262: Holly Worton ~ How to Use Patreon to Create a New Income Stream in Your Business

Today’s Guest

Table of Contents

I’m back again, with another solo episode! I’m so excited about this week’s show, which is all about Patreon and how YOU can use it to create a new income stream in your business. I’ve known about Patreon for almost two years now, and you may be surprised to hear that I actually set up a Patreon page way back in October 2016. Or you may be super confused about all this because you’ve never actually heard of Patreon.

Whether you’ve been supporting creators and business owners on Patreon for years, or whether you’ve just heard of it now, I highly recommend you listen to this episode. It’s a long one, because I go so in depth into all the research I did on Patreon before revamping my own page. This will help save you hours of research that I did myself.

I also walk you through my own Patreon page, so you can see exactly how I set mine up, and compare that to how you’d like to set up your own account on Patreon. Like I said, I’m super excited about building my community on Patreon, and if you’ve ever gotten value from this podcast, or my Facebook group, or my videos and books, I’d like to invite you to join me there. The tiers start at just $1 a month, and you can jump in and out at any time.

Listen to this episode

What You’ll Learn

What is Patreon and why you might want to use it
How long Patreon has been around, and whether or not it’s actually credible
Who uses Patreon and what is it good for
What are the success rates people experience with Patreon
Whether it’s just good for offering content, or if you can also use it for your services
How it serves both you and your customers/clients at the same time
When to set up a Patreon account
How I set up my Patreon page
How you can set up your own Patreon account (step by step!)
My top tips on setting up your Patreon page and how much time you’ll need to invest in it
How to predict the ROI of your time invested on Patreon
Where and how to promote your Patreon page so you can get more supporters

Things I Discussed

Resources

Download the Worksheet

I also created a checklist to help you work through the steps to set up your Patreon account.

Get it here (no opt-in required).

Sign Up + Get Bonuses

I’ve got an affiliate link for Patreon, and if you use it to sign up, you can get an extra bonus based on how many patrons you get in the first month. Bonuses range from $50 USD to $500 USD. Sign up here.

Patreon Accounts I Discussed

My Patreon

You can check out my Patreon here. It’s changed a lot since I first released this podcast episode. Now, you can get access to all my ebooks and more.

Connect With Holly

How to Subscribe

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Transcript

The transcript for this episode can also be downloaded here (no opt-in required).

Holly: Hello and welcome to the Business Mindset Podcast, episode 262. This is your host Holly Worton and I am back with another solo episode; today, I am going to talk about something a little different, I am going to talk about Patreon and you can build it to build a membership community around your creations, around your work, around your business.

Now, Patreon is something that I first discovered almost two years ago, I think it was Autumn of 2016; and if I remember correctly it was through Joanna Penn, whom I first heard about Patreon from, she started using it for her podcast, to help fund her podcast, and, I set up my Patreon page in October 2016. Now I mentioned it in one episode of this podcast and never again. I am going to talk a little bit about what happened there, and why I abandoned it, and why I am going to be putting a lot of energy into Patreon from now forward.

Interestingly, when I mentioned Patreon in the Facebook group, I asked a question about who people followed on Patreon, or who people thought were good examples of Patreon users, and a lot of people said that they had no idea what is was, they had never heard of it, they didn’t know what it was used for, some people had heard of it but didn’t know what it was. So, I thought that this would be a really useful episode, because I have just finished about three weeks of research, and developing my own Patreon page, because I have changed it a lot. And I wanted to share my findings with you, because I think it is useful and interesting, and I think that this is a really, really, interesting way forward for a lot of us online entrepreneurs.

So, stay tuned and you will find out what Patreon is and how you can use it to create an extra income stream for your business.

What is Patreon?

So, let’s start out by talking about: what is Patreon?

Patreon bills itself as a membership platform that makes it easy for both artists and creators to get paid. Basically, anyone who does stuff, or creates stuff, can use this platform to get paid a regular monthly income for the things that they create, or the work that they do. So, for creators, Patreon is a way to get paid for creating the things that you are already creating, whether that is a podcast, whether that is YouTube videos, whether that is the work that you do, books you write, whatever. So, your fans, or your Patrons, will pay you either per month, or per creation, and then you get paid either per month or per creation. For patrons, or your fans, Patreon is a way for them to join their favourite creator’s community and pay them for making the stuff that they love. So, it gives you exclusive access to content that they only make available for their patrons. So, if you are a fan of a YouTuber, or a podcaster, or a musician, or a writer, or anyone out there with a community, you can pay them, as a thank you, a monthly amount of money or again per creation amount of money for the stuff that they create and get access to stuff that the general public would not get access to.

So, oftentimes podcasters will record an extra 15 minutes, or half hour, or extra monthly episode that only goes out to their people on Patreon.

Patreon, interestingly, has been around since May 2013. So, by the time I discovered it – in October 2016 – it had already been around for more than three years. Obviously, a lot of these platforms take time to gain following, if you think about the way people are using platforms like social networks and things change over time as well. If you think how people are using Twitter ten years it is different from how they are using it now. If you think about how Facebook was ten years ago, it is very different from how it is now – there are so many more functions. And I think the way people view Patreon has changed over time as well, because I think people are viewing it now as more of a way of reading community around their work, and providing that exclusive content, rather than just putting your hat out and getting some money from people that like what you do. So, I think, the perception of it has changed, and the way people are using it has changed, at least in the last couple of years since I first started using it. To be honest I was surprised to find out that it has been around so long, but I think it has definitely grown in credibility over the years, as people have started using that platform, more and more and more people are joining it, not only as patrons but also as creators.

Who uses Patreon?

A lot of podcasters will use it to build a community around their podcast and to provide exclusive podcast episodes to their patrons.

YouTubers will use it – so a lot of people who have YouTube channels, whether or not they monetise that channel, they will often want to bring in some extra money through Patreon and to provide exclusive content to their patrons. It is also a great way to interact with your community because it has kind of a Facebook-like community tab on it, so there are places for your fans to engage with each other, and also engage with you. Musicians use Patreon, famously Amanda Palmer is one of the biggest musicians I think to embrace crowdfunding in general, she had a wildly effective Kickstarter a few years back, and she is also making a quite big chunk of money every month, or every creation, because I think she charges per creation, on Patreon…we will get into the numbers in a bit.

Writers, whether you are a blogger, or an author who writes books, lots of authors are on Patreon to build a community around their writing, and to have that interaction with their readers and provide them with exclusive content. But, honestly, anyone with a community who creates stuff, and puts stuff out there, whether it is products or services, as we will talk about in a minute, can use Patreon.

So, why would you want to do use it? What is it good for?

It is good for creating an easy membership community around your work.

Again, you have got this tab, it is the community tab, where people can post in there, engage with each other, engage with you, you can post in there. You have also got a tab where you can make your own posts and that’s where you can share your exclusive content. So, it is almost like a paid Facebook group, and I think – this is a prediction of mine – but I think we might start seeing people moving their groups from Facebook, to Patreon, because it is a great way to get paid for the time that you invest in your group, and it is a great way to allow people to engage at different price points, because you set your own price points around your Patreon page, and I am going to talk about that more in a minute.

Why else would you want to use Patreon?

It is a great way to allow your fans, your readers, your listeners, your watchers, your viewers, to easily support your work financially. So, a lot of people have been creating a ton of content for years, whether it is on a podcast, YouTube channel, blog, whatever, and they don’t necessarily get paid for that. So, they kind of might get paid indirectly, so a blogger might also write books, and so people would buy their books.

YouTubers, might also provide depending on what they are doing videos on, say downloadable albums of their YouTube videos on iTunes, I have seen people do that. They might create an online course based on some of the content that they do on YouTube, but the videos themselves, the podcasts episodes themselves, don’t necessarily get financed directly. Yes, you can have ads on your YouTube video, you can have ads on your podcast, but that’s different, it is advertising, so you are not necessarily getting paid per blog post, or per video, or per podcast episode, if that makes sense. So, it is a good way of allowing your fans to easily support your work financially.

It is a way for you to make money for your content. We are so used to putting out content for free, and not getting paid directly for it – again, whether it is a blogpost, whether it is a video, whether it is a podcast. And if you are creating great content, and producing quality stuff, it makes sense that you receive some money for it; and it makes sense that your fans would be so grateful for the help that you give them, that they would want to support you.

Patreon is also a great way of receiving a regular income each month. So, again, you can set your Patreon account to make money per creation: so, per video, per podcast episode, per piece of art if you are a musician, per blog post…or you can do it per month. But, in any case, if you are producing regular content, you would be receiving a regular income from that from your patrons on Patreon.

So, how do you know when it is time to set up a Patreon page?

I think it makes sense to wait until you have been creating content long enough to have built a community of fans around the work that you do. You do not necessarily have to have thousands of people on your mailing list, or thousands of people on your Facebook group, or thousands of downloads on your podcast, thousands of views per YouTube video, or thousands of views on each blog post. But you need to have at least a handful of people who love what you do enough to support your work. So, if you have got a Facebook group and you have got a core group of really active people that’s a sign, I think, that it might be time for you to think about setting up a Patreon page. If you have been regularly and consistently releasing content for some time, then I think that’s also a time to think about setting up a Patreon page. So, if you have been creating YouTube videos on a regular and consistent basis, people know to expect your content and they look forward to it. If you have been releasing regular and consistent podcast episodes that might be a good time and the same if you have been blogging for a while and you have built up a readership around that.

And, the final point that I wanted to bring home, here, is that another sign to set up a Patreon page, or sign that it might be time to, or you want to, is when your content is of outstanding quality. And, a lot of people who are creating content, create great stuff, so their blog posts are interesting and deep and useful and meaningful; or their podcast episodes, or their YouTube videos, and they really provide value and they really help people. That to me is outstanding quality, it is good stuff, you are spending the time to create good stuff. A lot of people don’t, a lot of people put out really shitty blog posts that are just really superficial, not really well thought out, probably didn’t spend much time on it – I see that all the time in content. I especially see it when I am researching my own podcast episodes because usually what I will do is come up with a topic or I am given a topic, and I kind of make some notes for myself about what I want to talk about, and what my thoughts are on this topic and then I will do some basic research online looking at blog posts and things that other people have said about the topic to think about how I feel about what they’ve said, and maybe I want to add some depth to my own episode based on that, and I find so much superficial crap out there, just really basic stuff. So, people aren’t really going to engage with basic stuff, because there is so much information out there, that it is so easy to see if something is crap and click away from it. So, if you have really created well thought out content, and your intention is to really help people, rather than just putting some stuff on your website then I would say if your content is of outstanding quality, people are going to be interested in it, people are going to value it, and they are going to want to follow you and possibly support you.

So that’s kind of an introduction to Patreon. I have some questions before I go on that people have asked me – because I asked what questions people had about Patreon before I sat down to do this episode, so:

#1: What would I use it for?

I think I have pretty much covered that here: you would use it to create an extra income stream for your business and I think a lot of people would agree that the more income streams you have in your business, assuming they’re easy to run and operate, the better. I was just listening to a podcast episode with Joanna Penn the other day which I am actually going to link to in the show notes, because it is relevant to this episode, and she was saying that she has over 120 income streams. Now, a lot of those are based on affiliate marketing, her own books, in all their different formats, whether it is e-book, print, audiobooks etc. And it is stuff that is now passive income, because she has created this stuff and it is bringing in income to her, but she has so many different income streams. So, it makes sense to have a lot of income streams, so you can see what works for you, and give people different ways of supporting you and your work. Because not everyone is going to be ready to do one-to-one work with you, but they may find your content really useful, really valuable, and something that they want to support financially.

#2 Can I use it for offering services too, or is it just to get sponsors for free services that I offer?

I am going to talk about this more in depth in a minute but yes you absolutely can use it for offering services. I think one of the most common uses of Patreon is for content they have been creating that is free, such as videos, podcast episodes, blog posts, but, absolutely, you can at the higher tiers of your Patreon profile, or page, you can offer one-to-one services and I am going to show an example in a few minutes about how I have done that on my own Patreon account.

#3, How does it serve your business and your customers at the same time?

So, it serves your business by creating an extra income stream of steady income every month. Now obviously people can jump in and jump out whenever they want, they can start supporting you and six months later decide: Oh, I don’t want to do that anymore and cancel their support. People can come in and go at any time, which is very easy for them to support you when and how and how much they can. They can also change how they support you. So, people usually change how they support you with different pricing tiers, whether it is $1, $3, $5 or more each month, and people can either raise their support or lower their support, based on what they can afford and what they want to pay you.

It also serves your customers by giving them a chance to pay you back for your content. So, if people have found your podcast to be super-useful, but your podcast is free, and maybe they can’t afford to work one-to-one with you, but they do want to give you a thank you for your great content, then Patreon is a way that helps them, help you, if that makes sense. And it helps them say thank you.

#4 How credible is it?

So, like I said, it has been around since May 2013, however, I think it is safe to say that a lot of people hadn’t heard of it for the first, say, couple of years. It grew I would say slowly but maybe that’s just me because I hadn’t heard of it until 2016, I think it is very, very, credible, I am going to be sharing some links in the show notes about who is using Patreon, and who is using Patreon with success, and what kind of money people can make on Patreon. But, obviously, that’s going to depend on your community. But I think it is absolutely credible, it is very credible, lots of people are using it and lots of people are joining Patreon every day, every week, every month.

However, I think it is still new enough that it’s not over-saturated. Everyone has a Facebook group now, everyone is on Twitter, more or less, lots of people are doing this stuff, because it has been around – these social networks have been around for over ten years – and I kind of feel like they are oversaturated. For the longest time Twitter has been so oversaturated with people that you have got to create lists around topics and people so that you can make sure that you are seeing the tweets that you actually want to see; otherwise if you are following any number of people it is like your feed goes by so fast you don’t see the stuff that you want to see. So, I think Patreon is at a perfect point now, because it has been around long enough to be credible and people are using it and making lots of money off of it, but it is not oversaturated yet. So, I think that this is a really good time to start experimenting with Patreon, which is why I am so excited to be doing this episode and sharing this with you because I am really, really excited about it.

#5 So, what are the success rates with Patreon?

Now, this is going to depend on you and your audience. I am going to link in the show notes to a blog post called: Who are the Top Patreon Creators?

So, a lot of these I had never heard of before, but I am going to run through some of them really quickly, even though you may not have heard of them, just so you can get an idea.

So, there is this political comedy podcast, which is fairly new, it started back in March 2016, called the Chapo Trap House. I haven’t heard of it, but apparently lots of people have, because they have got 21,400 patrons on Patreon, and they are making $95,000 a month from their patrons. There is a YouTuber called Dr Jordan B. Peterson, who is a psychology Professor and creates YouTube videos. I have never heard of this guy, but he has got 8,100 patrons, who are paying him $70,000 per month, at least at the time of this blog. Now, Amanda Palmer, whom I have mentioned before, and I will mention again later on, she is an artist and musician and she is really, really, well known for having created a great community around her music. And she is such a visionary in this, she was using email marketing with her fans, and just really building strong relationships with her fans from the very beginning. She has got 11,200 patrons on Patreon, and she is earning $55,000 per month, according to this article — so she is fairly well known.

Other people making lots of money, Philip DeFranco, again never heard of him, but apparently, he is a popular news YouTuber, 14,400 patrons, earning an estimated $50,000 per month. Lots of people are making lots of money on Patreon however, again this all depends on your community, it depends on how long you have been doing what you are doing, it depends on the quality of the stuff that you are producing, and the perceived value by your fans, and many other factors I am sure. So, depending on how good you are at creating great content, marketing your stuff well, building your community, that will affect your success rates.

#6 How much of your time will you need to invest?

Now I spent about three weeks kind of building up this excel spreadsheet, which I will share with you in the show notes, based on writers, and people that I supported on Patreon and other YouTubers, and just people that were of interest to me, to see how they used Patreon and how I might want to use it myself. So, kind of on and off every once in a while, I would kind of dip in and do a search – it probably didn’t take more than a couple of hours. And then, last Wednesday, so just a couple of days ago, I spent just over two hours completely changing my Patreon page, I had originally set it up and then decided I wanted to change everything after doing the research that I did. So, I would say, I have done a lot of the research for you, I am going to share that spreadsheet with you. I think you need to do some more research yourself, which I am going to talk about in a minute, but basically, I think, it shouldn’t take you more than a couple of hours, maybe say three hours, if I want to be conservative, four hours, to build your Patreon page. Honestly, I think between two and three hours is enough for you, so that’s about all you are going to need to invest.

#7 Is there a way of predicting your return on investment of your time?

Not really, because it depends on your individual community. It depends on how much your community values the content that you create, and the work that you do, and it depends on how good you are at promoting your Patreon page and asking for the money. So, I am going to talk more about that in a minute, but there are so many factors involved that I think it is quite difficult to predict the return on investment of your time, but I am going to share with you lots of examples here, so you can see, and particularly in the spreadsheet, you will have lots of examples of how people are using Patreon, what their community is like, how their communities are supporting them, and what are the options there are and the ways that they have of supporting their Patreon.

CASE STUDY

So, I am going to move on into a case study, which is my own Patreon page. Now, this is a brand-new page, essentially, because I mentioned it once in 2016, and never again, but I am going to kind of show you the case study of how I set this up, so you can get an idea of how I did it, and how you might do it as well.

So, I am happy for you to use me as an example, and again, if you have any questions, once you have listened to this episode and taken a look at Patreon, please get in touch with me:

My email is: [email protected];

or you can contact me within the Facebook group which is: http://HollyWorton.com/group.

So, Patreon, I first heard of it through Joanna Penn, back in 2016, I got excited about it, started my own page in October 2016, I mentioned it once on the podcast and never again: why? Because I didn’t really understand what it was for. Like I saw people setting up their tiers for support, but in Patreon you also set your goals. So, for example, some people have the goal of paying for their costs: say, if you are doing a podcast, you are paying for your time of doing the episode, paying for the podcast hosting, you are paying for your VA who sets it up on social media, you are paying for your audio editor, whatever the costs are of doing your podcast. And so, people would put these goals like: once I pay my basic costs of the podcast, then I am going to invest in say getting transcripts done, or creating videos, or something else. So, that was what I did. I put, as a goal, that I wanted to fulfil my basic costs of the podcast, and once I did that, I was going to start creating transcripts for the podcast. And the reason I never mentioned it again was because that I fulfilled that, I mentioned it on the podcast, one of my podcast listeners said: I would like to do transcripts for you, and we set up kind of an exchange-volunteer-thing situation where she has been working on my transcripts and she has been fantastic and so I have been promoting her to other people because her work is so good compared to other transcript people I have worked with in the past. So, she is absolutely fantastic, but because I had such a narrow view of what Patreon was I just kind of wanted to cover my costs, so I could start investing in transcripts, I got the transcripts, so I kind of forgot about Patreon.

But, I didn’t forget about it, it was always kind of in the back of my mind and every time I would hear someone mention Patreon I would think: oh, I should look at that again, it would be good to use, but I still didn’t really get it… until this year, when I started supporting other creators.

Joanna Penn

So, not surprisingly, the first person that I supported was Joanna Penn, because I have been listening to her podcast on and off since, I don’t know, since I first discovered her in 2012. Joanna Penn if you don’t know who she is, she is an author and the creator of a blog and podcast and YouTube channel, called, The Creative Penn (with a double nn – because that’s her surname). She is one of, if not the authority on self-publishing or independent publishing. She has been independently producing her books since before Kindle existed. She started doing the research, years and years and years and years ago, I think probably about ten years ago, and has followed the independent publishing industry all this time. She is such an authority on this topic, she is so intelligent, and so knowledgeable and so fabulous – I love her. I love her podcast, I love her website, her blogs, I have read her books and she is fantastic.

So, it made sense that I wanted to support her, so she has got three tiers for support on her Patreon account: $1 per episode, and she is using this to support her solo episodes of which she does two a month; $3 per episode; and $5 per episode. I get so much value from her work and I am so grateful for the work that she does, I didn’t think twice in supporting her $5 an episode, so that’s $10 a month that she gets from me. That made sense to me because I get such great value from her books, and from her podcast, and from her website, she has helped me so much never on a one-to-one basis, the only time I have actually engaged with her one-to-one I think was when she was a guest on this podcast and this was quite some time ago, I will link to that in the show notes.

Amanda Palmer

The next person I decided to support was Amanda Palmer, I recently read her book: The Art of Asking and I loved it and I have been recommending it to so many people and I will link to that in the show notes.

She, again, is a musician and an artist, who I had never actually heard her music until I read the book and decided that I didn’t need to hear what she sounded like, but I was so grateful for the story that she shared in her book that I wanted to support her beyond just having bought the book, because she is working with a traditional publisher and as we all know, if you are going through a traditional publisher, you don’t get a lot of money from each book, compared to what you get as an independent publisher. So, I wanted to support her, and I think I am supporting her at the introductory tier, which is I think is $1 a month, or $1 per creation. But, yeah, I wanted to support her because I loved the book so much, I wasn’t so much interested to get her music as it comes out because my interest in her is her story, and how she has become so skilled at building a community around her work and asking for help in so many ways, not just financially. So, that’s that.

Kristine Kathryn Rusch

Kristine Kathryn Rusch is a blogger that also blogs about self-publishing, and independent publishing and just publishing in general. And, I have read one her books, which was excellent, and super-super helpful to me, and I followed her blog over the years.

So, the book of hers that I read was called, Closing the Deal on Your Terms, and it is a book about publishing contracts. And as you know, I am very proud to be independently publishing my books, I have never sought out an agent, or a traditional publisher, because that’s not right for me, at least not for my non-fiction books. However, there was a time when I thought that I might want to seek a traditional publisher for the fiction books that I have planned for the future, and that book completely changed my perspective on that, I decided that I will not be seeking out a publisher, not even for my fiction work, and I will be continuing to publish independently. That knowledge, that discovery, that perspective, was so important to me, and I wanted to support her more than just what I paid for the book. I have also used her book as a resource for information and learning over the years, and again, I wanted to support her. So that was an easy yes for me to support her on Patreon.

She Podcasts

I also support, She Podcasts, which is a podcast that I listen to on and off, but I really get a lot of value out of their Facebook group, even more than their podcast, because I don’t always listen to their show. And I have worked with one of the hosts, Elsie Escobar, in the past, and I have one of the other hosts, Jessica Kupferman on the podcast, and I will link to that in the show notes, but I really value their work, I think they are really smart women, they have great advice and they have created a fantastic community for women podcasters. So, I wanted to support them on Patreon, again, not so much for the podcast because I don’t always listen to, but for their Facebook group, which has been so, so, so, massively valuable to me.

CrystalASMR and Laura Lemurex

Finally, the last couple of people that I support on Patreon are ASMR creators if you don’t know what ASMR is, it an acronym for: autonomy, sensory, meridian response. And it is this kind of weird tingling sensation that you can get on your scalp, and the back of your neck and your back, when you hear certain sounds or see certain things. It is a very weird thing to describe, but it is very relaxing. So, I often listen to ASMR videos, or watch ASMR videos, to relax me before sleep, or when I want to feel relaxed. So, there are a couple of ASMR creators, ASMR artists, that I support one of them is CrystalASMR who has a fantastic YouTube channel and Laura Lemurex, who also creates really relaxing ASMR videos and I often listen to them before going to sleep because they are just so relaxing.

So, those are the people that I support and that’s why I support them.

With the ASMR artists, for example, I think they do ads on their videos, but I get so much value from their work, and from listening to their videos that I really wanted to support them on a regular basis to kind of say thank you for the great help that they have given me.

So, I think one of the common threads in all of my reasons for really supporting these people is value. I get so much value from Joanna Penn’s work, I get so much value from Amanda Palmer’s book, I get so much value from Christine Catherine Rush’s book and blog. The ASMR artists, I get so much from their videos, I got so much value from the She Podcasts Facebook group, it is value, value, value, I value their work and I get so much from their free stuff that I want to give back. I want to pay them on a regular basis for the stuff that they create because it has really, really, helped me and I see and experience the value from what they do.

So, I eventually got to the point where it was time for me to revamp my Patreon page and launch it.

So, how long did it take me?

It took me under a month, I would say about three weeks, from starting the research to actually publishing my page.

So, I started doing the research on 26 June of this year. And just a couple of days ago, on 18 July 18, I finished creating my page, so it took me less than one month to do my research, look at the people that I was following, create that spreadsheet, look at the different tiers of support that people had, and think about how I wanted to set up my own Patreon page and set up my different tiers. And the tiers, for example, was one thing which I struggled with quite a bit, because I kind of had an idea of what levels I wanted but I wasn’t really clear on what I wanted to offer for each one, and then it all kind of magically fell into place a couple of days ago, when I was updating the page.

Holly’s Patreon Page

So, I am going to walk you through my own Patreon page and you might find it useful, if you are not driving, or not doing something physical at this time, if you are at home and you are sitting at your computer, you might want to pull up my Patreon page and take a look at it as I am going through it, because it will help give you an idea of what this looks like. Or, you can revisit this part of the podcast, later, when you are sitting at your computer, and you can take a look at it.

So, if you go to http://Patreon.com/hollyworton that will get you to my Patreon page. So, at the top of it you see there is kind of a big cover photo, like you have on Facebook or Twitter, then a smaller kind of headshot, and then the headline which is: “Holly Worton is creating the Business Mindset Podcast and non-fiction books.” So, you could say here: whatever your podcast is, or your YouTube channel, or whatever it is that you are creating.

Description: what I create and why?

Then as you scroll down, there are kind of three columns, so in the middle column is an introduction to my Patreon page, what I am doing, why I am doing it, why I am asking for money, which is basically I want to create more of a community around the work that I do and provide exclusive content to people. I really, really, want to support people building their mindset, and getting the mindset they want in a regular and consistent way, but at a price point that works for everyone, because I know not everyone can afford my prices and I have come up with some really interesting ways to help people at a lower price point, that will still be useful but not so much of an investment. So, putting that here in the description of the Patreon page.

Goals

To the left you see how many patrons I have, which is zero, because I am just launching this page today, with this podcast episode; how much I am getting per month, which is zero, because again no one is supporting me yet. And you can choose to make that public or private, you can hide how much money you are getting per month and just share how many patrons you have, which is fine if you want to keep that private.

Then, below that, you have got goals, so instead of saying when I reach this goal…this will happen, I have changed that to now…I have only put a couple of goals in there, one of them is basically covering my hosting and production for the podcast each month; next goal is covering the hosting and production of the podcast, and the monthly cost of producing a book every quarter, and that’s not counting my time for actually writing it, but the cost of producing a book in the sense of the editor, proof-reader, book cover, typesetter, eBook formatter, that kind of thing.

And the goals, I think are useful, so people can see what it is that you want to cover, so that you can free up your time to create more stuff for them, but I think it is also useful to take a look at what other people’s goals are, because, especially, if you make them more emotional, which I don’t think I have, I think that can rouse up people’s desire to support you. So, there is an author that I include in the spreadsheet who is looking to quit her job, so that she can become a writer full time. She has this really great introduction on how much money she needed to quit her job, and cover her basic living costs, and she was looking to do that with Patreon and she has achieved it. And, again, she will be in the Spreadsheet which I will link to again in the show notes, but I really, really, loved her introduction and her goals and it was just really emotional, I had never heard of her before, but it made me want to support her. So, she is kind of on my “watch list” of people to get to know.

Become a Patron

Then, to the right-hand side, you will see a big link which says “become a Patron” which is where you can click to support someone. And then you see the tiers, so different people have different tiers, or different price points, that allow you to support them. Some people, like Joanna Penn, just have three, so she has $1, $3 and $5 per creation, which is per podcast, which is twice a month, so that would actually come out to $2, $6, or $10 per month, other people have a ton of options. I felt the need to create a variety of options, so that people can see all the range of things that are for offer, so my tiers are $1 a month, $5, $11, $22, $55, $111, $555 and $1111, because I like those numbers. You could do: 1, 3, 5, 10, 15, 20…whatever, it is whatever you want to do. So, I am going to walk you through what I offer for each tier; and I also want to point out that, with the first several tiers, it is mostly either passive stuff, or group stuff, mostly group stuff and I don’t offer the one-to-one stuff until you get to the highest two tiers.

Root level

So, for the base level, which is $1 a month (I called it the root, I named these after the chakras), so at the root level you get access to my patron-only feed, which is where I am going to be sharing exclusive stuff just for the Patreon community and my endless appreciation for joining this community and supporting me financially. I will also verbally thank you on the podcast, once you sign up and this is something that Joanna Penn does for all of her patrons, and I really like that, I love her she thanks everyone verbally at the start of each podcast. Now, obviously, she doesn’t go through the whole list of patrons every month, it is just the new people that she will mention and thank. Some people will only thank their patrons verbally on their podcast, at a higher level, but I don’t know, that feels weird to me, so I am doing that at the root level.

Sacral level

Next level is the sacral level, so that’s $5 or more a month, so you get everything above: you get access to my patron-only feed, my verbal thank you on the podcast, and you can email at any time with a question, and if you just put “Patron Q&A” in the subject heading, I will answer your question in a monthly Q&A. So, I have been wanting way to have people, allow people and give people a chance to ask me anything. So, what I will be doing is producing a monthly audio (probably), separate podcast feed, because Patreon also allows you to set up a private feed for audio, so people can subscribe to that on whatever app they use to listen to podcast and get that personal feed for them – if that makes sense. So, I am going to be producing, monthly, an audio Q&A, answering people’s questions. So, if you are at the sacral level and above, you can ask me all the questions you want, and I will answer them verbally, in this monthly Q&A.

Solar plexus level

So, moving on to the solar plexus level, this is $11 a month, you get all the previous stuff, as you can see each tier builds on the previous tier – so, as you move up in the options you get all the previous stuff, plus extra stuff. Plus, you will get free copies of all of my Business Mindset eBooks. So, once you have been supporting me for a month, email me and I will email you links to download the eBook copies of all my Business Mindset books. Also, at this level, you become part of my Advisory Board. After you pledge, I will send you a link to join my special advisory board email list, which is separate from my regular newsletter. I am going to use this list when I need help, and feedback, with my upcoming books. I will also, from time to time, give people on my advisory board the opportunity to contribute to my books with quotes, or tips, or case studies.

So, I am wanting my books to be more than just about me, and the work that I do; so, I am also going to be asking people on my advisory board for their contributions, so maybe to contribute a paragraph, or something, so that I can showcase a wide variety of perspectives in my Business Mindset books. I am now in the process of updating all of my Business Mindset books into second editions, and again, I am wanting to get those outside perspectives from people, so if you are on the advisory board you will have that opportunity. So, that’s at the $11 a month level, and up.

Heart level

Now, the next level, is the heart level, that’s $22 a month, and again you get all the previous awards, at all the previous levels, plus you will get access to my monthly heart-centred-energy-session, that I will be doing for patrons at this level and above. So, each month I am going to use heart-centred-energy-work to balance your heart-centre and release any blocks you may have around self-love, self-acceptance and self-trust.

So, if you have ever had a heart-centred-energy-work with me, you know that we spend the first few minutes balancing your heart-centre, and working on the concept of self-love, self-acceptance, and self-trust, and these are big, big, foundational things, which are really important and can really affect our lives and our businesses, if they are not in alignment. So, I am going to do this session offline, so you won’t not need to be present to get the results each month, you won’t need to turn up to a call, you won’t need to turn up to a video, I am going to go into surrogation for you, which is like an energetic linkup, it is like how you would do distance healing, that is essentially what this is. So, I am going to go into surrogation for you and do this work on your heart centre, every month, and that’s going to raise your sense of self-love, self-acceptance and self-trust. And, again, you don’t need to be present for it, so you are getting this work done on your heart centre without needing to invest your own time in it. So, that’s at $22 a month or above.

Throat chakra level – communication

So, again you get all previous awards plus you get access to my monthly mindset session that I am going to be doing for patrons at this level and above. So, every month, I am going to muscle test on what is the best topic to focus on. So, if you have read any of my business books, particularly my Business Beliefs book and my Business Blocks book, I have fifteen different categories of business mindset beliefs and blocks. And, I am going to use those to identify the biggest areas that people need to work on and work or reprogramming beliefs and releasing energy blocks around that. So, just to give you an idea of what those categories are: action and goals; change and growth; clients; confidence and self-trust; creativity; leadership and outsourcing; learning; lifestyle; marketing and sales; money; personal power; strategy; clarity and vision; success and opportunities; value and self-worth; and visibility. So, I am going to muscle test on which is the most important topic to work on and then I will use both Heart-centered Energy Work™, to release PSYCH-K® to reprogram our subconscious beliefs around the topic. And again, like the Heart-centered Energy Work™ in the previous tier, this work is going to be done offline you won’t need to be present to get the results each month, I will however post a summary on Patreon on the work that I did for all of us, so you can see which category of beliefs I worked on, which specific beliefs I reprogrammed and which specific energy-level or Chakra that I worked on, so that you will get all of that. And you will also get a signed copy of all of my books that are currently available in print, again, just email me to get me your copy and I will send that to you.

Third eye

So, the next tier is the third eye. So, again, you get access to all previous awards, plus you will get access to a live monthly workshop with me where we are going to work on both practical business stuff and business mindset. So, if you are in the Facebook group, you may have noticed a post about a month ago, where I mentioned to people that I wanted to start doing live workshops and what were the topics that they were interested in? So, some of the things were for example: how to pitch yourself to podcasts, visibility and marketing stuff, so we are going to work on both the practical stuff and helping you to get the mindset stuff that you need to make it easier for you to do this work. So, this will be a live interactive workshop, if you can’t make it live a recording will be made available to you. Of course, because it is interactive, you will get the most out of the workshop if you can show up live, but you will still have the recording to watch at a later date or time, if you want.

So, that’s kind of the end of the purely group tiers and then we come to the more one-to-one tiers.

Crown

The next tier is the crown at $550 a month, so you get all the previous awards, so you get all the group stuff, all the monthly Heart-centered Energy Work™ stuff, you get the monthly workshop and you get all the previous stuff, plus you will get two 90-minute one-to-one sessions with me and they will be a regular session, we can work on a variety of ways, based on whatever you need or want from each session. So, it is Heart-centered Energy Work™, PSYCH-K®, practical business coaching, life-coaching – because it is all related, or channeling. And the reason that I have added one-to-one work to Patreon is because doing this mindset work is so important to do on a regular basis, I say this all the time in my podcast, but I feel like I really need to drive it home. So, I do mindset work with myself, every single week. I am always doing stuff, whether it is Heart-centered Energy Work™ or PSYCH-K®, I am always doing stuff with myself and on a regular basis, I also work with other practitioners, or facilitators, to get their outside help with my mindset. I am working with someone else once a week, at least once a week. There is one person a work with on a weekly basis and there is another person I kind of dip in and out from time to time to get other help, it is really, really, really important to do this work on a regular basis, which is why I wanted to add these monthly one-to-one sessions to the Patreon awards, to make it easier for people to sign up to something on a regular ongoing basis so you can get this mindset work done, because it is super important, not just to do this work with yourself but also with someone else. So, that is the crown level.

The next level is $1,111 a month, and for that you get all previous awards and you get instead of two-minute 90-minute sessions with me, you get four 90-minute one-to-one sessions with me — so that is double the mindset work. So, we will be doing weekly sessions on a monthly basis. And, again, this is the kind of investment that I make with other people, to get mindset work done and it is super valuable to me and I want to encourage other people whether it is with me, or someone else – do this stuff on a regular basis.

Supporting others

So, those are my tiers. Then at the bottom you will see who I support on Patreon and it is all the people I previously mentioned. Now you can choose to make that public or you can choose to make that private, it doesn’t matter. But, I find it really interesting to see the people who I support, who do they support? And that’s how I found about Kristine Kathryn Rusch being on Patreon, because I noticed that Joanna Penn supporting her.

So, that is my Patreon page. I hope you found that useful, and I really recommend that you check out the page, to see what it looks like, so you can see how that makes sense to you and how you could adapt this to your own Patreon page.

How do you set up your Patreon page?

First of all, do your research.

Look at what other people are doing, look at the spreadsheet that I set up, that I will link to in the Show Notes, look at that, see what other people are doing, and see how you want to do your own Patreon page.

Next, start supporting other creators on Patreon. Many creators start at just $1 a month, which is a super, inexpensive and easy way just to say thank you for their hard work, and it is a good way to find out how they run their Patreon account. So, I learned a lot from the people I subscribed to, I learned a lot from seeing Joanna Penn, and listening to her monthly Q and As; and looking at how the other people I support on Patreon, run their Patreon profile, and what kind of exclusive content they provide. So, start by supporting other people, also for me it is really important if I am asking people to support me in a certain way, I want to support other people in that way, so I find it really important to start out by supporting other people before I ask for the money.

Next, you want to determine how you want to get paid, whether it is by piece of content, or per month. I really prefer the per month, when I support other people, because that way I know how much money I am going to be paying out each month. Now, if you choose to support someone per piece of content, you can also put a cap on that, so say you support someone $5 per piece of content, but one month they put out five pieces of content, so that would be $25, but you don’t want to spend that much money every month, so you can put a cap of $10, or whatever amount you want, on your giving. I just find it is cleaner and easier to ask for the money, and support other people, per month. So, that’s why I am doing a monthly thing, plus based on the way I set up my tiers, I think it makes sense to do that per month. So, determine how you want to get paid per month, per piece of content.

Next, set up a spreadsheet and brainstorm your tiers. Think about your pricing and what you are going to offer for that price point. And play around with it, so look at my spreadsheet I have set up of how, of whatever other people ask for, and look at what you offer, and what you are willing to offer at each price point and how that looks for you. And I kind of moved my stuff around a bit, because there were some price points where I was like: I don’t know what to offer for that, and then it just all kind of fell together naturally on the day that I was actually setting everything up, and it just became really clear and easy, and I am really, really, happy with my Patreon page. So, that’s the next thing you want to do, brainstorm your tiers and your price points. I think it is really useful to have a wide range of price points and that way people can decide how they want to support you and what they want from you.

Also, if you have a Facebook group, or if you use social media in any way, which I am sure you do, ask your community what they would want from you. What would they want from you if you were to set up a Patreon page? Now, if your community doesn’t know what Patreon is, you are going to have to come up with that yourself, so use your intuition, I really used my intuition a lot on setting up my tiers and my price points, based on what I felt was right, and what I thought people would need; because when I posted about Patreon in the Facebook group a lot of people had no clue what it was. So, if your community doesn’t know what they would want from you, use your intuition, but if they do know, if they are active Patreon users, it is really useful to know what they would want from you as exclusive content or exclusive stuff.

Next, set up your page. You are going to need the following info, this is a quick checklist:

You are going to need your “about you” description, which is kind of the intro paragraph on your Patreon page.
You are going to need a profile picture, kind of like the stuff you use on other social media and a cover photo, that’s 1600 x 400 pixels in size.
You can also do a video, which is optional. I have chosen not to do the video, but it is probably a good idea if you do because lots of people like videos.
Next, you are going to have to create your tiers, and your graphics.

So, you don’t need to put a graphic for each tier, but I did, so I have the different chakra-coloured-mandalas, which I really liked and I actually purchased those for I think it was $5 on Etsy – http://Etsy.com is a great place to get all kinds of hand-made stuff, but it is also a great place to get really inexpensive graphic stuff, that you can use for business.

So, a lot of the images that I have used in the past on my website have been from Etsy, you can get great stuff on there, for really cheap – always look for the commercial usage, so lots of people don’t mind if you use it for free on your website, or graphic digital stuff, but if you are using it to create products, like t-shirts, or mugs, or something then they would expect you to pay extra for it, like an extra fee.

So, also, what you want to do with your tiers, you might want to set limits on some of your tiers, so if you look at my tiers, the first few tiers are unlimited, it is group stuff, it doesn’t matter how many people I have. Once you get to the third eye, which is the $111 tier, that is where I am doing the live monthly workshops, so I have limited that to ten patrons, so I can keep the amount of people on the live workshop limited. Next on the crown, which is $555 or more, that’s where you get the two 90-minute sessions with me, I have limited that to six patrons. For the final level, $1111, that is limited to three patrons. So, because that’s one-to-one, or more intensive group work, I have decided to limit the number of patrons at those levels. So, think about whether you need to limit some of your tiers.

Next you need to set up your goals. This is optional, but I think it is nice to see people’s goals, just because you see what your money is going to, and what you are supporting with that money.
Finally, you can set up a thank you page, to thank people for their support and include a thank you video, which again is optional.

So, again, setting up Patreon page, if you have done the research, and if you have done the background, and if you have spent the time, actually setting up the page probably won’t take you more than 2/2 ½ hours, but you need to do the research first, and that will take some time. But, again, the research probably won’t take more than a couple of hours.

Now, you can adjust your tiers, at any time, but it is easier if you get them right from the start and you put some thought into them. That’s why it took me a while to get this up again and really think about what tiers I wanted and what I wanted to offer for each one — so, I am kind of going through my top tips now, based on what I’ve learned from here.

I would also recommend that you have a wide-range of options in your tiers, some people are just going to want to support you at $1 a month, and some are going to want to go for the VIP option and get all the goodies and get that 1:1 action with you. So, aim high, because some people are going to want to support you in a big way, and they are going to want to get the higher-level stuff and some people are going to be mid-range. Provide a wide variety of options in your tiers and that will make it easier for people to support you at the level they can.

Next, keep as much of it as you can, passive or group-based. As you have noticed most of my lower-level-tiers were passive or group-based, and the one-to-one tiers were the highest tiers, so it was just the top three tiers had either the workshop or the one-to-one, because that’s going to help you avoid overwhelm in fulling the awards. You don’t want to offer a ton of one-to-one stuff, or high maintenance stuff, or high touch point stuff at the lower levels because that could be potentially overwhelming.

So, I am aware that this is one of the longest solo episodes that I have done in a long time, but it was really, really in print for me to give you all the information. So, I am going to finally say:

Where to promote your Patreon page?

So, this is like marketing anything. Like how would you market a membership community, how would you market a podcast, how would you market your blog post, how would you market your YouTube channel, how would you market your one-to-one services, your products, this is the same kind of thing, you have got to get the word out about your Patreon page, otherwise people aren’t going to know about it.

So, where to promote it?

Wherever you share your content. If you are a podcaster, you promote it on your podcast. If you are a blogger, mention at the end of every blog post. If you are a YouTuber, put it in your video description. If you are a writer, include it in your books. Mention it however else you market your business, on your social media, in your email newsletter, in your email signature, wherever.

Now, this is another really important thing. Patreon is about getting your existing fans to support you. Don’t necessarily expect that new fans will come from the Patreon platform. Now, they might, as you grow, and as more and more people support you, you might very well get new fans from the Patreon platform because people will see who is supporting you and they might click on you to discover you and learn more about you. However, at the beginning it is going to be all about getting your existing fans and existing community to support you on Patreon. This is really, really, important, don’t expect a massive influx of people from the website itself. People are going to support you if they know you and like you and value your content and value the work that you do.

Finally, if your community doesn’t know what Patreon is, educate them. So, if you have a podcast episode like this, if you have a YouTube channel, do a YouTube video where you walk people through what Patreon is and how they can use it and how they can support you on it. So, a lot of people still don’t know what it is. You will need to explain it to them and again, that’s what I am doing in this podcast episode. This podcast episode is about teaching you about how you can use Patreon to create an extra income stream for your business, but it is also teaching you about my Patreon page and how you can choose to support me if you would like to.

Show Notes

So, that is leading me to the end of this episode. Please do check out the Show Notes for this episode because they are going to be quite robust and I am going to have a lot of links in there that will help you with your research for your own Patreon page, again, I am going to link to my Patreon spreadsheet and I am going to link to some podcast episodes that I found useful about how to use Patreon and there is a whole podcast called a creative funding show which I am going to link to, which teaches you how you can get funding for your business and your creations, not only on Patreon, but also on kick starter and a bunch of other stuff. So, the Show Notes are going to be really, really, useful to you on this episode. So if you head over to https://www.hollyworton.com/262 you will get the Show Notes on this episode and if you head over to https://www.hollyworton.com/patreon that will redirect to http://Patreon.com/hollyworton and you can check out my Patreon page and if you feel inclined to do so, support you.

If you have been listening to this podcast for any amount of time, and you have gotten value from it, I would like to invite you to support me on Patreon. If you have been a member of the Facebook group and have gotten value from that, I would like you to support me. If you have gotten value from my totally sporadic YouTube videos, I would like to invite you to support me. I put a lot of effort into creating really valuable content and I would love to get your support on Patreon, so I can continue supporting you and other people in this way. I am super excited about Patreon, I really hope that my enthusiasm for this platform has come through. I was so excited when I finished my page and I am so excited to share it with you because I think it looks great and I love it!

So, thank you so much for listening. If you have any questions drop me a line [email protected] or get in touch on the Facebook group, that is https://www.hollyworton.com/group that will redirect you to the Facebook group. And that is all for now and thank you so much for listening and please pop on over to my Patreon page and let me know what you think. Thank you, thank you, thank you for listening and thank you for supporting the show and for supporting me. Have a fantastic week!