How Creators Monetize Their Fanbase in 2026 and Beyond 🛒 E167

0:05Dan Fleyshman:Ladies and gentlemen, welcome to a special edition of the Money Mondays podcast where we cover three core topics, how to make money, how to invest money, how to give it away to charity. Over the years, we've done hundreds of episodes, mostly inside of an RV motorhome, but I've never done it in someone's bed. We are doing a podcast swap here. I did Tara's podcast last year. It was one of my favorite episodes I've ever done on someone else's podcast. so I decided why have her come out to the ranch and go on to the RV Motorhome? Why don't I come here to her domain, to her bed, and ask her those three important questions.

0:36Dan Fleyshman:So as you guys know, these podcast episodes are under 40 minutes because the average workout is 45 minutes, the average commute to work is 45 minutes. This episode will be between 35 and 38 minutes for your listening pleasure. Without further ado, Tara, give us the quick two-minute bio so we get straight to the money. Wow, that was a great introduction. Two-minute bio. I work with social media influencers. I have worked with them for about 12 years and I'm fascinated about the internet and how to make money on the internet. And so my whole entire life I've been, or the whole entire last 12 years, I've been focused on monetizing the internet.

1:10So it's what I surround myself with, what I'm addicted to learning, and that's what my business is about. All right.

1:16Dan Fleyshman:On the make money side, how can someone that's sitting there in the middle of Oklahoma, they just got their social media following going, they got their first 10 ,000, 20 ,000 followers, how can they start making money on the interwebs? Well, my favorite thing right now is that I have, obviously, you know, but I work with such big talent as millions of followers and their frustration is constantly that the internet has changed. And they're like, well, I don't want to post that much. I didn't used to have to post that much. I didn't have to do this before. I could just go up and do a quick dance and I went viral.

1:48And I was like, as they're complaining, the next person that has 3k followers, 4k followers is consistent and is going and is just utilizing all avenues posting on tiktok posting on instagram trials posting on reels and they're just being consistent and that person is getting so many more views and growing so quickly because of the consistency so what i've really seen now that it's a great opportunity is it really doesn't matter about how many followers you have and it matters about your consistency and yeah it's frustrating to the old generation of influencers, but new generation is you can get online, you can start being consistent and utilize the value of someone's attention on you and learn how and where you're going to monetize that.

2:33But when you're first starting out on the internet, I think you have to like fast forward about how is this going to monetize? Because there's so many avenues to monetize, but it all is dependent on your niche. And then fast forward, what lane can you monetize that in? so it's kind of a packed answer but it would depend on the niche let's let's give it to people

2:54Dan Fleyshman:that are listening like explain what your main company unruly the agency explain what unruly is so unruly is a social media marketing engine behind creators to actually monetize their direct fan base so depending on how they want to monetize or depending on the niche that they're in in social media our team then puts a plan and team behind them to monetize their fan base so they're not just reliant on a brand deal coming in. Because obviously, you know, in the past 10 years, social media has changed so much, but influencers previously only could make money if a brand came and sponsored them. And now it's going towards paywalls where it's anything with ads between content or subscriptions to get more access to you or courses, or there's so many different ways that you can monetize now your own fan base that are actually way more consistent revenue that allows you to scale.

3:45So once I know the niche a creator is in, then I try to sign them to one of our departments that fits their niche and helps them monetize there.

3:54Dan Fleyshman:At what point, at what size of an influencer should they consider going with an agency like Unruly or how long should they try to stick it out by themselves and try to juggle everything? That's a good question. Do you only take on big influencers that have millions and millions of followers or do you have 100 ,000 followers type influencers so i have i've had i had an influencer that only had a hundred thousand followers but she was being consistent i mean that's a lot to a lot of people but to when you're working in social media it's not that much um so she now has been consistent on trials she posts like three trials a day and now she's at 700k followers in less than a year um so she's very consistent so i also like to sign certain talent that i see have traction or their their videos stand up stand out and i can see that they're going somewhere um but i think the biggest thing with social media that i'm really um i've been thinking about a lot because my little sister got on the internet not too long ago and she's blowing up so quickly yeah and i was like it's so about like your energy.

5:02That's all that matters. Like everyone wants to figure out like what is the perfect thing on social media, but it's your ability to be comfortable with being seen and not being liked by everyone. And if you have that, then you can grow on social media, but you have to first like unwind the part of you that is a people pleaser and wants everyone to agree with you. And it wants to be understood because if you want that, you kind of blend in on social media and you're trying to explain everything or you're trying to be liked by everyone and you'll never stand out. So like a lot of times you should really just get comfortable with being your authentic self and being comfortable with not everyone liking you and not resonating with you.

5:38And that's a big step. So I have seen like people come on the internet and explode very quickly, but it's like their comfort with being exactly who they are or like being okay with not being liked by everyone. So there's also that there's a whole energy behind it too.

5:51Dan Fleyshman:So this is something very important for you guys. It is literally impossible for everyone to like you on social media content yes let me give an example jay-z is one of the greatest of all time when i say that half of you might think i'm wrong this president half people hate him this kardashian half the people hate them when i say half i'm talking about hundreds of millions of people think that she sucks and he's evil and this person did that and that person did this and conspiracy theory that no matter what they do household name that beyonce jennifer lopez have haters haters and trolls no matter who they are.

6:25Dan Fleyshman:I could keep going on every major celebrity, politician, athlete, business mogul. I talk about Michael Jordan. To me, that's the greatest NBA player of all time. And you might be like, Michael Jordan sucks compared to this person, this person, this person. So we have to get past the mental part of it. Nothing you do will make everyone happy. And you don't have to. Not everyone's going to be your cup of tea. But people that don't like you, I pinky swear they're actually your fan. Yeah. All right. So why did you decide to start Unruly? Why did you decide to start an agency to begin with wait i want to touch on what you just said so impactful my little sister came to me when i was like um on a trip and she called me and she's like people are making fun of me at school like they're clipping me and i was like what's clipping it's like a new thing for kids they'll like take a screenshot of your face in the middle of your talking and making a weird face and then they add it like a little basically gif like an emoji cutting your a photo of your face and commenting on it and then i was like and then she's like yeah and they made fun of me and i and i was like anyone that is taking the time to clip you and hate on you is a fan like you said and one of another person obsessed with you yeah how much time and energy it takes to do what you just said take someone's image and add little bubbles and comments like oh my god you're obsessed exactly and i was telling her like i didn't have a me back when i was her age but i was i explained it and i shaped it for her i'm like anyone that is taking the time out of their day so now she sees it and she's like you're right so now she keeps going.

7:52But I can imagine how many people don't have that ability to think that way or have that mentality or have people around them that keep them inspired and they quit or they, you know, let themselves down even in their career. They're doing something, they hear one negative comment and then they go and retreat. So it's just so interesting that it happens in all areas. But another person that's growing really quickly on the internet also told me, they were like, I leave the hate comments and I leave anything negative because I want people to talk in the comments.

8:24Dan Fleyshman:You leave that. That's how the engagement happens. Yeah. Like if everyone, like it's then everyone's talking back to each other and it's growing your video. He got like completely comfortable with people not liking him and the people that like him will like him and people that don't don't. It's like, that's a hard thing to do. What I'm wavering with, which I'm curious with you. Well, you're so beyond successful at this point. So what I have a hard time with is I'm still like, I've had my business for seven years. I still have so much more I want to build. I have this podcast myself. I have a hard time with, I, I'm very, very much my authentic self, but there's still a part of me that there's certain things that I feel like I can't say because I own a business and that is kind of true.

9:09There's no other way to look at it.

9:10Dan Fleyshman:It is true. So I tell influencers and here's why. Not just influencers, but business people, people that have a following or have a presence or a power. There are certain things that you do not talk about because no matter what you do, people are going to be mad at you and you can never change their minds. Race, sex, and religion. When in politics, that's obvious. Yes. Let me give you an example. If we went into that closet and I took someone that loves Trump and the other person loves Biden and I put them in there for two hours nothing and I mean zero percent would change that they walk out of that door like you know what you're right I like Trump too never not one out of a hundred not one of a million just never if I put someone who's Jewish and Muslim in there and they go argue and talk it out whether it's one hour one day or one year they're never coming out like you know what I'm switching to Judaism never not one in a million times so when you talk about those things can you talk about it from yourself for sure if you're want to talk about your politics your views or your religion go for it but if you try to argue with people and tell them that they are wrong about their religion or they're wrong about their politics nothing you can do is going to change their minds about it when you start to dive into those those topics the people that agree with you can't agree with you anymore they're capped right boom they can't they agree with you 100 i like that republican democratic jewish christian whatever the thing is that boom they agree with you people that don't agree with you will never agree with you why do you want to fight that fight you can't win the fight you're going into a battle with hundreds and hundreds of people that have their little bb guns pointing at you and you can't win because you'll never change their minds and so i know sometimes you're like i want to post about this situation that happened or this crazy thing that happened in the news when you do those things you're just causing conflict for your own mind and nothing's going to change unfortunately a hundred 100%.

11:00Dan Fleyshman:And so from a business person's perspective, yes. You have to avoid certain topics because nothing good can come from it. There's oftentimes situations arise in culture. People message me like, why aren't you posting about it? Nothing I post about was going to change the war going on overseas. I would like it to change for both parties. That doesn't matter. Exactly. And me posting about it is just going to cause everyone to argue about it and fight with each other, and I'm not interested in that. would I want them to argue about things like peptides or cryptocurrency or is LeBron or Jordan better for sure let them argue all the time if you look at this podcast is literally coming out next week if you look at my post from last week I wrote asking people about peptides I got hundreds and hundreds of comments everyone arguing with each other about things I can't spell retrospective side and like I don't know what they're talking about and they're just talking about why they should peptide stack I'd let them argue all day When I posted a few weeks ago about the war, oh my God.

11:56Dan Fleyshman:And I was asking a question. Just by asking a question. I didn't say what side I'm on. I didn't say anything. Thousands of comments. Wow. Just ripping each other to shreds. And people were threatening each other. And those I delete. When they start to get mean or rude at each other, I delete those. Wow. You're the first person to ever get me to not talk about money or business on this podcast, by the way. Sorry. In 300 episodes. Okay. Back to business. so you have another sister that also creates content and she's making dating content and giving relationship advice her engagement is going crazy but also people are arguing right have you talked to her about her thoughts on it yeah i was gonna say for her specifically is like the next step for that is to make money on either going live like on twitch tiktok so forth and making a dating course because like if you're in a dating niche these are the obvious ways to make money or making your own book.

12:49Um, but yeah, she's gotten comfortable. Initially when she wanted to start making content, she actually blocked a lot of her friends. She unfollowed a bunch of them, certain friends. I'm like, you're just going to block them. They're going to think you were in a fight. I was like, you didn't tell them. She's like, it's fine. By the time they notice whatever, I'm like, some people are not even going to ask you. They're just going to assume you're mad at them.

13:08Dan Fleyshman:Whatever. But she didn't want them to see her Instagram posts. Yeah, you can reverse mute or they don't see your stuff. Really? I'll talk about it. Oh, wow, that's a great one. But yes, a lot of times, well, at the end of the day, what we're realizing is the internet is growing so quickly. Same with AI. All these things are happening so fast. And there's so many ways to make money on the internet currently. And another thing I was talking about earlier was, depending on the way you look at the world is what you're going to see. So if you constantly wake up every day and you're starting to say to yourself, There are so many ways to make money.

13:44Holy shit. There's so many ways to make money. You'll start to be aligned with people coming to you randomly and saying, hey, I can, this is something that happened to me the other day. Some guy was telling me about how he's made millions of dollars making like those videos on YouTube where it's like a fireplace. And it's just, you know, some people like put that on on the holidays. They'll just put the fireplace on and it's not because they don't have a fireplace. He's making millions of dollars a year by making these like little things that people just play for hours. there's so many unique ways to make money on the internet, but it's once you start to really believe that, think that.

14:19So you could even be in a place where you want to be talent in front of the camera, or you can be completely not, and figure out ways to make money on the internet. It's the most valuable thing, I think.

14:31Dan Fleyshman:So Unruly is known as one of the biggest agencies. You guys throw the biggest events. For sure, the Halloween party has owned the market in the live event space. talk us through why an agency that's focused on only fans here creators here bringing in revenue for brand deals throwing events at coachella and everywhere in between why did you decide to throw these big huge events especially the halloween events i think that what i really quickly got into the industry was obviously figuring out a way to build a brand i've always known that having a brand is more valuable than anything else because when you're a known brand you can mold and shape and do other things because people recognize your name.

15:12And so I always think about the first time that when Snapchat came out, people looked at it as a nudes platform, like to send nudes and to get deleted. And now it's the most kid-friendly PG. Kids are allowed to have Snapchat, but they're not allowed to have Instagram. And so it's all about like, once you become known, you can transform and change the way people look at you. You can come from one thing into another, but the hardest thing to do is to become known and become a name. But to build a brand, you have to build a message behind what you're doing. It needs to like stand alone and be its own personality.

15:49So Unruly is all about like breaking the normal and doing things the untraditional route. OnlyFans, very triggering to people. That's a huge part of my business is helping creators monetize on OnlyFans. It's doing something completely opposite than anyone accepts. but since then I've created so many other avenues to making money. I think that on the internet, what I liked about OnlyFans from the beginning that I saw was I helped creators in so many different ways monetize. But when you're creating like your own product, there's only a very small amount of your fan base that would monetize for a hairbrush or a new shampoo, no matter how many times you promote it, there's only a very small percentage of your audience that's going to convert.

16:34when I saw the OnlyFans platform, I was like, people can pay to talk to you. People could pay to see the inside of your house. And so people look at it as sexual and they get triggered. But I saw it as an opportunity to have more access to you. And that was the only platform at that time that existed as a paywall to get more access. So I helped creators set up a lot of them without even doing nudity, but just to get more access. Cause I was like, okay, if a creator launches on a platform where people can pay to get access to them, there's 100 % of their audience that is following them for them.

17:08So how big of that percentage are actually going to convert to get more of them? A lot more than would buy a hairbrush. So that's when the light bulb went off and I was like, holy shit. So I put my marketing background and all the other ways I've monetized into this platform and built a team behind that. And it exploded on the internet and we launched at the right time. We're the first company in the space to help creators in that lane, especially because it was taboo. Since then, I've brought in so many other revenue streams, some Snapchat monetization, podcasting, TikTok, multiple other paywalls that are completely brand friendly.

17:46And so I've really expanded since then. But the reason why I throw the events is because it's all about creating the name in the community. But it's so exciting because there's times I've gone to like other countries, like I went to Dubai and I've said Unruly and people are like you're that's unruly like people around the world have heard about it so it's like really great to know but i think that all comes from building community around your brand and now the smartest brands know that i think the first brand on the internet that really created community was revolve in my eyes because they did the trips and so forth it was more than just the clothes it's like what does it mean to be a part of revolve and since then all these brands have realized they need to start creating culture around their products like you should be the cool one to get because that's more valuable than anything else right like once you're like a cool once you're cool there's no value on what you cost and you can't buy cool yeah you can't buy cool plenty of brands try yeah plenty of brands go to coachella they're not cool and they'll never

18:47Dan Fleyshman:be cool no they can book any artist they want they're still not cool i know say cool is an interesting one i feel like i can make someone cool but you can't make someone cool that doesn't understand what cool is either from a brand perspective you have hundreds and hundreds of influencers under unruly that have hundreds and hundreds of millions of followers and so as they're posting as they're talking as they're traveling as they're just living their lives naturally the unruly brand is being built because it's part of who they are it's right so that's their management firm that they work with that's and when they go to the events and you've got 2 000 influencers there and they all get their cameras out because you've got tiger whoever's performing on stage 2 000 influencers times that by a million followers 100 000 followers time anything times 2 000 it's a lot right and so sometimes we don't even realize how big the brand is because you're like wait a minute i've done that party year after year 2 000 people 2 000 people 2 000 people and they all posted for like four hours a night and then they posted their pictures the next day then they posted a recap three days later and like you ended up with tens of thousands of post about your party you know and think about the math on that when you've got hundreds of influencers and thousands of people that attended posting tens of thousands of times and then also on top of that even though this isn't as big but people talking about it was leading up the amount the amount of people are talking about in la like how do i again get in right are you going like even just the word of mouth yes for sure okay these influencers start making money and some influencers are making 10 grand a month, 50 grand a month.

20:19Dan Fleyshman:You have influencers making hundreds of thousands of dollars a month and some of them making millions of dollars a month. Have you ever had to have like the heart to heart talk with them about investing their money and not going broke? Like a lot of athletes have gone through. I try to not get involved. I try to not give financial advice. It's like the political thing to say. I like always recommend that they should get like a financial advisor but I don't recommend a certain one and I don't go into like how they should invest their money I have like thought about it but I don't have a obviously the licensing and all that stuff to do it but at the end of the day I think that no I'm not having that conversation in the depth that I should that's just the reality well it's a lot of sports agents don't either right they get these athletes they get a 19 year old kid yesterday there's a big draft yesterday a kid's going to get like 50 million 100 million dollars someone has to have a talk with them it doesn't necessarily have to be you but it is something that's happening now that you are creating hundreds of millionaires and what happens next year and they make another million and then three years from now they're still with unruly and they made four million and they're with you 10 years from now and you've got them a snapchat deal a tv deal a podcast deal a brand deal they got the clothing brand and some of your influencers are making 10 20 30 million dollars again it's not necessarily for you it's not your not your job necessarily but it is something that is accumulating because you were creating so so much wealth amongst your crew i think the biggest the hardest thing about creators um and even athletes and these people is like when they're not going after the when they're going after more of like creative and passion and they're not focused on any like business stuff communicating to them where they should put their money sometimes it's hard sure like because they don't even a lot of them don't even fully understand the the basic fundamentals of running a business and so that also helps you with understanding like how to understand money so also like it's like such a new language for them so it's always just dependent on the creator and at the end of the day yes I will always say to them like if they ask me like what should I do with my taxes or what should I do with this I always just feel like you should definitely get a financial advisor.

22:35That person is going to help you with all this. So I do recommend it, but I don't help them in detail. And I think some of them do it and then some of them don't and just assume that they're going to make this type of money forever. Right.

22:45Dan Fleyshman:Yeah. The whole point of the money, money is podcast is to have very blunt discussions. Yeah. My concern always is someone is in a category, whether it's an athlete, a musician, an influencer, or someone that's with your agency and they're just crushing it and they don't realize that at some point something could turn off snapchat snapchat gets acquired maybe the snapchat monetization goes away if only fans gets acquired maybe they change how it's done or how the execution is if ai keeps getting better and better better something could happen in certain categories and so having the blunt discussions about setting aside investment money that's hard to a 22 year old a 28 year old and even a 60 year old it's hard to have those discussions because they're just thinking that the money's going to come in forever that's literally what the podcast is for i want to have blunt discussions with it and we're it it scares me and it's frustrating when i watch household name athletes make a hundred million dollars and they need to borrow 20 grand for me because they lost a hundred million dollars and i think about all the time and i have this thing inside of me because i've been doing my influencer agency since 15 years ago the word influencer didn't exist i was driving around these streets of la down below where we're at right now dropping off fit tea and fashion nova that, you know.

24:01Yeah, the first brands of our times on the internet.

24:05Dan Fleyshman:And I'm showing up to Amber Rose's house with$20 ,000 in cash. I twisted into Rose's asking her to post about Fashion Nova in 50. Like, but certain characters like that, she's now still 15 years later crushing it, still making money, still staying relevant, still staying. But a lot of them don't. There's influencers back then at the same time. Oh yeah, that you know where to be found. You wouldn't know who they were if they walked in right now. Household names back then that we wouldn't know. So, okay. What about you? On the investing side, you built this business. Have you started considering investing into real estate, stock market, other businesses, et cetera?

24:39I'm going to, I'm like at the very beginning of going to get my own financial advisor. I don't have one, but I have like a CFO and all this stuff. So like most of the money is in the company. So that's all being organized. Personally, I've invested in crypto. I have a good amount of money in crypto. I have some money in Robinhood. and I'd have like money in Rockefeller that's being invested by some like financial advisors but no like dedicated person that I'm meeting with like my dream is to have someone dedicated that I meet with every month and is constantly like planning with me not like oh I'm gonna take your money and I'll you know make it make you money and we'll talk in like six months or

25:20Dan Fleyshman:something you're like okay how much percentage should it make that's what I have now got it Um, but yeah, no one that's like sitting with you planning your future. That's like the next step I think. But the first step is great is like putting your money in some investments, at least doing some, some of it. So I definitely have more than the average person of planning, but not at the level I would like to, not to build long-term wealth to be able to retire. So I'm going to introduce you to some multiple options so you can pick and choose if you like any of them. Yes. one of them in particular I think you're going to like because I introduced them for Jake and he's liked them for years and they've done a lot of great investing for them they're with one of the biggest firms in the world but are still like cool they can still talk to you and hang out and they go to boxing matches and they understand the influencer world okay on the charity side so we watch a lot of times influencers or people in general especially athletes start to make a lot of money but are not really sure how to get involved in charity or they're concerned like, I don't want to just donate money or what should I do?

26:23Dan Fleyshman:What charity should I be involved in? Has there been any philanthropy that you've seen like, you know, I would like to support that type of charity or I have been involved in that charity or I want to get involved in those type of things? I feel like the next move for me is some, at some point is a charity aspect to our business and like helping a charity. But I more so, like I've dabbled at the thought of like changing into our events to be a part of a charity. Um, but, or yeah, so I just don't, I don't know enough about that world, but obviously it's, it's great. And I just don't know enough about it on how to implement it, but it is something at some point I would like to do.

27:04I think I love, we were talking about it the other day on my, on a team call. We're like, I think anything to do with like helping children, cats, dogs, animals is always an easy, like neutral one that everyone loves.

27:15Dan Fleyshman:So the best way to find a charity for you guys that are out there listening is it has to be something you're emotional about. It's either impacted you or someone that you love. So if someone that you love had breast cancer, you will be more passionate to call people, text, post on social to get people to show up to a breast cancer awareness event because someone in your life was impacted. If someone in your life was homeless, you are more likely to go to a homeless shelter because you care about it. if your grandparents had a certain type of disease like dementia you're more likely to care about it because they went through it so when you think about for your life if there's something that impacted you from your childhood from health something going on with your body or health or someone in your life you need some type of spark or passion and it's typically to be by someone being impacted in your ecosystem all right so there's only one question i ask it's a repeat question on every single episode and I've never gotten the same answer.