Table of Contents

The Demand

Before your next shift, pull your Guest data and identify your top 10% by visit frequency and relationship depth — the Guests whose occasions you know and whose history with your operation is real. That cohort is your founding membership. Do not sell them anything yet. This week, reach out to a handful of them and ask what would make their relationship with your operation more meaningful, and what they would pay for that does not yet exist. Decide, based on what they tell you, whether you have built something worth belonging to — because a membership launched before that answer is just a prepaid discount program with better branding.

The Work

The prerequisite check:

Do you already have established, loyal Guests — name how many and how you know:

Have you built something Guests would miss if you closed — name the specific thing:

Rate honestly, 1-5, whether your operation has done the Value Building work a membership requires:

Loyalty program versus membership — the inversion:

Name a current loyalty mechanic in your building — points, tiers, VIP status:

Is the Guest responding to an incentive structure, or making a declared commitment — which one:

Where does this Guest’s [Trust Arc] stand before versus after this mechanic — has anything actually resolved the provisional trust of a first visit:

What your membership could deliver — name one idea for each:

Access — something only members could get:

Recognition — how a member would arrive already known, drawing on [Guest History]:

Community — how members would know each other:

Your top 10% by visit frequency and relationship depth — name them or the process to identify them this week:

The specific question you will ask them before you build anything, and the day you will ask it: