Speaking about profits - last week a subscriber reached out to me and asked me where she could wire me money. She’d love to donate something to appreciate the free advice buffet I served over the past year.
Actually, it was the second person that asked me.
And while I still feel flattered, I want to give you this advice (again). People want to support you if you bring them value.
Now, value is so subjective, there’s no right or wrong.
No matter what you do or where you do it.
If what you do is valuable to someone, they most likely want to give back in some way.
It’s the reciprocity effect.
So, I thought about it because I’m like many artists I know - a weird creative mind who struggles with receiving money for something they love to give (for free).
But let’s be real. Why should I say no? Because I feel I’m not good enough yet? Or because I don’t deserve it? Or because I give the advice because I love to give it? Or because I label it as “for free”? Or because other (random) people think bad of me if I do?
Well, excuses. I used to be very good with them when it came to receiving money. I’m making progress.
So I set up a PayPal.me button.
Here’s a step-by-step guide on how to do it.
First, for your own sake, you should get a PayPal business account. It’s set up quite easily and it’s always nice to have one if you’re running a serious music business. And, you’re not paying any monthly or yearly fees. Only the usual percentages they take for each transaction.
Next, you want to log in to your PayPal business account and set up a PayPal.me URL. Just go to paypal.me and register. But be careful. The URL can’t be changed. Ever. So pick a name that would work even if you renamed and rebranded yourself.
Once you have the URL, you can create a new page on your website, add some nice text and images, and send people to it. Or you just link to your URL in your footer. Or you send people directly to the URL.
Pro tip: Use a link shortening service like bit.ly to turn your URL into something really short.
Another pro tip: Give people the option to choose. You can use the URL and add a slash (/) and a number. If you do this with 5, 10 and 20, you could create three different links and send people directly to the prefilled URLs. For example, paypal.me/yourartistname/10.
Last but not least pro tip: Add a link (your domain or the PayPal URL) to your multi-link page on Instagram so people see this option when they check you out.
So here you have it. An easy way to let people give you money for the value that you bring to them. Be it as a musician, as a speaker, a role-model or inspiration, or something completely different.
What’s the weirdest story you experienced in your creative career so far? I’d love to hear it from you. Hit reply and tell me 🙂
P.S. If you wanna see my donate button in action, here you find it.