In case you don’t know, I am a huge fan of membership sites. Not just any sites, but membership sites that are of value to their members. With great scripts available, just about anyone can throw up a membership site in a few hours, but it takes a special person to create a membership site that is valuable and will withstand the test of time.
To me, a successful membership site starts as a labor of love. It is typically created by the owner in order to share their knowledge and provide immense benefit to their members. It is not necessarily created simply to turn a profit, although a profit will likely occur if the owner does a good job providing value.
That said, the problem with purchasing an existing membership site is that the new owner doesn’t have an established relationship with their members. In fact, most new owners purchase the site based on the monthly income it is currently generating and lose sight of the fact that you have to continuously improve and add value to the members or you risk losing them.
The existing members know this and are leery of a new owner from the get-go. As such, the new owner has to work double hard to establish themselves and have big shoes to fill in rebuilding trust. Plus, the value they create will be different from the previous owner based on their backgrounds and life experiences, and this may or may not fly with the new members.
With this in mind, I decided not to purchase a membership site recently.
Although the asking price was fair, and I was interested in the subject, I didn’t believe I could create as much value as the previous owner.
Plus, I felt that another membership site would distract from my Internet Marketing Writers membership site , so I turned it down. Instead, I have recommitted myself to creating and establishing my own membership site.
