My Money Visuals Manifesto

(Or Why I Decided to Cap Our Membership)

Be forewarned, this is long, but beyond making this announcement, I wanted to share my thoughts behind the decision as it might encourage others to think differently about their business as well. I will get to all the details below, but the short version of the announcement is this:

I have decided to cap my Money Visuals Client Memos membership at 500 total members (with one time-related caveat below). Once I reach that number, I will start a waitlist for FAs to join based on a one-out, one-in waitlist arrangement (this will inevitably be at a higher price than our current rates).

As an FYI, as of this writing, our Client Memo membership currently stands at 440 members. Quick math: This means I'll accept another ~60 members, and then I plan to close the door.

The only exception to this rule (this is the time-related caveat noted above) is that I am going to keep the membership totally open until February 28th, regardless of how many FAs join during that time. If, by chance, that means I end up with more than 500 members, then great. But assuming we reach at least 500, the membership will close wherever we stand on February 28th.

Candidly, I’ll be a little surprised if we don't reach our cap by that date, as I expect the remaining slots to go quickly, but time will tell. However, if we don’t reach 500 by that date, that’s no problem; I’ll just leave the membership open until it does.

In summary, I will establish a waitlist on either February 28th OR once we reach 500 total members, whichever comes later.

If you already know you’d like to join to lock-in your membership (and your pricing!) for life, click here to be taken to our Client Memos page.

If you’d enjoy hearing the in-depth details and rationale behind this decision (and I hope you do), read on…

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Okay, with that out of the way, I’d like to share why I have decided to cap our Client Memos membership.

There’s a great line in the book Anything You Want where author Derek Sivers said,

"When you make a business, you get to make a little universe where you control all the laws. This is your utopia."

I read these words years ago, and they’ve stuck in my mind. I’ve continued to mull over what my utopia might look like. What follows is a summary of those thoughts.

First, I desire to serve a select group of financial advisors who highly value the work that I do rather than a rotating cast of characters. While I could boast that my monthly renewal rate is higher than 99% (which, admittedly, could be an indication that my prices are too low), I'd prefer it if there was exactly zero turnover! Zero turnover would mean that I have nearly permanent relationships with every member—much like we strive for in our advisor/client relationships.

Second, beyond a certain point—which I would define as enough financial success to make this a sustainable and exciting business for me—I have realized that it's not in the best interest of my members for Money Visuals to be in perpetual growth mode. Because if I'm constantly trying to grow, this means that I must bring more awareness to Money Visuals by marketing our service as widely as possible. Most often, this means using social media given the strong correlation I've experienced between time spent on social media and new members signing up.

The problem with this is that my existing members, logically speaking, do not want MV to be more well-known in any capacity. If anything, the opposite is true! They'd almost assuredly prefer that MV was a ghost online since I am, quite literally, a ghostwriter. By capping the membership, I believe that the value of our membership is permanently enhanced for each and every member.

Beyond that, on a personal level, I don’t enjoy social media at all. I would prefer to delete the MV social pages entirely, make the MV site little more than a contact form to be added to the waitlist, and do zero marketing for our brand. With no reason to grow beyond ~500 members, there would be no reason whatsoever to be on social media (or anywhere else marketing this service), so I can focus my MV efforts solely on serving our members rather than growing the membership. Win/win.

Third, from a business perspective, existing members will hopefully think long and hard about giving up their membership (such as during a particularly busy time or whatever). This quirk of a capped membership makes my business income incredibly stable, which is nice on many levels.

Fourth, thus far in the first four years of building MV, I’ve been really blessed with the fact that I’ve had very few advisors who have broken the privacy rules associated with our membership. This speaks to the incredible, high-quality advisors this business has attracted thus far, which could only decline with more and more members. With ~500 effectively-permanent members, my hope is that there will be zero infractions, which, again, makes our membership more valuable for existing members. And as a bonus, I experience fewer headaches in the process. Another win/win.

Finally—and this may be the most interesting reason of all—making the decision not to grow is one to preserve my own sanity and enjoy life more. Let me explain.

Comedian Aziz Ansari once told the story of a time when he ran into Frank Ocean at a party and said to him,

"Frank, how do you do it man? You never do any press. You barely tour. And you only put out music when you really want to. What's your secret?"

Ocean replied,

"Ah man, you just gotta be comfortable making less money, that's all."

Admittedly, there are probably few ideas that are less American than explicitly choosing to turn growth off and make less money, but the people I admire most in business and life are those who have "opted out of the game" to do things their own way.

The idea that we should be in constant pursuit of some perpetually higher number is, in my opinion, a recipe for perpetual discontent. Nobody talks about it this way, but this has certainly been my experience.

Growth feels good, but only for a moment, whereas opting out of the game allows me to find contentment in my day-to-day life in a much more sustainable way. This is true if, for no other reason, because I no longer have to think about growth.

I can just focus on doing what I love. That is, writing, serving my members, spending time with my family, and enjoying other creative pursuits as they arise.

The idea that we need to (or should) exist in some state of perpetual growth mode is built on the assumption that there must be some "bigger happiness" that exists out there in the future if only we can grow to some number that’s a shade short of infinity. We're experts at shifting how we view and define success as we attain more and more success.

If I were to follow that route of chasing some perpetually higher (always higher) number, I would feel like I was holding my happiness hostage to, essentially, an infinite number of members. When would it ever be enough?!

One thing I've learned about my own ego over the years is that it's never satisfied unless and until I’ve explicitly chosen to opt out of the game.

For me, capping our membership is one way I can purposefully and intentionally set my ego aside and work toward life contentment.

I’m not building MV to sell but solely to provide for my family by serving my members well. Given that exclusive goal, the truth of the matter is that I don’t need Money Visuals to grow beyond 500 members. In reality, I don't even need 500 members, but it provides a nice round number for which to pull up the gangplank before turning off my various growth channels.

Beyond that, as countercultural as this may be, I don’t think that success in life has a dollar sign attached to it. The more I've thought about it, the more I've come to define a successful life as: Having the ability to live life on my terms and then actually living life on those terms.

It's the second part of that equation so many of us seem to struggle with. Or maybe it's just me.

Long story short, I’m quite sure that I won't get to the end of my life wishing that I sacrificed my happiness or time with my family in pursuit of some greater level of worldly success.

I could go on, but I’ve probably said enough. To anyone who has made it this far, thank you for your time, and I hope you found it helpful!

If you're interested in joining our Client Memos membership, you can click here to be taken to our sales page to learn more.