Are you earning permission to provide content, benefits, events, ideas, answers, connections, etc., to your members—even your most engaged members? Earning permission is a funny concept because members pay for membership and more, so obviously, they want these things, right?!?

Not necessarily.

Every minute, members can decide whether to engage or to lean away. The decision to engage, to say yes, is always a little tricky because so many other super-pressing things are competing for their time. The decision to say no, not to read that email, not look for the answers on your website, or not to attend that event is easy. No is the path of least resistance. No is the default. No gives them time to address all the other super-pressing things competing for their time.

The decision to engage (or not) is made constantly. For example, during the first 5 minutes of a webinar, an attendee might make a handful of decisions to engage. There’s the decision to:

• Log in

• Log in on time

• Turn their camera on

• Introduce themselves in the chat

• Refrain from diving into email

• Ignore that call.

See the handful of micro-decisions that might happen within the first few minutes of an event.

We consistently earn attendees' permission to deliver another few minutes of content or connection. Here’s how it works:

The first 30 seconds can earn us permission to give the online event another 2 minutes, and those 2 minutes, done well, earn us permission to give the next 5 minutes. After a great 5 minutes, we might have earned permission to provide the whole 60 minutes.

This mechanic of earning permission is at work in every member interaction.

• The subject line of an email earns permission for the email to be opened.

• The first sentence of an email earns permission for the email to be read.

• The above-the-fold section of the homepage earns permission to click.

• The first few sentences of an article, research report, or white paper earn permission for a little more reading.

• The first interaction at a networking event earns more interactions.

Anytime you create content, messaging, a new benefit, service, or event, think, “Are we earning permission for their attention in the first few seconds and minutes to deliver the rest of this content, messaging, benefit, service, or event?”