The Rundown on Direct Selling

TLDR: Here is a truncated version of the transcript for the podcast episode above. There is a giant compilation of direct selling resources that have been posted publicly all collected at the bottom of the page! All resources linked to the Creators Spicy Tea Patreon have been made available to either the public, or the following tier which is free to join.

So first, let’s start with what are direct sales?

They are an individual transaction between you, the creator, and an individual buyer. There is no end to the things you can offer. Some examples are GFES or girlfriend experience. There are custom videos you can make or custom photo sets, or live services like sexting or camming. All of those and so many more.

As long as you are selling those services or contents off of a platform, that is a direct sale. So what do I mean when I say off platform? So when I say that, I am referring to platforms that are adult content hosting sites. So that would be manyvids or OnlyFans or Fansly or clip sites, you name it. Those are all adult content hosting sites. So if we have those, what the hell is the point of leaving the platform and selling elsewhere?

There are many. There are many, many pros of direct sales.

• The first one, there is no platform taking a cut of your shit. I don’t know about you, but every time I look at my OnlyFans earning statistics and I see my gross amount compared to my net amount I have earned, I want to pull my hair out. That is my work, my time, my energy, and it should be my income. Don’t get me wrong, I understand they need to pay bills too, but in my opinion, it should not be at my labor’s expense. So we don’t have that platform taking a cut, which is awesome.
• Another pro in comparison of platform based content and direct sales there is no content restriction. You can say, hi, it’s nice to meet you, and you’re not going to get a box saying that is a restricted word. And there is no restriction on what content you can make because the terms of service are your own. I’ve found this helped me tailor my niche and my own interests in creating. Please always remain within the bounds of your local and federal governing bodies.
• Another huge pro for me personally has been creating long term business relationships with buyers on my terms. In direct selling, it is all one on one. So you need to be more personable, more customer service focused with your buyer. Is that more work? Yes. Is it generally worth it? Absolutely.
• My number one pro I have found from direct selling is of course, the financial benefit. I would say about 90% of my monthly income comes from direct sales and I could comfortably leave all platforms and fully depend on it.

But it is not all peaches and cream, rainbows and butterflies. In the world of direct sales, there are genuine, true risks. Here and we’re going to touch base on each and every one.

• If you’re selling directly, you’re at a higher risk of leaks. So why are you at a higher risk rather than when you’re on a platform? Because a lot of platforms are streaming only platforms. People can’t download it, don’t get me wrong, screen recording, no one can stop that shit. But when you are direct selling, you are sending someone the actual file of your content. So the two ways I use to send content are Dropbox links (be sure to read TOS!!!) and Telegram. Both of those can be downloaded and then re uploaded who the fuck knows where.
• The scams. The scams are the same as the ones in OnlyFans, except they can be a little bit trickier. I want to give a very serious example and that is when I was blackmailed. It’s not necessarily just a scam, but it’s the next level and it’s something that can happen to anyone, even if you’re just selling on a platform. But for me it was a little bit scarier because this person messaged me on my selling platform, which is Reddit and they messaged me and they said my name, my full name, my phone number, my address, my everything. They had all of that information and they said so I can send you my cash app and go. It’s up to you. Fuck that, fuck them. Don’t fall for that shit. The second you tell them yes, I will pay you, they know you have money and they know you are willing to protect yourself like that. So they know they can extort you for more in time.
• Back to a more serious con. Taxes are a pain in the dick. They really are. And if you don’t think you need to be paying quarterly taxes, I implore you to reconsider because anybody who is going to owe in the US more than $1,000 in taxes needs to be paying quarterly taxes. Taxes are more complex because our finances are coming from so many different sources. For me personally, I give buyers three payment options so that means I’m going to pay for filing three 1099s now. I am such a pusher for this. Just get a CPA, just get an accounting team. It is so much better and so much easier to pay for these teams now and let them take over than it is to go through an audit by the IRS and have to deal with it on your own. Take the easy way out, get the CPA, because direct selling taxes are a lot of a pain in the ass.
• Another scary potential con (more of a pain in the ass when done right) comes with the process of age verification. Even though you are directly selling, you are still your own business. You are a type of sole proprietor. So you are responsible as a business owner to not sell sexually explicit content to a minor or engage it in any form of contact or sensual, sexual, anything with a minor. You fail to do this and you sell to a minor, likely it won’t even be caught. But more importantly, mama bears don’t fuck around. And if they see a dick rate where you are holding an image of their son’s schlong, they’re going to find you, they will hunt you down, and you will be on that list so fast it’s not even funny. Not only that, if the IRS audits you and they get concerned there is some underage activity, they’ll take it from there and then you’re dealing with government bodies. So we age verify.
• So leaks and what was listed above are some of the scarier things, but something significantly less scary and exceptionally more annoying. Time wasters and scams are everywhere, starting just with time wasters. When you’re direct selling, you can’t really turn off your DMs or expect a tip for a DM. It’s just not necessarily how that goes. So you’re going to get a lot more people who just want to chat, who just want to see how far they can push you and how much conversation and time and energy they can get out of you. For me to prevent this, I give every potential buyer five messages from me. If in the first five messages they don’t seem like they are going to make an active purchase, I let them know:

I’m so sorry, I have someone needing my attention who wants to create together. I’m going to have to let you go for the day. If you ever want anything, you let me know.

All right, so we’ve touched on the pros and cons, the scary stuff, the good stuff. Let’s get into how to do the stuff. How to do direct sales. First off, where the hell do you do it? If you’re not on a platform, where are you?

Might surprise you. For example,  for me, I sell on Reddit. I am on Reddit. I am on sex sells. I am on Fetish buyer community. I am on all those subreddits selling my ass off. There is a flourishing community of creators and buyers on Reddit. I cannot suggest checking it out more. I will tell you the verification process of most of those subreddits are a pain in the ass.

I can also tell you your bank account will thank you for doing the pain in the ass things.

So another place that I know of and have no experience direct selling on is Twitter/ X. You can direct sell on Twitter/ X as well. Again, I don’t have any personal experience doing so I highly intend on bringing in a creator who does.

And then another place where direct sales happen that not everyone quite realizes is direct selling. Snapchat premium or those discord servers or even those newly coming into use telegram channels! Y’all, there is no Big Brother platform taking care of you there. You are direct selling. You have to go through all this age verification process, all of everything that is your responsibility if you have a premium Snapchat, you are a direct seller. Same goes with creators who have telegram channels. Those are not  adult content hosting platforms. But if you’re using it as one, you are direct selling. Same rules apply to you. Discord servers are another. There are a million Discord servers for selling adult content.

Okay, so now we know the pros, the cons, and where the hell to do the damn thing. So let’s break down how we do said damn thing.

And we’re going to start with payments because you have to be able to get payments on a platform. It is built in for you. They can pay right there, easy peasy. And then you lose 20% or more anyway. With direct selling, you kind of have to figure out your own payment platforms.

And I always highly suggest having three options. One is going to be a cash transfer app that is available for you in your country and is very widely used. The next is going to be an adult hosting site that is free for buyers to sign up and tip. I use manyvids. They can create a free anonymous account and tip me the entire amount that I need right there. Yes, you lose a cut of that. But sometimes cash transfer apps won’t work in every country. So if you’re doing international business, which you likely will be, you need to have another free for them option to send you money. And the third is going to be EITHER your paid platform profile, or a tip site (such as wish list sites) .

How the french toast do we now communicate with the buyers? Because that’s what this is. That is what direct sales is, is consistent, constant communication. You’re going to want to offer more than one option for buyers to contact you.

So if we have DMs on the platform we’re selling on, why do we want a second communication option? Why do we want another platform involved? Well, a couple reasons. We’re going to look at this from a Reddit standpoint. Reddit itself? They no likey people selling things on its site, especially selling spicy, fun things like us. They can read your DMs, the admins have no problem doing so. They are not private, honey. That is not your DM. That is not your platform. You do not get privacy there. And if they flag your account, you’re kind of shit out of luck for a while.

So the next reason we want our buyers to move to another platform is because if they are willing to go to a second communication platform, they are significantly more likely to go through with a sale because they already did that step for you. So why wouldn’t they just go ahead and do the damn sale! Options of communication platforms include:

• You want one common communication app. So for this I use telegram. It’s widespread enough and it’s basically worldwide as well. And another reason I personally use Telegram, I have a Telegram channel that is subscription based. So if I can get them to Telegram in general, you bet your ass I can up sell them onto that subscription. Other options are Kik. WhatsApp, Snapchat, all of those.
• Then you want your subscription based platform. This is going to be your OnlyFans, this is going to be your Fansly, etc. So the reason we want people to move there is fairly obvious. It not only gives them an avenue to pay, it also gives you a safer avenue to deliver content if you wish. And it also gets them to pay that subscription price on top of whatever service they ordered. Then once they’re there, if they dig your content, you have a recurring subscriber, potentially a recurring buyer. So there’s definitely pros to getting them on your subscription based platform.
• All right, so this last one is heavily debated and kind of a spicy area for a lot of people, and that is, whatever site you are doing direct sales on, you got to leave them DMs open. I’ve seen it time and time again in request ads. People say, ladies, if I cannot reach out to you, I cannot work with you. Yes, you’re going to get time wasters in your DMs. That’s why we give five messages to see if it’s going anywhere and then we cut them off. But if they don’t have, let’s say, telegram, and they don’t want to subscribe somewhere for whatever reason, how are they going to contact you? You have to leave your DMs open and just learn to filter through them. Go by keywords.

So now we know the absolute basics, right? We know what direct sales are, where we’re doing it, pros and cons, how to communicate with buyers and how to get paid. Let’s just talk about some tips and tricks here.

• The first one I can give you is buyers are people. Sellers are people. Treat each other with genuine respect and you could potentially be lining yourself up for a permanent buyer. My first day of direct selling, I had a customer reach out to me and I was kind and gentle with him. And he hadn’t experienced that from a lot of other buyers. To this day, he orders a custom every single week. So every single week I know I have $150 coming from him alone. Be kind, be gentle and understand. Be kind to your buyers. They will come back. Because there is not much kindness out there for them in this industry. A lot of buyers are coming into this with shame and embarrassment. I always try to take it upon myself to let them know, and I’ll just run through my script.

Honey, it’s not my place to judge you or shame you for your kinks or sexual needs. It’s my place here to provide a safe, sane, consensual and responsible area to express yourself.

• Another big thing is finding your brand. Oh, yeah, find your brand. Stick to that shit like glue. If you know it’s working, don’t fix it. It doesn’t need to be fixed if it ain’t broke, find your brand, run with it. Figure out are you the cute, flirty one, or are you the kinky dominatrix, it’s totally up to you. You own your own business now, so you could decide what the hell you want to do. If there is anything I have learned about building a brand is that there is somebody looking for you. There is someone looking for every body type, every hair color, every kink, every fetish, even ones you haven’t heard of and you don’t know of. They’re still looking for it. And one of the fastest ways I have found to get yourself out there, to get your brand out there, to get your business out there, is direct selling.
• All of your various income platforms, be it Cashapp, Onlyfans etc, THE SECOND YOU ARE DONE FOR THE DAY AND CAN WITHDRAW YOUR FUNDS TO YOUR BANK, DO IT! Onlyfans, Cashapp, etc will have no problem banning your account and taking your money overnight. Every night that money should go into your business banking account to then be allocated.
• Keep so many records of everything that it starts to feel ridiculous. I mean record everything. This is not just to make the end of month/year easier, but also to help keep yourself protected, help develop that one on one bond with buyers we are looking for, and to cover your ass.

General Resources