Yesterday, a post by a Fakebook “friend” popped up, complaining about Patreon’s policies and customer support.
Specifically, she was having issues with promoting the anti-racist pagan/chakral-aligned feminist/socialist witchcraft content on her Patreon page, and was looking for a similar platform to keep sell—ahem, soliciting recurring donations.
Since I run my own continuity offer (albeit a science-based and distinctly non-magickal one), I suggested a couple of cost-effective alternatives that would solve her problem but would require doing things like building her own list and using email.
Of course, because this was a real solution (and not a virtue-signaling “f*ck the Patreon-archy” comment), she left no less than 5 lengthy replies on all terrible, horrible, no good, and very bad issues building her own platform would create, including:
– It wouldn’t replicate Patreon to an *exact* T.
– It wouldn’t be a “true community network.”
– Email is “too limiting” of a medium for her content, and it would be wrong to assume that this would work for anyone else as well.
– The barrier of entry is too high for people who don’t have a website, don’t want a website, “or don’t want to add another dimension” to their website.
Not to mention that, as a former Internet marketer (of course), she knows very well what she’s doing and “has been in and out of this stuff a zillion times” and didn’t need someone like me to remind her.
Okay, sure.
Then, no less than 10 minutes later, this incredible woman wrote up a 1,000+ word post about how, after much “active contemplation” into “power dynamics, boundaries, and containers in the digital space,” “advice-giving without invitation or solicitation” is a violation of her boundaries as it’s without “affirmative consent.”
(She also went on about using “Ancestral and Indigenous knowledge of the astral” to govern how we engage on social media, lest we “bathe in unidentified streams with nagas that could give you spiritual sickness”… whatever that means.)
If she channeled all that (karmic, astral-aligned) energy towards her business instead of little ol’ me, I’m sure she would have solved her Patreon problem four times over. (Along with the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, the hierarchy problem in particle physics, and may well have cured several diseases.)
Alas, choosing to forgo the brass ring for the rusty nut is fairly common.
One of my first consulting clients, after spending over five hours together creating her entire content and social media strategy for the next 90 days, told me at the last minute that “she didn’t want to be chained to her computer writing all day”—even though we were working on promoting her newest book that she spent the last 10 years writing.
And, years later, this still happens: after creating entirely new consulting structure/YouTube channel/email marketing strategy/course offerings, clients have doubled back right before launching because it was “too big,” “too much work,” or “too different” from what they were used to.
Even after lots of time (not to mention monie) spent with me to help them do exactly that.
You can load the tape in. You can even put their finger on the button. But you can’t force someone to hit play.
But, where I was frustrated and admittedly insecure about these kinds of results (or lack thereof), I’ve learned to now expect them—and from whom. I can almost smell it a mile away.
And, with that knowledge, use it to their (and, indirectly, my) best advantage when it comes to creating, marketing, and selling products and services the way that works best for them (and, by extension, me).
I go over how to use this information especially with bucking, unruly freelancers and employees in my new series, The HR Czar—specifically in the (short, 10-minute) episode called “Putting your team’s P-ness away.” In it, I go over how this type’s flakiness, unwillingness to abide by schedules, and seemingly terminal allergy to deadlines can actually mean *more* monie (and time)—if you know how to leverage it.
To get access (no astral projection or nagas needed), go here:
Stefanie Arroyo