Tianmei's World Academy's founder Adina has done a lot of research related to the different membership levels that different businesses are using and realized that many of them are optimized in such a way that they put profits first, instead of the member growth. 

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Membership fees

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There are many organizations that offer tempting membership packages with what seem to be a lot of benefits. This means that psychologically, when you are purchasing the membership package you feel good that you are getting a good deal. But most of the times, it is absolutely impossible to enjoy all the benefits that you are paying for because you think that you still have enough time to enjoy the benefits until the membership expires, thus you get busy with other things. Then before you know it, the membership will expire soon.

 

This essentially means that you just bought psychological comfort and a feeling of belonging to a community, organization etc. In reality, the number of people who can gain maximum benefits for the membership fees they pay is very limited. This leads to the organization gaining high profits, but not so much growth on your side as a user. As a matter of fact, most of the times it leads you to feel worse about your behavior because you will feel you wasted the opportunities, thus start blaming your lack of self-discipline again. The same happens with the “all-you-can-eat” deals that some restaurants offer. The people who can eat more than the value they actually pay for and don’t feel sick afterwards are very few. 

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Looking at this issue in a holistic manner, the restaurant has earned their profit and as a user you will be tempted to eat much more than you actually need just to feel like you got your value back. But after that, you will probably feel guilty that you ate so much again, thus again blaming your lack of self-discipline. From an environmental protection perspective, there will be a lot of waste because after you fill your plate with a lot of food and realize that you can’t eat it all, you just leave it on your plate. Gym subscriptions work on a similar concept.

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How many times have you bought a gym subscription, went a few times and then stopped going, thus wasting the money you paid?

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If you are like most people, then the answer would be: “Many times”! 

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And because of this you may have again blamed yourself that you lack self-discipline. In reality, what you lack is awareness about how the human mind works and how irrational human behavior is. You think that if you pay for the subscription then you will be more motivated to go to the gym. However, those who end up being motivated to go to the gym this way most of the times are those people who already have a clear goal about what they want to achieve by going to the gym. These people usually have a clear schedule and quarterly weight/muscle objectives that they want to achieve and they monitor for that progress periodically. And most probably, these people can achieve their goals even if they don’t pay a gym subscription because you can actually exercise even without going to the gym. 

 

For those who just know that they would need to exercise more, but buy a gym subscription without a clear goal end up thinking that they can go any time. And before they know it, the subscription has finished without them going to the gym much and self-blame comes back. It’s the same type of behavior that occurs when we set resolutions at the beginning of every year and by the end of the year fail to achieve them. In other words, whether it’s buying any type of membership, going to an “all-you-can-eat” restaurant or setting new goals, we’re only giving ourselves short-term psychological comfort. In the long term, we will end up blaming ourselves for lack of self-discipline and feel bad about ourselves.

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Of course, from a business perspective, whether you enjoy the full benefits of the memberships you buy is not a concern because the business has earned your money anyway. As a matter of fact, the more you blame yourself you lack self-discipline, the more money businesses can make because you keep going back to buy the psychological comfort they provide. But in the long run that doesn't help you grow much.

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Membership Points

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Other membership models provide points for spending. In order to drive sales, they will send you reminders that you still have x points left and you will lose them if you don’t spend them before a certain date. From a psychological point of view, people are averse to loss or scarcity and companies know that, so they use it to maximize their profits. But in the long run, this type of behavior just increases your levels of anxiety. 

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What does Tianmei's World Academy do differently and why?

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Adina has received a lot of advice about how she should build Tianmei’s World Academy in order to maximize profits, but she has always had a problem with using people’s lack of knowledge about irrational human behavior to earn her own money. She finds this to be an immoral behavior because access to educational resources is not equal. Whether we have access to these resources or not is mostly influenced by where we were born. In other words, access to educational resources is higher for those who were born and raised in big cities compared to those who were born and raised in a rural area. But this doesn’t make people living in cities smarter than those living in the rural area, it just makes access to resources unequal. 

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So, she considers coming across this knowledge as a privilege that she was lucky to get because she didn’t choose where to be born or the education that she received. As such, using her luck to harm the less lucky ones just to maximize her own profits feels immoral and she refuses to do it.

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It's these observations and beliefs that led to the design of Tianmei's World Academy VIP membership system as it is today. Of course, from a business perspective, this does mean that Tianmei’s World Academy will not grow as fast as other companies, but Adina still prefers slower growth, because she believes such type of growth is more valuable, sustainable and impactful in the long run.

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So, if you believe in the mission that Tianmei's World Academy has, you may consider to become a member and create more impact in the world through your own growth.

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Disclaimer: The above information just represents the founder's observations and research. It's not an extensive list of all the membership models available. There might be other models that put experience and growth before profits that I Adina may have not come across yet. The text is also not trying to judge anyone. It's a pure account of the thinking process that led Adina to design the VIP levels in Tianmei’s World Academy as they are today, to serve the purpose, mission and values that Tianmei’s World Academy has.