I started a membership. Here’s what I didn’t expect.

In this guest post Sam from Groves Creative shares with us her recent experience of following an idea she had, creating her own membership – The Brand Confidence Club – and what it’s taught her.

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I started a membership. Here’s what I didn’t expect.

I had the idea, but not the purpose

For years, I’d had “create a membership” somewhere on my business wish list.

I loved the idea of building a community and having somewhere I could regularly support people and help them fall in love with their business and brand.

The problem was, I didn’t really know what the membership would be for.

I didn’t want to create one simply because memberships were popular or because it seemed like another good revenue stream to add to my business. It needed to solve an actual problem.

Eventually, after more and more conversations with small business owners, the purpose became pretty obvious.

There was a gap between DIY and hiring a designer

As a graphic designer, I work with businesses on branding, websites, marketing materials and everything in between. But having a completely new brand or website professionally designed is an investment – and not every small business is ready for that investment right now.

That doesn’t mean they don’t care about their brand. 

I kept meeting brilliant female founders and sole traders who really cared about how their businesses were being presented, but didn’t necessarily know what looked right, what needed changing or where they should be focusing their attention.

They were spending hours in Canva moving things around.
They weren’t sure whether their fonts worked together.
They had a logo, but didn’t really know what else to do with their branding.
Their business had changed but their visual identity hadn’t necessarily kept up.
They’d created a website themselves but weren’t confident that it represented the quality of what they actually offered.
Or they’d simply reached the point where they were thinking, I know something isn’t quite right, but I don’t know what I need to change.

And that’s where the idea for the Brand Confidence Club finally clicked.

What if you could simply ask a designer?

I wanted to create an accessible way for small business owners to have a designer in their back pocket.
Not necessarily someone to redesign everything for them, but someone they could ask.
Someone who could:

• look at a social media graphic and say, “Try this.”
• explain why something isn’t quite working rather than simply telling them that it doesn’t.
• help them understand the basics of branding and design so they felt more confident making their own decisions.

The Brand Confidence Club is a place for regular design feedback, masterclasses, Q&As, practical resources and conversations about branding, websites, Canva, marketing and all the other things that inevitably come up when you’re running a small business.

I’ve realised that very often people don’t need more stuff. They need the confidence to use what they already have.

Confidence can come before the big investment

There’s another reason this was important to me.

I don’t believe every small business needs to immediately spend thousands of pounds changing everything.

Sometimes you’re simply not at that stage yet.

Perhaps you’re still working out your offer or cash flow needs to go elsewhere. Your business might be changing and you want (and need) to understand where it’s heading before you invest in a new identity or website.

I’d much rather someone understood how to make better decisions with what they have now and then invested when the time genuinely feels right.

And if, during that time, they’ve built a relationship with a designer they trust, even better. They already know how I work. I understand their business. They know they can ask me questions without feeling silly.

If they eventually decide they need professional design support, we’re not starting that relationship from scratch. Of course, from a business point of view, I recognised that when I created the Club. It was strategically a way of introducing people to me and my services.

What I hadn’t anticipated was how much value would flow in the other direction.

Six members have taught me an enormous amount

At the time of writing this, The Brand Confidence Club has only been running for 6 weeks and currently has six members.

I’d love it to grow. Will it? I hope so! I’m going to give it my best shot.

But something I’ve realised very quickly is that a community doesn’t have to be enormous to be incredibly valuable.

I created the Club because I wanted to help other business owners. What it has already given me in return has been tenfold what I expected.

I’ve had conversations that have sparked new content ideas almost immediately.
I’ve heard first-hand what people actually find difficult about branding rather than assuming I know.
I’ve discovered the questions people are nervous or curious to ask.
I’ve seen where Canva becomes a time sink rather than a useful tool.
I’ve realised how often the problem isn’t that someone doesn’t have a brand – it’s that they don’t know whether they’re using it properly.
And I’ve seen how businesses can gradually outgrow the visual identity they started with, leaving the person behind them knowing something feels off without necessarily knowing what to do next.

These conversations have already influenced the content I’m creating, the masterclasses I’m planning and even completely new services and packages I’m developing within my wider business. And that has probably been my biggest surprise.

Sometimes your customers will show you what your next offer should be

As small business owners, we spend an awful lot of time trying to work out what people want.

We brainstorm, research, create customer personas, stare at our notebooks and even ask AI.

But the best research is simply having more conversations with the people you want to help! The Club has given me a space where those conversations happen naturally. Someone will ask a question during a feedback session and I’ll think, I bet loads of other business owners struggle with this.

Someone will explain what they’re finding difficult and I’ll realise there might be a completely different way I could support them. A conversation will go off on a tangent and suddenly I have three ideas for future resources or content.

That’s incredibly valuable.

Your membership doesn’t have to be huge to make a difference

I think we’re often shown a particular version of what a successful membership or online community should look like.

Hundreds of members. Constant content. Complicated platforms. Big launches.

Mine doesn’t look like that.

There are six people in it.

We’re still figuring things out.

I’ve already changed elements of how it works after listening to feedback from the first few sessions.

I’m learning as I go. And actually, I think that’s one of its strengths.

Those first members are helping shape what the Brand Confidence Club becomes, while I’m getting a much deeper understanding of the people I want my wider business to serve.

So, if you’ve ever thought about creating a membership, community or smaller accessible offer within your own business, perhaps the question isn’t only:
“How much money could this make?”
Maybe it’s also:
“How could this help me grow and learn”

Getting closer to the people you want to serve can influence far more than that one offer.

• It can show you what they’re struggling with.
• It can help you communicate your services better.
• It can give you ideas for content.
• It can highlight gaps in your existing offers.
• It can even change the direction your business takes.

I started the Brand Confidence Club because I wanted small business owners to feel that they had a designer in their back pocket – someone they could turn to for guidance before they were ready or able to make a bigger investment.

I still want it to do exactly that.

I just hadn’t realised quite how much having them in my back pocket would give me too!