Hey, I'm Kelly, CEO and co founder a member out here. So I am sitting in my car on a Saturday morning, and I have my coffee and I have about 10 minutes to be able to do this. So prior to go back inside and wrangle some kids, but I saw this conversation happening in the collaborative user community over on Facebook this morning. And it's such a good question that I was like, I need to do a podcast really quickly for it before, before I forget, or getting distracted by other things. So the specific use case that was being talked about in the collaborative this morning was, if someone cancels from my membership, should I delete them? And

so some people were like, yes. And other people were like, I don't know. And, you know, Katrina, from Team MV, like trying to, and she was like, we don't recommend doing that. Because, you know, if you delete them, they lose all of their, you lose all their user data. And they basically, you know, they don't have access to anything anymore. And that is true, right? So that's like, the very clean cut fact, is that we don't recommend doing that because of this. But here's the strategy behind why we don't recommend that. So and I loved it, because someone actually said, they tagged me, which is why I saw it. And she was like, you know, Aaron, actually Aaron, like, suggest not doing that.

Because they might come back, and you never know when they're gonna come back. And I was like, Yes, exactly. So the strategy behind not deleting people, especially if they were a paying client, right? Like, especially especially, especially if they were a client for something that has like a recurring payment. because let me tell you recurring payments, like memberships, even though they might have a low monthly cost. And I know that that comes up a lot, where people are like, Why is no one buying like, it's only $9 a month, like that's so low? The thing to understand is that in people's heads, they don't see $9, what they see is I'm committing to, like an ongoing, there's no end to it. I will always be paying this and is it going to be worth it? Am I going to use it, you know, is this the right time, blah, blah, blah, and so memberships often have like a higher friction, even though the actual monthly cost is pretty low. And so if someone signed up for that, that means they like you, or they really need your help. And they definitely are resonating with your with your messaging.

And so let's talk about the cancel bat, right, because I think that a lot of times

you make this view, or the collective view, makes the assumption that if someone cancels that they're no longer

a potential client for you. And that is not true. So let's do a little thought exercise. So think back to your buying behaviors, and everyone's a little bit different. So this might not be true for you. But for most of it is, most of us it is thinking about like Hulu, Netflix, like any kind of like recurring payment, like any of the software tools that you pay for, for your business, that are a monthly payment,

or even annual payment. But it's an ongoing thing that you're going to be owing money on, you know, meal, subscription services, like Hello Fresh, like all of these different things.

Think about how many times have you canceled and then gone back? So I know for me, it's a lot like that has happened in many, many, especially with like Netflix and Hulu like I have. I have paused it so many times. And this is the reason why those more evolved.

recurring payment models, they always have a like, Oh, no, I see that you're wanting to cancel. Do you want to pause your membership instead? Or do you want to do it every other week or, you know, depending on what the delivery model is. So they know that the reason why people are canceling is often not that they're dissatisfied with the service, it's that it's too much for them. So either too much financially or too much time commitment, and they're not using it. And so instead of losing that person, you're giving them the chance to kind of customize what they need.

And so in this scenario, if you if you say, Oh, well, this person cancelled their membership subscription with me like they're no longer a potential client, they're never going to come back, let me just delete, then you're missing a huge opportunity to both reclaim that person as a paying user, but also, you know, support them to learn more about their decision processes so that you can then improve your overall membership. Until one of the things that comes up frequently with with online memberships is that people get really overwhelmed by the content and they're not using it until they cancel. So it's like, oh, I just got this email, like with the new content has landed. I hate to do this stuff from last month. I hate to do this stuff from the month before. I should cancel. And so that is what happens. And so if you think about, okay, well, so that's what's going on in their brain. Like what if I come up with a like a one off payment that they can make and get access to like

Maybe like the core curriculum that you have for your membership, or they can get and that can be paid. Or it could be sorry. So you go, I went ahead and gave you access to our free resource kit, the only membership users get access to, and really like, work on improving the nurture process for that product, like sending them emails, making sure they're doing the thing, and then a month down the road, you can send them another email, like, Hey, this is coming up for the membership. I know it was really overwhelming for you in the past, or, you know, I know that it was difficult to take action. And I have made this change for the membership. So in every week or month, however you deliver your content like in every, like actionable content drop for the membership, there will be one action step that I call out that if you do that one thing, you don't have to join the membership, like you don't have to join the community, you don't have to show up for the calls, like, whatever it is that you're including in your membership, like, you're basically saying, you don't have to take action on like 90% of what's included in the membership, if you do this one thing, you're still gonna get the value out of what you're paying for. Right? Because that's what people want, they want the results, like that's what they care about. They want to feel like they're moving forward that they're getting benefit out of this thing that they're paying for. And so you're saying, like, Hey, I got you like I, I set it up so that even if you're feeling really overwhelmed, I'm going to give you one thing that you can do and support you on it, so that you get the results that you want. And I think that you'll find that a lot of people re sign up for your membership. So if you had deleted them out, you would have lost that whole conversation potential, you know, and then

early on in your membership, you can also use turn, as insurance people that have cancelled from a recurring subscription.

You can use those people as a really great way to learn for future people. So even if you don't have this really like evolved, recapture sequence, you know, re nurture, you know, all of those things. Like even if you don't have that in place, you can still open the conversation of like, hey, look, I know you cancelled from x membership.

I'd love to, I'd love to hop on a call with you. I'd love to hop on boxer with you, I'd love to. If you answer these questions like I will give you this right, like you reward them for their time, obviously, because you've already kind of it's highly likely that they're overwhelmed if they cancelled, right? So give them give them an incentive. But also, just by asking, you're showing that you care. And so even if that person ends up not being, maybe they never sign up for the membership, but maybe you get on a call with them, and you actually discover that the they wanted more one to one support, you know, and whether you are offering one to one or not, because a lot of times people will actually go to membership models, because they want to scale back their one to one,

you can still use that as an opportunity to be like, Okay, well, I don't offer one to one anymore, but the membership wasn't enough for you like what were you looking for. And that can actually help you create an intensive, or group program, or something that's like a step above the membership, right? You're learning about your people. And so like I said, you can do that with a call, you can do that with like boxer access, you could do that with

like, as a product, an invisible product, that is specifically for your turn your membership term people that you give them access to and like, if they complete it, they get something like a a discount, or a bonus or a free resource or something like that, that then allows you to have that like ongoing conversation with them, even though they've turned from the membership. And I want to kind of like push pause and say that you might be hearing all these things. And you're like, Oh my gosh, that sounds really good. I'm so overwhelmed. I don't even know where to start. Here's the thing, like, the most important thing here is that you are not cutting off your opportunity to have a conversation with these people, they aren't like shifting the mindset of if someone cancels from your membership, it's not that they are no longer a potential client of yours. It's just that they're not right now there's something that is not a good fit for them with the membership. And maybe it's because they just need to push cause maybe it's and you can give them that opportunity right like, cancel. But I'll I can send you a reminder and in a month or two or whatever.

There's so many opportunities when you start having these conversations, but if you are looking at them as like, okay, they cancelled therefore, like, they will never sign up for anything else ever again, or I don't want them to count again. So I remember about user count, you are losing this opportunity to have these conversations that will then lead to either having them sign up for something else, sign up for the membership again, or give you these insights that will then even if they never sign up for anything else paid for you insights that will potentially have you helping that many more of your people that may or may be close to turning from your membership or that may not have signed up for your membership because it wasn't quite a good fit.

And so that's why I'm really against and I get it by the way, like I get like trying to keep your user account like if you if you're on the free MemberVault plan and or

Like, I can't go over 100. I understand. But it is very. And I'm not saying that's just because I want you to upgrade to a paid plan, but it is very short sighted, because you're losing all of these opportunities now. That's for people that are actually paying clients that are that are cancelling. Now, if you are wanting to clean out your member vault,

and I see that sometimes in the collaborative repeal, we're like, Well, like I, you like, how do I get rid of people that aren't really engaging? And that's a different conversation, right? Like, that's, that's kind of like falling more into like,

list management, right? Like, there's so many different philosophies around that in terms of like, how long does it take someone to engage with you? And how long does it take for them to actually buy something from you. So when should you take them off of your email list, and it's kind of the same thing for your MemberVault

you have to keep in mind,

the people that have, and we're talking about, we're talking about free people, but I want to make sure that I'm also mentioning that if someone is a paid client, like they bought like a resource kit or something and you get lifetime access, you need to make sure that even if they are not engaging, that you sort them out of this filter, and you don't remove them, you don't delete them from your member vault, because that's out of integrity, you said you were giving them lifetime access, it doesn't matter. Like what what they do with that lifetime access, right? Unless you have that in your like terms and conditions. Like if you bought lifetime access to any of the sessions such you know, products and like you don't,

you don't log in for 90 days, or 120 days, or whatever or a year or whatever you want to say like you're covering, you're covering yourself, because you have like a disclaimer of like, yes, this is like what lifetime access looks like, if you are doing these things. And if you are not doing these things, then you may lose access to this right. And then if and if you want to come back, like there's email, you know, email, customer service, service, or whatever. Um, so that I just wanted to like, and, disclaimer, my legal disclaimer, like, I'm not a lawyer. So like, make sure that you, you know, when you're dealing with terms and conditions, like, you know, make sure that you consult someone, but that's just like a strategic sort of, like, heads up. Like, if you were doing lifetime access or anything, make sure that you are not calling people from that have purchased things, or that have gotten access to those lifetime access things. Because sometimes he will come back six months later, and they'll be like, why don't I have access?

And so you just need to be prepared to to answer those questions. So, but as far as like, free people, like someone that signed up that has, like, never literally never logged in my question that I always ask people is like, Okay, um, you know, you need to make sure that you have kind of a criteria in place, as far as like what you expect

for them to have done, like, what are you considering them not being active. And so obviously, like, for me, my, my Blake lobar, is like they've never logged in. But I still give them, I often put the burden on myself that I did not nurture them enough, or that I went to spam, or something of that sort. And then you might reclaim them.

When the Facebook posts like we've had that happen, right, where people have unsubscribed from MemberVault emails, because they were like, going through a list clean phase. And they just like we're just like unsubscribing, from everybody that had sent an email and they accidentally unsubscribe from MemberVault. And then they saw a post about a resource inside of, you know, inside of our collaborative community. Like, because they were being active in there, they just weren't being active with our emails. And

you know, like three months down the road, they saw the same, they're like, why don't I have access?

And so we're like, how do I get access? And like, Oh, no, I realized that I just, you know, unsubscribe from these emails, I didn't even mean to do that. Right? And so like, we've had so many occasions where that has happened, where someone has, like, hit us up on customer service, and they're like, Oh, no, I didn't I accidentally unsubscribed.

And so when that happens, you're not staying friend of mine, that means they may not be logging into your member wallet. So you're counting them as inactive, but they might actually be my whole point here, they might actually be being active elsewhere. So they might actually be engaging with you on social media, and they just haven't.

Believe it or not, they're really busy. And

they've got a lot of things going into, they just haven't checked out that toolkit or whatever that they signed up for, you know, 90 days ago. I mean, I know for me, like sometimes three months, goes by really fast.

And,

you know, I just other things have taken priority for for my energy. And it takes me that long to actually log in and like check out a PDF that I downloaded or whatever. So I'm always very careful to remove access or to delete. And we don't actually do that without number one. We don't delete any of our users, but I understand that that's partly

Get the convenience of not having a user cap, right. And so you have unlimited user cap a member about, like, I wouldn't ever, just, I just wouldn't worry about it, I wouldn't delete them. Because there's so many possibilities, that they will come back and engage that it's not worth taking the time, especially if you're unlimited like to do like, that's just not something that I would recommend that you concern yourself with. If you are on to really only people that, you know, probably even need to think about this are people that are in free plans or startup plans, because there is like a lower cap, although on the starter plan, you can get account boost, and we're doing like weekly challenges. And we're actually about to roll out monthly challenges where you can get account boost, by using your account and, and doing things. And so even with the starter cap, which starts out, the pay plan starts out at 1000. Like most people that are being active in MemberVault are doing thing, they're gonna see that that user boost actually increase even more. And so if you only have like 300 people on your list, like it's just not going to be a problem for you for a while. So but if you're in a free plan, and you're trying to stay on the free plan for right now, you know, you could

win. And this would be my recommendation is pretty much use member vault, for your paid paid stuff. Knowing that you're losing out on a tremendous opportunity with having your free resources inside of MemberVault. Because that's a really great way to get people that are highly engaged into you know, to see your paid content, and more likely to buy it.

But what you can do is you can put like teaser models on your paid content, you can add those teaser modules, you can put like, your podcast transcripts, like what we do, you can put your top facebook live videos, you can put resources that are relevant to the paid

product, like there's ways that you can get around it if you really, really need to stay on the free plan. And you really only want people

taking up a user spot that are actually paying you, I get it like budgets and everything. So that would be my recommendation, I would not

I would not spend your time trying to

like hyper delete people after like a month because they might, most people have a longer buyer cycle like buying cycle than that, like, it's just you're you're losing out on all of these potential opportunities to have these conversations with people that are engaged with you. So hopefully, that's helpful. I mean, really, the whole point of this is, by deleting people, you are cutting off your opportunity to recapture their attention and to engage with them and build a relationship with them. You're losing all your data about them. Anything that they've any quiz questions that they've answered their EP, like just you're losing everything. And so

like, for most people, like I wouldn't, I just wouldn't worry about it. And then for people that are really, really hyper conscious about their user counts, just be really intentional about who you're removing, and why and make sure that you're not being short sighted in deleting people after a month or something like that, because they haven't engaged because it just it takes it takes a while for people right? Like, like I said, I mean, I can sign up for stuff. And then three months later, I get an email and I'm like, Oh, yeah, I never actually logged in and did that.

I actually didn't have a specific example of something that I bought that I still haven't logged in. And it's not that I'm not interested in using it. And if I went to log in, it's in my inbox to my main inbox, the delivery welcome email, like, I fully intend at some point to use it until I do it, like six months down the road, and I don't have access anymore, like I would be really peeved. So just, and I paid for that, right. So like this is a different scenario than like a free user. But just

you're using your email, and your heart and your member vault as a way to engage with potential clients. You need to give them a grace period, you need to give them a window. And sometimes that means that you need to, like not be as

rare rigid eyes like oh, well, it's, you know, on your end, it feels like 30 days is a really long time for someone who's not logged in. But on the user end, it's actually not so.

Yeah, so I have a lot of thoughts around that and strategies, but hopefully this got you thinking, and I hope that you have a wonderful weekend. If you're listening to this right after I push it live. Otherwise, like I'll see you next week to talk about an actionable feature.

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