD, a newsletter or magazine, whatever, assuming their address is right, if it’s wrong it’s going come back, but that’s a 100% deliverability. So, there’s a lot better ways to reach people in terms of marketing. So again everyone is online and everyone is trying to go online, so I’m going the opposite and plus the magazine publishers, the traditional publishing, they’re just, I’m not going to generalize and say they’re all morons, but what happens is no one thinks differently. It drives me crazy with business, everyone copies everyone else and they think, “Well, we’ve been publishing magazines like just for 120 years, this is the way it’s done.” No. It’s not the way it’s done. It’s not the way it has to be done. Like I’m looking for direct to consumer types stuff where they can cut up the middleman and so few people buy stuff in newsstands anyway and bookstores can return everything for a 100% of the money back, and just no wonder why all these magazines go out of business and they rely a hundred percent on advertising. I’m relying zero on advertising. I also know how to monetize the back end. So there are a lot of advantages that I know I’m going to have in getting into the magazine publishing business.

MemberCon.com: Sure, absolutely.

Ryan Lee: And I’m excited about it. I just love challenges.

MemberCon.com: That’s good.

Ryan Lee: But I think if you can add physical components, it’s definitely a great way to add a lot of value to your membership sites and also create different levels of memberships as well.

MemberCon.com: Right. We’re jumping around a little bit here.

Ryan Lee: I love to jump.

MemberCon.com: When I signed up for your inner circle, you gave away a ton of stuff. You gave away all the videos away from your Continuity Summit, and there were all kinds of bonus material available. I mean it was really a ton of stuff and for a lot of people that probably put them over the edge, but how did you kind of decide how much you are going to give away to get people on to that continuity program?

Ryan Lee: Well, another great question. I knew I wanted to do a big launch for this coaching because right now I had a mastermind group and people paying ten grand a year, and then I had my $40 a month newsletter, but people still email me everyday all day and they want me to coach them and I don’t want to take on individual clients anymore, it’s just not worth my time and I wanted to find the program that can kind of be a middle ground where I can answer a lot of questions and it’s not too expensive, which its cost prohibitive for everyone, but it also makes financial sense to me. So I said, “OK, I need to have some kind of continuity coaching and what I’m going to do to get attention and one of my main marketing guys said, “Well, why don’t we just give away this, I did this one DVD,” which is basically I took one session from my Continuity Summit and just took that out and made it its own DVD. Which by the way is good tip like even if you’re going like a multi day event or a multi hour, try to create them a separate sessions and I purposely created that, so it could be it’s own DVD. So anyway, he said, “Why don’t we just give away the DVD,” I’m like, “Yeah, but that’s not buzz worthy.” That’s not the kind thing where everyone is going to be talking about it and telling their friends about it. So I said, “Here’s what we’re going to do. Let’s give away everything from the Continuity Summit.” And then I saw people with, it was already being downloaded anyway online. I’m like, “Screw it,” because I already pre-selling for hundreds of dollars and sold the bunch from, but I’m like, “Screw it, I’m taking a chance, I’m rolling the dice, let’s do it and it was just a big hit. Sometimes you got to have some of the cajones to just put it out there.

MemberCon.com: Right.

Ryan Lee: There are a lot of people just did the dollar and cancel right away and, yeah, absolutely, but that’s OK because now they saw the stuff, they saw that I can deliver the goods, they saw I do this with a lot of integrity and honesty and hopefully they’re going to follow me for a long time and perhaps purchase other products or maybe get a membership to the magazine or whatever. But I know I’m going to change a lot of lives and touch a lot of people and reach a lot of people by really over delivering and making it. I want the people to see this site and say, “I’d be insane to not join.” And with giving away one DVD is just not going to do it.

MemberCon.com: Right.

Ryan Lee: But this level of insanity like Mark Joyner wrote a great book, The Irresistible Offer, like creating a super irresistible offer. So that’s what I try to do.

MemberCon.com: Then in terms of the stick rate in terms of what people are doing to continue on with that. It’s an open question, but what is a good retention right to go from that dollar these days to the first and getting them charged for that first month?

Ryan Lee: It’s going to depend on obviously your product, your market and the price of membership, but in general, this is a real kind of blanket statement, if it’s a forced continuity meaning, OK, you pay a dollar and then you already put it, you automatically put into like hundred dollar month program. You probably are going to get about half of the people stick through the first billing and then depending how good of a job you do keeping them and providing good content, it could fall by 5% a month, it could fall up to 20% a month, and you just have to keep refilling the bucket. So that’s kind of a real round, a real base number, but if you think that you’re going to do a dollar trial with even optional continuity or force continuity and think that people are going to stick in and you’re going to get 80 to 90% of the people sticking up on the first billing, you’re a 100% mistaken.

MemberCon.com: Yeah. It’s just not going to happen.

Ryan Lee: Because what happens is when you lower the barrier of entry to a dollar or free, you get so many more people in the door. Like literally five to ten times as many people, but you also get a lot more tie up kickers and what you’ll notice is it’s really an interesting phenomenon, but the more money people pay, the more laid back and understanding they are with things. So there were a couple of technical issues that happens and some people couldn’t get in and we get a lot of email supports and those questions and people who paid, who said, OK, they definitely want to stay with the 97 a month like, “Oh, Ryan I know you’re busy. I know about the technical issues, so just set me up whenever you can. I just want to check in.” It was probable 90 to 95% of people who were pissed or the people who only spend a buck. What is this crap? What’s this scam? I just spent a dollar, I can’t get in, I’m going to call my credit card company and charge back right away.” But it was the people who paid a dollar, who didn’t even want the continuity? So it’s like you attract the crowd that is just there, just the bargain hunters, and you don’t want to do that either. I mean you’re going to get more people in the door, but just be prepared for that as well and be prepared for up to 50% canceling before they even get to the first billing.

MemberCon.com: That’s true, whatever reason we’ve seen that two the higher the product price, the less support it actually takes to support those people which is interesting.

Ryan Lee: It’s just so counterintuitive, but it’s amazing. Like it’s just the way it is. I don’t get it. I mean I do get it, I do because there’s different mindset and the reason the people could afford the hundred a month are because they have the good mindset and they understand I’m investing in my education. With the dollar people like, “Yeah, let me just see this crap. Oh, let me see it’s only a dollar and I should do it, let me try it.”

MemberCon.com: And I know you’ve closed it now too. And I know that’s very popular these days, is to actually close the program because otherwise people don’t take action. I mean do you see that as pretty much the trend these days? You have to open it, close it and to get that urgency?

Ryan Lee: Well, yeah. You have to give some kind of reason and when all of my marketing is a 100% transparent and open. So everything I’m doing I tell people because I can’t stand, like you used to be able to get away with the crap, you can’t do it anymore. And when you say, we’re only selling 1,000 memberships this week, like people aren’t dumb, like it’s digital. You can sell 50,000 of them and why wouldn’t you? Why wouldn’t you want more members? It doesn’t make any sense. So at least if you close it down and give a reason why and to be honest it sounds like BS, but we were really having the technical issues, so we couldn’t handle anymore. So we have it closed now to the public and I still open it once in a while, and I have a secret page where my members can get it or people on my waitlist. So we still let people in, but it’s not open to the general public. We don’t want the big influx, and you know what, my members appreciate that because I’m handling more of them. I can give them better service; I can answer more of their questions, so they’re enjoying it too. But you have to be open and honest and I can’t stay when people are just dishonest and it’s so obvious too. “We only have ten more of them, our server crashed, we only have five more,” come on.

MemberCon.com: Right.

Ryan Lee: But give us a freaking break.

MemberCon.com: The emails.

Ryan Lee: Once they start sending that crap, I just unsubscribe. I’m like, “I am never going to trust you.” And once you break that trust you just can’t get it back. And a lot of marketers, they do the churn and burn mess. They get people in, they email them to death with no content until they unsubscribe and they just keep getting more people in the funnel, but that’s not how you build relationships? I mean I have client’s who have been with me for like 11 years online.

MemberCon.com: Wow.

Ryan Lee: That come to my events, that know my dad when he comes to the events. They give me hugs. One of my kids’ birthdays, they send presents, that’s the kind of stuff, that’s how you have an impact. It’s not just about lining your pockets with more money. It’s making an impact, making connections. Like my first job for six years, I worked in the children’s hospital, that’s all I knew and it was about making connections with the kids. It wasn’t just kind of suck money out of the kids and their families, I mean, I still don’t get that world where it’s just money, money, money, and that’s all it is. It’s more than that.

MemberCon.com: Yeah. And kind of going back to that whole branding your self too, online there are so many anonymous commenters, people that don’t want to give any information about themselves to go out there and say, “This is my name and this is who I really am,” I mean that could be a little scary at times, but it’s really what works. People think that if you just put good content out there, people want to know who’s behind it, right? I mean they want to know.

Ryan Lee: Yeah, absolutely. They want to know a story. They want to know who you are, again that’s the difference you see in a real business and selling a couple of eBooks, that’s the difference. That’s the difference between five and six figures and seven and eight figures.

MemberCon.com: Right.

Ryan Lee: And the ones who do really well. And I’m not talking about the scumbags who do the CPA offers and fake blogs and the Acai-Berry, and all that crap. I’m talking about like real, legitimate businesses that are making seven and eight figures. They’re developing relationships. They’re delivering really good content there, you know who they are. It’s not some faceless corporation with some cold message. Like if you’re a solo entrepreneur and you’re running a membership site, use that as your strength. Let people know you. Let’s say, “My name John Smith and I’m the one who runs this site and here’s me on the farm and this is what we do.” Like let people into your world.

MemberCon.com: Right.

Ryan Lee: It’s such a natural and easy way to market because you’re just being you, and when it comes across people can appreciate that. Not everyone’s going to like you and that’s fine. As you said, you’re putting yourself out there, but you have to have tough skin when you’re doing this. There is no doubt about it because even this as likable as nice as you are, as much as you are trying to help, there are still going to be people who don’t like you or think you’re an ass.

MemberCon.com: Yeah. Well, the things we’re battling right now too, is we put out a ton of free content to our email and newsletter and yet we’re still getting people that say, “You’re trying to sell me something all the time.” And I think to myself, “Well, you’re just realizing this now? I mean, of course, we’re trying to sell you something, but do you remember those four-hour long interviews we just sent you the last four days and yet that doesn’t stick in their head, it’s the one pitch that you sent them.” And yet it’s a small vocal group. You have to realize that that’s not the feeling of your entire list. It’s a small group.

Ryan Lee: Right. Yeah. And I used to read all my emails and believe it or not I really am very sensitive. Like every movie, I’m always freaking crying like I’m a big baby, softie. So even for making millions of dollars, like if someone sends me an email saying, “Oh, I didn’t like this or I want a refund or I want send back this product,” it still bothers me. So my assistant’s job is basically to protect me. Don’t let me see that crap. I don’t want to see it. I don’t need to see it.

MemberCon.com: Right.

Ryan Lee: Because it puts me in a little bit of a funk. So try to shield yourself from all that crap and just say, “Hey, look it’s one person who doesn’t like it and there will always be,” especially if you’re selling any business or marketing thing, there are some people who have such a lack mentality and anyone who tries to make any money, God forbid, you’re like the devil. “This should all be free. How could you charge for this? I could just find this stuff online.”

MemberCon.com: Yeah.

Ryan Lee: First of all, I know you can, and even if you could, it would probably take you four years and $50,000 investing in education to figure this stuff out when you could pay 99 bucks and let me shortcut it for you. So go knock yourself out. They’re bitter. They’re bitter people. They’re jealous people, and let me tell you, when you still make a lot of money it definitely changes some relationships. When you put yourself out there and people know your name, your friends are going to hear about it, and that definitely changes some relationship and some friends are going to, I can’t stand this phrase and say, “Can I just pick your brain?” Like, “Can I take you to lunch for an hour to just pick your brain?” It’s like, “No. You can’t.” I just picture some of the little pick, clicking away my brain like, “No. Just here, take my book, just read.

MemberCon.com: Well, especially when it’s stuff that that’s what you sell, right? I mean this is how I make my living and so you’re asking me to do something I do for a living.

Ryan Lee: Yeah. I mean if your friends, a personal trainer you say, “Hey, you know I gain ten pounds this past three months, can you just train me for free everyday?”

MemberCon.com: Right.

Ryan Lee: Like, “No. I can’t.”

MemberCon.com: It doesn’t work that way. All right. Two more questions.

Ryan Lee: Yeah. And especially if you’re, this drives me crazy. Like I spoke at a seminar a couple of weeks ago and I went up, I did my presentation. I had a product to sell, which included everything. And I always try to help people at the event, I answer all the questions. And one guy was sucking the life out of me, twenty minutes, he wouldn’t let me even help anyone else. He just kept asking and asking, then at the end he’s like, “Oh, can I ask your cell phone I want to call you and ask you more questions.” I’m like, “Did you buy the product?” “No.” I’m like, “All right, I got to go.”

MemberCon.com: Yeah, I mean.

Ryan Lee: That to me is just rude. Like don’t bother anyone and there was no, “Hey, thanks so much for the information; how can I help you Ryan?” Nothing. “But help me. Help me. Help me. Help me more. “No. I’m not going to buy your products. Help me. Help me.” Like why would I ever do anything for someone like that?

MemberCon.com: Yeah. And you got to just realize that some people are just going to keep taking and as long as you give it to them and in some place just be nice and say, “No. I can’t do this anymore.” It’s just that line you have to do. All right I’ve kept you on the phone longer than I promised, so I appreciate your patience. Two more questions. You mentioned the virtual assistance. One of the things that I’ve even done battle with myself lately is that I realized, “God, if I train a virtual assistant, I could almost do it in as long as it will take me to train them, but that’s really short term thinking.” How did you get over that hope of saying I’m just going to bite the bullet, training this person so that at long term I can get away from doing these things?

Ryan Lee: I’ll tell you what, that was a big bullet to bite. It took me months and months to finally say, “You know what, I’m just going to do it,” because I didn’t want to hire anyone. I want to do it all myself, but I had at the time Debbie Collin who’s great. She was coaching one my friends and I said, “Let me hire this business coach to help me kind of organize things.” And we’re talking and she’s like, “You’re at the point of your business, you need to hire someone, you have to have someone doing this.” I had someone who is basically just doing some transcription for me and I trusted her, she’s really responsible and I hired her. At that time, it was like 12 bucks an hour, which felt like a ton of money, but ever since then my life changed, like my businesses grown exponentially, and I couldn’t have done it without hiring someone. So there’s going to come a time we just hire someone. It doesn’t take long. I mean, it could be as easy as just do the screen capture videos of the process, like here’s how to go into the shopping cart, here’s how to change an order, here’s how to answer the email, here’s what to say, here’s what to do, here’s how to ship this, whatever it is. And you take a day or two out of your schedule, but once you do, within a week you make it back many times over. And there are even companies now you can just outsource customers support too. There’s so many resources, so many virtual assistants, but if you’re going to run a real business, you need someone, you can’t do it all yourself. There’s going to be a definite feeling on what can accomplish with just you.

MemberCon.com: You said you hired a couple of people for the magazine side. Did you decide that they work and be virtual people that you wanted them in the office, what made that decision for you?

Ryan Lee: With the magazine, it’s interesting because I had a guy, and he was my first intern. He is twenty years old, he’s like, “Hey, I live in the area.” He’s like, “I’d love to come help you out, do whatever you want.” He paid his own ticket. He came from live event last year. I really liked the kid. He would come in a couple of times a week and just help me out and do things and really motivated and he used to run magazines and newspapers for a school, for a college, and so I hired him to run it. So he’s in my office. That’s why I got a bigger office, so he’s going to get his own office, and then I hired another basically another customer support and someone to help out with the magazine as well. So that’s a local person. I actually put an ad in craigslist. I had like 200 responses. I was going through them all, and this guy is an intern, he said, “I have a friend who I used to work with in college and she ran the school paper there and she’s really motivated,” and I came and I interviewed her and she was just great. So I hired her on the spot. So that’s how I have those two people.

MemberCon.com: All right. We’re looking forward to seeing the magazine.

Ryan Lee: It’s so cool.

MemberCon.com: Good. That’s sounds great. So let me ask you, is lifestyle, when you say about kind of the online entrepreneur lifestyle thing, so it wouldn’t be business-oriented, but more kind of outside of that or what will it be?

Ryan Lee: Yeah. It’s definitely broader, like it’s going to be the making money online stuff, but it’s not this cheesy, “Here’s how to make money with AdSense in Google.” Like, it’s not an ad stuff. It’s real life case studies. It’s real people who have gone from zero to five, six, seven figures. It’s not just the “gurus.” It’s not just gurus trying to pedal their wares. It’s literally like step by step case studies. There are successful bloggers, there are successful guys who make it on the Internet like Yanik Silver, Russell Brunson in the first issue. There’s Kristi Frank who was on the Apprentice. There’s this woman, Isabel, who was a personal trainer who created first product. And it’s literally just start to finish how they created it, plus we get some really cool columnist. In social media, there’s a really popular guy now, have you heard of Gary Vaynerchuk?

MemberCon.com: Of course, yeah.

Ryan Lee: Yeah. He’s on board. He’s a columnist and then we got some guys who are just legends like Brian Tracy. He’s a columnist talking about productivity. Another columnis, he’s going to be talking about traffic and social media marketing. I said if I’m going to do this, we’re going to get the best of the best, and we’re going to talk business, but we’re also going to talk lifestyle. We’re going to talk a lot about productivity, getting more things done in less time. We’re going to showcase getting organized the different offices and resources and calendar of events and the top links and resources like really practical stuff, but in a fun way as well.

MemberCon.com: That sounds awesome. I already subscribed like 15 magazines. This will be another great one, I can’t wait. I love magazines. I love the format, so I’ll definitely be subscribing. So I was looking on your site today just as I was preparing for the interview a little bit, and I saw your case studies and saw some of things on that site. Have you changed anything you’re doing in terms of this new FTC thing that went in the December 1st?

Ryan Lee: It’s stuff we’re looking at to now because some of the things I’m going to have start changing some of those, which stinks because my stuff as a whole is legit, like all these testimonies are all real, there’s people who are getting just incredible results, but yeah I mean it’s stuff now we have an attorney that we’re talking to and trying to go through everything because I just want to make sure that I’m protected.

MemberCon.com: Yeah. It’s a shame that the law, of course, is to protect people that just flat out lie I think about testimonials. I don’t understand why it has to totally say if it’s a real testimonial that you could not be.

Ryan Lee: Yeah. I don’t get it. Look, if I have a client that I taught from scratch and now he’s making $3 million dollars a year, why can’t I say that? If it’s true. Look, I agree I think there are a lot of sleaze balls out there, and a lot of people make up testimonials, this is a lot of crap. There definitely should be something in place, but I don’t know, we’ll see what happen but we’re still working on. If anything, I think it’s going to help me in a way that a lot of competitors who don’t really have much for platform, it’s really thin. And they rely on a lot of lies and deception. They rely on how to make six figures a month in three days that kind of crap. The FTC isn’t going after small price now, but they’re going to be gone. I mean they have no leg to stand on. It’s all a bunch of garbage so what’s going happen is the people who over the years have developed relationships, like what I’m doing. It’s going to be much better for us because all this fly-by-night people are just going to be gone.

MemberCon.com: It’s a good point.

Ryan Lee: They’re just going to disappear.

MemberCon.com: Lot less noise.

Ryan Lee: Yeah. Absolutely. And that’s what I’m positioning myself for to be the trusted voice of all this stuff. And a lot of people don’t want to do it because they don’t want to take the time, they’re too lazy. “Oh, my God, I have to blog. I have to create a new video each day for three minutes. Oh, my God, how am I going to have time?” It’s like, “That’s not, hey, bring it on.”

MemberCon.com: All right. Well, Ryan I appreciate that. I kept you on the phone a lot longer than I said. Again, I appreciate your time. Of course, listeners, very easy website ryanlee.com.

Ryan Lee: R-Y-A-N-L-E-E.

MemberCon.com: There you go. And I’m sure you’ll announce the magazine right there?

Ryan Lee: Yes. We had it announced it there and it’s going to be. The site is not up yet, but it’s going to be dotcomlifestyle. D-O-T-C-O-M L-I-F-E-S-T-Y-L-E.com.

MemberCon.com: Excellent. All right, Ryan. Well, thanks for your time today. I really appreciate it.

Ryan Lee: It is my pleasure Tim. Thanks so much everyone listening. I wish you the best and thank you.