Chapter 28. Membership Web Sites and Recurring Revenue, Oh My!

How would you like to make money from the same customer not once, not twice, but over and over and over again? Smart businesses understand that this model is a much better way to feed their balance sheets and keep the budgets overflowing. The idea is to get a customer to give them money on a recurring basis rather than just once. This is called continuity or recurring revenue and is practiced on the Web in the form of a membership program.

The reason membership programs are so valuable is that they can replace your salary by giving you an almost guaranteed stream of revenue month to month, and frankly, if you're going to quit your job to start an online business, you want to ensure you have that recurring revenue. If you've ever worked on the financial aspects of a business, or worked with a venture capitalist, you know that recurring revenue is one of the most important objectives to achieve. It's simple. Your business is much more valuable to you and to potential investors if you can show consistent revenue over time, hopefully on an upward scale.

Fact: It's much better to have a customer pay you over and over as opposed to only once. That's why so many Web entrepreneurs and regular offline businesses have begun to implement membership programs. It's also exactly the reason why you need to do it, and do it soon. To give you an idea of what types of membership programs you could create, let's look at a bunch of successful ...

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