Episode 003 – 5 Strategies You Can Use to Monetize Your Community

Well, hey! So, one of the things I’ve said for a while now is that revenue pays the bills but profit brings freedom. And oftentimes before we can even get into a conversation about profitability, we first get to identify the money gaps within a business and even figuring out are people truly monetizing where they could, which is one of those money gaps. And so, today in this episode, we’re going to talk about five strategies that you could use in your business as a coach, as a consultant, as a community leader, to be able to start monetizing today and welcome to episode three of the show.

Welcome to the Relationships Make Money podcast where it’s all about the people, partners and profits. Each week we’ll explore conversations around partnerships, leadership, our thoughts and profits. And now your host Roberto Candelaria.

So, one of the great things about being where we are in the world today is that we have so much access to technology and to people and to connection that allows us the opportunity to be able to serve our communities, serve our clients, and monetize online and offline communities, I would say even faster than any other time in the history of the world. You know, just a few years ago, everything we did was offline. And then everything was online for a bit. And then we ended up in this hybrid space where it was online and offline. And then, through the pandemic, you know, especially those that first year, everything went back online. And now we’re coming back to this place where people are ready to be together in person, you know, ready to be at live events together, to be celebrating together, but also still saying, how do I actually monetize my community? Especially since so many business models have changed over the past several years.

And so today, we’re just going to go over five key ways and five strategies that you can use to monetize your community, whether it be online or offline. And so you got a pen, got a paper, awesome, if not, well, you know, please don’t take notes while driving, because that’s just not good or on the treadmill, because I don’t need a TikTok video of you, like listening to a podcast and falling off, that would be awful, awful, awful. So you know, if you’re in a place where you can take notes, great, if not great.

So the number one way and one of my personal favorites here, and we’ll be talking about this a lot on the show, and through some of our programs that we offer in the company is affiliate and JV income. You know, at its simplest affiliate, and JV income is either a, as a coach, as a consultant, as a community leader, you are finding products and programs and services that can help your community and you’re promoting them in exchange for a payment or a commission for providing that lead and providing that sale to the company that you’re promoting. The flip side of that is that you could also, depending on what types of products and programs and services you offer, you’re able to offer your students or other coaches or just really anybody that wants to promote your products, your programs, your services, your coaching, able to offer them a referral commission or an affiliate commission for promoting you, for promoting your business.

And this is something that has been so key for our business since probably around 2014 2015. You know, we’ve used several different software’s since then, but affiliate revenue has provided in some years multiple six figures of revenue to us and allowed us the opportunity that after my father passed to be able to grieve to when I was transitioning a brand new years ago to have some space to transition because we still had affiliate partners promoting my online courses, my evergreen digital products. And because we had built a mailing list and built a community online, likewise, when my friends and people that I knew were launching products and programs and courses, if those courses were a fit for our community, we were then able to promote those to help our friends out and help our clients out. So, our friends would get new clients, our existing community was able to learn a new skill set, and then our company was able to earn an affiliate commission for that because we sent that referral. And so affiliate JV income is one of the best ways to be able to do that. And we’ll do some deeper training on that later on another day because it could literally be a two day live event just on how to do that.

The second key type here is collaborations. You know, so many people, we’ve been taught that we have to do business alone, or that we can only trust ourselves. And I say that this is farther from the truth and anything that there are actually people and other humans in the world that we can align with that have good values fits and can also help us and help each other be able to bring something together to bring something out into the world. And so we know like this podcast, Relationships Make Money, it’s so just surreal to me that this is the name of the show 10 years later because I was going through some copy the other day I was trying to find something and I searched things in my computer, I should say save things in my computer and email by acronyms and so Relationships Make Money, I had saved it as R-M-M. And this has been why I’ve been using with the team internally is we’ve been working on some things. And I went into my email the other day, and I put R-M-M. And it was like RMM sales copy, RMM affiliate copy, RMM event hotel contract.

And it took me back to 2012, 10 years ago when I ran something called the Relationships Make Money tour and it was a tour across Texas. And what we did was actually teach people how to build their business with their relationships, through affiliate marketing, through partnerships, and the relationship with their community as well. And it was so fun to be able to find that copy but it was also an amazing example of a collaboration where myself and two other coaches came together and said, “Hey, we all do something that complements each other. All of us are in a place where we don’t have big audiences yet, and we don’t have big list yet.” You know, I was had a great list in Austin, someone else had a great list in Houston, someone else had a great list in Dallas, one of the three of us collaborated on a multiple city tour through Texas, where we each have one city where we can kind of be the anchor because of our following there. But also all promote in those other cities. And then we collaborated on this, these events, to be able to help each other grow and to be able to grow our audiences, to grow our email list and also to be able to get paid at the same time. And so, collaborations are another huge way. And this is something that we see every single day, we just may not be conscious of it sometimes. And so, for example, if you fly and you know, I love Delta, and— but there’s like the Delta SkyMiles American Express card, right? So, that is a collaboration. It’s, it’s what’s called a co-branded collaboration between Delta and American Express. There are even, if you go down to Cake Island, the grocery store, and I’m not going to say names because I don’t want to mess it up. But you know, there are certain cake mixes, there’ll be like, this featuring Hershey’s chocolate, or this cake mix featuring Ghiradelli chocolate. And so, even these brands have already collaborated with, “Hey, cake and chocolate go together.” And they’re collaborating, they’re both bringing what they have to the table to be able to say how do we create something that helps our consumer get what it is that they’re looking for. And so that second key way there is collaborations.

Now, number three is something that I’ve been doing for many years our clients have been doing and this may be a space that you’re in right now. And it is teaching or coaching. In other words, getting paid for what you know. So as a coach, as a consultant, as a community leader, it’s the ability to get paid for what you know. And you know, some people do this through online memberships. We do that through our membership, Profitable Community Academy, through digital products, through one-on-one coaching, through group coaching, through live and virtual events. And you know, we’ve done both, we’ve done virtual events that have been amazing, and they’ve been like virtual summits that have been this builders, but we’ve also held two and three day virtual events that were paid ticketed events. But then we also have live events in the past that was something like, sponsorship for influencers. And later this year, December 1st through 4th in Houston, Texas, that’s our event position, partner profit live, where at that live event, over three days, we’ll be really sharing with people, how do you position yourself to be able to get the partners that you want to be able to have the profitability that you want in your business. And so we’re doing that through a live event. But you could also do that through books and ebooks and online coaching and through challenges. There’s so many ways to do teaching and coaching to get paid for what you know.

Now, number four here is reselling and wholeselling. And this is something that Warren actually does with OctoNation, our friends, Damon Oates and purposefully with Deco Exchange also do an amazing job at this probably one of the best I would say at it, and we’ve been able to learn so much from them. And what Warren’s doing without OctoNation because of what Damon and Parker have been able to share with us. But reselling and wholeselling is essentially, if there’s a product that you know that your community wants, especially niche communities, right, then you’re able to find wholesalers or other makers and buy those items at a wholesale or a lower cost because you’re buying quantity. And then you turn around and you resell that at a higher price for profit.

And so an example of that is because that, Damon, over at Deco Exchange, they sell ribbons, they sell wreath bases, they sell best buy, anything anybody would need for how to make a wreath. And Damon buys that in at wholesale in quantity from different vendors and in fact has even some products that are made specifically just for his company exclusively. And then they, they resell those products that they bought wholesale for a profit because it helps his community learn how to make wreaths but also in his creative coaching in his business coaching for makers and creatives through Makers University, they’re able to buy the supplies that they need to make the handmade items that they’re making, and then turn around and be able to sell them for a profit. And so Damon such a beautiful example of that over at Deco Exchange.

With OctoNation, Warren does the reselling the wholeselling with, you know, plush animals. And so there’s very few stuffed octopus out on the market that have the anatomically correct eyes. And he’s been able to partner with an organization that provides these be able to buy them at wholesale to then be able to use them in giving campaigns for OctoNation as well.

And then number five is print on demand. And if you’ve got a brand or a story, or maybe you’ve got a an event or a live event coming up, one of the things that can really help your community come together is branded merchandise that you could work with a graphic designer or if you are a graphic designer, you know, make it yourself. I’m not a graphic designer, so don’t ever count on me trying to make stuff like design it myself, I will go hire a graphic designer. But print on demand is an amazing way to be able to get some of this branded merchandise out to you. So again, Warren does this with OctoNation. Damon and Parker do this with Deco Exchange, our dear friend April does it with her online membership community, right, so she’s running a membership community called Blue. In there, she’s got everything from swimsuits, to mugs, to journals, everything they can buy. So print on demand, could be shirts, and mugs and stickers, pillows, books, coloring books, blankets, just about everything that you could think of. And two of the places that we use as a vendor for that are Printful and Printify.

Now there’s so many other ones out there like their Zazzle, there’s Society Six, but first, start thinking about you know, is print on demand something that is a fit for me.

And then I was going to do five, which we’re affiliate and JV income, number two, collaborations, three, teaching and coaching aka getting paid for what you know, four, reselling and wholeselling, five, print on demand. But I wanted to add this last one in here as a bonus per se and that would be freelancing. We oftentimes work with people who are looking to transition, you know, they are in a job or have a part time job or sometimes have two jobs. And sometimes they’re looking for a way to add additional revenue as they’re building up their business. And so freelancing can be a great way to be able to do that. And some of the places that we personally hire freelancers from and that— y’all I have been on as well. When I first started my business, I was on clarity.fm. And if you go to clarity.fm, if you search sponsorship, you’ll probably see me in the first page. If you go to there and search Instagram, you’ll see Warren probably on the first page, and we have, we’ve still taken calls there through those sites. But there’s also Upwork, Free App is another amazing online vendor place. I love working with Free Up, Fiverr, Freelancer, Guru. And so there’s so many online places where if you have a skill set, you can take that skill set to be able to monetize it, as you’re trying to figure out well, “These other things are great, but I don’t know if I’m there yet right now this is the skill set that I have.”

Then freelancing or consulting is a an amazing way to be able to start monetizing, either a, while you’re figuring out how to monetize the community or b, if you’re looking at how do I transition out of this job and make some money in the meantime, then freelancing is an amazing way to do that.

So, y’all thanks for joining me for episode two of the show so much more to come. And I hope that you have yourself an amazing day and we’ll chat soon.

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