245: One Email Uncovered $1M in Hidden Wins
Marketing Your Business - Marketing Strategies for Business Owners
Stu McLaren
4.9 • 679 Ratings
🗓️ 8 April 2026
⏱️ 15 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
We sent one email to our alumni students. No pitch, no offer, just one question:
"What's been happening? Give us an update." What came back blew us away.
This year marks the 10-year anniversary of our signature course (originally called Tribe, now The Membership Experience). Tens of thousands of students have gone through the program, and we realized we had no idea what most of them were up to. So we sent a simple check-in email.
The replies started pouring in. Jamie had built 600 members at $30 a month. Cindy hit a million dollars in revenue. Julie was running 10 different memberships. Shannon had built eight memberships serving thousands of elementary school teachers. All of this was happening in silence, and we had no clue until we asked.
In this episode, I break down the three lessons (plus a bonus) from that experience, and I give you a challenge to try this week.
In this episode, you'll learn:
• Why your past customers are your most underused asset (and how one email can change that)
• How to build a system for collecting stories, from the $18,000/month wins to the 250-member wins
• Why products with customer stories have a 270% higher purchase likelihood
• The bonus lesson: why sharing your progress back to mentors and creators matters more than you think
📥 RESOURCE: Grab the resources from this episode at https://podcast.stu.me
🎟️ FREE EVENT: Join me at the Audience to Income Summit. Register free at https://membership.io/summit
CONNECT WITH STU:
• Website: https://stu.me
• Book "Predictable Profits": https://a.co/d/4GIi1uz
• Instagram: https://instagram.com/stumclaren
• Podcast: https://podcast.stu.me
• Membership.io: https://membership.io
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Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | A few weeks ago, we sent a simple email to our alumni students. |
| 0:03.9 | No pitch, no offer, just one question. |
| 0:07.3 | What is happening and give us an update? |
| 0:09.8 | And what came back? |
| 0:11.2 | I wasn't ready for it. |
| 0:12.9 | One email had 600 members at $30 a month. |
| 0:16.7 | Another email described how they had now built a million dollars in revenue with their membership. |
| 0:21.6 | Another one said that they had now 10 memberships running at once. |
| 0:25.6 | And another one said they had eight memberships serving thousands of teachers. |
| 0:30.6 | All of this was happening in silence and we had no idea. |
| 0:35.6 | Today, I want to talk to you about why the most powerful thing that you can do for your |
| 0:39.9 | business is to simply ask. |
| 0:42.4 | Welcome to marketing your business. |
| 0:44.2 | I'm Stu McLaren, co-founder of membership.io, and author of Predictable Profits. |
| 0:49.1 | Now, here's the truth. |
| 0:50.1 | You are one great marketing idea away from transforming your business. |
| 0:55.0 | One strategy can be the difference between struggling and thriving, |
| 0:58.0 | between a business that drains you and one that fuels your life. |
| 1:02.0 | Every episode, you're going to get specific tactics you need to build your audience, |
| 1:06.0 | attract more customers, and scale your business, all without the burnout. These are real strategies, |
| 1:12.3 | real numbers, real behind the scenes. Buckle your seatbelts, my friend. Let's go. Hey, my friend, |
| 1:19.3 | so I'm back at it this week after speaking at the Creative Educator Conference that was hosted |
... |
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