No excuse. Reimagining and relaunch will always take longer than you think for a podcast like SubscriptionMaker. You always think that you can make just a couple of cosmetic tweaks, and everything will be okay. On the other hand, the listener deserves a deeper conversation.
Welcome to the Subscription Maker Podcast. This is your host Zachary Alexander, Enterprise Architect at SubscriptionMaker.net. Please hit the subscribe button where ever you get your podcasts so that you won’t miss any new episodes.
For the record, becoming a subscriptionmaker is challenging. You’ve got to be at times a coach, rainmaker, and community leader. Also, don’t underestimate contribution this could make to your future, given the under-reported turmoil in the United States workforce.
Reimagining and Relaunch
In the past, we have always talked about subscriptionmaking as a service-dominant form of making much like what goes on in makerspaces. However, when you take the time to go deeper, you see that subscriptionmaking is much more.
You see that it’s not just a form of production. It’s also not simply a form of monetization, even though both of these attributes are important. Upon deeper inspection, subscriptionmaking also requires that you be a part-time coach, a sometime rainmaker, and always a community leader.
Why a part-time coach
There is an old African saying that you can go quickly by going alone. However, if you want to go far, you need to go with others. You’ve got to develop a team. Because of this, you have got to become a part-time coach. Helping your team members achieve their goals is the best way to help you to improve and maintain your subscription service.
A Sometime Rainmaker
For our purposes, you can think of rainmaking in a fairly expansive way. It’s not just about bringing money or bringing in subscribers. It’s about putting the team together. So-called gurus like to say, “just turn community development over to your superfans.” The danger is that you might be inviting your most important subscribers to a ghost town then asking them to create life.
Always a community leader
Before the Reimaging and Relaunch, we never really talked about subscriptionmakers as community leaders. We always talked about them as producers of subscription services. Upon deeper reflection, it was always implied. Going forward, we are going to talk about what you can do to lead a movement that will justify the purchase of your subscription services.
Tools and Subscription Services
The second thing, we want to talk about tools that you can use to produce your subscription services. We are going to get very specific about the tools that you can use to empower your movement and give it life. Always remember that great communities have a life of their own much like the ones in the physical world.
Never build on rented land
A lot of very serious people have warned against the tactic of building on rented land like social networks. Many have screamed till they were blue in the face that doing so was akin to sharecropping. You can make a few bucks. However, you are always at the whim of the social network’s shareholders. They can force management to change the rules if they think you are getting too much of the pie.
Rising Cost of Social Networking
The big social networks are all publicly traded companies. They are trying to maximize their return on investment. Increasingly, this means that you’ve got to pay to play. There are no free services of any real size and reach. So this presents the perfect opportunity to start a niche subscription service, one that will serve your movement without distraction.
Conclusion
Reimagining and Relaunch will provide us with an opportunity for a deeper conversation. You could make the case that this is needed given the under-reported turmoil. The reason is 50 percent of the American workforce could be employed as either freelancers or contingent professionals by 2027.
Thank you for listening to this episode of the Subscription Maker Podcast. This is your host Zachary Alexander. “Give me some answers” by the New Fools is the music track. You can find it at Epidemic Sound. Finally, you can contact me on SubscriptionMaker.net.