Speaker Interview: Marcus Couch

Get to know Marcus Couch, the co-host of WordPress Weekly and WordPress A-Z.

Couch-wclax16

Marcus is the founder of MembershipCoach.com and coaches best-selling authors, motivational speakers, musicians and non-profit associations with developing and growing their high-end membership site businesses.


What should we know about you that you haven’t included in your brief, third-person, professional biography?We can come back around to this. I’m pretty much an open book out there already.

 

Who, in your professional opinion, is the greatest author, speaker, or musician of the century?

I’m not a professional critic, but here are my own favorites:

  • Author: Tim Ferris
  • Speaker: Andy Andrews
  • Musicians: Metallica

In a brief elevator-like sales pitch, what is MembershipCoach.com?

It’s a membership site about making membership sites. We help people from all experience levels to plan, develop, launch and grow their membership sites. For developers, we have a seperate track that helps with the site spec and bidding process, what to charge and how to go about getting membership site clients. It’s not just a video tutorial site. I am actively participating in every project that our members create, should they wish my feedback and involvement, I give them everything they can handle.

 

You’re going on a long journey and you’re going to be pretty bored but, luckily, you get to bring a WordPress podcast to keep you occupied, which podcast do you bring?

In “The Avengers” there is a scene where Bruce Banner is asked to “Get Angry” and he replies, “That’s my secret Doctor, I’m always angry.” My secret is that I listen to every WordPress Podcast. I’m everyone’s fan. If they made the effort to fire up the mic in the name of WordPress, they deserve my attention. I regularly listen to over 20 different WordPress podcasts and seek out new ones all the time. There are people that had recently labeled me the King of WordPress podcasting, but it’s only because I understand the WordPress Podcast landscape better than anyone else. If you want to be a great podcaster, you have to be a great listener first.

 

What one tricky little gotcha can you help Membership Site hopefuls avoid?

Making sure the “recurring” button is clicked when setting up their membership product. I have a long term client that forgot to do this. He originally hired me to figure out why no one was paying him after month one. He spent almost $20K in PPC and Facebook ads, only to be forced to pitch the same people again just to stick with him. All because he hired someone that forgot to click the recurring order button.


At WordCamp Los Angeles 2016, Marcus will be presenting on Membership Site Success Strategies.