Many of the marketing strategies and tips Vivian and I share have been perfected by those in the “spicy” or adult industry.
This week on the S.O.B. (Small Owned Business) Marketing podcast, we are talking with Lucy Banks, former OnlyFans content creator and founder of Million Billion Media. Our conversation explores marketing strategies, audience connection, the importance of email marketing, and how small business owners can learn from OnlyFans creators. Lucy shares with us her insights on building brand loyalty, the significance of personalization, and the necessity of experimentation in marketing.
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00:00 Welcome to our Marketing Cult! Please Leave Us a Review
02:46 Introduction to Lucy Banks, founder of Million Billion Media
11:08 Being Customer Centric: The Importance of Audience Connection
13:02 Navigating Social Media Challengers and the Power of Email Marketing
17:13 Personalization in Marketing
20:25 Building a Sustainable Brand
23:33 Customer Experience and Loyalty
32:10 Nurturing Existing Relationships for Long-Term Success
38:54 Setting Boundaries and Managing Client Expectations
43:13 The Importance of Experimentation in Marketing
48:26 Overcoming Criticism and Staying True to Your Vision
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Vivian: Listen, we know that as a small business owner you are working hard on the daily to keep your business fully operational while trying to promote it. And while some days it may feel like the business is owning you, if we're being honest with each other I bet you would admit that you wouldn't give up the insanity for anything.
Chelsea: Our commitment here at the S.O.B. Marketing podcast is to give you the real talk, what works when it comes to advertising, marketing, and promoting your business. And then what doesn't really work.
Vivian: And Chelsea and I promise to always keep the conversation real.
*Beginning of Episode*
Chelsea: Hey everybody and welcome back to the S.O.B., Small Owned Business Marketing Podcast. We would never call you guys names. A friendly reminder before we get started, we are building a marketing cult here for small businesses who want to feel comfortable handling their marketing in-house. So if you're not subscribed or following already, make sure you do that and join our marketing cult. So today's topic is going to be a really good one, Vivian. We have a special guest. Which means: one, there's not going to be a TLDL section, okay? I usually do a too long, didn't listen section at the end of our episodes so people who are in a hurry can get a summary or synopsis of what we talked about. I don't do that for guest interviews because I want you to listen to the entire conversation. So no TLDL, but today we are talking about what small businesses can learn about marketing from the adult industry. That's right, we're going to be a little spicy this week. Can I just say before we get started, our guest focuses on helping women leverage and make a living out of OnlyFans. But really the conversation that we're going to have today is lessons in agility, audience connection and creativity that any small business owner can use and learn from no matter what you're selling. So do not be stingy. Do not skip out on this conversation. Vivian, do you want to introduce our guest?
Vivian: Absolutely. So our special guest today is Lucy Banks. I'm going to tell you guys, she's got a lot going on. So I think in order of importance, we're going to go through these. She's a mom of three, a former OnlyFans content creator, a spicy entrepreneur, and entrepreneur she is because she is the founder of Million Billion Media, also a podcast host for Professional Attention Seekers, which I love by the way, because you guys. Their tagline is "art of being successful in a spicy world". Last but certainly not least, just three weeks ago, you bought the Adult Industry Choice Awards in Australia. Like when do you sleep?
Lucy: Not much, but wow. What an introduction. Thank you so much for having me on. I am so thrilled to be chatting to you both and thank you for giving me the platform.
Vivian: Yeah, so tell us a little bit about...first of all, you got a lot of good PR out there. It is, the articles that I found on you, amazing. It just kind of put all these puzzle pieces in place for me. What we love seeing is, for one, I noticed that your children have a very interesting piece or they kind of spurred this pivot in two different ways for you. The first one I want to talk about is your start as an OnlyFans creator. Actually you had a banking background first and then you got into OnlyFans because you didn't want to send your kids to daycare anymore, you were coming off of a divorce. How did that kind of launch into this whole, not industry, but just this profession?
Lucy: Yeah, so it's such a severe and harsh pivot from corporate world, banking world. I've been in banking since I was 17. That was my career. I was really, really dedicated, climbed the corporate ladder, blah, blah, and then walked away from it all to do OnlyFans. So I understand how a lot of people were like, what is she thinking? What is she doing? I was the youngest business banker in Australia at the time. Without being like, look at me, look at me. But I was. I speak about this a bit. There was a really pivotal moment for me where I was putting one of my sons to bed in a new house and they don't remember, mom and dad not being together. There were so many changes, new house. Dad wasn't around anymore. I remember putting him to bed and him being like, mom, do I have to go to daycare tomorrow? I just want to be with you. I just want to hang out. Something inside me just, I don't want to use the word broke. I think clicked is a better term to use. Something just clicked. I was like, you know what? No. No, I'm not accepting this. I'm not working 60-hour weeks at the bank anymore. I'm not doing this. No, I reject this lifestyle. Because these two little boys, so I had two kids at the time, these two little boys need me so much right now. Obviously I still have to pay rent and put a roof over our heads and I had a friend doing this thing called OnlyFans. So I had a chat to her about it and at the time I think she was making about $5 a month. I remember thinking, whoa that's so much money. Imagine if I could do that, and I threw myself into it and I was like you know what, I know people are not going to like this. I know people are going to have their opinions, but at the end of the day what's my priority right now. What's most important to me? It was those boys.
I stayed true to that, my entire OnlyFans journey and even to this day. Everything I do is so intrinsically centered around my kids. I think that goes for a lot of entrepreneurs, whether it's OnlyFans or your marketing or whatever your vertical is. A lot of people just want to be able to have a deeper flexibility for not only themselves but their family. This was exactly what I wanted.
Vivian: Oh yeah. I want to bring two things up with regards to this, because I think they're going to be key for the small business owner that's listening on the other end to keep in mind while we have this conversation about marketing and OnlyFans creators and what can we as small business owners extract from that and use in our business. But I saw in a recent episode of yours, you had a clip and you were being very spicy, like my sister Chelsea here, she's the spicy one out of our duo. But you were saying a lot of people, because what you just said is you have this inkling, I want to change my life, I need more freedom and I need more time with my children, right? The thing you said though is a lot of people going to OnlyFans thinking, I need money to pay this month's bills and so therefore I'm just going to start OnlyFans and you said but that's not how it works. You said if you guys want to go try this and see for yourself that's great. I bring that up because the other thing is, keeping that in mind, it's a lot harder. You also in a span of like four years made anywhere from a million to a million and a half dollars off of your content, right?
Lucy: Yeah, yeah. For anyone who's listening on audio, I want to make really clear, I am 35 years old and I have had three children and I look like I've had three children. I'm not like a skinny little, like you're stereotypical, I guess, OnlyFans girl. I think I'm average looking, but I can still make that amount of money and I'm sure we'll get into it further but the way that I changed our lives is so drastic, that is purely from marketing. Not the way I look, not me losing weight or anything like that. It is marketing.
Vivian: Yeah, I think that's the one thing that for me just kind of sticks out because there are these misconceptions out there with OnlyFans content creators. It's easy or it's not really a business. It's something you don't have to work hard at. It's the exact opposite because right now it's over penetrated. Everybody wants to do OnlyFans because they think it's just free cash that you show up, take a couple of feet pics and then people are going to pay you for it. Which by the way, y'all, if you're listening to this, there's this whole, I'm a big YouTube girly, tons of people on YouTube actually do experiments like this. They're like, I sold feet pics on OnlyFans for a month. This is how much money I made. I can't tell you how many times, almost every single person afterwards, they're like, dang, a lot more goes into it. I could see where you have to build an audience outside of the platform to then funnel into the platform and all this stuff. So Chelsea, why don't we go ahead and dive into that?
Chelsea: Yeah, well, can I say first, y'all as small business owners, I am sure you related to everything that Lucy just said. How many times has someone told you, your little hobby when they're talking about your small business? Or, oh you're still doing that? Okay.
People don't want to take small businesses and entrepreneurs seriously. We're all in the same boat, no matter what industry you're in. So first off, but second, let's go ahead and get into it. I want to talk about how OnlyFans creators do such an amazing job when it comes to being customer centric and focusing on their customers, and that's what helps your business grow. Believe it or not, but when you understand your target audience and you know what they want from you, you're going to get more out of that relationship.
Vivian: Yeah, for sure. Where would you say, Lucy, that kind of falls into place? For two things, for one, as an OnlyFan creator, you do have to go out there and find whether it's through your niche or whatever it is, you have to attract people to want to dish out money, right? To see any of the content you're putting out there. But also you went on to start, now you started a whole marketing agency for OnlyFans creators. So then, your target audience now has shifted a little. Now it's other OnlyFans creators that you're looking to attract.
Lucy: Yeah, absolutely. It's funny how the audience migration happened so naturally. Back when I was promoting myself as an OnlyFans creator, my audience was men. I wanted men to subscribe to me. I think there's a lot of people that don't know this, but for anyone to subscribe to an OnlyFans, they have to have your specific link. There's no explore option. There's no search option on OnlyFans. You can't type in MILF or Cute Blonde or anything like that. The only way someone can subscribe to you is if they have your link. How are you going to do that? You have to nail social media or mainstream media. So marketing is key. It's also the only thing you can do to grow on OnlyFans.
Vivian: Can I ask a follow-up question with that though? Because my understanding is Instagram, let's say Instagram or even maybe YouTube, they also though don't let you, there's only a certain amount that they'll allow spicy content. You're kind of like having to figure out how do I give people a preview without giving them a preview to then hop on OnlyFans?
Lucy: Exactly, it's such a game and you also cannot have your OnlyFans link in your bio. You'll get your Instagram or whatever platform you're on, you'll be de-platformed so quickly. So that's why a lot of OnlyFans creators or as spicy content creators will use something like Linktree or Linktree alternatives because they will not let you have that link there. So you're fighting a battle just trying to promote your business that no one wants you to promote. You've got to be a little bit sexy but then not too sexy. Then sometimes you'll post a video and that's okay and you post the same thing but that's not okay. So it's honestly a game. I say to everybody, so I do a lot of mentoring and working with a of creators now. One of the first things I tell them is do not get emotionally attached to your social media. It's only a matter of time before it goes down. That's sad and it sucks. It's just a part of the industry. If you're doing well on one Instagram, you start another one and start cross promoting it. It's just the way it is and it's not fair, but that's the game.
Vivian: I want that to be the takeaway. That right there is our clip, one of our clips for this video, like for this interview, because no, I think every small business owner needs to hear this. Do not get emotionally attached to your social media platforms. Interestingly enough, on a TikTok, I did a TikTok video saying, hey, we're going to have an interview coming up. I asked, what do you think OnlyFans creators are really good at in marketing that small business owners can take? I had two things. One person said, I think they don't have the fear that we do, or if they do, they don't show that they have the fear, they're better at not letting stuff bother them. The other one said, omni-channel marketing and consistency of posts. Omni-channel marketing meaning they're not just on one platform. If your Instagram gets taken down, people know they can find them on their own website or they could find them on probably not Facebook, but TikTok or something like that, right?
Lucy: Yeah, absolutely. It's important to, and not just for people in the spicing industry, but I don't even think just business owners, I think people in general, it's really important to go back to that. Let's all remember, you do not own that platform. You do not own your audience. The only thing you can own is email addresses. I think in terms of long-term business retention, you need to be moving people between your different platforms.
Chelsea: We've done two interviews this month. Will it be this month? We've done two interviews recently and both people, y'all, have mentioned email marketing. So Vivian and I, if you're new here, all we talk about sometimes is email marketing because we believe in it so much and one of the reasons why we do is because that is something that you are in control of. You're not in control of what's going on in these platforms, but you're in control of how many emails you can send out, how you're interacting with those people.
Lucy: It's so underestimated. I think in my industry, in my world, but like in general as well, that's the one thing that you can own. If you are trying to do anything, that should be a focus for everyone, trying to build your email marketing list.
Vivian: I love it, you guys. Listen, it just extends all the industries. So you heard it here first, email marketing.
Chelsea: Can we also talk about personalization? Because I want to ask you, Lucy, about personalization, not necessarily when it comes to OnlyFans, though that would be an interesting conversation. When it comes to you reaching out to other OnlyFans creators. How do you provide them with a personalized experience? Because I feel like that is such a key role when it comes to marketing now. How do you go about doing that?
Lucy: I think this is very important to not only businesses, but just, I guess, like humans. The more you can show interest in someone and you can show them value, the better your conversions are going to be. So if I'm approaching someone, it's not enough for me just to say, Hey, can I do your PR? Can I do your marketing? Give me your money, I don't like that. Whereas if I can approach someone and say, hey Chelsea, I can see that three days ago you posted about this happened to you on your Instagram stories. I think that would be really strong for media. I also think that you could have like this angle, this angle. I'm working with a journalist on this story. Can you talk about that? You need to be able to show, I see you as a person and promote you as more of a personal brand than just, hey, here's an OnlyFans creator that made $1. It needs to be personal. So I think the more you can sort of do your research and tap into who they are as a person, what's going on for them, what their values are, but also what I can provide for them. It's not just, I would love to have you on my books. It's like, I would love to have you on my books because I have this outlet and this publication that are interested in telling your story.
Vivian: For OnlyFans content creators, you have a specific membership. Now I know if you're a business owner listening to this on the other end, let me just tell you, she's charging $399 for this membership. So it's a higher ticket membership. What you provide to OnlyFans creators is "ongoing strategies and tools for OnlyFans creators who want to grow with confidence". What you just said there is looking at it from a personal brand. The first thing that came to mind is I'm obsessed with Bunny, Jelly Roll's wife. Like I just, I love everything about her. I just, she's so like her personality and she just can't be anything but who she is. Right. What I love about it though is she used to be in the adult industry type stuff, and then she now has a whole podcast, her personal brand. The opportunities that a personal brand has given her to extend outside of just doing spicy content or adult stuff. It's amazing to me. I'm like, that's the end goal, right? Like you just said, because you made the pivot. Take me off the platform eventually, let me make my money, let me go out buy properties, let me launch my own podcast, do my thing. That way I get to choose what I'm doing day to day.
Lucy: That's something I'm really passionate about. If you want to do OnlyFans forever, absolutely love that for you. We'll support you till the end of time. However, I do think it gets to a time where you want something else or you get over it or it's, I don't think women age out of it. Women are beautiful and attractive and you could, I know a woman in her 60s that is making insane money on OnlyFans. You do not age out of it. However, I think you do burn out of it. So I get really passionate about helping women create side gigs or businesses or investments that will outlast their OnlyFans career. Keep doing it for as long as you want to, but it's nice to able to have an option so when you're done, there's something else you can go to.
Vivian: And you can still be profitable and pay your bills and do all the things.
Lucy: Exactly and unfortunately, realistically, for me personally, I knew that when I was, I always said I'd do OnlyFans until it wasn't fun for me anymore. I reached that stage and I was like, I'm actually starting to resent this. I don't want to do this anymore. I was at a different stage of my life. I was in a relationship. My kids were getting older. My eldest was going into high school. I was like, I don't want people talking to him about his mom doing OnlyFans. There's nothing wrong with it, but I just, you know I was just done, there were so many reasons that all just sort of came together at once. So I was really lucky to be able to pivot into something else. But I also knew realistically that I was too well known in Australia to go and get a job. Isn't that Lucy Banks, the OnlyFans mom?
Vivian: Which is a great problem to have, I guess, right?
Lucy: It's good that I guess I had that degree of notoriety, but there was no way I could go get an office job or something like that. To be fair, I organized my whole life, my whole career around dropping my kids off at school, picking them up and going back to my why, like why I first started. No, I can't go back to putting them in daycare and doing that again. So I needed to be able to pivot into something else. I'm really lucky that I started Million Billion Media, I just identified that gap in the market for marketing for not only OnlyFans creators but anything a little bit taboo, anything a little bit spicy, which I love, it's so much fun. I don't know what I would have done if I didn't do that. The creators I work with, I was having a conversation with somebody recently and she was like, I actually really love photography. I'm like, I didn't know that about you. What do you mean you love photography? I'm like, you need to start doing that now. You need to leverage your network, speak to the other OnlyFans girls, go do photos for them. Then let's talk about how we can put a blueprint in place so when you do decide you're done with OnlyFans, you've got a scalable business that you can do long term.
Chelsea: Yeah, Lucy, when it comes to customer experience, what would you say is the correlation between a regular small business and then maybe like a spicy content creator? You know, you guys are still providing a good customer experience.
Lucy: Yeah, it's honestly exactly the same. So I know that back when I did OnlyFans, if a subscriber messages me, it's really important that I message them back as soon as possible to get them while they're a hot lead. They're obviously messaging me because they want something, they're like, they're on, they want to talk to a lady. So to be able to respond to them while they're hot is going to be the difference between me landing a sale or them ignoring me. Also in terms of depth I guess. I had I guess a core group of subscribers that I knew inside out and they knew me. I mean I knew their dog's names I knew where they lived, some of them. One of my subscribers got COVID one time and I knew his address. I can't remember why. I think maybe I had to send him something at some point. I UberEats a meal to his house and medicine and things. That subscriber also randomly sent me a thousand dollars one day. He knew that I knew all this, like his dog's names. I'd be like, I know you play basketball on Tuesday nights, did you win? So going to the extra mile is going to set you apart whether you're an OnlyFans creator or in retail or marketing or whatever, going to the extra length for customers. What's that saying? Under promise but over deliver.
Chelsea: Yes. I also love that you said, there was a small circle, small group between you and your consumers that you guys were really close. That y'all, is what you're shooting for. You want to build that close knit community, that group of brand evangelists that are going to...
Vivian: We laugh about that word because Chelsea, we have a 15 year age gap. I used the word brand evangelist one time and she's like, what is that? I'm like, you don't know what evangelist is?
Chelsea: Whenever I hear the word evangelist, I think of religion. So I was very confused when she said it. Now that's like my go-to phrase because that is what you're shooting for. As a small business, you want to have brand evangelists, people who are out there speaking your gospel, talking about you as a business without you having to do anything because they're so loyal to you.
Vivian: We had this conversation yesterday. We also have a community of our own for small business owners who just want week to week Zoom calls with us and stuff to talk about their marketing and stay on track.
We had one of the calls yesterday and one of our community members was talking about he wants to do a, what do you call it? A, not subscribers, but his loyalty people, a night where they can drop in to his record store just to kind of shop and do stuff and he'll do something special. But I told him, well obviously, if they're signed up for your loyalty program, you have their cell phone numbers. I would just shoot those people a text to say, hey, we have this like coming up. You're invited to come. How do you do that as an OnlyFans creator? How is it that you're building that loyalty in the community? What are those touch points? Is it strictly on the platform or is it through your email list?
Lucy: So I want to break this into two different parts. So as an OnlyFans creator, I think one of the core parts of people being a part of, I like the term brand advocates. That's my banking days, they always used to drill into us, hey, you've got to make people advocates. So OnlyFans will actually tell subscribers, you're in the top 5%, you're in the top 1% of Lucy's fan base or something. It's based on how much they spend. Every single month I would say shout out to my top five subscribers and they loved that. I would have them message me like, oh my gosh, I can't believe that guy spent more than me, I'll make up for it. It seemed like a...
Vivian: It's competition.
Lucy: Yeah, exactly. Which, because you don't know what other people are spending, right? They've got no ability to see that. So it was really cool to be able to, and I didn't mean it as a competition, I genuinely just went like, thanks, here's my top five spenders or my top 5%, my top 1%. But it did kind of come into a competition. I also would, and this was on purpose, say to people, make sure you follow me on Instagram or I'm going to go live on Instagram or TikTok or something. So if they found me on OnlyFans, they were on my other platforms as well. So because I talk, I'm so chatty on Instagram and I used to post three TikToks a day. I was all over it. I knew that if they followed me on TikTok, they would fall in love with me more. There's just such a deeper connection because I'm able to show more.
Vivian: It's so weird because that is the hardest part for every small business owner, I don't think I've ever said, follow me on TikTok. You guys are going to fall in love with me. No, the person they get on TikTok is the stuffy Vivian. That's like, let me tell you some marketing stuff. I'm slowly chipping away at that. I'm learning very slowly, but I love that for you it's like, no, I'm confident that whenever you do follow me, you're going to see my personality and you're going to see how I am.
Lucy: I think I was so unhinged on TikTok. I was just like, but people loved it. They love seeing that side and realizing that. Cause on Instagram, Instagram is more polished and more the catalog. Whereas TikTok, it's just like, whoa, what is she talking about? But people loved it cause yeah, they see me as more of a person. Yeah, I guess that's for OnlyFans.
Whereas in Million Billion Media. I'm very big on going deeper rather than wider. So our clients that we have, I'm so invested in them as people. I know their birthdays. I found a cute store online that made personal dog collars and had their dog's name on it and the owner's number. Every client that had a dog, I ordered them one with their number on it and their name. It's those little things, like how nice that you just randomly receive a gift and it's got the dog's name and their number. I'm like, just in case Miles gets lost one day or something. Even clients I no longer work with, they've moved on to do other things. I still see them post videos of their dogs wearing those colors. I think just having that personal touch point is what turns people into advocates. They're investing in me. They're paying me for their marketing, so it's only fair that I invest myself into them and do things that are going beyond. Obviously we're all businesses, we have to make money, but showing just that human side. Just yesterday, I had a brand opportunity come up for a client that I no longer work with, but I passed it on to her and she was about to be paid $7 a month to promote another brand. She was like, please let me give you a cut of this because I'm not even on your books right now and you've passed this on to me. It's really important that I give you a cut of it. She also put something up on Instagram, being like, Million Billion Media are my besties. Thank you, Lucy.
It doesn't always have to be about the money. I think when you just do right by people, they'll do right by you. I don't know. I've been in business for a long time. I say that, and quite often this will happen. I've been screwed over a lot of times as well, but I will never change my mindset about that. No, I will always lead with kindness. I will always do the right thing by people in general, but especially my clients, because it does pay off in the long run.
Chelsea: I do love that you said that instead of going wider, you go deeper, which I think is very important. There is this misconception for small businesses sometimes where they think, well I just need customers. Any customer will do. But you know what? When you're spending money on your marketing, you need to be smarter about it or you're just going to be throwing that money away. You need to niche down and focus on the people that you can actually convert, people who actually will fit in with your brand. Because if you just throw that wide net out there and try to get anyone, okay, you might get one or two people that wouldn't consider making a purchase from you or being a part of your community or anything like that. But are they going to be re-occurring customers? Are they going to come back or are they just going to try this one time and be like, it wasn't for me?
Vivian: Well, and I think this also fits in with what we always drill home, which is you always have two camps. You have new customers. They're the lifeline of your business. But your existing customers are the people that are also the lifeline because it is much easier to get somebody to come back for a repeat purchase or to, like you said, maybe that person's not on your on your client list right now, but who's to say that in six months time she won't come back, right? Because she did have a good experience. You guys still have a good relationship, or that she's not sending people your way and saying, oh, hey, I know someone that can help you with that. So I do think that's where we make it so much about the dollars and cents sometimes, but we're not thinking about the, just like PR, right? It's the long-term game of it all.
Lucy: Yeah, absolutely. It's easier to retain a warm lead than to convert a cold lead. I need to run the numbers, but the majority of our clients will come back. They either drop off because they're not in a position to afford the retainer anymore, or they need to focus on other things. But most of them will either come back when they're ready, or they refer other people. I think that is so powerful. Those are the relationships that need to be focused on, not going out there and prospecting new clients or cold leads. These ones are already warm, they're already in your orbit. So that needs to be nourished more. I had a client recently that we brought on for PR and she's like, hey, should I send you my Instagram details so you can post on my Instagram? I was like, no, no, we're doing PR. We don't do your social media. We can do your social media, this is what it's going to cost. She's like, cool, send me the invoice. Done like that, because she was already invested. She knew that when you were doing with PR, she liked what we did. She didn't realize that didn't cover that (social media). But she was so happy to give that to us because she already liked what we did. That's what I mean when I say going deeper instead of wider. I've got our core group of clients, and we've had three times the amount of clients and it didn't work. I want to have a small amount and be able to know them so intrinsically that I can identify opportunities, roadblocks and speed bumps before they even know it.
Vivian: I love that, especially going back to what you said, going in vertical. It's just, if you're listening to this, think about your service lines or your products that you have. Is there a way for you to upsell, to go in and say, hey, you guys have been with us for three months and it seems like you're on track to hit these numbers. Or it looks like you really enjoy the service we're providing. Did you happen to know we also have X, Y, and Z and this kind of complements what we're doing on this end. If you guys don't ask or if you're not collecting the data to be able to see what services or products people are looking for, that's where you want to start. That data is going to allow you to do those things where you come in and say, hey, let me upsell them on something else because they know, like, and trust me already. They're likely going to be like, okay, I can try that for a couple months.
Chelsea: Let me give you guys a real life example of this. When I was in college, I worked for a waxing salon. I was the front desk. There were people who come in every month. They recognize me. I recognize them. We have, we had, I don't work there anymore. We had packages. Waxing packages, right? Where you could get a bundle, spend this much you get a wax free, stuff like that. So because I know these people so well when they'd come in I'd say, hey you come in every month. You've been here at least ten times. Why don't you just get this package? In the end you will be saving money. It's better for you. I'm trying to help you out here
Vivian: She's like, I also get a little commission off of it, but that's the thing. Knowing them and knowing what their patterns and behaviors are already. Also that they trust you enough to know that you're offering them something that is going to be a benefit to them. Like you said, I'm saving you money in the long run because you're going to be coming in month after month anyway.
Chelsea: Exactly. I'm not pitching this to someone that's only come into the salon one time, which I mean, I was technically supposed to do that, but I'm not going to do that because why would you get a package?
Lucy: I think in business, if you're going to save somebody time and you're going to save them money, those are the values that are going to get you across the line. No matter what your industry is, no matter what your expertise is. Saving time, saving money, and you can show that value, that's where you get them across the line.
Chelsea: I do have a question. This is going back a little bit, but I didn't want to forget this question. We're talking about going deeper with our clients, with our customers. There are some small business owners that don't necessarily feel comfortable giving so much of themselves to their audience. How would you, what would your suggestion be on finding that sweet line, that sweet spot of, I am giving you as much as I can give, but I also need to keep some for myself. Does that make sense?
Lucy: It is so important to have your boundaries and to set expectations. So in our onboarding package for our clients, we say before they sign the contract, before they come on board, these are our working hours. This is how you can contact us. You can send us a message on WhatsApp at 2am in the morning. I do not care that is fine, message us whenever. We will only get back to you during business hours. Don't expect a reply from us on weekends. Do I reply on weekends? Yes. Do I reply at 2 a.m.? Probably. However, clients know from day one that that's my prerogative to do it, but it's not an expectation. It is really important to have that work-life balance. I don't like that term work-life balance, there's never a balance, but you need to make sure you never burn out. Once you're burnt out, you're not good for you, you're not good for your clients. So just set that expectations at the start. Then just keep, just settle. If you're more of an introvert and you don't like that confrontation, they send a message at 7pm, be like, hey, just want to let you know I got this, I'll reply in the morning. It doesn't have to be a sit down conversation, but it is so important to make sure. It's not their fault, the clients, if you give them an inch, they'll run a mile. If you teach them that they should expect to reply at midnight, then they're going to expect that. So yeah, for us, I will bring it up all the time to our clients. I'm like, Hey, usually I don't message back at this time, usually I'm doing this, but I want to get back to you. I learned that very early in the beginning, when we had clients that would just constantly be like, it's been 30 minutes, you haven't replied to us. So now, it works, and I can always say, refer back to the email. Setting those expectations at the start for us has worked magic.
Vivian: I think that's great for any customer that you guys have, whether you're selling soap or you're selling jewelry or have a service. I always love bringing up insurance agents and Chelsea hates it. She's like, that is so, why are you always using insurance agents as examples? Some of the ways, the practical ways that you can do exactly what Lucy is saying is if you have an FAQ section on your website, put some of these commonly asked questions on there so when people are looking over your services, they know the expectation upfront. They know some of the things that are kosher and some of the things that are not. The other thing is like she said, onboarding. If you have an onboarding packet, create templates where your team or you can copy and paste stuff into emails and so that way you know that the verbiage is the same across the board for everybody. I think that those are small things that can make a big difference over time with the customer experience and all of that.
Lucy: It was really important for us because our customers and our clients are on all the social media channels and they'll follow us on TikTok, Instagram, Reddit, everywhere. So we always say that you can message us anywhere. We will always reply on WhatsApp. I've got eight different Instagram accounts. I've got a lot of different businesses, fingers in a lot of pies. I do miss things. I'll be so honest with them, I didn't see it. You need to message me on WhatsApp, that is the one channel I can guarantee you a reply. So by saying that, and they reply to my stories and things like that, they do interact with me on other platforms and my staff, but they know anything business stays within that one platform, stays on WhatsApp.
Chelsea: Our last key point when it comes to what small businesses can learn from the adult industry that I want to talk about is experimentation in marketing. I think this is going to be a really fun topic because one, I feel like small business owners don't like getting out there, experimenting with their marketing. They want to do what they know is "100% going to work". Is it 100% going to work? Could you find something else that's more efficient or effective? You won't know that unless you're experimenting.
Lucy: I think marketing is something that you can give yourself permission to have fun with. It's going on, doing an unboxing on TikTok. Say you're an influencer and you're trying to grow your influencer base. You're doing unboxing videos and that goes off for you. You've got one that's going viral. Double down on that. Experiment, but then identify. When you do your A-B testing, A is working better than B. So I'm going to double down on that. that is, I'm going to consistently deliver that. Marketing isn't something that needs to be stuffy. Yes, there's a little like strategy and numbers and data. I love that side of it, but I think sometimes we divert too far from the fact that we're all humans and being able to relate to people. That includes the good, the bad, the ugly. Some of the things that I've had go viral the most, engagement on social media has been just me doing something like so silly and something so even boring. I've hesitated about posting it, and then I posted it and people are like, oh my God, love this. That's so me, I can relate. It's marketing. It's not, you can have fun with it. At the end of the day, I think when you come across, and again, I don't like the word authentic because it's so overused, but when you go online and you can just show up as your authentic self, you're going to find people that are so invested in not only your story, but your business as well. This is why influencers who start a brand or shops, they just skyrocket because people are already invested. They have a customer base there, ready to go. So you're not going to be for everybody and that's okay, but the people who are invested in you will be deeply invested in you and they'll buy anything you're selling.
Vivian: This is the weirdest part about marketing and we 100% agree with you. We always call marketing an art because it is, it requires so much of your personality. As opposed to like a science, it's not always black and white. Also, if you're going to be a leader in something, you're going to feel pretty lonely because you're going to be the only one doing it. I saw recently Gwyneth Paltrow, they did an interview with her for Goop, her brand and someone was asking her, she was selling the Jade stones that you insert in the lady parts. The interviewer was giving her so much crap about it. She was like, well, you were selling it for $60. Gwyneth looked at her and said, we were really ahead of the game. We were two, three years ahead of the game. Everyone is selling them now. She's like, at the time we had to do the educating though, nobody knew about it. So wasn't that it was a bad idea. She doubled down on it. She was like, we were just years ahead and I was like, good for you, Gwyneth.
People are going to think you're a little bizarre if you're experimenting, trying new things until then it becomes the norm, right? By the time it becomes the norm, you're almost, I don't want to say you're too late at it, but that's just how things go. So I think 100%, you're absolutely right about that stuff. The other thing is we know small business owners, you're putting money into your marketing. We get it. It's hard. You don't want to think that you're being frivolous or that you've spent money on something that didn't work. Sometimes, you're not going to bat 10. I don't even know batting analogies. Why'd I bring that up? What is it? 10 out of 10. I don't even know what a good batting score is.
Chelsea: I don't know either.
Vivian: So, but you're not always going to hit a home run with stuff.
Chelsea: That was right.
Vivian: Okay. That one was good. Yeah.
Sometimes you're going to have a few things that don't work out, but then you know, great, that's probably not a good marketing channel for me. Let me try something else. To your point about not everyone is going to like you or you're not going to be for everybody. You guys, we didn't think this way. We didn't have this obsession with people liking us or everyone being agreeable to us when we were doing billboards. When we were doing magazine ads, like why is it that now when social media is in the mix, everyone's like, I just want to be liked. It's amazing to me.
Lucy: Unfortunately, no matter what role you're in or what business you're in, if you are successful, you will have haters, you will have trolls. I had a conversation with a journalist about, it was probably four years ago, so it was a long time ago, but it really, really stuck with me. I was talking about, this was back when I was an OnlyFans creator, and I was like, I have an article go viral and the comments are just vile. They are so disgusting, degrading, and you wonder how anyone could ever type that. She was like, yeah, I know what you mean. I get the same thing. I was like, what do you mean? You're a journalist. She's like, yeah, go to any article that has a woman in it and you read the comments. It doesn't matter if you're, Gwyneth Paltrow or Miley Cyrus or whatever. Tammy Hambro, the comments are disgusting. I just took a really weird sense of comfort from that. Like, you know what, it's not me. If you are doing well in life, the comment section will be disgusting. Hearing that, I don't know, this was a very pivotal moment for me because it just gave me permission to keep showing up online and being like, you know what, people are not going to like me because I'm doing well. I'm showing up on social media. Same as everyone else. If you're successful, people are going to not like that. It doesn't mean you stop being successful. It means you keep going.
Vivian: I wonder is this, does this happen to be the Mamma Mia reporter?
Lucy: No, it wasn't.
Vivian: Okay, so this is something I was telling Chelsea earlier that really intrigued me...
Chelsea: Can I say, I'm so sorry. I want to say real quick. I'm so sorry. We have haters to you all. Okay, like someone commented on one of our videos. Voices for TV, faces for radio like whatever. Or the one when they said, I don't want my marketing with boobs. I'm like, everybody wants their marketing with boobs because she was wearing a low cut, and it was even low cut. It was a regular dress. She's big chested. I'm sorry. What do you want her to do?
Lucy: It should have more boobs.
Chelsea: Honestly.
Vivian: Marketing and boobs.
Chelsea: Sorry.
Vivian: No, you're fine. But so what I love and maybe this kind of wraps everything up, but in the article from Mamma Mia in 2023, you were talking about when you first started on OnlyFans and you said that first month you made $3 from sticky beaks. Is that an Australian term or is that like a term that everyone uses?
Lucy: I thought it was a term that everyone uses. There's so much slang in Australia. I do these interviews and podcasts and I say something and people just look at me blankly. I'm like, that's Australian thing. Sorry.
Vivian: You guys tell us in the comments below, if you're listening to this, tell us in the comments below. Is that an Australian thing or is that like a, it might be a term that everyone uses and we just don't know about it.
Chelsea: That could be it.
Lucy: It's someone that's always in someone else's business. They're a bird and they're sticking their beak in all the time where they're not wanted. That's what sticky beaks means.
Vivian: Well, what I loved about it, though, is you said eventually, then you started making $3 a day from it. But my point in bringing that up is you guys, she just said it. She's like, no matter what, you're going to get hate for what you do. You're damned if you do and you're damned if you don't. So just do what aligns with you and what works for your small business. You're going to catch criticism anyway. The thing is, and I think for Chelsea and I, we've seen this in our what we're doing with, even just with like podcasting and you know this. You start a podcast and you're like, it takes time to grow it. So many people, they'll be like, are you guys doing it full time now? I'm like, that's not really how podcasting works when you start off. First you got to build it, build the machine before it's like bringing in all this money. People just, they always want to hate on the thing that they don't understand or they wish they could be doing.
Lucy: Exactly. I think as long as you remember why you're doing it, why you started doing your business or your podcast or whatever it is that you're doing. I always go back to my boys, my sons. I had two, now have three, a lot of boys. I look at them and I'm like, I love those little people so much. If that costs me the opinion of some people. If some people are talking badly about me or they don't like me. I'm sorry, maybe I should care, but I don't because my kids are in private schools and I can put a roof over their head and I can drop them off to school and that is worth everything to me. So for me, that is my why. Maybe somebody else wants to buy a house, they want to buy a car or they want to retire their parents. When you see someone's opinion and they're being mean in the comments, what's your goal? Do you want to buy your mum a house? Then who cares about that person? Go back to that.
Vivian: Awesome. I do, out of curiosity before we move past the marketing topic. I want to ask, what are you going to do with the buying an award, like the choice awards? Like what? How do you, I guess it's a business like any other and you're like, hey, you know what? I'm going to come in there, maybe make some changes, grow it, do all the things.
Lucy: Yeah, absolutely. It was such a random and quick acquisition for us. The opportunity just came up. Did I ever want to go buy an awards night? No. It was a funny thing. But the opportunity came up. For this industry, adult work and the sex work industry. I get very passionate about women being in control because we're the ones making the money. So it was important for me to acquire it and make it 100% female owned. I'm somebody who has done my time in the industry. I've worked really, really hard in it. I understand it from a different lens than perhaps somebody else would. So yeah, the opportunity just came up. I'm bringing in all of my network and my other businesses and I'm like, come on, you've got to sponsor it. You've got to sponsor it. You've got to get behind me. It just kinda worked.
So it's another, I guess feather in my cap, so to speak. It's like a Venn diagram. It works really well with what we do with Million Billion, because we work with so many businesses and OnlyFans creators. The Choice Awards is honoring those people. So it does go very hand in hand. The voting process is very transparent. You don't get any preferential awards or anything because you've worked with me or you're a client. It needs to be very, very fair. It's a new adventure, a new challenge and it's something that I'm really enjoying at the moment. It's the best fun.
Vivian: I think that is so exciting!
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Chelsea: I once worked with an ad agency where I had to go through and revise all their work because it would be laden with misspellings and wrong information. We were spending thousands of dollars for me to do double the work.
Vivian: Sometimes, you don’t need an ad agency - you just need resources to figure it out on your own.
Chelsea: That’s why we created the S.O.B. Community - for the small business owners who want to keep their marketing in house but still need some support.
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Lucy: I would just love to sum this up with saying that whether you're an OnlyFans creator, a business owner, you're a podcaster or something, someone that is just doing something for yourself, you will have people say, I like what you mentioned before, how's your little business going? Or are you still doing that? You will have that. You need to just cop it on the chin. I don't know if that's another Australian saying, but don't worry about it. Water off a duck's back, you keep going. You keep going, do not let those people deter you because every single, I'm sure like Steve Jobs or Elon Musk or anyone who has these billion dollar companies, they would have heard it all as well and they didn't let it stop them and neither should you. You keep going.
Chelsea: I love that message. I think that's the perfect point to end this conversation on. Y'all, for one, this was probably one of my favorite conversations.
Vivian: I knew it was going to be.
Chelsea: You know me so well.
Vivian: Well, can I tell you, we're obviously doing something right because we're starting to get more emails and stuff just about the podcast and all that. When Chelsea was like, I think this is a topic we really, really want to do. I was like, I 100 % agree. Then when we were researching you Lucy, congratulations. Like you really, I feel like moms can just conquer the world. Like moms, we don't have babies of our own, we have furry animals, but I feel like a mom's instinct and intuition to just want to do the best for her children and her family is just always like such a wonderful driving force. Look at everything that you have done that stemmed from one little feeling you had that you're like, this is it, enough is enough, we're not doing this.
Lucy: Thank you so much. It means a lot to me and yeah, I've been through a lot. I've been on a huge journey with this industry. However, I'm very lucky to be able look back and be like, you know what, that was a really good choice for me. And I'm grateful for all the support I've had along the way.
Chelsea: Thank you so much, Lucy, for talking with us. Open invitation to ever come back on if you have something that you want to talk about, please, please.
Vivian: Yes, come back. I'm wondering if we need to do a topic on putting together an event with your award ceremony and stuff because that's something not a lot of people talk about. That's very, I don't want to say stressful. I'm not scaring you guys, but I'm just saying, there's a lot of moving parts to events in general.
We want to hear your feedback if you guys are enjoying the topics we're covering. Also know that you guys have an open door to sending us any topic requests. Let me tell you something else. If you guys did not know, you could go to sobmarketing.com and if you go to contact us, you guys can leave us a voice message and you know what? We'll even play the voice message on our podcast.
Chelsea: Oh my God, I love it. Well, here's the thing. I'm glad you bring this up. We want to do an episode where we answer all of your guys's questions. So perfect. Leave us your question on a voice message. We'll play the message and we'll answer your questions kind of on air.
Vivian: Yes. Also it's a good shout out for your small business. So you can leave us your first name, your business name, maybe your website address, and then the question and we'll go ahead and address it here. But we appreciate you guys following us.
Chelsea: And go be the best SOB you can be.