How To Launch A Membership Site – Part 9: Selling Your Membership Site
Read previous articles in this series:
- Part 1: Build Your Preeminence
- Part 2: Communication Channels
- Part 3: Technology
- Part 4: Content and Pricing
- Part 5: Triggers
- Part 6: Prelaunch and Launch
- Part 7: Dealing With Attrition
- Part 8: Set Your Membership Site On Autopilot
Selling your membership site is a real option and worth considering as an exit strategy. If you enjoy the set-up and launch of a membership site, but the ongoing maintenance is not a role you want to perform, you can sell out and move on.
Some people deliberately focus on site flipping, buying under performing sites, optimizing them to increase profits, and selling for a nice gain. There’s no reason you can’t do the same with membership sites, once you understand how they work, or you could start sites from scratch with the intention of building them up quickly to sell off for a big profit.
It’s worth bearing in mind that selling your site is an option at any point. You may have problems with marketing or dealing with attrition, or you just don’t want the responsibility anymore, so your best option is to hand over the site to someone else.
You will get more money selling a profitable, autopilot membership site, but that isn’t necessarily a point you can reach by yourself and if your focus is moving elsewhere, selling your site today is an option. There are plenty of people interested in buying web property at all stages of development.
Preparing for Sale
I have not personally sold my own membership site as I write this, however I have purchased and sold several sites over the past seven years and I know the process very well. Selling a membership site is no different from selling any form of web property, buyers are interested in the same metrics and the more you can do to present your site in a good light, the more money you will make.
If you have ever taken an interest in buying businesses in the real world (bricks and mortar) you might be quite surprised when you head online and investigate the web property marketplace. Web property can be very under priced when compared to their real world counterparts. This might be because the whole idea of buying and selling websites is very new, or it could be because of the virtual nature of the asset. Whatever the reason, your job when selling your membership site, if you want to get a high price, is to prepare well.
Here are a list of the metrics you should collect and provide in a concise document, which you can give to potential buyers who demonstrate serious interest in your site.
