Issue #34 - October 27th, 2025
Written by Michael Gillespie
In this issue:
Perspective: Why MRR can look healthy while your membership quietly slips: The important signals you won’t find in the dashboard.
Insight: Revenue is a lagging indicator: But engagement is the real predictor of membership health - what you should be watching.
Outlook: Notes on building true stability beneath the surface of your membership.
QUOTE OF THE WEEK
“Revenue reports what already happened. Engagement predicts what’s about to.”
For many operators, all the numbers can look good on paper.
MRR is steady. Renewals are coming through. Growth graphs are inching up.
And suddenly, churn ticks higher. A few long-time members disappear. And the foundation of your membership feels thinner than it looked.
That’s the illusion of stability - when revenue signals membership strength, but beneath the surface, there’s a deeper story unfolding.
Let’s dive in.
PERSPECTIVE
When Recurring Revenue Hides Reality…
Revenue feels tangible: it’s the scoreboard. But it’s also delayed.
And by the time you notice that your membership numbers have shifted, the actual behaviors that caused those changes started weeks or months ago.
That’s why many memberships appear healthy…until they’re not.
MRR holds steady while members quietly disengage - skipping events, ignoring email updates, checking out of community conversations.
I’ve seen this play out repeatedly: a membership looks strong for most of the year, then hits a churn wave in Q4. And the warning signs were there all along - just not in the dashboard.
You see, revenue is the lagging indicator of your business. And engagement is the leading one - but it’s also the most ignored.
I’ll admit - tracking engagement can feel boring and like a waste of time. It requires significant attention to detail across multiple channels and there’s no perfect benchmarking for it.
But…
Having walked the same membership journey as you are right now, I’ve learned this:
The activities that feel boring are the activities that grow membership businesses.
INSIGHT
Measuring What Actually Matters
If revenue tells you what has happened, engagement tells you what’s happening now. It’s the pulse of your membership - and the strongest predictor of what your next renewal cycle will look like.
Here’s the highest-value ways to monitor your engagement practically and proactively:
Track Participation, Not Just Presence
Logins or open rates aren’t enough. Look at actions: posts shared, emails replied to, comments made, lessons completed, feedback submitted.
Engagement isn’t about showing up - it’s about showing signs of life.
Watch for Early Warning Signs
Declining activity from your most loyal members is the first red flag.
For example: a 10–15% drop in event attendance among your core group usually precedes wider churn.
Measure Responsiveness
How long does it take for members to reply, click, or engage when you share something new?
Lagging response times mean attention is slipping - even if their payments haven’t yet.
Run Regular “Pulse Checks”
Send short surveys every few months asking: What’s working? What’s missing? What’s confusing?
The answers (or lack of) give qualitative context to the quantitative metrics.
Define Your Engagement Metrics
Track metrics like active member ratio (active members ÷ total members), event attendance percentage, and content consumption rates. You have flexibility in what you choose to track - but what matters most is not the number of members who show up, but rather the number of members who show up and take action.
Track your engagement monthly - the trends will show you where attention is leaking before revenue does.
The most sophisticated operators watch engagement the way pilots watch fuel levels. It’s the real signal of whether the system you’ve built can keep going.
There’s no perfect way to track engagement. I encourage you to identify 1-3 engagement metrics that are meaningful to your membership - and then track them consistently.
Whether it’s the attendance rate for member-only zoom calls, the number of replies to member-only emails or something else - monitor it consistently. You’ll be surprised at what you’ll learn about your membership within six months.
OUTLOOK
Build Stability Beneath the Surface
Membership success isn’t about chasing spikes. It’s about building systems that hold steady when attention dips.
Revenue will always trail behind behavior. So if you want to protect your growth, stop waiting for your financials to tell you what’s wrong - because your members already have.
Operators who treat engagement as the leading indicator stay ahead of churn, build deeper connection, and earn the kind of stability that can’t be faked by MRR alone.
So here’s the question I’m leaving you with this week:
Are you managing by the numbers that report the past or by the signals that predict the future?
Think about it.