I'm selling my Skool community on YouTube with all the lessons I've learned from OnlyFans creators selling their businesses. What I've been doing that hasn't been working with Skool is trying to sell it off of logic — the pitch that you can get something. Whereas what OnlyFans creators are doing is selling the relationship. They sell access. They sell closeness, proximity, a two-way communication. I've been having trouble selling my community because I haven't made it clear what's valuable about it, why you'd want to join it. But I'm grateful we do have 16 members in my Skool total right now, and somebody has been joining every day since I started this new way of thinking about it and since I dropped the price down. The OnlyFans creators are selling at a minimum of about $9 a month, and they sell it based on the relationship.
I think Skool and community relationship-based selling is the future — one of the best ways you can possibly monetize on YouTube going forward — because almost all content creation is one-directional. I'm talking to you, but you're not getting to talk back to me. What I've seen from the OnlyFans creators is that they have business systems where the whole basic idea is getting people in there so they have access, and that access is what's valuable — not just the course that's in there, not the exact feature. It's more like: hey, if you want to be somebody I know by name, if you want access to message me, to have me make a private video for you, that's what you're joining for. Now, I will be keeping all my stuff business-related, in real life, and personal — we're not doing any of the OnlyFans kind of content. But it is the same basic idea: if you want anything from me, if you want me to pay attention to you, it's all in one place, currently hosted on Skool. Everything I have to offer beyond the videos I put out on YouTube will all be in this one place. And there are premium tiers for YouTube coaching, or any kind of coaching, or just to have a one-on-one call with me, where you can step the relationship up to where I actually know your face.
The Community Is the Product
The beauty is that this is meaningful for me, too. If I just try to sell you products or courses or books or whatever, I don't get to know you any better. But I love getting to know those of you who are following me and who care enough to put some money into supporting me every month. Some of you send me a lot of direct messages and send me YouTube videos to watch. I'd like you all to post and introduce yourself to the whole community when you join. There's also an affiliate system where you get 40% lifetime recurring commissions for anyone else you bring in. So if you have a few friends, or if you're a content creator — like Blockchain Pill has been doing, recommending the Skool to his viewers — you're going to be able to get a little bit of that. It's a perfect setup where you could react to one of my videos and share the community with your audience.
This is really nice, because I need relationships with you all, and I need a way to filter. When I'm just reading all these YouTube comments, I'm not filtering — I'm getting all these people who don't care about me, who want me to fail, who are there just to try and make me feel bad, or just trying to make everybody feel bad. Whereas in the Skool community, we're all gathered for a common purpose: you all love my videos and want to support me. That makes for a sense of belonging, which is why I've called it the Jerry Banfield Family.
This is why I've finally gotten clear. I've been selling information. I've been selling the idea that you can go in the Skool and get these guides, or that I'll put these courses in there. But the community is the product, and the community is formed around having a two-way connection with me. I deliver a whole bunch of value for free in these videos, and then I can deliver more value than that inside the Skool community. I mostly watch content and read messages from people in the Skool — or from people like Bobby, whose channel I'm a member of. He watches my videos, I watch his videos. To me, it's really important in life to have as many mutual, reciprocal relationships as possible, and having a platform like Skool gives you the chance to have those two-way relationships. I'd much prefer to watch a video that you've made, or listen to a song that's been important to you, rather than just go out there and find some random thing in an algorithm.
Why I Stay Out of the Algorithm Buffet
I see relationship-based communities being really important going forward as AI continues to just feed us everything, and as more and more people get tired of using algorithms. I can't stand to even go on the YouTube home feed today. It feels like this: if I want to eat healthy, going out to some buffet — yes, there's certainly a healthy food or two I could find, but I've got to be around all this other food that's tempting and actually doesn't nourish my body. So I'd rather just not go to the buffet. I'd rather go to the grocery store and get exactly what I need, then make that at home and invite people to eat with me. I'd rather make my own food than go out to eat most of the time. And this is the same thing.
As a content creator, as a YouTuber, it is very important what content I take in. One way I stay somewhat pure and out of the tricks is I avoid watching all this crap on YouTube that's being pushed by the algorithm — pushed mostly by people who are essentially unconscious, asleep, and by bots pushing stuff, ads pushing stuff, special interests, relationships, and sensational content. The YouTube coaching space is disgusting. It's people showing one little setting you can change, with a thumbnail like ten views with the setting off and a million views with the setting on. That disgusts me. I'm not going to watch your video because of that clickbait crap — I don't care if you have anything useful to say. At most, I'll put your video in Gemini, summarize the key points, and then critique how shallow it is.
So to me, it's important that I don't take in all this garbage content, and the main way to avoid garbage content is to have relationships with people who go through the content for me — then you can help me. It might not be as important in your life whether you take in garbage content or not, because what comes out of your mouth at work might not be as high-stakes as it is for me. My whole life is based on what I put in and then what comes out. The more junk information I take in, the more junk information I put out, which to me reduces the value of what I have to zero. Now, I could probably make a lot more money in the short term putting out junk information — just jumping on every garbage narrative that's pushed by bots and unconscious users scrolling blindly in the algorithm, jumping on every little reaction-video trend. I could do that, but I don't, because that's not good for you. And it's not good for me either.
From Lonely Creator to Two-Way Relationships
What is good for me is to have relationships. I've often been pretty lonely as a creator. I've been lonely as a creator and struggled to really know my audience. So I want to know you as my audience. I want to know your face. You can send me videos. You can post videos to the group. And I'd like to be available if you want me to do something specific for you — like, "Hey, can you make a video just for me to review this coin, or review my whole crypto portfolio?" That's where, similar to OnlyFans, it's a perfect spot for an upsell. Sure, you want me to review your ten-coin portfolio? I'll run my ChatGPT research, then I'll make you a custom video just for you, and I'll give you a price for that. So it's great, because you have a place where you can ask me for favors. Or if you're in town in St. Petersburg, Florida, you can say, "Hey, I'm in town — are you available?" And then we could go from there.
If you're going to watch somebody, you should have a relationship with them. You should not be watching people where you're just taking in everything they have to say. Ideally, this is how it should work: you shouldn't be watching people where it's just them talking at you, because that's an unnatural relationship. I know most of us are used to it, but for me, having mutual two-way communication is very important — and I know how ironic that sounds, since most of you have no two-way relationship with me. But I've set it up.
This, to me, is the future of my income. And what's nice is that the bigger the Skool gets, the less I have to depend on algorithms. If I have all my hundred true fans sitting in the Skool, and I have all your emails in case something ever happens with Skool, I don't have to worry about algorithms anymore. You've got my content there. You've got access to me there. This gets me off of being an algorithm slave, and it gets you off of just being a consumer — it puts you in a position to go back and forth, to have more of an equal connection. I know that's the future of my income. I would love it if, for everybody whose videos I watch, I had the ability to direct message them. I would love to be able to ask them to make a particular video about a particular subject.
So to me, if you want to monetize on YouTube, having something like Skool is the way to go — and I share a lot more on growing and monetizing a channel in my YouTube Coaching playlist. When you have something like Skool, you have a relationship that can last over a long period of time and give you a sense of depth, whereas just watching videos ends up being so shallow and transactional a lot of the time. I know that for many of you, my videos have made a big difference in your life. Come tell me about it and build a two-way relationship.
I need to know you, because it's hard to serve you if I don't know you. If this was helpful, here's what to do: introduce yourself and help me get to know you.