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What you’ll learn in this episode:
What if one of the most underutilized profit levers in your business… is already sitting right in front of you?
In this episode, I sit down with membership and community strategist Becky Pierson Davidson to unpack how most business owners are leaving massive revenue – and retention – on the table by focusing on the wrong things.
Most people think they have a marketing problem…
When in reality, they have a retention and experience problem.
We dive into how to design a membership (or any client experience) that actually keeps people engaged, getting results, and talking about your business – so growth becomes easier, more profitable, and far less dependent on constantly finding new customers.
If you’ve ever felt like you’re working too hard to bring people in… or like your offers aren’t compounding the way they should… this episode will completely shift how you think about growth.
During this episode, you’ll learn:
- Why retention – not marketing – is often the biggest missed revenue opportunity in your business
- The real reason most memberships fail (and how to fix it quickly)
- How to design a client journey that increases engagement, results, and long-term value
- Why more content is actually hurting your offers – and what to do instead
- How to turn your existing clients into your most powerful (and profitable) growth engine
Mentioned in this episode:
Connect with Becky Pierson Davidson on LinkedIn
Connect with Becky Pierson Davidson on Instagram
Listen to: Build With Becky podcast
Learn more: affinitycollective.co
Work/Connect with me:
Meet Becky Pierson Davison
Becky Pierson Davidson is the founder of Affinity Collective –– a digital product agency that builds & scales memberships.
She brings a background in product strategy, user experience, and community design, with a career that spans building software for Fortune 500 brands like Berkshire Hathaway, RE/MAX, and STARZ, and scaling one of the fastest-growing memberships for women entrepreneurs as Head of Product at bossbabe.
Across her work – whether teaching UX and design thinking at General Assembly, volunteering with CreativeMornings, or advising online businesses – community and user experience have always been the throughline.
Today, Becky leads her team at Affinity in designing membership-based communities that grow sustainably through better structure, stronger retention, and deeper connection.
Her work reframes community not as a “nice-to-have,” but as a product – designed intentionally to create real transformation for members and long-term growth for the business behind it.
Jessica Miller (00:01.785) Hey, Becky, welcome to the It’s Your Offer podcast. We’re so happy to have you here.
Becky Pierson Davison (00:06.146) I’m so excited to be here. I feel like we’ve been trailing each other on LinkedIn for quite a while. And it’s nice to finally connect.
Jessica Miller (00:10.139) I know!
Yeah, this is real life proof that you can meet awesome people and connect with them on LinkedIn.
Becky Pierson Davison (00:20.736) Yeah, I remember that you were on the Nathan Barry podcast and I was like, wait, I know this name. And then I like looked and we had like DMed a bunch and you were always commenting on my posts. And I was like, this is so cool. And then I reached out to you because I was like, it’s so cool. You’re on Nathan Barry’s show. And then I don’t know, we became internet friends.
Jessica Miller (00:38.357) Yes, I love it. It’s so funny how — yeah, I love what you talk about, love your message, all of it. And it’s amazing how that stuff really just resonates with people. And you connect over these things that catch your eye. And then it’s like a small world out here in the entrepreneurial universe.
Becky Pierson Davison (00:54.894) Truly, I feel like one of the things I always say to people is when they’re like, wow, like, I don’t know how you post on LinkedIn all the time. Like, that’s like, does it feel cringy? And I’m like, well, sure. But like nothing bad can come from sharing your knowledge or insights or like what you think about online. Like, I mean, to an extent, but nothing bad can really come from it in the sense that you don’t know who you’re going to meet or what opportunities are going to arise. So I’ve…
Jessica Miller (01:04.347) Yeah.
Jessica Miller (01:15.706) Yeah.
Becky Pierson Davison (01:23.136) I’ve always done that, like even when I had full-time jobs, I was writing on LinkedIn and stuff. And that has led me to make a lot of amazing friendships.
Jessica Miller (01:32.667) Yeah, I think especially for you, like community, groups of people, like that’s your jam. And I love that too. It’s a fun playground if you hold it loosely and yeah, it’s a chance to meet other people, hear new ideas, share your own ideas. And I’m sure like all of that kind of was part of your story and what led you to do what you’re doing now. Like tell us a little bit about your background, about your story.
Becky Pierson Davison (01:56.14) Yeah, so I went to fancy art school, private art school in New York City, and I studied architecture. And then what I loved about that was like the big vision of it. I loved school. I loved walking around New York City and studying the buildings and then doing the same thing in Rome for a semester. Like all of that was amazing. And then I went to work in architecture and I was like, wait a minute, I don’t want to do this. Yeah.
Jessica Miller (02:15.235) Oh.
Jessica Miller (02:20.571) What’s going on here?
Becky Pierson Davison (02:23.182) So it was like I was drawing stair details for an entire summer internship. And then I did some other work in architecture. And I quickly kind of pivoted. Even in my internships, I started sort of exploring user experience design, like how do we design workplaces for more productivity? And of course, how do we start to think about how spaces really impact people and how they connect with each other? So it’s kind of funny because I see these like trail —
like this trail line through like the things I started to care about back then, even are what I do now. But I moved out to San Francisco and I did one of those like boot camps and I pivoted to tech and I learned user experience design and got a certificate. And then I worked in tech for five years at a consultancy. So I probably worked on like a hundred different software projects. And yeah, I learned a lot. I worked with Fortune 500 companies. I worked with a lot of startups.
Jessica Miller (02:53.082) Yeah.
Jessica Miller (03:13.294) Wow.
Becky Pierson Davison (03:19.2) in every industry you can imagine. And I just kind of was like waiting for something to pop out to me to be like, that’s the thing I want to like pursue or go deeper on. And I think I always knew I wanted to start my own business too. I just had no idea what that business was going to be or what I was going to build. And I had student loans to pay. So it wasn’t like I was just going to quit and figure it out. So yeah, I started like
Jessica Miller (03:33.206) Mm-hmm.
Yep.
Becky Pierson Davison (03:42.989) taking a bunch of online courses and joining memberships and joining communities and became really obsessed with online education. And one of those communities was BossBabe, which is a membership for female entrepreneurs, very early stage, very like, let’s dream about what we could build, you know, because I had no idea what I wanted to create. So I was a really good fit at that time.
And, yeah, I joined it and I was like, I, this is a product that could be better and I should manage these products. And then I was like, you know what, let’s put on LinkedIn like a notification. If they ever post a product role, I’ll get a notification. And they did, they posted a head of product job and I was on a hike with my sister and I like got the ping. And then I thought about it that whole hike and like planned out my application and I spent the whole weekend writing my application. And I sent the
COO a video, which was like novel at the time. And yeah, I got that job and that’s kind of how I pivoted into this industry. So it’s been a wild ride.
Jessica Miller (04:37.819) Sure.
Jessica Miller (04:44.102) Oh my gosh, that’s amazing. I love this so much for you.
Jessica Miller (04:49.477) I love this. Tell us, okay, so I’m a membership junkie, full disclosure, everybody listening to the podcast, I love buying these things. I think similarly to what you were saying, I’m actually a pharmacist by training. So there’s this like idea of flow and things fitting together that are just inherent to who I am. And I’m just kind of a linear thinker in that way. So I’m always so interested in the experience. Like, what is it like when I sign up for this thing? You know, the whole like,
Becky Pierson Davison (04:49.768) You.
Jessica Miller (05:11.611) I saw you and I like now bought into this and through like this through line. So when you started to get into these memberships, like what were the things that were just irking you? Like what were you seeing that they were doing wrong? Where you’re like, man, I got to get in here.
Becky Pierson Davison (05:28.004) Yeah. Well, the first thing I would always notice is just general user experience no-nos because I was trained in how to design apps. So it’s like if the navigation is really confusing, if I have no idea where to start, if I don’t know how to find things, and you’d be amazed that 90% of memberships are like that. Yeah. And so.
Jessica Miller (05:35.257) Yeah.
Yes.
Jessica Miller (05:48.777) Or like that, yes.
Becky Pierson Davison (05:52.058) It’s funny, like I’ll get on to my strategy calls with my clients, which usually has an audit component if they have something already, and they’ll be talking about something and I’ll be like, can you just pull it up and show me real quick? And then I’ll be like, okay, change this, change this, change this. I just like — yeah, I’m like, I can see it. Like I just need to see it. And then I’m like, okay, let’s make these adjustments. And that doesn’t mean that it’s cookie cutter. Like it’s different. It really is different for every single membership experience, but we need to be able to find what we’re looking for.
Jessica Miller (05:58.267) Sure. You’re like, no, no, no, no.
Jessica Miller (06:14.309) for.
Jessica Miller (06:19.259) Yeah, I also feel like that initial moment is so important. Like you’ve bought something, you have all like the buyer behavior thoughts about that. And then people are usually really excited, so they want to like get into it.
Becky Pierson Davison (06:20.656) understand where to begin, easily navigate whatever you’ve built. These are table stakes, but it’s also the stuff that really messes up retention and engagement. And so a lot of people are doing it wrong.
Jessica Miller (06:45.741) And then you open the app and you’re like, I don’t even know where to go. There’s like a million things. And I think what you’re saying is like, make it easy for the user experience. But then I think the even layer on top of that is if you engineer this for this early win, knowing where this client is at, it is like blue ocean for you after that. Because now they’re like in, they know where to go, they’ve gotten a win, and
they love you. Like you’re off to the races.
Becky Pierson Davison (07:18.246) Yeah, exactly. I like to think about this as designing the member journeys, but also designing onboarding. We think of onboarding as like a welcome checklist, but it’s actually a really crucial component to build momentum, like you said, to get a quick win and to set expectations for exactly what it means to be a good member and how to participate and get the most out of your membership. And so
Jessica Miller (07:25.711) Yeah.
Jessica Miller (07:45.293) Yes. Yes.
Becky Pierson Davison (07:46.832) A lot of times we make this very fill-out-your-profile, send-introduction, like the most boring checklist you can ever imagine. And that’s the problem. It’s boring. And so people maybe watch the first video and then they stop paying attention to it. And instead, what I like to do is like in literally the second step, give somebody a really fun element, like surprise and delight, quick win, a quiz that gives them some kind of result, like something very fun that helps them with their experience,
Jessica Miller (08:04.127) Mm-hmm.
Becky Pierson Davison (08:16.316) helps them know what to do next, helps them feel like they’re already building momentum and they’re like, oh my gosh, this is so cool. I wasn’t even expecting this, right? That’s the reaction we want them to have. And that’s the fun part that’s so different for every single membership is how do we design something that feels like a really quick win? And people get worried about their clients getting wins too fast, because they’re like, ooh, but I want them to stick around, especially in a membership product where you have to keep
Jessica Miller (08:17.739) Mm-hmm.
Jessica Miller (08:44.587) Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Yep.
Becky Pierson Davison (08:46.14) choosing to buy, right? We keep paying. So we’re like scared for them to have results too fast. And that’s like the opposite way we should think about it. Like the faster they get results, the more they’re bought in, the more they’re excited about it, the more momentum they’re getting. You just have to design the member journey to last. Like if it’s only going to last a month, then don’t build a membership. But if it’s going to last a long time, then the membership could be the right product structure for you.
Jessica Miller (09:06.883) Right, right. Yeah, and you and I have talked about this offline and sort of jammed on this a little bit, but I think this is a really important point to just stress, which is memberships —
when you utilize a membership in your business as a product that’s going to drive revenue for you and you think about it through the architecture of the long-term value of this client, the profitability on an offer like this is huge if you design it with that in mind. And it’s also so much easier because the people that you’re bringing into this type of a container — yes, there’s of course cold traffic like you’re going to bring people in, but
when you create something like this, the people that are already close to you love you and they come in. And then when they’re in, they’re really close. So then it becomes the next buy that they’re going to make after that, becomes easier and easier and so much less expense than putting another offer on top to get somebody in another container to buy this thing. And I think both from the perspective of revenue generation, but also profitability when you design it like that is
Becky Pierson Davison (10:20.242) you.
Jessica Miller (10:21.229) exponentially higher. Tell me your thoughts on that, because I think it is a huge profit lever.
Becky Pierson Davison (10:25.904) Yeah. Well, a lot of clients come to me and they’re like, help me scale my community. And then they start asking me about their marketing funnel. And I’m like, we’re not going to talk about your marketing funnel. We’re actually going to talk about your retention. And they’re like, okay, but I already have members. And I’m like, no, you have members that aren’t necessarily engaged or doing the work. What percent of your new customers are coming from your existing customers? And if they say like none or low, then I’m like,
Jessica Miller (10:33.467) Yep. Yes.
Jessica Miller (10:50.464) Yes! Oh my gosh.
Becky Pierson Davison (10:55.504) this is a problem. This means we need to focus on retention — or maybe not a problem, but it’s a huge opportunity. Because if you have a membership product, the best way to grow it is through word-of-mouth marketing, which means your members are having such an incredible experience that they’re talking about it, they’re sharing it, other people are seeing their results and saying, hey, what are you doing? How are you getting those results? And so
Jessica Miller (10:56.751) Yes.
Jessica Miller (11:01.659) It’s an opportunity. Yeah. Mm-hmm.
Becky Pierson Davison (11:23.43) And then they say, because I joined this thing. And so if you focus on retention and member experience, your membership will grow. Yes, you need a marketing plan, but you also first and foremost need to focus on your retention in order to grow. And I think that’s one of the most powerful things about a membership offer, because it’s one of the only times you really get your customers in a room talking to each other and bringing in their friends and creating this sort of like,
Jessica Miller (11:32.699) Mm-hmm.
Jessica Miller (11:48.045) Mmm. Mm-hmm.
Becky Pierson Davison (11:53.244) word-of-mouth cloud energy that comes out of it. Yeah.
Jessica Miller (11:53.731) Energy. Totally. It’s a total love fest in there when you’re doing it right, right? And you alluded to this, but your best clients are your most powerful marketing channel. And it’s a matter of also creating an environment for that and then also harnessing it. Like, how do you make them talk about it to other people? How do you create the energy that has the legs to go and
hit the social media channels and create that buzz without overcomplicating it. You know what I mean? Without making it harder. Because it’s not that hard. It’s actually very straightforward, but we tend to complicate this, don’t you think?
Becky Pierson Davison (12:29.478) Yeah.
Yeah.
Becky Pierson Davison (12:38.108) Yeah, I think we over-engineer so much, like, or we try to add more stuff, like throw more stuff at people like, let me add more value by adding more content or adding more like whatever resources. And that’s not really what people need. Like they don’t need more stuff. Nobody needs more stuff and more content, especially right now. But what we need is like connection, to feel supported, to actually see results toward our goals, to have momentum, to
Jessica Miller (12:46.765) Yes. Totally. Everything.
Becky Pierson Davison (13:07.794) feel like they’re doing the right thing, they’re on the right path. Actually, it has a lot more to do with feelings. And so in a membership structure, you can build a culture that supports people’s feelings and connects people to one another. And that’s like the real magic of it. And at the end of the day, I think this all comes down to just providing great service, which is something that I know we both talk a lot about. If you really take care of your customers, if you really take care of your members, then they’ll take care of you.
Jessica Miller (13:13.307) Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.
Becky Pierson Davison (13:37.006) And I think that that just really multiplies with a membership model.
Jessica Miller (13:37.103) Mm-hmm.
Jessica Miller (13:41.049) Yeah, and to that end — and I know you’ve mentioned this before — is creating an environment that feels like it is personal and made for you. I mean, when you have a membership community and there’s maybe hundreds of people, you can’t really do that one-to-one, but you can collectively create an experience that feels like that.
Becky Pierson Davison (14:00.454) Yeah, let’s talk about some examples of that. So personalization is how I usually describe this. Like we want to have as much personalization in the experience as possible. Now that doesn’t mean that all of us are going to go out and build a custom app with like a learning algorithm, right? But we can get really scrappy with it. And like that’s one of my favorite things to do is like get scrappy. And so a lot of my clients, we’re having them create some sort of like assessment or quiz that’s early on in the journey that gives them a unique
Jessica Miller (14:02.637) Yeah.
Becky Pierson Davison (14:29.882) learning path or a unique set of resources. One of my favorite ways to do this asynchronously — assuming this is a higher price point membership, not a $40 to $97 sort of thing — but something that’s like, you’re going to fill out this questionnaire or form and then we’re going to review that. We’re going to give you a custom plan, which by the way, on the back end, we have a template for, and maybe three or four different versions.
Jessica Miller (14:51.483) Right. Yeah. Yeah.
Becky Pierson Davison (14:58.832) And then we send maybe a two-minute Loom video with it that’s like, hey, Amy, I loved your submission. This is like the number one thing I think that’s gonna move the needle for you right now. And then I want you to do X, Y, and Z. Also, I’m sending you an introduction to these two other members that you need to know. And I’m really excited to see you in the community. Make sure you RSVP to this specific event because you’re gonna love it.
You send that off and it’s so freaking personalized. People are so excited to get that and watch that video. And they’re like, this is incredible. So it’s like such a delightful experience and it’s not something you’re describing on the marketing or sales page. Like this is something they just experience when they join. And they’re getting this custom plan. It’s very personalized. They’re getting introductions. Like that’s a really low-lift way to do personalization at scale.
Jessica Miller (15:47.365) Totally. And I will tell you as a side note, I just hired a health coach yesterday and he did exactly that. You know when you’re like in the funnel and you’re like, I know I’m in the funnel, but this is like still awesome. He took the consultation call that I had with someone else. He like got the transcript. He basically called me. I was on another call so I didn’t get it. Left a two-minute message and he said exactly like that.
Becky Pierson Davison (15:53.352) No way.
Becky Pierson Davison (15:59.334) Yeah.
Jessica Miller (16:13.199) You know, I’m so excited you joined. I heard from, you know, Joel, you know, what your goals are. You know, we’re going to dig right into that. We’re going to create a protocol and a system for you. You’re going to talk to this person and I’m just so glad you’re here and we’re here for you. And then he followed it up with a text message to make sure I got the voicemail, which probably took him all of like three minutes. And I was like, love, this is amazing. Where can I — like, how can I get started right now? Like it was awesome.
Becky Pierson Davison (16:31.046) Yeah, that’s awesome.
Becky Pierson Davison (16:36.412) Yeah, well, and to that point, one tip I would have given him to make that even just like a step — like a nudge better — would be, I want you to start doing this today, and like giving you one thing to begin doing. Like, I want you to drink 100 ounces of water starting today. Yeah.
Jessica Miller (16:46.011) We’re just gonna say just drink your water. Because I totally don’t do that. Yes, I love that. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yeah, it feels so personal and it is.
Becky Pierson Davison (16:56.296) You.
Becky Pierson Davison (17:00.712) This is all, yeah. And this is all about just like imagining where are people going? I always ask my clients to give me their transformation and nine times out of ten, they put that in their intake form and then we workshop it. Because I’m like, it’s not a transformation. So we do, okay, we’re gonna help to take people from A to B and the B might be like really far away, but what is the first — like what are some of those milestones and what are the journeys we can design?
Jessica Miller (17:11.6) Yeah. Yeah. Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Yeah.
Becky Pierson Davison (17:31.11) And so it’s really just about like first identifying that long-term journey and then breaking it down and reverse engineering the member experience that’s gonna get them there. And then you get to have fun with it. Like, okay, how can we make this more fun? How could we add a surprise in here? How can we connect them to another member? And just like starting to add on those like layers.
Jessica Miller (17:50.159) Yeah, I love that. And I think one of your competitive advantages, Becky, is your personality and also your experience on the user experience side. You lived it. You created those environments for people. And now you’re in the back-end piece, which is so much opportunity.
Becky Pierson Davison (17:55.643) Yeah.
Jessica Miller (18:09.177) because they’ve done so much of the hard work. Like the people are in there or they’re close to them already and they’re like inviting them in. But you have all that technology experience and the user experience to make it really come to life in a virtual world, which I think is really cool. It’s different than in person.
Becky Pierson Davison (18:26.109) Yeah.
Yeah, thank you. That’s definitely our main differentiator — I would say our competitors are other community strategists or community managers that help build communities. But the difference is that they were community managers and my entire team are all technologists. And so everybody studied product development, user experience. We just approach it differently.
Jessica Miller (18:48.225) Yes.
Becky Pierson Davison (18:56.092) This is something I noticed at BossBabe working with our end customers — we’re teaching them how to do marketing and be on social media, but they don’t know how to build a great product. And so I just saw this gap where in this industry especially, there’s like learning designers, there’s educators, there’s community managers, there’s marketers, but we really don’t have a lot of product people because product people are all working in tech and that’s like such a tech industry role. And so.
Jessica Miller (19:21.083) Sure, sure.
Becky Pierson Davison (19:25.488) Yeah, I was like, I’m going to do what I do, but I’m going to do it in a way more fun industry and it’s working.
Jessica Miller (19:29.947) And you’re gonna be way more fun. Yeah. Yeah, which I also think is a differentiator. It’s like we don’t just build great communities that take into account all the different parts of this, but we just make it more fun. I mean, these brands that you’re working with, these influencers, they’re fun and everything could be more fun. Who doesn’t need more fun right now? So I think that’s to your point about feelings — that’s why people stay.
Becky Pierson Davison (19:50.886) Hahaha.
Jessica Miller (19:58.629) That’s why they tell their friends, right? Because of how they feel in the space. And if it’s fun and they’re getting results, I mean, it becomes a no-brainer.
Becky Pierson Davison (20:07.942) Yeah. We have to think a lot about what is the outcome we’re selling? How are we getting people in here? Because in order for people to get into a membership, they have to be really excited about the outcome they’re working toward and the roadmap and the journey that they’re about to go on. Trying to pitch it as a community or networking experience rarely gets people excited to come in. So even though that’s what we need and what we want, we’re not really buying for that.
Jessica Miller (20:22.052) Yep.
Jessica Miller (20:30.747) Yep.
Mm-hmm.
Becky Pierson Davison (20:35.28) So we’re buying for this roadmap, this outcome. And then when we design member journeys and programming that really supports that, that’s how we see engagement and people actually doing the work and seeing results. And that’s like, of course, this earlier-stage-in-the-journey membership — the sticky component — that people are actually doing the work and they’re engaged. But through doing all that, they start meeting other people and they start connecting with other people and they might go to an in-person event or
they might join the retreat that’s part of their membership or something like that. And that’s when they start building connection and community. And that’s actually the retention tool that gets them to stick around. But it’s not the reason they buy — but it’s this after-experience that they start to have. It’s the serendipitous experience that just forms because they’re all working toward the same thing. Think about going to school. You go to school because you have to learn, you have to go to school. And then you
Jessica Miller (21:11.067) Yep. Yep.
Becky Pierson Davison (21:33.084) make friends along the way because you get paired in the same group and you have to do a group project. Like that — it’s the same thing, but it’s just online and we can design for it.
Jessica Miller (21:39.993) Yeah. Yeah. And I think that actually brings up something that I’ve seen a lot, which is people — it’s a slippery slope — because what I think sometimes people do is they think the community aspect is the reason people are coming and is the selling point, and it’s not. And it’s the reason they stay, as long as they’re getting the result that they ultimately came in for. Especially I think for entrepreneurs who are driven and they’re there for a result,
they’re not going to pay just to feel good in a space with somebody because they could do that anywhere. You can’t live without it in your membership, but it can’t be the only primary reason. And I think people churn around that a lot. What do you think about that?
Becky Pierson Davison (22:25.722) Yeah, the number — like when I see really high churn or like low retention, oftentimes it’s because there’s not a clear journey. Like there’s no onboarding, there’s no member journey, there’s no — there might be a ton of resources and they’re like, no, I have so much stuff for my clients. But so much stuff is not helpful if you can’t find what you’re looking for. Like think about your kitchen pantry. Like if you cannot find — you’re like triggered.
Jessica Miller (22:34.756) Yeah, yeah.
Becky Pierson Davison (22:54.544) If you cannot find the stuff, you just end up buying more stuff and then you might not see it, right? It’s like why that show The Home Edit took off or whatever. We’re all like, wow, what if we could see all of our stuff and be able to find what we’re looking for? It’s the same thing. It’s just the internet.
Jessica Miller (23:05.612) Yeah, right.
Right. I know I have dreams about like AI-ifying my pantry. Like what can I do here? I need a log of what’s in there. But yeah, the value goes down. You like lose sight of the value when you can’t find what you want. And the reason you came is not like in your face enough that you remember. And then there’s that progression part that you talked about where when you’re helping people
Becky Pierson Davison (23:20.743) Yep.
Jessica Miller (23:39.629) reverse engineer this transformation and this journey, and then you’re intentionally breaking it apart. So we’re like, okay, the whole journey is not gonna be fit into the first three months of this membership, but they’re gonna move along this journey. And then what do you do when they get to this next problem at this point? And knowing your client, knowing when that buyer moment is popping up, controlling the environment for that.
Becky Pierson Davison (23:59.111) Yeah.
Jessica Miller (24:06.255) How do you look at that piece of it? I know you mapped this out with them, but how do you look at that with them?
Becky Pierson Davison (24:12.668) Yeah, you have to anticipate those moments and plan for it. And that just takes time and practice and it takes talking to your customers. I know nobody wants to do that. But if you — we build in a lot of feedback loops, is the answer for how we do this, because it’s hard to predict in the beginning. We can kind of start to understand if there’s existing members, like we’ll dig into all the data and figure out.
Jessica Miller (24:14.107) Nobody wants to answer the question.
Jessica Miller (24:30.363) Okay.
Becky Pierson Davison (24:40.36) Okay, what are the different personas or stages that people are at? But let’s say we’re starting more in the beginning. Okay, your cohort of people come in, your first group of members, and you start adding more members, but you’re gonna kind of follow that cohort to see what happens with them and really build in tight feedback loops to understand where they are, where they’re progressing, what they’re stuck on, and tweak the member journey you’ve designed. And also start to notice when
they’re like, okay, I’ve done everything here for me, or I followed all the steps and now I’m ready for the next thing. I’ll give you a tangible example. My client, Sepi Tabibian, she runs She Hit Refresh. She helps women over 30 move abroad from the US. She has — like everybody joining her membership has basically decided to move abroad. Like that’s kind of like the point it begins.
Jessica Miller (25:17.387) Mm-hmm.
Jessica Miller (25:35.759) Mm-hmm. Yeah, they’re ready.
Becky Pierson Davison (25:38.002) They’re like, okay, I’m going to do this. What do I do? Right? So we have this member journey that’s designed to help them through like making the choice about what visa to get, what their job is going to be like, all of this stuff, right. And so we sort of like broken this out into a couple of segments because once they have decided — for her, a couple of the biggest moments are like deciding the visa, deciding the job. And so we have this moment that’s like, okay, they’ve decided the important things they need to decide. And now they’re moving into like this practice area.
Jessica Miller (24:41.273) Yep.
Jessica Miller (26:07.387) and…
Becky Pierson Davison (26:07.814) So she has a ton of programming for job searching because she knows that’s one of the main problems people have is they can’t take their job abroad. So they need to get a different job or like figure that out. So she has a lot of programming based around that and she has a lot of programming based around visa stuff. So once they’re like, you know, in that cycle, then they’ve kind of like passed a certain point, they’re in that cycle. And then they’re like ready for the next checkpoint, which is like phase three, that’s like, okay, now you’re in the pre —
Jessica Miller (26:27.537) Now phase one. Yep.
Becky Pierson Davison (26:36.294) you’ve decided, you’ve applied for your visa and you’re in the pre-move checklist of like consolidating your home and like packing your stuff and talking to people in your life about this decision you’ve made and like all of this other stuff. And so there’s kind of these different stages and we’ve really thoughtfully broken that up. And like, she’s starting to have people like, okay, now there’s people that have actually moved and do we want to keep supporting them? Like some of them want to stick around and now there’s this community element. And like when she has the numbers that make sense,
Jessica Miller (26:45.391) Yes.
Jessica Miller (26:58.105) Right. Right.
Becky Pierson Davison (27:04.008) maybe we add in something like language classes. I don’t know, we’re exploring. But as people progress and as the numbers change, because we’re always like, how many members are here? How many members are here? Just like anything in business, you have to make a data-driven decision about whether it’s worth the investment. So okay, if we have five members that have moved abroad, does it make sense to set up an entire infrastructure for language classes? No. But eventually, it might make sense. And so.
Jessica Miller (27:19.619) Yes, totally. Yes.
Jessica Miller (27:29.755) Yep. Yep.
Becky Pierson Davison (27:32.06) We have tools to nurture and support those people, lightweight ways to help them. Maybe their fee reduces — like we’re exploring some opportunities there. But that’s kind of how you have to think about it. And it takes time. It’s like over time, a membership is a product too, it’s just kind of like working in a SaaS business, easier than SaaS. But it’s like, you’re constantly iterating and improving and understanding it’s a people product. So like where are your people at and how do you need to adjust how you’re serving them?
Jessica Miller (27:40.815) Yeah, options.
Jessica Miller (28:02.285) Yeah, I love this. In her example, for the different phases, did she break it out where she’s like selling them the next phase as a product, or are they in there and she’s just moving with them through that journey and they just pay the one membership fee?
Becky Pierson Davison (28:15.642) In her specific case, it’s a monthly membership fee. So this is entirely a retention strategy. So the longer term you have your customers in a membership, the more that compounds. So we want retention to be as long as possible. And that’s how you don’t have a leaky bucket. I think the worst thing with a membership product is if you have churning in month three.
Jessica Miller (28:21.755) Okay, yeah.
Becky Pierson Davison (28:41.724) And so you’re constantly like bringing new people in, but you have a leaky bucket and it’s not really growing. Yeah, because the whole benefit from a revenue perspective and profit is like having the compounding membership revenue. And that takes time to build. Like your year one isn’t going to look amazing, but your year two and three can if your retention is high.
Jessica Miller (28:41.843) Yeah. You’re falling out. Yeah.
Jessica Miller (29:02.095) Right. Yes, exactly. And that’s what I think the biggest thing with memberships is — being aware of the fact that there’s going to be attrition and you’re up against that. It doesn’t have to be the thing that sinks your ship. It is a thing though that you need to design around for sure. And I love what you said about this idea that you’re understanding the phases, you’re understanding also where you want to be. Like to your point.
Like does she want to help them after they’ve already moved and they’re there? Even if some people are like, I want to stay with you forever. Like is that where she wants to be putting her time and energy? If her revenue is coming from these other three phases that are in the business. And then there’s of course the data and the numbers of that. But then the other piece that I think you touched on too is this sort of sequential building. Like you’re going to do this one thing. This is your brand promise. Here’s the plan. We’re going to optimize for this,
Becky Pierson Davison (29:32.37) You.
Jessica Miller (29:58.981) we’re gonna take the data, we’re gonna pull it forward, pull all the good things forward and optimize this till we get to the place that meets your goals or your KPIs. And then from there, if the numbers make sense, we add on. Versus like, oh my gosh, somebody wants to pay me for this thing, so now we’re gonna — we’ve got this unoptimized bucket, we’re gonna build this other unoptimized bucket. And then you’re trying to like fill all these things because you’ve got a bucket with three people and that’s not gonna be a great experience, right? So you’re kind of like
Becky Pierson Davison (30:11.527) Yeah.
Becky Pierson Davison (30:19.186) Mm-hmm.
Jessica Miller (30:27.929) battling the entrepreneur sometimes in those ways where we want to do all this stuff. And it’s really slower is faster.
Becky Pierson Davison (30:31.464) Yeah.
Totally, and the other problem this creates is that we think of a resource, we’re like, oh, this person could use this thing, or, oh, maybe I’ll add this resource for them, which is gonna be really helpful. And then you throw it in there — like maybe it’s like adjusting to your life in Spain. And it’s like, well, 95% of your members are actually not in Spain yet. And so we don’t really need that yet. And
Jessica Miller (30:51.737) Right.
Becky Pierson Davison (31:01.146) we end up adding all this stuff to like a resource library that just becomes overwhelming. And the number one reason people leave communities is overwhelm. And so that is the reason why I like to think about like phased member journeys, because we’re like — I designed one recently for a LinkedIn influencer and she has this really robust brand strategy process. And I’m like, we’re going to start them with this brand strategy process and we’re actually going to hide everything else until they finish it.
Jessica Miller (31:09.688) Totally.
Jessica Miller (31:29.316) Everything. Yes.
Becky Pierson Davison (31:30.984) And once they finish it, it’s like, congratulations, you’ve unlocked blah, blah. And now you get access to all of this other stuff that you can then apply to and it’s gonna be amazing. So they’re working toward this goal and like, they see the one thing ahead of them, right? And they’re not getting distracted or overwhelmed like, oh my gosh, like I still have to do all of this and I’m not — I haven’t even gotten to that yet. And oh my gosh, I’m gonna end up being in this membership forever. And you know, they start spiraling.
Jessica Miller (31:47.289) Yes.
Jessica Miller (31:55.611) Great.
Becky Pierson Davison (31:58.608) And so reduce the spiral by simplifying your member journeys and your resource libraries. And also that increases your retention and member happiness.
Jessica Miller (32:06.154) Yeah. Yeah. And we’ve talked about this before too, this whole idea that less is more. I mean, I’ve worked with clients where they have this amazing thing. And if we just take that and chop it up and drip it to people over several months, so they’re getting, you know, a PDF that has 20 pages rather than 700 in January. I mean, and they’re thrilled to be getting less because it’s all the things that you talked about, you know, they don’t feel like they’re failing. They don’t
Becky Pierson Davison (32:25.181) Yes.
Jessica Miller (32:33.581) you know, look for three hours of time that they’re gonna need to have to just flip through the 700 pages. Like they get in there, they do it, they’re winning, they’re sharing, like everything feels better.
Becky Pierson Davison (32:44.829) This is another thing that comes from a UX background where I’m always thinking about cognitive load. I actually did a ton of work with like an aging adult population and yeah, when like people start losing cognitive abilities. And it was really interesting and I learned a lot that applies, and that kind of stuff is like helpful for everyone. It’s also helpful for people that have different — like, you might experience different learning disabilities or
Jessica Miller (32:50.043) Hmm.
Becky Pierson Davison (33:12.828) you know, like might have ADHD or something like that. Like when we can reduce cognitive load, we’re helping so many people, but we’re also helping everyone. And so I’m always thinking about how do we reduce that overwhelm? And I was working on a strategy yesterday, actually with a client, and they have like — they basically have like three different buckets of like offers, and
Jessica Miller (33:20.921) Yes.
Becky Pierson Davison (33:36.936) one of them is like a ton of digital products. The next stage is a subscription offer. And then the next stage is a membership, like a two-tier membership. And I’m like, but why do we have a subscription and a membership? Like we’re confusing people. And my smartest, most brilliant clients are like too smart. And so they’re creating very complex offer suites and very complex ecosystems. And
Jessica Miller (33:50.349) Sure. Yeah. Yes. Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. 100%. Yes.
Becky Pierson Davison (34:04.58) the power to simplify that is such a gift to your customers’ brains and your conversion will be higher, I promise. Like, simplify it. And that really comes into member journey design and memberships, but also how you position the membership.
Jessica Miller (34:21.819) Yes, 100%. And I see this all the time where the offers are just disconnected — from literally like the lead magnet stage through — they just don’t fit lock and key and it’s hard. You know, that’s why people need people like you who can look at it and see it in that simple way. Because when you’re so close to your business, it’s hard, right? You’re just in it all the time. But it sounds to me like when we look at that 30,000-foot level of what you’re helping people do, like you’re
Becky Pierson Davison (34:41.899) Yeah.
Jessica Miller (34:51.289) telling people like, okay, we’re gonna look at what you’re doing right now. We’re gonna audit it. We’re gonna find these leaks or we’re gonna find the opportunities. We’re gonna reverse engineer that transformation. We’re gonna identify what that is. We’re gonna look at the customer journey. We are going to think about all that UX experience, all that simplicity. How do we think about the milestones and the goals people need to go through? Break it down to that.
Infuse all of that feeling and experiential piece and then measure and then figure out what your next step is after that, and all the pieces fit together in that way.
Becky Pierson Davison (35:31.11) Yeah, so we actually have a framework that I call the Seven Figure Connected Community framework. So we have three stages. So the first stage is Architect, and then Activate, and then Amplify. So the Architect stage is what you described the majority of first, which is like, let’s set up really strong member journeys.
Jessica Miller (35:36.463) Hello!
Jessica Miller (35:45.477) Yeah.
Jessica Miller (35:55.067) Mm-hmm.
Becky Pierson Davison (35:55.266) and also collect a lot of data that’s going to inform those member journeys. Like I’m always — I’m a very data-driven person, again, from the UX experience. So it’s like, what do we know about our customers? What do we know about what’s working, what’s not, and how do we need to restructure this? Like yesterday, in yesterday’s example, the main membership offer that’s like their flagship thing is not selling. And it’s like, well, that’s cause you’re competing with the subscription product that just has clearer messaging, and like, let’s combine it. So it’s like, let’s restructure
Becky Pierson Davison (36:31.511) even the offers and what’s included in them and potentially member tiers, because it’s another way to think about stages and member journey is like tiers and upgrading. So we look at member tiers and we always start with onboarding design, but we also look at these like member journey phases. And so this is what I consider like re-architecting — like Architect, these first foundations. And once that’s solid,
Jessica Miller (36:38.587) Yeah. Yeah.
Becky Pierson Davison (36:49.414) then we move on to Activate, which is where I really like to build in feedback loops. So this is like all about experimenting. So we’re experimenting with programming, trying lots of different call types, seeing — like maybe trying implementation sessions or workshops, like seeing what people will engage with that’s going to help them see results. And this phase is all about how do we get people engaged in doing the work and seeing results. And of course we might tweak member journey stuff during that time,
but we’re also very focused on like tight feedback loops and testing until we’re like, well, okay, retention is looking good. Engagement is looking good. And now we’re ready to really pour gas on the fire and scale, which is my Amplify stage. And so in that stage, I’m looking at, okay, when we’re going from, let’s say 300 to a thousand members, how does the structure need to change? Do we need to implement
Jessica Miller (37:21.883) Yeah. Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Sure.
Becky Pierson Davison (37:47.45) small masterminds or small group coaching, or maybe we want to bring in a coaching team to support this. That’s really fun stuff and everybody wants to play there already. They’re like, I’m going to jump into offering all of these extra things or we’re going to build out an affiliate program or really focus on our partnerships. But we need to have strong foundations and great retention first. And so a lot of our members are there, but we definitely have people that are in this
Jessica Miller (37:52.763) Sure. Right.
Jessica Miller (38:09.435) Mm-hmm.
Becky Pierson Davison (38:16.388) Amplify, scale area too. So we kind of take our clients through these three stages.
Jessica Miller (38:18.34) Yeah. Yeah, I love that. And I think back to this whole concept of profitability, like when you do that really well, when you set that foundation really well, the scale Amplify part becomes so much more lucrative for you because you’re not amplifying an inefficient,
broken system that’s requiring a ton of resources, whether it’s financial or mental sanity or time, right? You know, it’s reached the point and you have the data to support where you wanted it to be. So, you know, it’s really good. And now you’re going to do more of this thing that’s working versus doing more of the thing that’s not working. And I think the combination of the doing too much, like you mentioned earlier,
and the growing too fast — like we are scaling in spite of the growth. You know what I mean? We’re doing this thing where we’re kind of cutting ourselves off at the knees. Those two things become the part where we just — it’s not growing the way it needs to grow and it’s not as profitable as it could be.
Becky Pierson Davison (39:30.438) Yeah, you don’t want to like pour more water into like a giant leaking bucket. That’s what I always picture in my head.
Jessica Miller (39:35.783) That’s right. That’s right. That’s right. And I always tell people too — yes, exactly. And I mean, you’ll get more potentially out, but the percentage will be very inefficient. You know, and when you really start to run those numbers, it’s huge. I mean, especially when we’re talking about like a thousand people in a membership community.
Becky Pierson Davison (39:57.0) Yeah, I love showing people, like just a spreadsheet where I’m like, okay, your churn or your retention is at 80%. If we can get that to 85%, let me show you the difference in your revenue. And I really love this to be at 90%. So that’s our target. So let’s look at what a 10% retention increase, how that would impact your revenue. And they just see these numbers jump. And they’re like, oh, wow, I am
Jessica Miller (40:01.7) Yeah.
Jessica Miller (40:08.315) Yes.
Yes.
Becky Pierson Davison (40:25.52) really missing out. I’m like, I know you want to focus on getting more people in here. But what we need to do is like fix your onboarding and fix your member journey and do the stuff that like is going to take a little bit of time. And then we’re going to have to measure if it works, but you’re going to make so much more money in the long run. And by the way, if you have a retention problem, it means people are canceling. So they’re not raving about the experience. And once they start raving about the experience, then growth will be a lot easier. Again, going back to my initial comment.
Jessica Miller (40:32.873) Yes, exactly.
Jessica Miller (40:48.549) Right. Yes. Mm-hmm. Yes. That’s right. Yes. Totally. And never mind the fact that it is so much easier
Becky Pierson Davison (40:54.736) that if we focus on retention, marketing is a lot easier, your community will grow from word of mouth. But if you have a lot of cancellations and people aren’t engaged, then you’re just buying time because eventually it’s going to fizzle out.
Jessica Miller (41:15.353) to work with and convert those people who are there versus the people you need to get in. It’s not equal effort. Like you’re gonna effort period. Like when you run a business, you’re gonna effort. So the question is where is the highest ROI on that effort? And it’s always with your people that are in there, right? It’s always there versus the new people. Not to say we’re like kill traffic — not at all. That’s great. But the upside is really with the people that are already in there,
and keeping them there and keeping them talking about it and all that. Oh my gosh, Becky, I love this. So good, so good. Okay.
Becky Pierson Davison (41:49.553) Hehehe.
I remember, just quick anecdote, I remember on our first conversation, you were like, tell me about one of your best clients. And I was describing them to you and they had referred me to their business and they did multiple projects with us and their business was really cool and I really liked working with them. I was telling you all about them and you were like, there’s probably more work there. Go talk to them.
Jessica Miller (42:15.23) Yes.
Becky Pierson Davison (42:16.144) You kind of got me thinking on this trail about that. And I’ve been sort of waiting until my business had enough — like we’ve had enough clients, I know enough people, like I’ve built community, grassroots style. And like now maybe I’m ready to bring people together. And so I actually am building my own membership in my business for basically our past clients that are focused on scaling so that they can connect and share notes, because there’s so much opportunity there. So I also think there’s a lot of opportunity for service business owners to bring their
customers together that are wanting to share notes or they’re working toward maybe custom plans that you’ve given them. But it’s a way to nurture those relationships in between bigger projects. Yeah, I think there’s just so much opportunity for memberships in a lot of ways in our businesses.
Jessica Miller (43:06.907) 100%. I love this for you, Becky. Yeah, I mean, the proximity to other people like them, more proximity to you, your ability to help them solve their next problem. I mean, that — we call it a membership in one type of situation. But yes, the long-term value of that for your existing clients. And you’re so smart to have done what you did where you now have this expertise. And now you’re adding on this other thing
that’s also very symbiotic. It’s not like you decided I’m gonna go sell widgets and now it’s like a whole other disconnected offer, right? It’s not. It’s like they can like sort of buy up to this other area or you can reactivate them. So I think this also speaks to this idea that whenever you do something really well in your business, it has so many legs for other parts of your business. When you start to become a person
Becky Pierson Davison (43:39.688) Yeah, no.
Jessica Miller (44:03.045) who understands the value of quality, understands the value of leverage, thinks in terms of profits — they’re hiring somebody like you, and they’re learning this within an offer or an offer stack related to, for example, for you, memberships. The identity shift in how this person shows up and performs as a business owner, it really touches every part of their life. Like it is music to my ears, because they apply it to other offers. They apply it to their own life, their personal life.
And I think they just learn how to do so much more with less. And that is for me, it’s such a big mission in my life because I want people to have the time and the energy to pour into having a bigger impact somewhere else or with their families or whatever. And I think it all starts with what you’re talking about, with what you’ve built your business around. So it’s awesome. And I know people listening to this podcast are going to be like, how do I find Becky? So where can they find you, Becky, on the interwebs? And when they want to go binge your stuff, you have a podcast.
Becky Pierson Davison (44:57.512) You.
Jessica Miller (45:02.309) So tell them where they can find you here.
Becky Pierson Davison (45:04.678) Yeah. So on social, I’m active on LinkedIn. So just search my whole name, Becky Pierson Davison. I’m also on Instagram at Build with Becky. And then my podcast is called Build with Becky. It’s a voice-note style podcast. So you just need like, you know, seven, eight minutes, and each episode dives into like a membership strategy. So I go way deep on lots of these things. And if you want to get in touch about building a membership or helping
grade your membership, check out affinitycollective.com.
Jessica Miller (45:35.973) I love it. And we’ll link all that stuff in the show notes. I’m gonna give a plug for Becky’s LinkedIn. Becky, you have such awesome carousels too. I just go and I learn so much from those carousels. They’re awesome. So go follow Becky. It’s a wealth of information. Listen to her podcast. Becky, thanks so much for coming on. This was like the highlight of my day. We’re so happy to have you.
Becky Pierson Davison (45:44.157) Thanks.
Thank you.
Becky Pierson Davison (45:53.904) Thank you. Same. Likewise, thank you so much for having me.
Jessica Miller (45:57.423) Have a great day and everyone, until next week. We’ll see you then. Take care.
