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Who Are You and What Is Your Background?
I’m a career project manager with over 20 years of experience doing the job in financial services and healthcare settings, often in IT projects but more recently in compliance or on projects with a heavy focus on business change. I’m also an author, and I’ve written 7 traditionally published project management books.
I worked part-time after my children were born but went back to work full time in 2024. As a result, I manage my online business and membership community around the edges of my day job. Those working hours do create some limitations, but it actually works out pretty well, as I’m based in the UK and many of my members are in the US. Working a UK evening time means I’m within the business hours of US members.
While running an online business and doing a full-time ‘normal’ job might not be for everyone, for me, it has helped me feel like I have a contingency plan. During the COVID-19 lockdowns in 2020 and beyond, I was between permanent jobs, so I worked on my business full-time – or at least as full-time as I could manage between homeschooling my children and all the other things that filled our days at that point.
Digital-first businesses, whatever that looks like for you, allow such a lot of flexibility and can be as big or small, as time consuming or as simple, as you let them be.
What Is Your Business and When Did You Start It?
I run a membership community called Project Management Rebels. It helps people in project leadership roles build their skills and confidence. If you work in a project management role, it’s likely you don’t spend most of your time with other project managers. The nature of the job means that you’ll end up working with the project team instead of people who do the same job as you. That makes it quite lonely sometimes, and also limits the amount of people you can talk to about your role.
Oftentimes, people don’t want to talk to their direct peers at work about their challenges, bad managers, messy projects, and office politics because you never know who it is going to get back to. Project Management Rebels is that safe space to vent, but also to share resources, tips, and experiences. What we find is that regardless of industry or country, the lived experience of project managers around the world is very similar, and that’s reassuring.
What Was Your Professional Situation Right Before Starting the Membership Site?
My membership site launched as I was looking for something new to do to extend my revenue streams, and also a way to reach more project managers on a more personal level. I suppose I was caught up in the hype of recurring income as well, instead of selling spaces on live training courses.
How did you get the idea to start this particular membership business?
I was part of Stu McLaren’s course, which was then called Tribe, so I worked through the options that were laid out in his materials to identify what would work best for me and also require an amount of energy that I could commit to on a regular basis.
I knew I had to offer services to project managers, as that was my professional community, and I already had a mailing list.
What Was the Major Challenge You Faced in Starting or Scaling It and How Did You Overcome It?
The major challenge I faced in starting the membership was tech – not knowing how to do it all was a huge point of procrastination. I also felt awkward about being so obviously sales-y. I hadn’t pitched ‘big’ offers like that to my mailing list before.
Another challenge was time. I had two young children, a part-time job, and there just weren’t enough hours in the day. I went away to an Airbnb to record my video content and do some strategic thinking. If you are also struggling to get the headspace at home to find time to strategically plan your next moves, then I would highly recommend booking somewhere to go by yourself for a business retreat!
What Was Growth Like Over the First Couple of Years?
Membership has been relatively stable since I started. The pricing has changed. When I stopped offering more live elements, I reduced the price from $97 per month to $27 per month, but that didn’t drastically increase the number of members.
What Was Your Specific Strategy for Growing It and How Did You Implement That?
I did a video funnel-based launch with a fixed closure date, as that is what I thought was best at the time and what the people I followed were teaching. I remember it being high stress. Nowadays, I’m more aware of people with neurodiverse needs, and having fake deadlines feels wrong. I’m running the membership all year round, and new members are welcomed individually. There is no ‘cohort-based onboarding’ due to the nature of the membership, so it doesn’t feel right to artificially create opening and closing dates. If the membership is right for you, join now, you don’t have to wait until the next opening time.
I also tried out a 7-day free trial option, but the admin of dealing with members who then simply went on to cancel was too much.
How Much Money Is the Business Making Now and What Is the Revenue Mix?
Members pay $27 per month (or £20 for UK members). Offering multi-currency payment options helped me avoid bank charges for both me and my UK members. There is also an option to pay annually, which equates to getting a month free.
We have between 30-40 members at any time, including the members who were grandfathered in and who have been with me since launch. I offer personal support to all members, so it’s not possible to scale much beyond that with the current model.
My biggest expenses are my business Zoom account, which I use for training, one-to-one calls, and office hours, Vimeo video hosting (if I was starting again, I would use unlisted videos on YouTube), and web hosting. I have tried lots of different membership platforms, and I now use WordPress, with the BuddyBoss theme (good), Wishlist Member (so complicated), and Learndash LMS (overpowered for what I use it for) for hosting courses on the platform.
The combination is tricky and time consuming if I ever want to change anything, but it gives me flexibility to offer a real membership platform instead of just a stream of videos or a layout that looks more like a course.
The membership is only one revenue stream within my business.
If You Were Advising Someone on Starting a Similar Company Today, What Would You Tell Them Is the Key Area to Focus On and Which Strategy Should They Use to Address It?
The cost of living crisis is changing what people want to spend their money on, and the membership model is now something people are critically evaluating each month. Do they want that Netflix subscription? Do they need a coffee subscription? Or the gym. And your membership is no different. It needs to offer people something they are prepared to pay for long term because the admin of admitting and losing members every month is a headache. Focus on retention and giving your members the best possible experience.
I would say that the personal touch, connecting members to each other, having a WhatsApp group, sending notes in the post, and personal videos, and so on, help people feel connected to you as the group leader.
I was lucky in that I had a mailing list beforehand, but if you don’t have one, start there, building up a list of people who would be your perfect member.
What’s Next for You?
I don’t have any ambitious plans. I’m happy with the level of membership I offer, and it gives me additional income each month, a safety net should anything happen to my employed job, and an asset to sell when the time comes. Yes, I could grow it and spend a lot more on marketing or finding new members, but right now I’m in the stage of life where I need things to be easy. I advertise the membership in my email footer in each of my weekly newsletters, and if people want to join, they do. All the while, the membership is fun and serves its members, I’ll keep offering it.
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