183. How do you create passive income with Patreon? (f. Jordan Ellis)
Wish you could master passive income? 🤑 This episode about Patreon will give you the tools you need to do exactly that! Hosts Phil and Lauren meet with Jordan Dené Ellis from Adobe to discuss tips and tricks for Patreon. We cover what Patreon is, how to set up reward tiers, ideas for what you can offer for physical and digital rewards, and how you can promote your account to get paying subscribers.
Episode transcription
Phil
Feel like you're working all the time but not making ends meet?
Lauren
Want to be paid to create without having a huge following?
Phil
Wish you could give something a little extra to your avid fans?
Lauren
Then you need to consider making a patreon to generate passive income.
Phil
Ooh, in today's Brand Therapy, we meet Jordan Dené Ellis, Patreon Pro and Adobe Community Manager, that's how I know her she's going to teach us everything there is to know about Patreon. This is what you need to know right now.
Lauren
I learned so much from Jordan, and I'm really excited for you to learn all of her wisdom. Let's jump right in.
Phil
Listener, you heard him for a treat right now. We're gonna get to a good discussion that involves patron, but we have something very important to do. First, I'll introduce you quickly to my wonderful friend Jordan Ellis, who is a community relationship manager at Adobe express one of my BFFs we text all the time, literally love you.
Jordan
Love you, too. I wonder if I can talk yet. But yes, this is great. I agree with everything so far.
Phil
You can talk briefly. But what the next thing I need you to do, I sent you an Amazon package yesterday, and I told you not to open it. You're allowed to open it. If I had it my way it would be wrapped in wrapping paper because today's a special gift but it's not wrapped in wrapping paper. It's wrapped in Amazon patching. So go ahead and open it in front of us.
Jordan
I also I'm throwing a party in two days. And I ordered a lot of Amazon packages that came also yesterday. So it was a real like got it making sure I didn't open this one by accident. And I did it. I'm so proud.
Phil
What's in this is going to go well with your party. But let's Yeah, go ahead and open it. Let's have a look at what is in the Amazon package on this very special day. God.
Jordan
It says Happy Birthday on the box, which is great so far.
Phil
It's great and it's appropriate because today is your birthday.
Jordan
Oh my god.
Lauren
Oh my gosh.
Jordan
Okay.
Phil
The listener can't see. So you have to go through what what's happening.
Jordan
This is a sash and a tiara, which I swear to God, I have never had a birthday function in my life. Maybe when I was a child. Sorry, that's crinkly.
Phil
Well you have one right now we are welcoming you on to the podcast in a way we've never welcomed another guest Jordan Ellis. Listener, you can't see it, but she's holding up high her gold, sparkly birthday sash and a tiara, because when Jordan booked this recording, she said, Phil, it's my birthday, the day that we're recording, and I have absolutely no other calls that day. But yours doesn't count as a call because you guys are special. And I thought okay, we need to recognize this in some way. So for the duration of the recording, Jordan is wearing a tiara and a birthday sash. Welcome to Brand Therapy, you look beautiful.
Jordan
This is the best. Also, I don't think listeners know I just came from a workout. So I'm in like a T shirt and sweatpants and a birthday sash and tiara. It's perfect.
Phil
We're already to celebrate your birthday and talk about Patreon. I mean, could there be a better plan for your birthday? Not at all, this is the best, I'm so happy. Can you tell the listener what a day in the life of Jordan is like at Adobe and what you do as a community manager, I think it's gonna like fit into what we're talking about with Patreon, by the way, you look perfect.
Jordan
So when I first started at Adobe, A day in the life was hanging out in our Facebook group, which is the Adobe Express Insider. So that's how I got like my foot in. And I would hang out there all day chat with people answer questions, etc. And now I get to do something that I think is a little bit more fun, which is I get to do that all over the internet. So basically, my job is be anywhere in the world or online where people are talking about Adobe Express, have a question about it may be able to use it for a project and just don't know. And then I try to be their best friend and help them I can. So it's a lot of hanging out in small business groups, searching certain hashtags, just trying to like be a cool person on the internet that people want to talk to. And then also the behind the scenes is knowing as much as I humanly can about this product so that I can answer technical questions too. It's a little bit of everything. It's just trying to be a helpful lady to Adobe Express users.
Phil
It's perfect context I'll give my quick opinion on it is that you are one of the go to people as an expert on the product like I text you when there's something I don't know and I think I know a lot about it, but also just to praise you for a second not just because it's your birthday, but you are widely considered by your peers as the leading appropriate Community Manager. This is your world, you know how to manage community. And I think it fits with what we're talking about today, we're not talking about Adobe Express, but that's how we know each other. We're talking about Patreon. And you have proven, you've spoken on authority about this on podcasts and other outlets. You've really built up passive income and community on this platform that people are really curious about. Can you just introduce us to this idea of Patreon, what it is how it works?
Jordan
Yeah, and I'll give a little bit more of how I got to Patreon I have been an entrepreneur, small business owner, whatever word you want to use for13 years. So the internet was not the same place 13 years ago, I mean, you were both there, like Patreon didn't exist, social media barely existed, it was in the beginning of Facebook. So through the past little over a decade, I've been looking at all the different ways to try to run a business as a person without a business degree, I have one now as of six months ago, but did not for the 12 and a half years before that. And running a business is really hard. And depending on the type of business you're running, making money off of it is really hard. I don't know how many of your listeners are content creators, but that does not equal people paying you unless you arrange it that way. If you're just making cool things, podcasts, for example, unless you have sponsors, or are signed on to some sort of team or company that pays you to do it. Things like podcasts cost money, and energy and don't pay you unless you work out. So Patreon, I think, is an incredible platform for creators to connect with community, and also receive financial benefits for what they're doing. That is really the thing it's crowdsourcing, similar to like Kickstarter and Indiegogo, if you've supported any of those types of projects, except it's different, and that it's continual, not one off. So it's not like, Oh, I'm launching a book, let's do a Kickstarter. It's like, I'm making things all the time, snd so if you join my patreon, you can constantly support me, you can constantly get benefits for it. And then we'll do this for as long as we both will do, which is great. And you can opt in and out that anytime also great. So people who support other folks on Patreon can manage their own, you know, it's really easy to subscribe really easy to cancel. It is a really great platform, I think, to connect with people who want to support you, basically, without having to do one of those like Venmo me for like cash at me like it's it's legit, which is very nice.
Lauren
What are some of your favorite examples of Patreon accounts done right?
Jordan
So I love that they run the gambut. There are podcasts who do special episodes, or the kind of embarrassing stuff like they'll release bloopers or things that don't get to go to the public, you get that behind the scenes. I also follow an account called Depressing Fridge Poems, that is word magnet poems that are sad. And then I've seen some musicians do really cool things where you can influence what the songs are going to be, they'll ask questions, and you can give props or ideas. And that actually turns into art. And then I like getting things in the mail. So I'm a sucker for anything that sends out like ziens, or comics, or stickers or prints. I love all of that stuff.
Lauren
How can someone get started on Patreon? If they know they want to do the platform? Where do you recommend they begin with getting their ideas together?
Jordan
Thankfully, it's pretty easy, like the platform is very straightforward. So if you are a content creator, like I promise, you've set up trickier accounts than Patreon. It's all the normal stuff, like your bio, your name, probably you have that already. And then the thing that I would say to think about is, the way Patreon works is you set up rewards tiers, and that's what folks opt into. And you can have as many as you want, they can be any amount of money. So it can be $1 $5 $10 or you know, all of them, you can have a range. You can change them, I would just say the one thing I recommend like anything, if you're pricing anything that goes out to the public, think as much as you can before setting those because you can change them but then everyone has to sort of re opt in or be okay with. Like anything, you know, if you change the price of something or you change the offer, unless it's making it better folks don't normally like that. So I would say what's the phrase like under promise over deliver go into it with that mindset? because you can always add more, but it's not that fun to like, be like, Oh, oops, this reward actually showed up cost more. And I can't do this anymore. So now I'm raising the prices. Just be considerate of that, I would say,
Phil
Yeah, that in itself is almost a branding initiative. Rather than raising the price for the same level. You're kind of, okay, how do I repackage this in a way that works for you? Did you have any, not horror stories, but like learning moments of realization that maybe I just know you, you're so nice, and you want to help everyone? And you'd probably do everything for free? I just know. Yeah. So did you have any moments where you were, oh, I didn't quite price this properly. And how do you fix that?
Jordan
So I think you nailed it. It's all about positioning, I think there's a there's like a sleazy way to do that. And then just a genuinely honest, good way to do that. Tell the story, right. And I do this all the time, where I'm like, Oops, I messed up, I actually don't have enough time to ship 700 of these things. So that has to change. And what I try to do, because I'm pretty open book, like, I don't know if you get that vibe from me, but I'm pretty honest with every one that I work with, for better or worse. So usually, I'm just like, hey, I made a mistake, this does not work. And so it has to be this now. And this is just the only humanly possible way for this to go forward.
I also got lucky, our friend Mallory, who also works at Adobe, who Phil knows, she was my Patreon godmother when I got started. So I think I had a Patreon for a year, and I don't know maybe had six or 10 people that were my friends, you know, and it was not going anywhere. And then Mallory came in and fairy godmother did it. And one of the things is that, I mean, you both know this too, but sending out digital rewards is incredibly different than sending out physical rewards. So it was one of those things, it was like, okay, we need to make the digital ones a lower price. So more people opt into those, we need to severely raise the price the physical ones because they cost money, shipping costs money, and they take time. So that was one of the things we had to pretty much reshift all of the rewards. So thankfully, it wasn't. I have some other horror stories. Thankfully, I don't have any super bad things with Patreon. But that's definitely a learning moment.
Phil
Can you go further on that examples of physical rewards and digital rewards?
Jordan
Digital, I think is so fun, because depending on what your audience is, you can get so creative. So it can be an exclusive Q&A It can be special audio or video recordings. It can be really goofy things like a podcast, or that I love. It was like if we raise this amount of money, we're gonna buy each other haunted dolls, and they have to sit in our office for a year. Like that's insane. But it's so silly that everyone wanted to see it. I use Adobe Express, actually, and make digital downloads. So if you do workouts, telling people what to do, in what order and how many, that's a normal thing that people do. You can do recipes, you can do playlists, that's very fun. And then physical, it really depends on the price tier at a lower price. It could be something like stickers, yeah, buttons, lots of folks do enamel pins prints is a big thing. zenes is fun, because especially if you're doing them yourself, you know exactly how many to print. So it's not like you have to do a production run, you know, and zenes I feel like are such a fun thing, depending on your industry. And then you can get wild and you could do clothing if you wanted to really, you know, you do tote bags, or apparel, hats, shirts, that kind of stuff. And you can also do something that Patreon does that I think is very cool that you can use something called a special reward. And you can set it up however you want, maybe once a year, maybe every six months, where it's basically an additional incentive to sign in to sign up that month. So I've done patches, if you join this month, everyone gets a patch. Or if you join this month, everyone gets a special exclusive pen that you can only get by doing this. So there are all kinds of ways you really can do whatever you want. And it can be as silly as you want. Like it doesn't have to be very serious, which I think is great.
Lauren
I love it. And I wanted to sort of give a lay of the land and some context for listeners who don't know as much about Patreon as you do. So I was looking up how much people can make from a Patreon account. The YouTuber and scientist Hank Green brings in over $50,000 a month from his Patreon account. And beyond that, there's a really cool site called graphtreon. Have you heard of this?
Jordan
No
Lauren
It ranks the top Patreon creators and says how many patrons they have and actually says what the how many they have, what ranking they are, what the change has been. And you can look at the tab and look in the lower one month, three months, six months, one year, but maybe what listeners could do if they are interested in creating a Patreon account is go to graphtreon.com. Look at the top creators and look at what they're offering, depending on like their business, there are a lot of podcasts on Patreon, and if you are wanting to set one up your podcast, I mean, be strongly inspired by what's working. Currently, like take a look at both.
Jordan
Yeah, I love doing this for all types of my business is looking at what folks and other industries are doing and then twisting that to make sense for my niche. And I think that's great, because then it's not like, you know, especially if it's someone in a totally different industry, it's not even really copying, because it's totally different. But you can be like, inspired by what they're doing somewhere else. And then do it yourself with your own twist. Yeah, I think it's great.
Phil
Ideally, it's something you're excited about so that you feel excited to put those enamel pins in the mail and send them to someone I love enamel pins. I love lip balms I branded lip balms not as well, I give those of my business card, ideally at something you're excited about, and it gets people talking. Jordan, can you I feel like you're gonna have a good answer to this. But can you just kind of talk about this mentality shift to supporting creators, and even you being in a position to promote your Patreon without feeling weird about it. You know, I feel like people get weird to self promote, especially when there's money attached to joining something like this. How have you overcome the weirdness of self promotion?
Jordan
I think having a platform like this that other people have heard of makes that so much easier, because you're not like, Hey, if you just want to give me some money, like I'm genuinely very bad at asking for sponsors, because to me that feels like cold call, basically asking you for money, which is great. That was the initial idea. I was like, Oh, we have a podcast, we'll totally get sponsors, this will be great. And I was like, oh, no, this is so much harder. And for me, Patreon, I think, gives me something to talk about. And you can also have things for free, too. So you can say like any type of freebie or giveaway or offering, you can say join our Patreon, and we'll do you'll get this value, even as a unpaid person, then if you want to get even more value, you can choose these things. And also because it's on a website, you can just send people to the link, and then there's if you have a range of rewards that's very nice to so my rewards start at $5. And to me, that feels fine. Sending someone to a lake where they could spend $5. and support me does not feel like a big or hard ask not that they'll do. But I think that's really helpful, especially compared to trying to pitch something like a course or something that's maybe hundreds or 1000s of dollars, that is a harder project to me. So it's kind of I mean, it might even be a nice way to get practice, and just kind of sharing your link.
So the actual act of promoting it, but then you can do all kinds of things. If you have a podcast, you can have info about your Patreon in your intro outro. So you record at once and that is very common. You can put it in your LinkedIn bio, you can promote it on social. So I always get over the icky marketing feeling by pushing the benefit over feeling salesy. This thing could help you or this could be fun, or you could join our group instead of give me money. So that's my, that's my tip.
Phil
I love that. I think that's really good advice. I think it's also good to highlight that this is easier than maybe other forms of passive income. Sure, it might not turn you into a millionaire overnight, but that's not the point. I think if it comes from a good place, essentially providing your audience an opportunity to support you, then it's a win win. You don't necessarily depend on the money to pay your rent, but it's a nice little bonus for people to show their appreciation to you, but then also get a point of access, I think is the main thing, right? It's like, we create podcasts and we create videos and content creators, we're putting stuff out there but the real exclusivity aspect of it is an access point the ability to message with your interact with you or interact at that higher level, that inner circle. And I think to the point here is people's mentalities really changed. I think a lot of people would rather give you $5 than Starbucks $5 It just feels better.
Phil
You can tell the story like you can show what it's used for. So For me, I do a lot of community stuff. That's the whole reason we know each other. And something that I can do is we pay folks to edit. So I'm like this money goes to this other human being who we are supporting, like, because you support us, and we do community projects, everyone we work with, also gets paid, which is great.
And just to talk about one other aspect that I haven't hit on yet, Patreon is very community oriented. And that is, that's my whole Jam, which is great. But there is a reality to community, which is, you get out what you put in. And so the something that's very important to think about is if you stop putting in, like, I think Patreon very clearly, like mine, absolutely goes up and down with the amount of energy I have to give back. And so being very honest, I ramped up a lot, and then 2020 hit, which for a lot of people that changed finances, which is fine. And then I got this full time job at Adobe and went to grad school. So I still sent out every reward that like, everyone got what they paid for, but I put in a lot less extra energy, and I did a lot less like fostering community. And my Patreon has probably have or maybe even gone down to 30% of what it was before I was working full time and also in school full time. So just like anything else that is community based, but is kind of different I think sometimes then like being an influencer, where like people are paying that close of attention to you. So you really do get more if you put more in and you genuinely get less when you buy a lesson. And that's just something to think about.
Phil
That makes perfect sense. I love some of the examples you gave us. I thought maybe we could do a quick, rapid fire Lauren, you're going to participate in this too, because your creative
Lauren
Basically Phil was like all right, Lauren.
Phil
Switch on honey. No, I'm the least creative in this group in terms of coming up with ideas on the spot. So I thought we could just all throw out an industry and then let's see what we could come up with for some examples on what they could do on Patreon. So, first example, a public speaker or a motivational speaker,
Jordan
I think you could do depending on your if your audience is other people wanting to do what you do. So if you're speaking to other you know, folks in the industry, you could do tips for public speaking you could do behind the scenes videos, or how you prep for public speaking and the I think you could also do the very personal storytelling part of it, that's do you get nervous before you go onstage? What's your process for like ramping up or calming down?
Phil
Great.
Lauren
I would do a weekly recorded pep talk. If they're observational speaker, then, you know, motivating people that only is an exclusive group of paying people I feel like would make sense.
Phil
And maybe audio only so that it's easier for that creator to just record it and upload it. Maybe audio is that first level and then video is that second level. Okay, what about an interior designer?
Joran
I think you could do mood boards all day.
Phil
Lauren, would sign up for that.
Jordan
And tips are maybe your best finds if you did where you know shopping list of things you found and people can get special access. I hate shopping and picking out things. So someone who's says go b uy bthis , is a godsend.
Lauren
I feel like you could, at random select one of the paying people's photos of a space and make a 10 minute recorded recommendation of what they would change.
Phil
Because then it's fun. Even if it's not your room, the other person watching can still learn from that.
Jordan
Or that could be something you'd pay extra for at this higher tier, you get one of your rooms redesigned by me.
Lauren
At a physical product level. I feel like custom measuring tape would be super cute too.
Jordan
Oh my god. Yes.
Phil
I love where this is going. Let's come up with one more example you to get to choose the industry.
Jordan
A baker.
Phil
Oh, a baker. Oh, okay. So digitally, I actually still love Jordans example of a recipe. I would have never thought about that but that obviously takes time to prepare or source, but it doesn't cost money to make put in the oven. So I think maybe the digital “good”, good in quotes is a recipe. And maybe if they're lucky, and they pay enough, we actually mail them something but that gets a little more complicated freshness and stuff.
Jordan
Ok, cookie cutters.
Phil
There you go.
Jordan
And you could do one special reward, every month you get something cool. You could also do bloopers. People love seeing baking fails. So that's always fun. Or one of my friends actually does do cookbooks and her community votes on a terrible recipe that they want her to make and eat, and she records it. And it's terrible, but amazing.
Lauren
So cute. I wonder about custom birthday candles that could be mailed to each person.
Jordan
Yeah!
Phil
You guys are just full of ideas.
Jordan
Hit us up for your Patreon ideas I'm available. DM me.
Phil
Jordan segue, you just created your own segue, please tell us where people can find you.
Jordan
So I am @jordandeneellis in all of my Adobe Express and business things, and my Patreon is @territorialgeekallover. So I'm on every social platform on every account. So you can check out my Patreon and Yeah, feel free to DM me anytime. That is what I'm here for. That's my whole job. So I'm available for anything anyone needs, basically, ever. That's my, that's my mental strength.
Phil
You have to be one of the most beloved people in terms of people just how they regard you and appreciate you. I didn't know you, but our mutual friend Mallory had literally hyped you up more than anyone has ever hyped anyone else up that I've ever witnessed. And then I have to say, and I gave her this feedback I said you did not exaggerate. Jordan is that amazing. You are literally loved by everyone in your orbit. And thank you for spending your valuable minutes. You've more valuable today because it's your birthday with us on Brand Therapy Tiara queen.
Jordan
This is the best. I'm so happy. I am so happy to be here. This is great.
Lauren
It was so great speaking with you. I'm really jazzed and inspired. Now I'm going to be mentioning Patreon to everyone.
Jordan
Yeah, it's just nice. It's just a nice platform. Oh, some people listening are like oh, that's the way I can make money and then I hope you do make a lot of money, please.
Lauren
Amazing.
Phil
Oh, that was great. I knew she was a perfect person to ask on this topic. Jordan, we appreciate you and hopefully listener, you're feeling inspired on me some directions and ideas on how to incorporate Patreon into your business and workflow. If you enjoyed this episode, please give us some feedback or better yet, give us a review five star, five star that helps other people discover this podcast if we work hard to create for you. You know how it works. We'll be back next week with a brand new topic and episode and until then be well and we will see you then right here on Brand Therapy.
