Adult Site Broker Talk Episode 149 With Paige Neilson From Pyper

Speaker 1 (0s): This is Bruce Friedman of Adult Site Broker, and welcome to Adult Site Broker Talk, where each week we interview one of the movers and shakers of the adult industry, and we give you a tip on buying and selling websites. This week we'll be speaking with Paige Nielsen from Pyper.

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We've also added an events section to our website at adultsitebroker.com. Now you can get information on B2B events on our website, as well as special discounts reserved for our clients. Go to adult site broker.com for more details. Now let's feature our property of the week that's for sale at Adult Site Broker. We're proud to offer for sale a Growing Sex Doll site started in 2016. It's grown to over 2 million in annual revenue. The owner is focused and invested heavily into SEO for the site, making sure it consistently ranks at the top, and the search engines for the main industry keywords.

As a result, most of the traffic and sales are organic coming from people who have searched for Sex Dolls on Google. Other strong sales channels are the 25,000 plus person email list and an affiliate program. The owner has developed relationships with the best manufacturers. The products are drop shipped directly from the manufacturer to the customer. The store has hundreds of five star reviews on the website and on third party sites. The store currently has no employees, a site from the owner who works 10 to 15 hours a week on the business.

SEO is handled by an agency. This is a business that can be grown by a company with experience in the novelties field. Only 2.72 million. Now time for this week's interview. My guest today on Adult Site Broker talk is Paige from Piper Paige, thanks for being with us today on Adult Site Broker talk.

Speaker 2 (2m 42s): Thanks for having me.

Speaker 1 (2m 43s): It's a pleasure. Paige came up with the idea for Piper after years of frustration when filing her taxes and seeking financial advice, working in non nine to five industries, she always felt judged, explaining and justifying her Gen Z career to eyebrow raising accountants. I I've seen those now. We couldn't find an accountant or service that would show her the respect she knew she deserved. She made a decision open her own judgment free tax service.

She observed some older professionals taking a advantage of millennials or Gen Zers, assuming they didn't know any better. Paige also found that there was a lack of information available from finance and tax professionals. If these professionals wouldn't help younger clients understand other taxes work, who would? From here the concept of Piper was born and Paige and her team have been working on the company's growth ever since. Paige's dream is for individuals to find the financial autonomy and pride that should come with filing taxes and taking control of their finances.

She wants to uplift and empower each individual in our industry. Today, Paige is continuing to build and expand the Piper community, offering non-judgmental tax and finance services for all. Ultimately, her goal is to disrupt, disrupt, I should say, a traditional industry and make financial information and services simple and available. Piper proudly serves people such as adult entertainers, content creators and dancers. They employ certified accountants, lawyers and financial advisors across Canada and the US who have been hand selected and trained to ensure their services are welcoming to all.

And they're working on building a community platform that will be home to practical workshops, tools, discussions, and more. Paige, I just talked about why you started Piper, do you have anything to add?

Speaker 2 (4m 45s): No, I think you said it perfectly.

Speaker 1 (4m 47s): Okay. Well, tell me, we were talking offline a little bit about your background. First of all, you're 25 years old, which blows me away. Talk about the things you did before you got into Piper.

Speaker 2 (5m 3s): Yeah, so it's been an interesting journey so far. Definitely not boring. I'm a, I mean college and university dropout, and I became a flight attendant at 18. Did that for a few years. Then I worked in nightlife doing bottle service in a big city in Canada. That was great. Great money. Then I worked in luxury resale. I had a business doing that and in manufacturing and clothing manufacturing.

Speaker 1 (5m 32s): Yeah, you told me about the clothing manufacturing tie dye. Yeah,

Speaker 2 (5m 38s): Yeah. I mean, during covid, those matching tie dye sweatsuits were, were a hit

Speaker 1 (5m 44s): Having lived through the seventies, that just gives me the shivers up and down my spine.

Speaker 2 (5m 54s): I mean, yeah, I can, I can imagine definitely growing up with that. But yeah, it was, it was a huge thing during covid, so great business, fun business. So

Speaker 1 (6m 6s): Is tie-dye still a thing?

Speaker 2 (6m 8s): No, I don't think so. I think we're onto the next run now.

Speaker 1 (6m 12s): Thank you, Lord. Everything old is new again, isn't it?

Speaker 2 (6m 17s): Yes, absolutely.

Speaker 1 (6m 19s): I mean, there are no new ideas. All the movies, remakes, you know? Yeah. I mean, it's like TV shows, remakes, songs, remakes. It's like, I think this, this world right now suffers from a lack of imagination.

Speaker 2 (6m 38s): Yeah. Creativity. Definitely.

Speaker 1 (6m 41s): Big time. So how old is Piper? And talk a bit about the growth so far.

Speaker 2 (6m 47s): Yeah, so I knew definitely when I first had the idea of Piper, I wanted to launch in Canada in the us I'm Canadian, so yes, it was an an easy market to go go into, but actually most of our clients are actually in the us Yeah. So that's also great, but Sure. Yeah. So Piper is a year old, actually, Piper just turned to one year, couple days ago. So,

Speaker 1 (7m 15s): Oh, congratulations. Happy birthday.

Speaker 2 (7m 18s): Thank you, thank you, thank you. It's definitely something I'm proud of and I'm looking forward to this year and all the, all the projects that we have going on.

Speaker 1 (7m 27s): So talk about, you talked about how working in a gig economy is, is really what we're in right now. Yeah. And you doing things like doing bottle service, which by the way, a dear friend of mine, his daughter does it, and she makes freaking bank working. It's crazy. Two days a week. It's crazy. It's crazy. Oh yeah, I know, man. Horny. Horny man. Yeah. Oh, you gotta love him. Right?

Talk about some of the experiences you had trying to get your taxes done when you worked in that type of industry.

Speaker 2 (8m 7s): It was very difficult. And I mean, I think the big problem is there's a lack of information out there, and there's a lack of trustworthy professionals, and unfortunately a lot of professionals will take, take advantage of your, you know, you not knowing what's going on with your finances or how to do taxes and stuff like that. So that's really unfortunate. Right. But I, yeah, I experienced some of that, and I've talked about this on other podcasts where I was unfortunately sexually assaulted in a, a tax firm Oh, Jesus.

In Canada. Oh, yeah. This is why I decided to serve Piper, so in Canada. Oh my god. Yeah. It was awful. And then I got a, a, a big tax bill because I ran outta that office and what, you know, oh yeah. I, I mean, I've been doing my taxes with a professional since I was 18 years old. Yeah. And my usual tax bill is like a certain number. And after that event, I got a tax bill of an extra $6,000 that I had to pay him, which, which I didn't.

Of course. But yeah, hopefully.

Speaker 1 (9m 24s): I hope, I hope you pr I hope you pressed charges.

Speaker 2 (9m 28s): Yeah. This was a really eye-opening experience, obviously, and a lot of people started coming forward with their own experiences, just with unprofessional professionals. And some of our clients have had that before, prior to working with us, and yeah. So that's kind of my experience. It's unfortunate, but I mean, Piper came out of it, right? So, yeah.

Speaker 1 (9m 55s): Well, and there's also a very dark side of some men. I, I mean, I grew up being raised by my mom, so I'm a person who has all the respect in the world for women. Unfortunately, not all men are like that. Yeah. And, ugh, God, that just, that just makes me sick.

Speaker 2 (10m 17s): And it got worse, you know, when I had the piper idea, I started, you know, calling around different accountants and stuff like that. Yeah. And I started saying, you know, have you worked with entertainers? Have you worked with dancers? And I remember calling one accountant in a small town in Ontario, Canada, and he's like, no, I, I've never worked with, with, you know, people in the adult industry, but I would just trade services.

Speaker 1 (10m 44s): Oh, Jesus Christ.

Speaker 2 (10m 46s): So then I'm like, okay, I have to, I have to make Piper work.

Speaker 1 (10m 50s): Oh my goodness. Oh yeah. My goodness. Now, when you say they take advantage of younger people's lack of knowledge, what, I mean, in what form does that manifest itself?

Speaker 2 (11m 5s): So I would definitely say with the price point, they're going to charge you a lot more because you don't know any better. Right. Like you're, yeah. You're, you're intimidated by the IRS or the cra and you're worried you wanna do everything by the book and they'll just charge you a lot more.

Speaker 1 (11m 24s): Geez. So yeah. That's, that sucks. Now, are the younger accountants any different than the older accountants?

Speaker 2 (11m 33s): I would say so, yes. Absolutely. Our team is, is a mix between like, I would say like forties, but I also have like thirties. I also have people that are late twenties and they're much more open-minded. They know what's going on in this world. They, they know, know about, you know, income on YouTube and the income that our clients are making and freelancer websites and all that stuff. So, so they're with it.

Speaker 1 (12m 3s): So when you interview an accountant, tell me some of the questions you ask them.

Speaker 2 (12m 9s): I really try to get a feel for their personality and see if there are a right fit in general. I think it's really easy to tell off the bat if somebody's gonna be a a right fit. Some of the, the questions will be, you know, do you know only fans? Do you know about these campsites? How do you feel about this? What do you see? The issues, stuff like that. And we have a whole training manual that we go through with them. Yeah. And we really talk about different things and, and terms that are you should be using and terms that you shouldn't be using.

Speaker 1 (12m 45s): Hmm. Interesting. Yeah. Well, and I would imagine a lot of, especially a lot of the younger accountants are users of these platforms. Not that the older guys aren't, because they certainly are, but I would think a lot of the younger guys certainly know these platforms. They Yeah. They know PornHub, they know only fans, you know, they know live Jasmine and they're, they're probably on those platforms.

Speaker 2 (13m 12s): Yeah. And it's not so taboo. Like, it's like Yeah. It's very normalized. Right, right. Like they're, they're very cool with it, you know what I mean? Like, they, they don't see it as anything like Oh, like risque.

Speaker 1 (13m 26s): Yeah, exactly. And you know, as we like to say in our industry, sex workers work. Exactly. And as long, I would imagine that anyone who you hire has to have that attitude.

Speaker 2 (13m 38s): Absolutely. We actually have it in our pamphlet and we always say, you know, don't be an asshole.

Speaker 1 (13m 44s): So

Speaker 2 (13m 46s): We have it in bold letters. That's,

Speaker 1 (13m 49s): That's hilarious. Yeah. Yeah. Well that, that should be the rallying cry for everyone, I'm afraid. Yep. What are the biggest challenges you're facing with Piper?

Speaker 2 (14m 1s): Well, actually there's actually a shortage of accountants like Nationwide. So really I've, yeah, I, I've had really difficulty just trying to find more accountants that are a good fit to, to onboard. So that's probably my biggest challenge so far.

Speaker 1 (14m 20s): Sure. Well, I saw, I think especially this time of year, oh yeah. You're probably gonna have trouble reaching people.

Speaker 2 (14m 26s): Absolutely.

Speaker 1 (14m 27s): Are there like trade shows that accountants and tax preparers go to that you can go and meet, meet a bunch of them?

Speaker 2 (14m 38s): Yeah, there's a few. I haven't gone so far. It hasn't really been on my radar, but maybe, yeah, I could check one out. I just don't know if, if the younger accountants go to them.

Speaker 1 (14m 50s): Hey, you can always ask Bruce for a marketing idea. Yeah,

Speaker 2 (14m 55s): Definitely. Definitely.

Speaker 1 (14m 57s): It's in my dna. So if I, if you ever wanna sit down and strategize a little bit, I'm more than happy to help you in any way because Oh, thank you. Honestly, I think what you're doing is phenomenal. I really, really do. This is one of the reasons I wanted to interview you, because quite frankly, sex workers and people in the adult industry, which I happen to be one, are really tired of being subject to bias.

Yeah. And we see it every single day. Yeah, totally. When a company comes along, that is the opposite of that. You just have to applaud it.

Speaker 2 (15m 41s): Oh, thank you. I appreciate it. No, you're welcome. Appreciate it. Yeah. It's really important to me to try to disrupt this industry, this very old fashioned backwards industry, which is the accounting industry. Yes. Yeah. They haven't made much advances in anything technology or accepting other like sex work or anything like that. Yeah. So, yeah, it's really important to me to continue pushing forward and break those boundaries. In

Speaker 1 (16m 9s): Fact, I'll tell you a story. Okay. I have a friend who I used to hang out with a lot when I lived in the States, knew him from the gym where you meet a lot of friends. We used to party together, we used to do things together. We had a lot of mutual friends, and he was an accountant. Oh. And he had a firm in the area that I lived, and he did my taxes for years. Oh. And then he came to me and he said, Bruce, I'm sorry, but I can't do your taxes anymore.

And I said, why he be, he said, because my partners came to me and said, we handle a lot of school districts and we can't be associated with the adult industry.

Speaker 2 (16m 54s): Wow. Awful,

Speaker 1 (16m 56s): Awful. Yeah. I mean, I don't blame him. No, he's a great guy. Yeah. He's a partner in the firm, but it's not just his firm, you know? Yeah.

Speaker 2 (17m 7s): Yeah.

Speaker 1 (17m 8s): So, so that's awful. That's a pretty good example why there's a need for Piper.

Speaker 2 (17m 14s): Thank you. Yeah. It's, it's definitely frustrating. I empathize with that.

Speaker 1 (17m 19s): Yeah. I just thought about that. It, it's been years. It's been years. Probably 15, 20 years since that happened, but Wow. Yeah. And you know, I just went, well that's, that sucks, but move on with life, you know? Yeah. I was, I was a little hurt at first, and then when I thought about it, I went, I get it, I get it. It's not his fault. It's not

Speaker 2 (17m 39s): His fault. Yeah. Yeah.

Speaker 1 (17m 40s): So why began a company in an industry that you didn't go to school for?

Speaker 2 (17m 46s): Geez, good question.

Speaker 1 (17m 49s): I know, cuz I asked him.

Speaker 2 (17m 51s): Yeah. I love creating and I love creating companies and I love filling gaps and I love problem solving. Yeah. So, for me, I never think like education or lack of should ever hold you back. Yeah. So I d I just went for it to be honest. I just went for it and it worked out and I'm just gonna keep going.

Speaker 1 (18m 14s): Yeah. I'll tell you what, I didn't know anything about brokering websites when I started adult Site Broker. Yeah. I, I, I made a deal by accident. Okay. A guy, a guy contacted me, we were talking about marketing cuz that, you know, that was what I was doing most of the time in those days I still have a marketing company and he goes, you know, Bruce, I think I wanna sell instead of marketing. And he had three small gay affiliate programs. And I went, he goes, do you know a lot of, do you know people in the gay space?

I go, yeah, absolutely. Because in recent years what I had done was gone a little bit outside of my comfort zone and I started attending the gay parties. Okay.

Speaker 2 (18m 57s): Oh, love it.

Speaker 1 (18m 58s): Because it was like, well I'm from San Francisco, first of all, so it wasn't that I'm like, my best friend's gay, my wife's brother's gay. I mean, it wasn't, and I live in, I live in Thailand for Christ's sake, you know. Yeah. I mean, I mean lady boys everywhere. It's not like it's that outside of my comfort zone. And then at the time, Morgan from Cyber Socket, who since sold it, started extending the cyber socket parties to the straight world and things really started to come together at that point.

And everybody was going to a lot of the same parties, although there are still gay parties and I'll go to 'em, hell yes, I'll go to 'em cuz I wanna make those contacts. I'm not a stupid business person. I'm not gonna say, oh no, I'm just gonna deal with straight people. And I've had a lot of business from the gay side of the business probably because of that. So, no, I, I,

Speaker 2 (19m 58s): Okay. Yeah.

Speaker 1 (19m 59s): So yeah, absolutely. Yeah.

Speaker 2 (20m 1s): Life is full of, life is full of opportunities and it's so important I think, just to take any opportunity, how

Speaker 1 (20m 8s): Did you get the smart at 25?

Speaker 2 (20m 11s): I guess that, I dunno, couple of years of life, life experience.

Speaker 1 (20m 16s): Yeah, I guess because I've always wanted to be an entrepreneur and I didn't really do anything about it until, well, I guess I was 28, so I guess I wasn't that far beyond.

Speaker 2 (20m 29s): Yeah, you're not. No, no,

Speaker 1 (20m 31s): No, I wouldn't, no, I wouldn't have been, no, I wouldn't have been 28. Let me think about this. 20, 45, 22. Yeah. More like 43. So anyway, little little bit behind you. Yeah, yeah, yeah. It's hard. It's,

Speaker 2 (20m 45s): That's fine.

Speaker 1 (20m 46s): It's hard to count to 65 sometimes. So where do you see Piper in five years?

Speaker 2 (20m 54s): We have so many projects on the go that I'm definitely excited to share closer to the date. Really disrupting the accounting industry. Like Yeah. Really totally disrupting the accounting industry, implementing a lot of technology, implementing so many different things and just breaking down those walls in, in sex work and in the accounting industry. Sure.

Speaker 1 (21m 20s): Yeah. Yeah. That's good.

Speaker 2 (21m 22s): Yeah. And hopefully expanding to other countries that's, that's a big goal of mine.

Speaker 1 (21m 27s): That would be fantastic. You know, another thing you could do and it just, just hit me, go to some accounting schools.

Speaker 2 (21m 34s): Yeah.

Speaker 1 (21m 35s): Yeah. I mean, you know, you get some people outta college, they're hungry.

Speaker 2 (21m 40s): Yeah, totally. Absolutely.

Speaker 1 (21m 43s): So,

Speaker 2 (21m 44s): Absolutely. Well,

Speaker 1 (21m 45s): Piper's clients fall outside conventional jobs now. We've obviously at least seen the gig industry growing so much in recent years. What do you think the future of these jobs is?

Speaker 2 (21m 59s): Let's talk about like just freelance in general. I mean, that's taking over completely. Desi, freelance designers, freelance developers, freelance programmers, freelance, everything. So the gig, the gig economy is just gonna get bigger as you've seen in, in the last few years. Especially with, I would say only fans sex work is becoming a little more normalized step by step.

Speaker 1 (22m 26s): Yes.

Speaker 2 (22m 28s): So I'm hoping that, you know, it's not stigmatized anymore.

Speaker 1 (22m 33s): Yeah. Yeah. But what, I mean as far as gig work goes, how, what kind of an impact do you see AI having on it?

Speaker 2 (22m 43s): AI will definitely take over copywriters, that's for sure. I mean, the work that AI has done, chat G P T, it's incredible. I mean, I've tested it out, like email my boss or email my teacher or different things. And it's really crazy. VR is becoming bigger in the sex workspace as you probably know. Yeah. It's just gonna get more, more techy.

Speaker 1 (23m 10s): Yeah, definitely. My fear is that AI is going to take over and replace a lot of those gig jobs.

Speaker 2 (23m 22s): Yeah. I unfortunately, I believe it will.

Speaker 1 (23m 25s): Yeah. Yeah. Which is sad, but it's inevitable.

Speaker 2 (23m 30s): Yeah.

Speaker 1 (23m 30s): What's been the most rewarding part of building Piper?

Speaker 2 (23m 35s): I would say just the feedback that we get from clients or the different situations like taxes. People think, oh, like I don't wanna pay pay taxes or I don't wanna do my taxes and stuff. But it really does have an impact on your life. I mean we've had, we've helped so many different clients in like, even like court cases, you know, for them to get custody of their children. So really we've helped. Yeah, we've helped. It's so many different, and that's the most rewarding thing to me, is just helping people.

Speaker 1 (24m 8s): Absolutely. I mean, in any industry that should be your goal is to help people. If your goal is to make money and that's your number one goal, you got problems.

Speaker 2 (24m 20s): Yeah, absolutely. Absolutely.

Speaker 1 (24m 23s): Because it'll catch up with you. So what are some lessons you've learned along your journey to get to where you are today?

Speaker 2 (24m 32s): In Piper or in life in general?

Speaker 1 (24m 36s): Well, why don't you tell me both.

Speaker 2 (24m 38s): Okay. I would say in life, definitely seize any opportunity that you can. And the worst that can happen is you fail and if you fail, so what? Yeah. Like what's that? You know, leave your ego at the door. I've started a lot of different companies and some of them were very successful and some of them not so much. But I've learned so much through those, I would never trade it at all. So yeah, I think just always give it your best shot.

Try new things, right. And grab the world by its balls. Like just go for it.

Speaker 1 (25m 16s): I love that.

Speaker 2 (25m 17s): And yeah, in terms of Piper, I would say I've learned a lot about people in general and how they think. Yeah. And the psychology that comes with finances, cuz I knew my own psychology when it came from finances. But really how you grow up, how your parents were with money, how you've seen different friends or family members around you interact with money or their money relationship really impacts you and impacts your money relationship. So that's been really a really interesting lesson.

Speaker 1 (25m 49s): Huh. What drives you, Paige? I mean, it's still, I, it is still, it's still blowing me away. Your tender, young age and all you've already accomplished. What drives you?

Speaker 2 (26m 1s): I think it's just challenges. I love, I love creating, I love building and I love problem solving. So any problems that I see or, you know, there's a lack in the market for, I jump on it. I just jump on it and just hope, you know, it works out. But even if it doesn't, who cares? You know, who cares it? People often, a lot of my friends will be like, well, are you scared you're gonna fail? And I'm like, okay, I fail. So what? Yeah. I start something else.

Speaker 1 (26m 31s): Yeah, yeah. You fall down, you get back up. Right?

Speaker 2 (26m 36s): Exactly. Exactly. And that's how entrepreneurship is, you know, that.

Speaker 1 (26m 39s): Oh, I absolutely do. And when I started this, when I, I started the marketing company, when I started the general consulting company, all of those, actually, I did 'em for the reason that there was a hole in the market and that there was a need for all of those things. And, you know, some have succeeded more than others. I would say adult site broker has been a smashing success. And it's like, just because something isn't the biggest thing since sliced bread, it doesn't mean that you failed adult site.

Broker has taken time to grow and now, you know, we're the, you know, we're the leader in the industry and I think it's what you wanna be, you know, to, to the, to the point that there's imitators, which I think is the greatest, is the greatest form of flattery actually. Yeah. So it's just one of those things that look, it just comes down to finding a need in filling it. So I completely agree with you on that.

And I'll always do that. And I've, I've always got ideas. I'm always buying domains thinking I'm gonna do this,

Speaker 2 (27m 57s): I do

Speaker 1 (27m 57s): This. And most of the, yeah. Most of the time I don't end up using the domain. Yeah.

Speaker 2 (28m 1s): That's how

Speaker 1 (28m 2s): It goes. But yeah. By the way, why Piper? What was the motivation for that? For the name?

Speaker 2 (28m 9s): Yeah, I actually get that question a lot. People think that I got it. I don't know if you ever watched the show Silicon Valley? Nope. But it was, it was a company on there anyways, it was called Piper or Pay the Piper or something like, something like that. And so people think it's from that. But I was thinking, like, I wanted, I actually listened to a podcast about, if you name your company a person's name like Alexa for Amazon, it's gonna be more memorable.

And so I started thinking about this, I started looking at baby names and I wanted a unisex name. And Piper came up and interesting, I mean, the traditional way of spelling Piper is p i p e r. Correct. And so I decided to add a y in there instead and, and change it a bit. And then it made sense. Yeah. Because pay the piper, you gotta pay the piper.

Speaker 1 (29m 2s): Yes. And it probably would've been a little hard to get the domain p p e r.com anyway. Yeah. I'm just gonna guess that's taken. I can't be sure, but I'm just guessing.

Speaker 2 (29m 14s): Yes. Yeah. And it's a, it's also an aircraft manufacturer as well, so.

Speaker 1 (29m 19s): Oh, yeah, yeah. Oh yeah. Okay. Excellent. So now loneliness in our industry is a huge problem to find people over at Pineapple Support do a wonderful job with mental health issues. And that's a big reason why we support them. How do you think Piper is helping people in the industry to feel less alone and more connected?

Speaker 2 (29m 46s): I think definitely just being an ear to listen. So we do a lot of consultation calls, both on packages purchase or in general. If, if they, if the client needs a consultation Right. And just providing that support and knowledge of finances or whatever that they're asking for. We've seen that has helped a lot. And they, they say so, so I believe that as well as just maintaining a relationship with that person. I often will check in with clients and see how they're doing.

We sent out holiday cards. I don't want to be a a, a traditional accounting firm. I never got a, I never got a holiday card from, you know, my, my old accounting firm. Oh, I do my taxes. But I dunno, I just want to, to maintain that, that relationship with our clients and just let them know that we're always there, whatever they need. There's been many cases where our clients will ask us about different things.

So for example, we have a lot of dancer clients in the us so they'll ask us about health insurance and where to find, so we, we assist with that no charge. And it's just about helping this industry.

Speaker 1 (31m 3s): Right. It, it must be really, really refreshing for your clients to talk to you after having talked to traditional accountants all these years.

Speaker 2 (31m 16s): Yeah, it's fun. Like, I love my clients, it's totally fun. And it's, I think it's very comforting for them to see somebody who also worked in nightlife, who is their age, who looks like them, who gets it, who gets the fear. Because when I was making, you know, cash and I in these clubs and stuff, I didn't know what to do with it. I had no idea, you know, at 2021, I have no idea. And I'm making, I came from, I didn't come from money, so I had no one to turn to and really

Speaker 1 (31m 49s): Had to, if it was me, if it was me, I'd put it under my bed. I sure. As all wouldn't tell the IRS about it.

Speaker 2 (31m 55s): Yeah. In a shoebox.

Speaker 1 (31m 59s): Exactly.

Speaker 2 (31m 60s): But yeah, it was, I really had to figure a lot of my financial situation and how to do things on my own. Right, of course. And so I implement that, I implement that in Piper,

Speaker 1 (32m 13s): A funny story, my accountant, my first accountant, he was old. Okay. I think at one time, roomed with my father. Okay. Who would be now like over a hundred. Okay. And he finally passed away. Oh. I think he was like 83 or 84. And he did my taxes up until the time he died. Wow. So he, and he knew I was in the industry, and I think he was kind of amused by it, actually. But you keep in mind, he had known me since I was a little boy.

Okay. Oh, and yeah, so Phil, oh God, I miss him because I gotta tell you, every year I'd see him once a year and I'd come to his house and we'd sit down and we'd talk about life and I'd talk about, you know, how things were going for me and Yeah. Yeah. And he, he was something special. He was really, really something special. So towards the end of him doing my taxes, I was in the adult industry and he goes, well, that's interesting.

So how important do you think community and connection is for the people in the adult industry?

Speaker 2 (33m 28s): It's the most important. I mean, really. Absolutely. Community is huge. It's such an, in the sex work industry, in the adult industry, it's such an isolating industry. Yeah. And it's often, you know, you're lost or maybe you went to the industry when you're younger or, I mean, there's so many issues that as, you know, we encounter and community is everything. And I think community in every single industry is everything. It's so important.

Speaker 1 (33m 58s): Right? Hmm. Yeah, absolutely. There's always been a stigma that people face in the adult industry. We were talking about this offline. How do you feel Piper is helping people overcome stigma?

Speaker 2 (34m 13s): It's interesting because, I mean, I see it in my own city where people see what I'm doing and they have so many questions and they're like, well, what do you mean, like, the adult? Why, why wouldn't they just go to h and r Block? Or why wouldn't they just go to a regular accountant? Yeah, I have, I mean, I have my own opinions about TurboTax and h and r Block, but I won't share those. But some people don't understand like, the amount of stigma that the adult industry has and Well, oh, I think it just cut out there.

Speaker 1 (34m 48s): It comes from the religious right, it comes from Republican politicians and really stigma. In fact, my blog writer did a blog post about this recently that we're gonna, I'm gonna be putting up in a few days. There's been a stigma about the adult industry going back centuries. So it's really baked in to our society in North America, but also all over the world.

Yeah,

Speaker 2 (35m 19s): Absolutely.

Speaker 1 (35m 20s): People in the adult industry are looked down upon, I was talking yesterday, day before, day before to a trans performer at a wonderful interview, by the way. And she was saying to me that in the entertainment field, we're on the bottom of the rung, and that's how we're looked at.

Speaker 2 (35m 44s): Yeah.

Speaker 1 (35m 45s): And I don't think there's a hell of a lot that can be done about it. I do think things like only fans becoming more mainstream, PornHub becoming one of the number one brands in the world, things like that are going to help us. And quite frankly, I think as your generation and the generation before you get older, I think the stigma will become less and less. I really do. Yeah. Because the other people don't give a rep.

They really don't. Yep. They're, they do what they do. And I mean, I've always felt that way. So, you know, maybe, maybe I was born before my time, but people don't give a rep and Okay, so you're a prostitute. Okay, so you're a dancer. Okay. So you fuck on film. So what? Yeah. That's what you do. That isn't who you are.

Speaker 2 (36m 46s): No, not at all. And that's the thing is like, we have so many clients that are Yes. In the adult industry, but they also own coffee shops. They also own, you know, other businesses, marketing firms, stuff like that. Like, and I think that's so cool. And yeah, there's such a stigma of like, oh, you're a dancer. Oh, you're, you know, you're a porn star. Oh, that's all you do. That's who you are. Yeah. Like, absolutely not, not no way. It's, it's, it's your job. It's a small part of your life.

Speaker 1 (37m 16s): Exactly. Exactly. Jamie Kelly, the, the trans performer I was referring to, oh my God, she's a musician. She is an editor. In fact, I

Speaker 2 (37m 29s): Love it.

Speaker 1 (37m 30s): She said to me, would you like me to edit our interview? And I'm like, oh boy, girl, I'd love to save some time right now. And she got it back to me in a couple of hours. And what an editing job it

Speaker 2 (37m 44s): Was. That's amazing.

Speaker 1 (37m 44s): Incredible. So, I mean, people yes, people do a lot more than what their persona is in the adult industry. So

Speaker 2 (37m 55s): Yeah. And that's what the world needs to realize. Like, big time. It's like, it's crazy that there's still stigma, but I feel well definitely with companies like Pineapple Support Yes. My own company, other people moving forward and making things more normalized, I, I do think that that's a good step in the right direction.

Speaker 1 (38m 18s): Well, and there's another thing. Okay. Our industry gets tied together with child trafficking. Okay. And we have an organization, a S A C P, Tim Henning, who runs it, is also Canadian. And that organization is, what they do is protect children from seeing porn and from being put into porn.

That's their, that's their whole mission. And it's fully supported by the adult industry. Alec Helme, the president, I don't know what Alex's title is these days. C e o, Graham, pupa, whatever Alec is. And he won't go on my podcast yet, I'm still bummed. He funded it and started it. So, you know, wow. The people don't realize all the good things this industry does. Free Speech Coalition.

I just recently interviewed Alison Bowden and she'll be on a two-part series in March. And Alison Oh, what, have you had a chance to meet her?

Speaker 2 (39m 29s): No, not yet.

Speaker 1 (39m 30s): What an incredible lady. I've known her a long time because she's been in the industry. She used to run kink and, and oh, she's had other, other roles. But I mean, Allison, her organization is amazing. And how it stands for free speech that affects Every American. Yes, we're talking about free speech as it relates to the adult industry, but the First Amendment in the United States is in grave danger because of the right wing and the right wing Supreme Court as well.

And the FSC is doing some amazing things. In fact, they were in Washington a month or two ago talking to people in Congress, and the real encouraging part is she said she got a willing ear from Democrats and Republicans.

Speaker 2 (40m 26s): Oh, amazing.

Speaker 1 (40m 27s): I was fantastic. No, I was by that. So listen for that. It's gonna be really good. Okay.

Speaker 2 (40m 33s): Yeah, absolutely.

Speaker 1 (40m 34s): I didn't mean to promote a bunch of episodes, but anyway. No, for, for anyone. And you're gonna run after them anyway, so, you know, I guess they'll have to go back and listen. So for anyone feeling lost, overwhelmed, or lonely working in our industry, what's the best piece of advice you can give them?

Speaker 2 (40m 53s): Reach out. Reach out to your community, ask for support, reach out to us, you know, reach out to Bruce, ask for support, ask for pineapple support, pineapple support. Yeah,

Speaker 1 (41m 5s): Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

Speaker 2 (41m 6s): Just reach out to your community.

Speaker 1 (41m 8s): Yeah, yeah, yeah. Talk to somebody. You know, Leia started Pineapple Support and she's been on our podcast numerous times. She started Pineapple Support after all the suicides that had happened in our industry a few years ago. And it was what a godsend. Yeah. They've now helped over, I think Allison, who's on the, who's the president of the board, I don't know when she sleeps. She said, I think 10,000 now people.

Speaker 2 (41m 40s): That's amazing. Wow.

Speaker 1 (41m 42s): I mean, it's incredible. Oh,

Speaker 2 (41m 43s): Allison, go Pineapple support. Yeah. That's amazing.

Speaker 1 (41m 46s): I think every business in our industry should be a sponsor like we are. And I think that everyone in our industry should give them some financial support. No two ways about it. It's something that's just absolutely incredible. So, final question. What's the biggest takeaway you've learned from setting up Piper?

Speaker 2 (42m 7s): I would say I'll, I'll talk about like the business side, and then I'll talk about kind of the, our industry and I would say business. Keep pushing forward every day. Keep pushing forward. Never forget your mission. Never forget the goal of helping others and keep striving for that, and keep wanting to make a change. And in the adult industry, I would say I'm super honored and happy to be a part of this industry and to continue helping as much as I can.

And it's nice to have you and yeah, thank you. And I just wanna, I wanna keep being there for everybody.

Speaker 1 (42m 48s): What did you I, one more bonus question. Yeah. What did you think you were getting into? I mean, you weren't, you weren't a part of the adult industry. What did you think the adult industry was like before you got into it? And now what do you think it's like,

Speaker 2 (43m 4s): I have a lot of friends that were already in the industry. Both, yeah. Okay. So I knew, I mean, when I was 18, I was a server at a strip club, so Oh yeah. I've been around it. I've been around it definitely. And yeah, I have a lot of friends that do only fans or are in the cam industry and dancers and stuff like that. So I already knew. And then I just, yeah, kept looking Reddit, Twitter, and everything, and just started making connections, going to Exs.

And I loved the industry. I mean, I loved it before and I love it after.

Speaker 1 (43m 40s): It's a wonderful family.

Speaker 2 (43m 42s): It's amazing. It's amazing. And I really saw that at my first ex Biz Miami back last May, and how everyone was so supportive of one another, and really, it was really big family. And I was so impressed that I'm like, I'm telling all my friends, I'm like, this is incredible.

Speaker 1 (43m 59s): Yeah, yeah, yeah. I agree. It's been over 21 years for me, and I'll tell you something, I'm never retiring from it. I'm never retiring. I don't see any reason to leave unless something drastic happens to the industry because, and I hope it doesn't because I love every minute of it. It's fun. The people are great, and I look forward to every trade show so we can have another family reunion.

So

Speaker 2 (44m 30s): Yeah, totally. I mean, it's the best trade shows. People are jealous of the trade shows that you and I go to, so Absolutely. It's a lot of fun.

Speaker 1 (44m 40s): It definitely is. Well, Paige, I'd like to thank you for being our guest today on Adult Side Broker Talk, and I hope we'll get a chance to do this again soon.

Speaker 2 (44m 48s): Absolutely. Thank you for having me.

Speaker 1 (44m 50s): My broker tip today is part one of what to do to make your site more valuable for when you decide to sell it later. First, make sure you're converting as much of your traffic as possible. Traffic is expensive, whether it's search engine, traffic review, site traffic, or affiliate traffic. You pay it a lot for this traffic. So make sure that when someone lands on your site, you give them every opportunity possible to either spend money or do whatever it is you want your visitors to do. In the case of a pay site, make sure your billing options allow as many people as possible to buy.

Have multiple ways to pay. In North America, most everyone has a credit card, but in other parts of the world, credit cards aren't used nearly as much. In Europe, for instance, credit card usage is low. So look for billing options that will match the areas where your traffic comes from. In Europe, ACH and debit cards are used a lot in Africa and other developing areas. Many people pay by mobile, do your homework and find out how people pay in the regions. You get most of your traffic, it'll make you more money.

The worst thing you can do is get a visitor, have them want to buy. But since you don't have their preferred way to pay, they can't. If you're looking for suggestions, feel free to get in touch with me via my website. Along with this is to improve your user experience, make your site attractive and easy to navigate. People have more options than ever these days. I can't tell you how many sites I go to, even some that are owned by large companies where the navigation isn't obvious to the user.

You poke around the site for what seems like an eternity to do something that should be relatively easy. Keep it simple. Before you launch any changes to your site, ask your friends to go there and check it out. Unfortunately, designers and tech geeks don't think like us. You need real people to look at your site for you. The same kind of people who will be visiting your site. We'll talk about this subject more next week and next week we'll have a very special episode.

It's our 150th segment for Adult site broker talk. We'll be speaking with Lianne Young, one of Ron Jeremy's alleged victims. You don't wanna miss that. And that's it for this week's Adult site broker talk. I'd once again like to thank my guest, Paige from Pyper. Talk to you again next week on Adult Site Broker Talk. I'm Bruce Friedman.