This is the second part of the guest post from my good friend Shawn Veltman of NoBSstrategy.com. Part one can be found here…

Hi again!

Last time, we introduced the idea of identifying who you do not want joining your site.  Today, I want to look at two methods of doing this, and ensure you use the right one.

Now, we all know that there are really sleazy ways to do this.  You see them being used in marketing all the time.  It looks like this:

“If you fit any of the criteria below, you should leave this page:

1.       You’re super lazy

2.       You hate everybody

3.       You’re looking for a way to scam people

4.       You want a magic wand that’ll make you rich

But if you recognize that the best way to be successful is to provide value for others, then you need to join our site!”

That is blatant manipulation, and it always makes me pretty mad when I see it.  I’m not recommending that.  What I am recommending is being clear with your prospective audience on who will get the most out of your community.  It might look something like this for a membership site dedicated to SEO and Internet Marketing:

“Now, this site isn’t for everybody.  We have a pretty close, tight-knit community of people helping each other out, and it’s very important to all of us to keep that spirit alive.  So, with that in mind, if two or any of the following describe you, then this might not be the best resource for you:

1.       You are looking for ‘Black Hat’ methods and ideas.  Look, I recognize that there are a lot of people who do that, but there is no place on this board for those kinds of tactics.  I monitor the boards closely to make sure that methods that are illegal or unethical aren’t part of the discussion list.

2.       You are only considering joining to try to sell your affiliate products.  I’m not saying that members here don’t enter into joint ventures with each other, but it’s a small perk of the board, not the primary focus.  If you’re hoping to find an easy list of people to hawk your affiliate products, this probably isn’t the site for you.

3.       You haven’t learned how to be civil in online communication.  For some reason, many people lose their ability to have reasoned and civil discourses online.  Granted, this is more true on free sites, but even in paid communities there are often malcontents who can’t seem to get along with anybody.  If you often find yourself in ‘Flame Wars’ online, please pass on by – I’ll only be deleting your account & refunding your outstanding membership fees after a few posts anyway.

The difference in the 2^nd version is that it legitimately excludes a portion of the population who may be looking at your site.  It then offers reasons why those people are being excluded.  Anybody who’s not in the groups described will feel better about being a part of the community, and be more likely to join when they get to the registration page.

Let me know what you think…

This is a guest post from my good friend Shawn Veltman.

Shawn is  one of my secret weapons when it comes to business. I’ve tapped his brain to super-charge pieces of copywriting, to brainstorm tactics for a number of businesses, and to help shape overarching strategic goals. Shawn has agreed to work with me on MembershipBlackBox.com and for that I’m grateful. He has finally started writing a blog at NoBSstrategy.com which I highly suggest you check out  & bookmark now.

Enter Shawn Veltman…

Hi all,

As most of you probably know, Noah is getting ready to launch MembershipBlackBox.com,  a pretty exciting new product aimed at developing super high-quality membership sites from start to finish.  He’s too modest to say so on here, but this course is going to be incredible – Noah really, really knows his material when it comes to creating membership sites that people just don’t want to leave.

One of the secrets to doing that, as Noah has illustrated so well about in his Mixergy interview (among others), is in creating your site in a way that lets you take advantage of your individual strengths, interests, and idiosyncrasies.  Or, to put it in his terms, really embracing the importance of character and community in addition to content.

One of the things that we really dive into in the Membership Black Box is the idea of identifying your audience (or tribe, or speck).  I want to riff on that idea a bit here and extend it by sharing a tactic that is extremely powerful in helping your audience find you.

Identify the Chaff

We’re all familiar with the idiom that you need to separate the wheat from the chaff, right?  Well, when it comes to setting up your membership site, you need to identify what both look like.  What does your ideal member look like?  What’s their experience with your speck been to this point?  How are they going to benefit from being part of your online community centered around that speck?  What kind of community architecture will they feel most comfortable with?

These are all questions that Noah and I are going to go over in great detail in the Membership Black Box, and it’s easy to see why – identifying these things makes it much easier to determine what kind of content you create for your site, but also how to distribute it, how to market it, and how to build your community.

The flip side of the coin is valuable too, though.  In some cases, it might be even more useful.  And that flip side is identifying who you DON’T want.  Who is antithetical to your site’s values, vision, or community?  Who will disrupt the community that you’ve set up, or bristle against the character that you inject into the site?

This isn’t simply a matter of identifying “good guys” and “bad guys.”  Instead, it’s about figuring out early on who won’t benefit from what you’re building, and helping steer them away from your offerings.

There are obvious advantages to utilizing your separation criteria in your marketing.  First, it helps establish a sense of community before they even get to your registration page – if they see who is NOT suitable as a member, and they know that they don’t fit that description, then they’ve automatically self-selected as good fits.  In other words, they’ve already engaged with you, agreed with you, and will be much more likely to fit in well with the community you’ve built or are trying to build.  They’ve done this by essentially saying to themselves “I don’t fit the description of people who shouldn’t join – in fact, I can’t stand people like that.  If they’re not allowed in, this should be a great fit!”

Now, you have to do this with caution – there are some traps that are easy to fall into when using this strategy, but it is undoubtedly powerful.

Tomorrow, we’ll look at the wrong way and the right way to put this to use.

Shawn

I’ve launched new businesses and products on the premise of “good enough.” We built TheBrewersMarket.com in 30 days with the goal of reaching a “good enough” stage. Startups often launch software in beta when it’s “good enough”. Microsoft Windows was released as “good enough”, and they still haven’t got it right!

Sometimes we struggle. We could waiver and tinker and edit forever, and we’d never actually be able to hit the launch or publish button. Projects would be sidelined, scrapped, and given up on. It’s the single biggest trap for entrepreneurs to fall into – the endless pursuit of perfection.

Reading the Steve Job’s autobiography, it becomes quickly apparent that “good enough” was never an option for Steve. Steve was only interested in perfect. Even the internal components of a computer that most people would never see were meticulously refined over and over. You might even say that Steve was a little crazy when you read that out of 800 shades of beige, he couldn’t find the perfect one, so he had them develop an 801st shade.

The question we have to ask is, Do we have the determination, willingness and persistence to push beyond what’s “good enough” and still get our product, service, book, or blog post, etc. out the door?

To make a dent in the universe, it seems that “good enough” might not be good enough.

Here’s to the crazy ones.

P.S. The “Here’s to the crazy ones” commercial above is usually heard with Richard Dreyfuss as the narrator. Steve had done a few takes but they originally went with the Dreyfuss version. It seems now, this one with Steve narrating is more appropriate.