SPI 902: How to Turn Your Following Into Revenue (At All Levels)

Pat Flynn: In episode 900, we talked about superfans the path to superfans. A person isn't a fan of you the moment they find you, they are a fan because of the moments that you create for them over time. In the last episode, 901, we talked about short form video. A great way to start to build a following, to start with that casual audience, activate them into that next level, then turn them into a community member, and ultimately a superfan.

All these episodes from this point forward are in general going to relate to each other and the Superfans system and the idea of having people who just find you turn into a superfan, which again does not happen overnight. Now, one misconception about the Superfans system is the fact that many people believe that you can only monetize once you have a superfan.

Now, of course, when you have a superfan, again defined as somebody who will go out of their way to get access to the thing that you are offering whatever it might be, to travel from afar to go and see you in person at an event or some gig that you put together. Right? The superfan who will market your product without you even asking the superfan who will defend you from trolls and haters out there on the internet before you even hear about them.

That is a superfan and you don't need very many of them to do some incredible things in your business and to grow your business because they'll bring new people in kind of mid tier, if you will, not from scratch, but with that recommendation and trust already behind it, which is why it's so powerful to think about superfans.

And if you haven't done so already, go back and listen to episode 900. That will be the basis and foundation for a lot of what we're gonna talk about from this point forward. Now, a lot of people, like I said, think that you can only monetize once you have superfans, because that's when you get those people to buy the things without you having to work too hard to sell because they, they've, they're already sold.

They're already sold on the model, the system, and you, because of the trust that you've built. But the truth is you could monetize throughout the entire journey. You can generate revenue before a person becomes a superfan, before they become a part of your community, even before they subscribe. How? Well, that's exactly what we're gonna talk about today.

So we're gonna go back up the pyramid. Remember we start with level one on the bottom. It's like a pyramid or a triangle, and you divide it into four sections. And the largest, the base of your triangle is actually level one, and that is your casual audience. And you can monetize there in a few different ways.

So let's go over that monetization strategy now, the revenue generation opportunities in level one. And we're gonna go up this pyramid together. So level one. You can of course, generate revenue through platform ad revenue. That is, if you are on YouTube, you're generating revenue through AdSense. The ads that are inserted before or within or after your video.

The same thing applies to TikTok and Instagram a little bit, and also Facebook. Facebook has been coming up, especially in the short form content world, although you can even generate revenue through the stories that you share on Facebook, they're in fact throwing a lot of money in there. So if you aren't on Facebook, on a Facebook page.

I said a Facebook page, not a group, but a page can be monetized for the, Should I Open It or Should I Keep It Sealed? Series that I did, my short form series that I still continue daily. We are at episode 483 at this point of a daily video series, and again, it just takes me 10 to 12 minutes to edit per day.

I batch process that to get ahead. More on shortform later. We're gonna be talking a lot about short form and we wanna get you involved in some challenges to help you go daily and do it. With the time that you have. So anyway, Facebook has been paying a lot, and I started my Facebook page for should I open it or should I keep it sealed not too long ago.

And it's generating four to $5,000 a month just by repurposing stuff that I've already done, repurposing those same videos that live on YouTube, TikTok, and Instagram, just posting them there. I'm not even really engaging and man, it's crazy. So Facebook, this is platform ad revenue. In many cases, you'll have to sort of unlock the monetization opportunities there.

I know on YouTube for example, if you have 500 subscribers and a certain number of hours, think 4,000 hours of watch time, then you are able to unlock platform ad revenue and the revenue changes, depending on the type short-form video, is gonna get a lot less. RPMs or revenue per thousand is how they measure it.

RPMs. Long form video will get a much higher RPM, however, short form video can happen much faster and you can go much wider with it much more quickly. So I am seeing anywhere between 15 to 20 K per month on short form revenue, whereas on long form for certain channels, I'm seeing anywhere between 60 and a 100 K per month.

Which is amazing, but the work to put those videos together, and of course there's a lot more depth to it with the titles, thumbnails, the storytelling, all that kind of stuff. But both of those things combined do very, very well, and that's just platform ad revenue. Those are people who not even are necessarily subscribed to those channels.

Of course, the more subscribers you have, the more people will see your recurring videos or your daily video series or however many videos you come out with, and it just continues to stack and stack. And there is a quantity game on these levels, right? This platform based strategy where just the more the merrier, even the CEO of Instagram I saw on Brock Johnson's podcast recently said, or, or at least Brock reported, that the CEO of Instagram said there's really no penalty for publishing more.

The videos will find the audiences that they were meant for if they were meant for an audience. So again, work on that hook, all those good things. Platform ad revenue can be generated at level one. My second revenue model here and is one of my favorites is affiliate marketing. So if you talk about a product, if you are recommending something, you can generate an affiliate commission.

And this is where, especially on places like YouTube and long form and short form videos on YouTube you could potentially showcase a product or a software or something that you are an affiliate for. You get revenue from the ad platform or the platform's ad revenue. In addition to any customers who come through your affiliate link, you can generate a commission as well.

So you're almost like double dipping there. And we have courses on affiliate marketing. We've had several podcast episodes in the past about affiliate marketing. We'll insert some stuff in the show notes page, SmartPassiveIncome.com/session902 for links to resources related to all of these things that I'm talking about today.

And again, we're talking about generating revenue across the entire sort of pyramid of fandom. Right. Now, there's a third way to generate revenue at the casual level, and what's cool is in some instances you could triple dip, triple dip. You could generate revenue from platform ad revenue. You could generate revenue from affiliate commissions.

In the same video potentially generate sponsorship or brand deal revenue, and that is where a company will pay you a certain amount of money to get in front of that audience. You'll have to work out that deal privately or work through a third party company, a middleman to help you with those deals. And yeah, you can get paid a certain dollar amount based on the performance.

A lot of times I wouldn't recommend having it be based on the performance, but rather an average of your previous six months worth of videos. And of course it's a lot harder to get brand deals and sponsorships when you're just starting out, which is why this is last. But it is something that can be added on even after you build your subscribership and following and have superfans, you can then add on brand deals and sponsorships and charge quite a bit. To give you some perspective on Deep Pocket Monster, my long form YouTube channel, we have charged upwards of, and it's not in every video we say no to more than we say yes to, but we wanna work with companies that we do believe with or do believe in and wanna work with.

We've charged up to $35,000 for a 60 second integration into a video. Yeah. So it can, it can grow quite big. And that's all generating revenue at level one. Again, the casual level. But how might you be able to generate revenue at level two when a person not only finds you, but then subscribes and follows?

And again, it doesn't matter how they do that, it could be through your email list, which is preferred 'cause then you have direct access to them. It could be through literally hitting follow or subscribe on any of those platforms. And now your videos will be shown up when they. Check out who are the who it is they're following.

Or better yet, when you come out with a new video, it pops into their feed because they've engaged with your channel one way or another. When you're at this level, the active subscriber base everything from level one of course applies the platform ad revenue, the affiliate commissions, the brand deals and sponsorships, those become even better.

But here at level two, this is based on these revenue opportunities are based on finding solutions to their problems. Or inconveniences, something worth their time and or money to solve a problem. So everything from level one, but also your own products, this is where people who subscribe, they now trust you.

They're warm leads as as we call them, and if you have a solution to a problem that they have, and this of course, lends itself to you really knowing who these people are, who are following you now, what are their problems, pains, issues, dreams, hopes, fears, et cetera. And creating solutions for that. It could be a software, it could be a course, it could be coaching, it could be consulting, it could be a service of some kind.

You actually doing whatever it is that they need done for them, right? Accounting, bookkeeping I'm just kind of thinking off the top of my head. All kinds of different services could be put into this place in the pyramid, and this is again, why it's important to build your email list, to build that subscriber base.

That email list also acts as insurance because what if. Your entire business is based on these platforms and the ad revenue from them and the brand deals and sponsorships, and then all of a sudden you wake up one morning and poof, it's all gone. The algorithm changed, the company goes under or gets bought out, and everything changes or you wake up and your account got hacked or got deleted for some reason, which has happened to me before, and it is such a pain to go and get those things back. However, if you have an email list, it's not quite as painful because if for some reason you can't get those things back or those platforms go away, you can always set up shop somewhere else.

And even if you don't, you have direct line of contact with your subscribers to do anything, right? To start your own services or to coach, or to consult or get support, et cetera. At this level, you are not quite yet at the level where you see a lot of people generate revenue, which is the Patreon model, right?

The community and membership model that happens in level three, which is the next level above. This is where the revenue generation is not always just based on the problems that those people have and then the solutions that you offer. But it's also based on now connection to you, right? This is where higher ticket offers or you know, more white glove type services can be offered and also connection to one another.

So this is the access level. So of course now at this third level, some of your active audience members will wanna be a part of the community. They know that there's people like them in the community and they wanna connect one way or another. So everything from level one and two applies here. But you could also generate revenue through an online community, whether that's a paid community or a community where you bring people together that better promotes the things in level two and level one.

But we, of course, here at SPI have community and it is a recurring revenue for us. That's, it's been an amazing thing to have recurring revenue in the business from people wanting to get access to each other, and this is where you hear that common phrase, which is people come for the content, but they stay for the community.

Imagine bringing your people together and facilitating interactions and creating friendships and partnerships and awareness of each other inside of your brand in some way, shape, or form. Maybe it's on Circle, maybe it's in another place. Once people find their people, they don't wanna leave. And this is why churn rates are important to think about how you can continue to keep those people connected with another, with one another to help continue to give them access to things that they might need.

Higher level offerings, higher level coaching, higher level consulting, higher level courses, et cetera. This is where events can come into play. I host an event called Card Party, and it's happening three times in 2026 from May to July. I don't know why I said it like that in September, and this is where thousands of people in the Pokemon community come together, but it doesn't have to be thousands of people.

It could be a small group. Back in the early days of SPI in 2012 to 2014. My buddy Chris Ducker and I hosted an event called One Day Business Breakthrough, and it was for 25 people, but we charged, I think we charged like $700 or $699 for a 24 hour experience. 25 people came and we masterminded. We broke down their businesses and built them back up together, had a nice dinner and that was it.

And we were able to generate some really good profit from those small events. Now, those events, of course, were in person and they take a little bit more time to put together and coordination. But it's some of the most fulfilling stuff that we've done because it's actual people, human beings coming together.

And today, in this age of AI and things, not knowing what's real and what's not the human to human connection is gonna be that much more important. Now, the final revenue model here inside of level three, which is the connect model or the connect level, right? Connected community is of course the Patreon model.

People are just starting to become fans enough to want to just support you with some dollar amount, like a pledge. They want you to continue to do what you're doing. This could be a YouTube membership. This could be a membership to a Patreon where people, depending on how much they pledge, get access to different things.

It might just be $5 a month and that's it. But imagine a thousand people paying you $5 a month. That's $5,000. Per month from just showing up and continuing to do what you do and people wanting to show up and support again, that only happens a after you've taken them through this journey up this pyramid.

It doesn't happen right away. People don't find you and go, yeah, I'm gonna start paying you monthly for something. They wanna pay you back for what you've given them over time. To that phrase again, fans aren't created the moment people find you, they're created by the moments that you create for them over time.

So this is a good model. The Patreon model, if you wanna call it that, because it is something that doesn't necessarily require you to create anything new, but it can only happen at this level. You don't have to create anything new. You just are getting support to continue doing what you're doing. So that's the connect level and revenue generation opportunities there.

And of course, like I said, level one, level two applies here as well. Affiliate marketing. Imagine the trust that you've built with people in your community and you say, Hey, everybody. I worked out a deal with this company who I'm an affiliate for. We got a special deal just for those of you in this community.

Here it is. It makes the community members feel special. You're getting likely a higher conversion rate. The connection you have with the company is even strengthened because those conversions are higher and they want to continue to work with you and you're getting all these exclusive deals. Magic really starts to happen, and this is where your brand really starts to differentiate itself.

Yes, there are other people talking about the same things, but the connection to the people makes it so unique because your group of people, your fans, your community at this point are gonna be different than other people's communities because of you and because of how you approached it, because your vibe attracts your tribe.

Alright, now let's talk about the tippy top of the pyramid of fandom, the superfans level. Now, of course, everything below applies. Everything we just talked about just becomes heightened at that level. There's less people here at the superfan level, but there are some special things that you can do here to monetize and to do things that can even generate more revenue than all of the stuff below combined.

Not because you're taking advantage of the superfans, but because they want to take advantage of what you have to offer, that only they would be interested in. So let's talk about what these things are at the superfan level. Obviously, everything that we've already talked about applies here. Superfans are gonna be more likely to be the ones to join your community.

In fact, many of them will come from your community as well. They will be the ones to pay for the higher ticket offerings and to pay for access to go to the events and not just go to the events. And here's the first thing. They would pay for VIP access. At these events, I mean, even back in 2019 when we had FlynnCon back in San Diego, we had 500 entrepreneurs come to spend two and a half days with me and my family and my team to learn all things they needed to know about entrepreneurship.

A certain percentage of those people, I don't know off the top of my head, but there were dozens of VIP tickets sold that were significantly more expensive, and they were the superfans, the people who wanted. To take the pictures, to get the autographs in the book and all those kinds of things to get front row access at the workshops and on stage or at the stage events.

Those were the superfans, right? The higher end experiences at your events or in your communities or within your offerings are definitely something the superfans will pay for. And again, just a small percentage, but this is the, this is the you know, if you, if you, if you start at the lower levels, right, you have, let's just say, a hundred thousand people who come across your stuff. Then of that 10,000 people will join your email list. So 10% and of that 1000 people, you know, join your community or get access to the other things. One person who's a superfan might pay 25K for the all inclusive one day, fly to San Diego, hang out with me in the city. And guess what? This is something we once offered and it worked. We had a $15,000 experience. We had a $25,000 experience, and these were things that filled out from, again, superfans from the brand. And that one experience was the same as, or earned the same as several hundred sales of some of our lower ticket items. So this is how you get the, what they call the ascension ladder of offerings, right? This is the top, top, top stuff, the super high ticket stuff, whatever that might look like. And you can personally design that for certain people. These are the people who would likely pay, again, a little bit more to pay not only the annual fee for your monthly or quarterly offer, but also pay additional for the additional access the calls with you. The one-on-ones the you know, fly you over to their business to consult with their employees kind of situation, right? Again, at a much, much, much higher offer.

Something that they would be willing to do. Now again, not everybody who's a superfan a can afford that, but through that, that's where you get the people who would even be open to that. So again, these people who are superfans are so important. Not only are they willing to spend more money with you, but they're willing to give you more feedback.

And this is sort of the amazing bonus byproduct of building for Superfan are these people who are at the top of this pyramid with you, not only will you have a lifetime value that's much higher, but there's a lifetime value to what they could offer back to you in terms of feedback and information and being a group that helps you launch your community.

When we teach community building in our community and business blueprint inside of our community a lot of community things going on here, we teach a model where you take your superfans and they become the first members of your community. If you are going to indeed be promoting and selling into a community, you bring your superfans in because it's gonna be populated right from the start, people are gonna already start to have conversations. They're already gonna feel like they're seeing and meeting with each other, and this is where you then can take those superfans to help you then promote the community to everybody else who might be just a little bit connected to you or even just a brand new subscriber.

They're gonna wanna join the other people who are there and active and communicating and engaging. Right. So again, if you haven't already done so, go back to episode 900. That's gonna be a staple episode moving forward, where you will go through a journey of what it's like to build an audience for the first time, perhaps with short form video, and have them connect with you through an email list and through subscribing and following to then building that relationship with you that could lead to not just them wanting to chat with you and communicate with you, but to communicate and find other people like them, and this is where the magic happens in the brand, that connected community where people start to have an identity of, oh, I'm a fan of so and so. I'm a fan of you, or name of brand, and this is why just last week at the time of this recording last week, I launched a merch line for Should I open it or should I keep it sealed?

And the cool thing about this merch line is if you don't know, our videos are me opening a Pokemon pack and there could be a good card or maybe not a good card. And this is, again, 483 day straight of this. We launched a merch line, which has a college style shirt that says, S-I-O-A-O-S-I-K-I-S, which is the acronym for should I open it or should I keep it sealed?

That's part of the brand language that I use inside of this. Should I open it or should I keep it sealed? Videos? You know, welcome to episode 480 of S-I-O-S-A-K-I-S. And people, when they first hear it, they're like, that's hard to say, but then they get it, and then it becomes part of the brand language, the culture within the brand that we're creating in the end.

This is just short form video. Speaking to the last episode where I was wrong about the fact that you can't create loyalty or fans from short form. You can't. But instead of one 60 minute video, you have 60 one minute minute videos across two months, right? And you show up daily, you become almost a ritual. Anyway, I simply launched this shirt to our YouTube subscribers.

First, our, our, our members, in fact just kind of the people who are at that connected level in the YouTube community. Now, the cool thing about this shirt is you buy the size you want, but you don't know which shirt you're gonna get. You might get the base shirt, which is the white shirt with the black lettering.

You might get the hit shirt, which is a one in three odds, which is the black shirt with the yellow lettering or the gold lettering. And there's a chase shirt, which is one of 50 odds. And these words, hit and chase are part of the culture of, you know, opening cards. So this is this, these are words that people are familiar with who are in this space.

So I launched it by simply sharing one post to the members of the channel, and the next day there were already 700 shirts sold already. As of today, four days later, after then, now launching it publicly on the back end of a video of one of the daily episodes, we have already 1700 shirts, actually 1800 as of I'm looking at the numbers right now over $40,000 in sales.

Four days, and you hear these stories of creators and influencers who have millions of subscribers. There was even one famous, one of a person with 3 million subscribers on Instagram who sold 33 shirts and that's it. And they were crying because their audience wasn't buying their stuff. It's because they weren't creating a real connection.

Sure. They had subscribers, and I'm not saying they bought those subscribers. They probably earned them, but they just kept them there as a casual audience member. When you level up your audience from casual to active, active to connected community into superfans, it doesn't really matter what you launch.

What matters is you've built that relationship and you can now generate revenue in a way that actually provides value to those purchasing. Everybody who now is opening those should I open it or should I keep it sealed? Shirts gets to play the game too. Many of them have already shared that video of them opening it on YouTube and on Instagram and on TikTok, some of them getting the bay shirts, some of them getting the Chase shirts.

And it's been really neat to now see this viral effect from the video series that they've watched initially and through the daily relationship that I've been building with them, or the relationship that I'm, that I have been building with them on a daily basis. So those shirts are almost sold out. If you wanna check out that merch drop, you can go to SIOIOSIKIS.com

I know that's a mouthful, but break it up into SIOIOSIKIS.com or you can go to DeepPocketMonster.com and and see it from there. Anyway, Superf fans, baby, that's what it's all about. And like I said, you can monetize at all these different levels. You don't have to wait until you have superfans to monetize, but when you get Superf fans, my gosh, you can do so much with it and you can bring so much joy to so many people and a lot of those superfans will bring more people into your brand for you.

Go superfans. Go get superfans. Thank you so much. I appreciate you. I hope you enjoy this episode. Hit subscribe. If you haven't already come, come join us, come connect with us and it is gonna be my job to help you find your stride here. And I hope that one day, if not already, you will become a superfan of what we do here and you will have superfans of your own.

Thanks so much. Appreciate you.