How Creators Land Four And Five Figure Brand Deals

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Sponsorship income can beat AdSense fast if we stop treating brands like a payout button and start treating partnerships like a business conversation. We break down how to price, pitch, and follow up with confidence so even smaller creators can land serious YouTube brand deals. 
• why $10,000 in sponsorships can be easier than $10,000 in AdSense 
• the difference between gifted products and paid sponsorships 
• overcoming imposter syndrome and money discomfort in negotiations 
• asking brands what success looks like before quoting a rate 
• the Royal Caribbean example and how goals unlock bigger deals 
• building packages that expand scope across platforms and assets 
• why an email list gives more control than algorithmic reach 
• affiliate marketing as a stepping stone and why it can backfire 
• the ARC framework for brand goals: awareness, repurposing, conversions 
• pitching like a consultant and using YouTube as a portfolio 
• relationship recap reports and low ego follow up strategies 
• switching from AI style emails to short video pitches that get replies 

Transcript

Sponsorships Versus AdSense Reality

SPEAKER_00 0:00

It's easier to make$10,000 in sponsorships uh than$10,000 in AdSense. Fight me.

SPEAKER_01 0:05

That might be one of the coolest things I've ever seen that you could put into work right now and make more money for your YouTube channel, no matter what size it is. Hey, welcome back to the Only Podcast. It's here to help you grow your channel in ways that you're probably not even thinking of. I am Travis here every single week trying to help you grow your channel. And this week, I have someone that's going to help you do things that you probably don't even think you can do. Justin Moore has returned to the podcast. Thank you so much for coming back.

SPEAKER_00 0:32

Travis, we're here to make some money. Let's just get down to let's get down to brass tacks, shall we? Because that's what we all need.

SPEAKER_01 0:39

Listen, let's just be real about it. You can grow your YouTube channel, but if you can't pay your bills, you you might have bigger problems. Of course, we're here to help you grow your channel every single week. If you're new here, feel free to hit that subscribe button. If you're listening to the audio podcast, you'll have some links in the show notes. Justin, you've been here before, but let's just assume because we have a bigger audience now, people don't know who you are. Tell them who you are.

SPEAKER_00 0:58

All right. Been a YouTuber for 16 years alongside my wife April. So been in the game for a very long time, have made over$5 million, close to$6 million in sponsorships by now, uh, doing deals personally myself, ran an influencer marketing agency for seven years. So paid out millions of dollars to other creators. And now over the last six years, uh I have uh built a kind of surprising business all around sponsorship coaching. So we advise you in your corner and we do not take a cut of your deals.

SPEAKER_01 1:27

Which is crazy because that's actually what most people see. So for people who uh don't quite understand how sponsorships work, um, it is something that typically a brand will reach out to you and then offer you money in exchange for showing or or you know, kind of promoting their product. That doesn't mean all the time having what people will call a dedicated video, which the entire video is about that. Sometimes it's integrated video, which you'll see from larger YouTubers where they'll have like a little commercial, like this is brought to you by such and such. Now, the reason I bring this up, and the reason why this is so important is because frequently um when people are creating their YouTube channel, they're thinking, oh, you know, I'll make all this money on YouTube, and they they're thinking about AdSense. And AdSense is, while it's nice, is so unpredictable for so many reasons. Justin, can you explain to people why AdSense, while nice, is not typically the more successful YouTube's uh creators like larger chunk of their money?

What A Sponsorship Really Means

SPEAKER_00 2:18

You know, one of my most controversial tweets of all time, like I if I go back and look at the analytics, was I said, it's easier to make$10,000 in sponsorships uh than$10,000 in AdSense. Fight me. Right. And and uh, you know, for a large part, like a lot of people had varying opinions, but for the most part, people were like, I mean, that's absolutely true. I I I have grinded on my YouTube channel for so long to meet the criteria and eligibility. And then my first check was 200 bucks or whatever, which feels great and feels validating. But like, especially if you're in uh you're a smaller creator who's in a very specific niche, um, I have tons of stories that I can share about creators who have, you know, less than 10,000 subscribers, less than 1,000 subscribers sometimes, uh, who are landing uh four and five figure brand deals because uh they are kind of a big fish in a small pond in their niche. And so you're absolutely right. Like, you know, sponsorships, um, and and actually, I think it's important that we take a step back actually from what you said to define what a sponsorship is, because I think a lot of creators think that uh sometimes a brand reaching out and offering to give you something for free is a sponsorship. And that's absolutely not true. Like that is, you know, brands will almost always first try to give you something gifted in exchange for a dedicated video, integrated video on your YouTube channel. And so I think we just need to be clear here that like that is what's called earned media from these brands. They're just sending out hundreds, thousands of offers to people to see who will talk about them for free. But that really is not a sponsorship.

Money Mindset And Imposter Syndrome

SPEAKER_01 3:43

And I think that's that's and that sometimes the that gets into a gray or people like, well, do I have to check the check mark on YouTube and stuff? We're not gonna talk about that right now because I feel like that's something we can talk about in another episode. And what we're talking about now is so important. So let's start somewhere where I think it's not talked about enough, but you always have great answers for this, and it's mindset. There is this uh imposter syndrome of, well, I just make videos on YouTube, they're not that important, no one really likes them. Who's gonna pay for that? And it happens for like memberships when you're trying to do memberships or anything like that. Patreon, like who's gonna pay for what I do? Justin, what is the mindset? How do you get over this kind of oh, no one's gonna, you know, help pay for anything I'm doing into a better entrepreneurial mindset?

SPEAKER_00 4:25

Man, we're gonna get real deep here. And I don't know if we were expecting this. No, let's get it. Most of the time, that mindset comes from your childhood. Wow. From how you were raised. Um, if you grew up in a family or a household where money was tight or it was taboo to discuss, the prospect of being getting into a situation where you're either asking your audience to compensate you for something, or you're asking a brand, there's this huge power dynamic, and they're the big brand with the agencies and the marketing team, and they've got the money. And like, who am I, little old me, over here asking for a measly$500 or$1,000 or whatever. It's very easy to kind of talk yourself out of counteroffering or to go or really standing your ground and saying, you know what? Actually, I have a lot to bring to the table here for this brand. Um, and I need to educate them. I need to tell them everything that I'm bringing to the table. And so I think that the answer, a lot of imposter syndrome comes from needing to do the deep work of realizing why do I have money issues? One of the things I do in my I have a live challenge that I do called the 10K brand deal challenge. And honestly, the first day is all about what, like, why do you have an issue with the word selling? A lot of people have this friction where it's like, um, you know, I say, what's your what's your word association with selling? And it's like, use car, icky, forceful manipulation. It's like a lot of people have, and again, it comes from how you're raised, like experiences in your early, early adulthood, and so on. And so a lot of that, the time it's like unlearning a lot of this stuff. But like, no, selling is service. Like you're you're providing a solution, not just to to these brands that you're collaborating with, but to your audience to help them solve a challenge or a problem that they're experiencing in their life. So it can get pretty deep.

SPEAKER_01 6:09

Yeah, no kidding. And I think that's actually really, man, I hit some mark because if you think about it, if it's something that was not easy to talk about when you're younger, and this and this is deep, uh, a lot of times as an adult, it's the same thing. And you can talk about that for anything, like weight or you know, feeling like an outcast. Same thing as a YouTuber. Yeah, I can totally see that. So money is is always one of the kind of um high points of uh of not necessarily controversy, but hard to talk about for a lot of people because even culturally, we don't talk about like how much we make. Um, and I like when and this is why I think a lot of YouTube videos where they go, this is how many, uh, how much I got paid for this many views, do so well on YouTube. Like universally, this is how much I got paid for my first million views, or as a 1,000 subscriber channel. You see those videos on YouTube and they're blown up because people either won't talk about it, they think they can't talk about it, or it's taboo. But when someone talks about it, everyone wants to know. Everyone. How do you get how did you get? Were you ever did you ever have to overcome that? Or did have you always been like free to talk about things?

SPEAKER_00 7:08

Man, you know, I uh I know I mentioned the stat of like how much money we've made on brand deals uh in the time that we've been on YouTube. Um, you know, generally I share that stat because you're right, like it is very much a credibility-boosting thing. But at the same time, I don't really share uh I'm much more comfortable sharing the wins of my students and clients because I feel like I want to hold them up as the example of like, this is not about me. I'm all about helping other people be successful. And so I don't want to be like, because you're right, it is a proven formula, like I made$50,000 last month. Here's the breakdown of my income. And like, no shade to anyone who does that. But like at the same time, I always want to keep the spotlight on my my students and clients because I just feel like that's a healthier dynamic out there on the internet. Um, but to answer your question, it it for sure. I I have a lot of the same what I call financial trauma when I was younger. Um, and it wasn't honestly until I got into business school that I started learning, taking classes around this stuff and learning about this stuff because it was my wife who started her YouTube channel in 2009. Um, and when we started getting inbound from brands and she asked for help with that, I was an idiot. I was so dumb. Like I was not a good negotiator. You know, I was I felt like I was so cool when you know we got our first like, you know, uh couple hundred dollar brand deal or something. Uh, but I as I I've been there. I I had to learn this stuff. I had to feel, you know, get more confident, uh, engaging, you know, in brands in these in these situations. So if you're someone watching or listening to this, like I empathize because I very much was you. Um, but the great part is that you can learn to get better at this stuff. Um, and a lot of what I do in a lot of my uh education and coaching and stuff is like role play, is like pretend I'm the brand, pretend I'm your dream brand, you're pitching me, like give me your pitch, and then we'll go kind of go back and forth and just I think putting in the reps helps a lot.

The $20,000 Cruise Deal Breakdown

SPEAKER_01 8:52

Yeah. I you told a story last time you were on, and I want people who didn't hear that story to hear it uh about the travel each that I think it was the cruise or something, one of the first kind of sponsorship deals that uh I believe you and your wife got. Talk, tell us about where you guys were in your creation journey and then how that came to be and and what ended up happening.

SPEAKER_00 9:08

Yeah, so it was a deal that we did with Royal Caribbean, uh, and it was like a dream sponsorship. Um, they were offering to fly us to Spain to uh write on the maiden voyage of their new cruise ship, and they wanted us to showcase all the family uh, you know, as like features and benefits. You know, there was like a kid's lounge and like they wanted to, you know, us to showcase this and put it on our YouTube channel. And um and a lot of, well, first of all, a lot of people would hear that opportunity and be like, where do I sign up? Like every trip to Spain, like go on the cruise, all that. Um, but the buried lead in this story is that they also paid us$20,000 for it. Um, and it was just a dream, it was a dream of a lifetime. And to be honest, I don't exactly remember how many YouTube subscribers we had uh at that time. It wasn't nothing, but it wasn't like millions. We've never had millions, like that. I think that's an important note. Um, but the critical thing is that I've always approached brand deals and partnerships uh as almost like a consultant. I think it comes back to some of my professional experience in medical devices before this. I was in product management. And so I always sought to know uh what is the brand trying to accomplish with this campaign? That's the number one question I always advise people to say. If a brand comes inbound asking you, hey, how much are you gonna charge for a YouTube video or blah, blah, blah, we don't spit back a number that never, and no, none of us are ever gonna do that again. We don't spit back one number. The very first thing we say is, I'm so this is super exciting. I'm very interested in this. I would love to learn a little bit about what you're trying to accomplish. What would success look like if we were to collaborate? And brands will say wildly different things. Um, and so one of the things that Royal Caribbean said in that example was we just want some really great footage of you guys on the ship interacting with the, you know, the new spaces that we have for families. And they even, that even led to them hiring a videography team to come and shoot us. So we didn't even have to self-shoot. Um, and because we realized that it was the footage aspect that they really cared about to like repurpose and all that. Um, and so again, like asking these very simple questions can lead to enhancements and upselling of the partnerships when you realize what they're trying to, what they're trying, what their goals are.

SPEAKER_01 11:11

Gosh, that's so that's so cool. You know, the funny thing is you said something there, and uh before I think the first time I interviewed you on the podcast, I made that mistake. So I used to have a number that I would call the I'll do it for this number thing, because I don't want to do it otherwise. Like there, there was a brand that reached out to me years ago, and um they were like, hey, we'd like to sponsor a video, blah, blah, blah. And I didn't really like, and I still don't really like doing dedicated videos, but um, I was like, I just really don't want to do this. I'm just gonna throw out a dumb number and if they say yes, I'll do it, right? And I did not expect them to say anything. Uh within a couple of minutes, I got back a yes. And now most people would say, Oh, that's great. Justin knows why he's laughing. I know I know I'm gonna explain for people who don't understand, but why is Justin laughing? Because if a brand comes back and immediately accepts what you threw out, you just left a whole bunch of money on the table because there was no negotiation. I probably lost half of what I could have gotten out of that deal. It is just, you're so right about throwing out the numbers like it seems like a good idea, but sometimes it isn't.

Build Packages Instead Of One Price

Why An Email List Beats Algorithms

SPEAKER_00 12:12

I I I'm gonna make a speculation, actually. It was even worse for another reason. Sorry to like beat it. Um, but um there's even a worse outcome here, which was that um what you really should have done was provide packages to them, even if they weren't asking for it. Um, because this is the this is again, they come inbound with a specific scope of work. They say YouTube videos, social media posts, whatever. Um, and then you spit back a number, right? And uh the real um risk in that is not allowing the brand exposure to other ways in which you could serve them. So they may have never known that you had an Instagram with 10,000, 20,000, 50,000 people. They may have never known that you had an in-person event. They may have never known that you had a private community with 500 of your most engaged audience members or a newsletter or whatever. And so by providing packages to them, you can show them that you can actually help them amplify this campaign in other ways that they did not anticipate. And so we can go deeper into that later. But like I just think this is an important insight that we have to be more strategic with our uh approach.

SPEAKER_01 13:25

One thing that uh I know you love uh for your clients to have is an email list. And weirdly, I actually had a comment this morning on the channel from someone talking about they don't understand how they understand the importance of having an email list, which by the way, we can explain what that is and what that means. But how to get one from your YouTube videos to leverage for things like this is hard for them to again get their mind wrapped around. Let's talk about what an email list is, why you should have it, and how you get it.

SPEAKER_00 13:53

So one of the most important reasons to have an email list or a newsletter, sometimes people call it, um, is that you uh now have a mechanism where you would I say quote unquote own your audience. With a platform like YouTube, if someone clicks subscribe on your channel and hopefully rings the bell to get updated on all your uploads, um, there's still not a guarantee that those people will see your video. Um, because at the end of the day, uh it's not like YouTube of 10 or 15 years ago where people would go to their subscription feed and watch the latest and greatest video of the people they subscribe to. No, it is now an algorithmic feed where you go to your home page and YouTube serves you content that you they think you will enjoy based on your past viewing behavior, right? Um, you know this better than anyone, Travis. Um, and so uh what that what happens there is that over time, if you continue to upload content that people don't click on uh in their home feed, that YouTube will start serving your your videos to less and less people. And so, you know, you may have 50,000 subscribers or 100,000 subscribers or 10,000 or 1,000, and yet only you're only seeing a small fraction of that, of those people actually consuming your content. And so with a with an email list where you people actually opt in to hear from you directly, where you can send emails to their inbox and say, hey, it's me. You know, here's this other cool thing about you know uh what's going on these days. Um, you have much more control uh over that relationship. And let me give you a some data to back this up. So if you look at, let's, I'm gonna use Instagram for because this is an easy example. So I have close to 15,000 followers on my Instagram handle, which is at CreatorWizard. Um, and my average reach per reel or per per video that I share, uh, I think one that I recently did, it was like 500, right? So, so do the math, right? 500 people saw that out of the 15,000 people that uh that follow me. Now I have an email list, Travis, and I have uh over 25,000 creators on that. Do you know how many people open my last email that I sent out?

SPEAKER_01 15:56

So what's the industry standard? I can't remember, isn't it like 2% or 3%, something like that?

SPEAKER_00 16:00

Well, well, the click rate is very low, but the open rate generally is hovers around 20 to 30% generally for email. Um, 55% of people open my last email. And so you could argue that my Instagram content sucks, but uh email is one of the last bastions of Frontier where you really at the end of the day, your subject line in your email newsletter is just like your title and your thumbnail and your YouTube video. You have to convince people to click on that email. And so I I would argue that, like, you know, I can't suck that much to get a 50-55%, you know, even if there was a margin of error there, more than half of the people who have signed up to that are getting my message and I'm able to connect with them. And so um, you know, I'm a huge nerd about email lists, and we could, I could probably we could probably do a whole episode just on email list strategy. Um, but I just think it's such an important uh thing to augment your YouTube strategy so that you can kind of protect yourself if something happens to your channel.

SPEAKER_01 16:58

So essentially your value prop in your video would be what exactly? Like if you want to do that.

SPEAKER_00 17:02

Well, it would be, I think the most important thing. No, that's the worst thing to do because no one wants more emails. No one's like, oh, more tips and tricks. Yeah, no, no one's gonna sign up for that. It has to be something new or unique or novel or exclusive. Okay. So it can't just be more. People don't want more. And so, for example, the value proposition of my newsletter is that I send you paid sponsorship opportunities every single week for free on a silver platter. And you just click, you hit and click apply to this brand deal. And so we go out and we curate these. And so it's a lot of work. I have a whole full-time team member who like goes out. So it's hugely valuable, right? Uh, by the way, shamelessblood creatorwizard.com slash join. If you want to, if you want to join the uh the if you don't, if you're not shameless about your own stuff, no one's gonna be doing it. That's what I've learned. Yeah, link will be in the description. Yeah. Yeah. And so, and so that I think is the is the lesson here is that you have to figure out what is the uh kind of supplemental or augment, what how can you augment the content that you're putting on your channel so that people are so excited about joining? And here's the other critical thing here a lot of people use what are called lead magnets, where they will create a PDF or a checklist or some downloadable resource that you get uh as a bonus of joining the email list. And I actually thought that that was always kind of a backward strategy. My value proposition is the ongoing content that you're gonna receive. It's not just this one downloadable guide. I am promising you every single week to give you valuable information. And so I would encourage anyone thinking about starting a newsletter to figure out like what could I, how much value could I create on an ongoing basis so that people want to stick around?

SPEAKER_01 18:30

Wow, that's crazy. So, what what software can you use to kind of get that going? Because it is, it's not like you're just gonna get a whole bunch of emails in your Gmail and just try to figure out how to sell it.

SPEAKER_00 18:38

Yeah, no, definitely, you definitely don't want to do that because then you're gonna get spam. Uh people are gonna start labeling your email address as spam. So I, my email client is a uh a tool called Kit. So I'm a full disclosure, I'm a I'm a partner and uh minor investor in kit. Uh kit, I just think is an awesome tool to start your um your email list journey, makes it really easy to create landing pages and start on email list. And so you basically use their mail servers to send the emails. So if you're sending, because you know, I'm sending out 27,000 emails every couple of days to you know 27,000 people, um, and you just simply can't do that in Gmail. So you you definitely want to invest in a tool to help you manage some of the technical stuff.

Affiliate Marketing As Proof And Trap

SPEAKER_01 19:15

All right. So in a little bit, we're gonna talk about specific success stories and stuff and clients you've had and what they've seen. But before we get to that, I know there's people listening going, okay, this sounds really cool. This sounds hype, it sounds amazing, but I'm this small creator, I have maybe a thousand subscribers, maybe less, or maybe a little bit more. I'm still trying to figure out my niche. I don't understand how I can pitch myself to anyone. And we actually get emails like this all the time. Like, how do I pitch myself to a brand? And or what are the things that I need to do? And one of the things I want to talk about before we get into those specific emails and stuff in types of ways that you which by the way, you're gonna want to go to Justin's website and get all that information because he's gonna teach you how to do that. But um affiliate sales, I want to talk a little bit about because that can actually be the stepping stone to a sponsorship. Because if you have affiliate sales, you now have data that you can send to a brand and say, I can prove to you that products like yours, or even maybe your product, I have sold through Amazon, Best Buy, Walmart. Talk a little bit about affiliates, uh, how that works and how you would use that to leverage into like better deals.

Pitch Like A Consultant Not A Creator

SPEAKER_00 20:14

Yeah, I think that's a fantastic stepping stone to doing other types of uh brand partnerships and sponsorships. And so essentially an affiliate type arrangement. Uh, first of all, well, hold on a second here. This is the ideal scenario for these brands, right? Because they do not have to pay you anything unless you generate a sale for them. So they're stoked about you loudly championing them on the internet, being an evangelist for them, giving your authentic testimonial for their product, and all you get is, you know, 10, 20% or whatever of the sale, or sometimes on Amazon less than 4%, 3%, whatever. Um, and so the brands are stoked. They, this is the setup that they want. Um, but and so of course, yes, it can be a great stepping stone to prove that you have influence, that you tell your audience, you know, you make a testimonial and they they take action. The challenge, though, is that you are trivializing the effort required to create the content containing the promotion. And I think that this is a very important uh insight here when it comes to affiliate marketing, um, because you know, the brand would have to go out there and hire outside partners to generate these sales if you're not doing it, right? They're gonna have to hire a production company to create content that they can then use as advertising. They have to run advertising on Meta or TikTok or YouTube TrueView or whatever to you know try to generate sales. Um, and so they're paying money to outside parties to actually generate the sales. The only time in an affiliate marketing capacity that they have to pay you is when you generate a sale. That is gold for them. And so I think just think it's important to recognize that um, yeah, it seems great to get a cut, but they're getting a huge benefit from you, you know, being an affiliate. The other danger about affiliate marketing, in my view, Travis, is that you will then convince yourself that the only value that you could potentially provide to a brand is conversions. And so there's this framework that I talk about in my book, Sponsor Magnet, called the ARC framework. So there's actually three goals that brands have when they choose to collaborate with creators. The first is actually awareness. So the A in the ARC framework stands for awareness. So the primary reason that they want to hire you is because they have a new product launch. They have, they're, you know, releasing their product into new territory. They were in the US, now they're in the UK. They've got a new, you know, new, new fandangled AI that they've released in their tool. They want everyone to know about it, right? The second goal that they have is repurposing. So going back to the uh rural Caribbean example that I shared, one of the primary things they care about was, again, getting great content that they could put on their website, use for paid advertising, use in their press releases. And we were simply the vessels to or the conduits to help them accomplish that. Maybe they want to take the content and use it for paid advertising, right? So all these things. And then that final, the C in the ARC framework is uh is conversions. And so I think it's really important that if you start with affiliate marketing, you don't convince yourself that um, well, I guess the thrust of every single pitch that I do has to be, I generated$6,000 in sales over the last 30 days, shipped revenue on Amazon, um, because that's what a what I have found uh happens. And you think that's the only way. And now, now you have essentially pigeonholed yourself in the brand's mind that unless you're generating sales, unless you're generating a financial return, um, then we're not gonna, we're not gonna pay this person money. Not to mention that they're gonna be like, Well, I don't want to change this setup. I love that I all I have to do is pay you 20%. Like I explain to me why I have to like change anything about this relationship. So it's just a taller order. Um, but again, like I said, great stepping stone.

SPEAKER_01 23:53

Yeah, no, that's uh I mean again, uh this just goes to show what my mindset is in that uh we're talking to Yoda here, and I'm barely Luke Skywalker. So uh, you know, sometimes I get I I learn things in the middle of the podcast. All right. So as a small creator, what is what are the things that you would do to get yourself known and get yourself out there? And what does the first pitch email look like? Like what are you what are you doing here? Like, let's say someone is like, I want to be in Justin's brain, but right now I don't have the funds to to dedicate to it. But I want to get there. So how do I get started so then I can then go and and be a part of uh your team and and uh be learn from you and learn from your team, how do I get started? Because that's so hard.

Follow Up Without Ego And Recap Wins

SPEAKER_00 24:35

The biggest mindset shift I think uh to have when it comes to being a smaller creator and trying to figure out what is the value that I could provide to these brands is if you stop thinking about yourself as a creator and start thinking about yourself as a consultant. So if your pitch when you email this brand is, hey, let me talk about you on my YouTube channel, they're gonna take one look at your channel and see you're getting an average of 200 views. And the cold truth of this is that it's not gonna move the needle for them. And so that doesn't mean you can't provide value to that brand, but it does mean that your pitch has to change. So instead of that angle, you need to do a little bit of research. I'm gonna go and take a look at this brand and I'm gonna do an analysis of their uh content strategy. What what are they doing out there on the internet? Do they have a YouTube channel? Do they have a podcast? Do they have social media? If they do post on social media, how frequently are they doing so? Does the content suck? Are they getting no engagement on that content? Um, and then you reach out to them and you say, hey, you know, love your brand, but I think you could be telling your brand story in a much more compelling way. I would actually love to create some content for you on autopilot, turnkey. I will create, I will start your YouTube channel for you. I will create one video a week. Uh, I will um, you know, interview people on your marketing team. I'll interview my friends in the industry, I will edit it, I will record it, I'll do everything. Uh, and all you have to do is just, you know, say yes.$7,500 a month. What do you say? Um, and um, you know, to the to the brand's brain, all of a sudden, you know, they now see, and then the final thing you say in that pitch is, hey, go take a, by the way, go take a look at my YouTube channel because that's my portfolio. So it's just a different way of thinking about the value that you could provide to these brands. A lot of times you may hear have heard this word called UGC or user-generated content. And this is kind of that that angle uh of how you could provide uh, you know, support to a brand. You you just have to understand like brands do not have it all figured out. Oftentimes, especially if it's a smaller or medium-sized brand, um, there's only one person on the marketing team. And they're doing everything. They're doing, you know, the pay-per-click ads on Meta, they're doing the you know, the penny saver ads in their local community. They're doing, you know, if they are working with partners, it's it's all on them. And so if you can say, I'm gonna take all that off your plate or just one big piece of your job, um, and you don't got to worry about it. Oh yeah, where do I sign? Like, like, like sign me up. In fact, I'd love to share a real tangible story here around this, um, Travis. So I have a um uh a past coaching client, his name is Lou. Um, and he, I think he has around 12 or 13,000 subscribers on YouTube. So not, you know, not small, not giant. Um, and this exact thing happened to him where he was um he got into a conversation with a brand who uh wanted to start their own YouTube channel. They they really believed in the power of YouTube, and they uh and they basically said, Hey, can we hire you for a consulting session? And so he said, sure, yeah. So, you know, they paid him a couple grand to like do a consulting analysis and he had a couple calls with them and he delivered this really nice looking report to them and said, Here's here's what I think you should do on YouTube. And they said, This is great, thank you. A couple weeks later, they came back to him and they said, You know what, Lou, we realized that we can't do this ourselves. Can you do it for us? And he said, he was like completely shocked, right? He was like, Oh, sure. And so he um put together three different packages or four, I think maybe four different packages. Um, and they were at multi-five figures, all of these packages, through through the help of, you know, uh uh me collaborating with them. Um and I won't, I'm not gonna say the number because I don't know if he wants to share this publicly, but they ultimately came back, they picked the top package, and Lou quit his job. He quit his full-time job. And now he, in addition to you know, running his own YouTube channel, he is now uh basically running another brand's entire YouTube strategy. Uh, and it it has allowed him to take the dive into being a full-time creator, like he's always always wanted to. He's been in IT for 20 plus years. Um, and so I just love sharing this story because that example, they didn't care at all how many YouTube subscribers Lou had. That was like the portfolio uh that they used to know his credibility. And so um, I think that this same example can be this the same reality can be true for anyone watching or listening.

SPEAKER_01 28:56

That's such a cool story because here's the thing for people who are maybe in the 5,000 or even under that subscriber range, I just want you to know 10 to 12,000 subscribers is not that much. And almost universally, no one who's at that subscriber size can go full-time. What you just explained is mind-bending and mind-blowing. That's crazy for not that many subscribers and and just kind of probably grinding along, maybe getting a couple hundred views per video, having a full-time job in content creation is absolutely amazing. And I love stories like that. It's stuff like that that really shows the power of what we do because you said this earlier in the podcast, and I think it's it bears repeating that we are the editor, we are the actor, we are the producer, we are the writer, we are the script guy, we're we're everybody. We're everybody in one thing, and we oftentimes forget that. We forget how much value and how much that costs to do if a brand needed to go out and do that.

SPEAKER_00 29:52

Well, and I think I'm really glad you brought this up because the something you said at the end there, I need to, I really need to agitate, which is that um, yes, it's more cost efficient, but that's not how you should position it to the brand. Yes, it's of course it's gonna be cheaper to hire you to do all these things than the agencies and the actors and all that stuff too. But what you also need to educate the brand to realize is that it'll actually be more effective. It's not just cost efficient, it's more effective to work with someone like you because you have your finger on the pulse of what's working on YouTube, of what's working on social media, because you're publishing, you're uploading day in and day out. These outside agencies, I'm sorry, it's been my experience that they don't. They're not going through the process of like understanding the ins and outs of how the algorithm and how the platform is changing on a on something like YouTube. And so you actually have a superpower uh above and beyond what most of these big name agencies do.

SPEAKER_01 30:45

I love that. That's so critical. And you know, in this conversation, you've reminded me of a brand that I've worked with for years, but haven't really talked to in a couple years. And I've had a great relationship with them, but I never like I never really thought of it taking it to that level where I go, listen, I just want to work with you guys. Can we work out something over the course of a long period of time? So that's interesting. So if you're a creator who finally got um, let's just say, because remember you said pretty much everyone sends out free products. And let's just say you just get started and maybe you didn't even hear this podcast till now and you didn't ask for money, you just got the product, but you did a review and it did pretty well. For whatever product it is, doesn't matter what your niche is. What's the next step? Like, how do you reach back out and go, hey, we did this thing and it's great. Could you pay me this time?

SPEAKER_00 31:27

You know, I gotta, I I gotta, I gotta share a story here because I think uh a lot of your viewers will know. So you know Nick Niman, right? Of course, Nick's my buddy. Amazing YouTube educator. I was on his uh his channel um like a year or two ago, and he shared a story, which I think is hilarious and very relevant. So he did a deal with a brand, uh, and I think I can say because I think he said it in the videos, USCreen. He did a deal with UScreen and helped you create like video memberships and stuff. Um, and it went great. And and so he did the deal with them, did the integration, uh, but then he never heard back from them. And he was like, Oh, that's that's weird. I guess I thought I thought it went well, but I guess maybe they didn't, right? And then something like seven or eight months later, he saw uh he saw the rep from USCreen at a at a conference like Vid Summit or VidCon or something. And uh the rep was like, Oh, Nick, like it's so great to see you. Like, man, I loved working with you back then. And uh man, I wish you would have reached out to me because I would have loved to do some more stuff with you over the last year, but I'm sorry, I just got so busy. And Nick was like, you know, like this kind of thing, right? Um, because again, it going back to what we were talking about earlier, like oftentimes it's just the case of like these people are extremely busy. Um, they are doing a million different things, and it'll actually take you being the one to come to them and being like, hey, I would actually love to work with you on an ongoing basis. Here's what that, look, here's exactly what I'm proposing. And all it takes is for them to be like, oh, yeah, sure, signs, let me sign off on this. This is great. I don't have to do anything. Um, and so, but again, going back to the imposter syndrome, Travis, we're just very worried what would happen in that scenario, right? Because, you know, what would happen if we came back and pitched this really ambitious thing to the brand and they say no, now our ego is hurt and now we're a hater of the brand instead of an advocate, right? Um, and so I think a lot of what I talk about in my book and all that is just being very low ego about this stuff. No, it's just, you know, they, if you go back and kind of pitch them on a heightened engagement, uh, if they say no, it's not because they hate you, it's not because they never want to work with you, it's just because it's not the right timing, it's not the right fit. Uh, and you should stay on their radar. You should stay friendly, sending them articles that are helpful, um, continuing to stay on their radar because again, like, you know, who knows? In three months, uh opportunity might slide across their desk and they remember, oh, Justin, yeah, he's still interested and engaged in collaborating with us. Let me reach out. And so my advice to you in that scenario, Travis, would be I don't care how long ago it was that you worked with that brand, I would go reach back out and I'd be like, hey, you know, I was just throw back Thursday, right? Right. Uh I was just thinking about those awesome deals that we did together a couple years ago, and I was taking a look at your, you know, brand presence. I saw you launched XYZ, super cool. Um, I've got some ideas about how we could collaborate uh together. And just as a quick reminder, by the way, uh I went back and looked at all those videos that we did in collaboration three years ago. The last time we spoke, they were all at, you know, whatever, a total of 50,000 views. Three years later, those views are at 300,000. Right? Because what happens on YouTube? These, these, these, especially if they're evergreen, the view videos continue to views. And so you think a brand is going back and looking at content that they did three years ago? No, it would take you putting together what I call a relationship recap report and reminding them. And guess what? Maybe there was turnover too. That like the person you worked with three years ago is no longer there, and that new person needs to be reminded that you're awesome and that they had previously worked with you. And so you're now just again, a lot of what I talk about is like just make it easy. Make the brand look smart, you know, make them look good. Um, and you know, just make it easy for them to give you money.

SPEAKER_01 34:57

Yeah, I'm looking back at an email right now from that brand I'm telling you about. Uh, I have um so interesting. I have been talking to this company. I see this email originally is in 2022. Thankfully, I still have the string. I never deleted the string, it was always in my inbox so that when I went back to it in a lot a couple months ago, uh, I could find the string and see who was working on the thing. So I emailed, thank goodness that the person I originally talked to still works at the company, but in a different place, and they have like a replacement. And they can literally look back at this entire string and see that I've been there for years and been supportive for years. So I think after this podcast, I'm literally gonna email them and go, hey, I know it's been a minute, but we love each other. Can we do something? So I yeah, this is a good thing. No, no, that's a terrible pitch. Don't do that. Oh, okay. All right, well, tell me what's my pitch.

SPEAKER_00 35:39

I'm gonna help you. I'm gonna help you make a better pitch. Maybe this is a good transition. Let's do it. Live pad, let's do it right now. Live, let's do it. So uh are you are you comfortable sharing what the brand is, or do you want to make it anonymous?

SPEAKER_01 35:50

Yeah, it's let's just I'll give you it's a it's an accessory brand. They do like um power supplies, they do uh chargers, a lot of phone stuff. So um uh all that stuff. And and some other stuff too, for like um like storage drives for computers, so all the tech stuff that I'd be doing.

SPEAKER_00 36:04

Okay, so if you were to tell me, and I understand you want to anonymize it, but if you were to tell me what the brand was, I would literally say, okay, I'm gonna go to their website right now. I am going to see what new products have they released recently? I'm gonna go and see um what new markets are they in new retailers? Like maybe though four years ago they weren't in Best Buy or they weren't in Amazon, they didn't have an Amazon storefront and now they do. I'm gonna go look at Amazon and I'm gonna see do their product pictures and videos suck. Great. There's an angle for me to pitch. Hey, I see you're now selling on Amazon and you weren't before. I would love to create four videos that you could, you know, put on your product pages to ensure that you have more higher conversions on your Amazon storefront. Um, that's the type of pitch I want to see you make, not like, hey, I'm awesome, don't you remember me? It's like it's it's doing some research about what's going on in their universe to make it easy to say yes to you.

SPEAKER_01 36:52

Oh, you might have to talk after the podcast.

SPEAKER_00 36:53

All right.

SPEAKER_01 36:55

I know for those of you that are like, I wish I could talk to Justin after the podcast, we'll leave links in the butt in the description where you'll be able to see all of his uh offerings and stuff. So uh a couple more things before we wrap up. What do you think are are the biggest mistakes creators are making right now when trying to get sponsorships uh and when following up with sponsors who maybe haven't returned emails or whatever?

Stand Out With Video Pitches

SPEAKER_00 37:14

Man, I mean I mean the biggest mistake is trying to send email pitches. The re the reality of it is now is that everyone in this universe has the tools to write a good enough sounding email using AI. And I know for a fact, because I'm friends with a lot of them, that these marketers, these brands, and these agencies are absolutely inundated with with crappy AI pitches now. Um and so it's it's it's even more difficult to stand out in these crowded inboxes. And so what I've been advising my clients uh to do over the last 12 to 18 months is we're shifting entirely to video pitches. So um, so instead of sending emails, I'm putting together a two-minute uh video where I am uh illustrating, you know, how I can provide value to this brand. Actually, you know what would be super fun? Uh I I'm kind of calling on Audible right now. Yeah. Would you would you like me to show you one of the video pitches that I did that that actually got a brand deal for my in-person event sponsor games?

SPEAKER_01 38:12

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 38:12

Would you like to see this? Absolutely. Okay, I'm gonna share my screen here and we're gonna this. I feel like I feel like real examples are more fun. This is always the best way. Hey there, Laura. I hope you're doing well. Uh hey, listen, I just wanted to say thank you so much again for sending uh the uh Move Mike 2 uh for as like a giveaway prize at our sponsor games event this year. That was just like super appreciated. Um and uh yeah, just wanted to say thank you. Um I also wanted to check in with you to see uh what your 2026 event strategy is looking like. I know uh it seems like you went to the NAB this year, curious if you can do that again uh next year. Um I know it seemed like uh a lot of the of what you were focused on this year, uh especially on social, was the 100-year anniversary. Uh, but especially as you move into next year, uh, you know, would love to see if there's any campaigns or promotions that we may be able to support in partnership with Sponsor Games 2026. Uh so you know the event just went off uh, you know, so amazingly, just the energy at the event, the creators that were in the room, just so much creativity just bursting out the seams. And we're going back at it again, bigger and better next year. We're doubling the attendee size. Um, and just kind of wanted to catch up with you to see uh if you might be interested in sponsoring the event um in 2026. Um so yeah, let me know if you might have some time in the next week or two to hop on a call. Um, and I just have a bunch of like ideas about how we could integrate uh shirt into the event. The one in the one idea in particular is that uh we have this game called the Produce game, where basically we gave random objects to the creators in attendance and we say, go film a sponsored video for this object. So they had a brief, they had 60 minutes to read this brief, see what they had to do, shoot it, edit it, upload it, and then we all watched it together in the room. Uh and so I think that would just be such a brilliant way to integrate the move mic to uh and use that, you know, uh to actually produce these uh sponsored pieces of content. So yeah, it was just a ton of fun. So uh yeah, Laura, appreciate your time and I hope to catch up with you soon.

SPEAKER_01 40:13

Can I just explain what I think is so cool about what you just showed? It's conversational, it's not overly produced, it doesn't feel like you set up a camera and you edited things. It feels very real and genuine and still had the little sparks of look what I'm doing here, look at what I'm doing here. If you break it down in your brain before you shot that, what did you have set up in advance? Because that was pretty brilliant.

SPEAKER_00 40:39

I appreciate it, dude. And and so really what it was is I just took a little bit of time to do the research to see what it seems like they cared about in their universe. And so it was the, you know, they just went to the NAB, so they definitely sponsor events. They had their hundred-year anniversary, which is always for a brand, like that's like a big deal, you know, and it's like we've been around for so long, everyone knows sure, like all that. Um, but then I also had a tab open of my event, right? And I was like, I just kind of went as I was talking, I was just like tabbing through different things to showcase, you know, uh what I'm doing. But what I hope you also uh recognize was that I pitched them something very specific. I said, I didn't say, oh, it would be great to figure out a way for you to collaborate at the event. It was like, no, I have this one game that we're playing there. And here is exactly how I can envision utilizing your product at the at the event uh where people are getting hands-on, you know, use of the mic. And guess what happened, man? Um uh she reached, she replied to this email, we got got on a call. And what happened was she said, actually, we have a brand new product that's coming out about a month before your event. I would love for that product to be the one that people uh get to play with at the event. And so it's this kind of idea where it's like, I am making an inference. I'm making a speculation about what the brand cares about, but but really what I'm trying to showcase is that I have it, I've shown initiative. I've I'm researching them, uh, and and I really can care about what's going on with them. Uh, but in all likelihood, the brand's gonna say, we actually don't care about that thing you pitched, but love your initiative here. Like, let's let's do this instead.

SPEAKER_01 42:07

So, what's the email? Is it like, hey, I just wanted to send you a video. What do you do? Put it on unlisted YouTube. Like, how did you do that?

SPEAKER_00 42:13

Yeah, yeah. So, so I, yes, if an unlisted YouTube video is perfect because then what's the first thing that they're gonna do after they watch your pitch? They're gonna click on your YouTube channel and they're gonna be like, oh, who's this person? Like, you know, so that's very a very good approach. Um, and uh, and so yeah, it's it's a very simple email. It's just hey, uh, you know, hey, Laura, um, had a quick idea about how I could help spread the word about the move mic too or whatever. And then I link I link the video with like a gif uh you know inside the video, Justin. This said very simple.

Where To Find Justin Moore

SPEAKER_01 42:38

So smart, so smart. That might be one of the coolest things I've ever seen. Actually explained on the podcast that you could put into work right now and make more money for your YouTube channel, no matter what size it is. Yeah, 100%, dude. Was amazing. Okay. So finally, if people want to know more about you and your ninja skills or how to get more money and like how do they get in touch with you? How do they become a part of this the sponsor game? Like it all looks great. And your book. Tell them, tell us everything.

SPEAKER_00 43:07

I super appreciate it, man. Um, yeah, first, like you mentioned, um, really what we talked about has just kind of scratched the surface of what I cover in my book sponsor, Magden. It's kind of my uh uh version of like open sourcing everything that I know. Honestly, I I look at it as like my duty, frankly, to kind of educate the next generation of creators because my wife and I made so many mistakes um coming up on YouTube over the last 15 years. Um and it was the book that I always wit wish that I had, you know, uh coming up. And we're just about to crack 10,000 uh copies sold, which is which is wild. Um and I self-publish it, so I'm like pretty, pretty stoked about that outcome. Um and so yeah, the book at sponsormagnet.com. Um, yeah, we we just finished uh Sponsor Games 2026, but we're you know, this is an annual event, so sponsor games.com, you can check it out uh to come to the in-person thing. And then I have got a podcast. You can see I got like cool little fancy uh little flag on the on the mic here. So this is all we talk about on the podcast is um just Analyzing the sponsorships from a million different angles. So if this is uh this this conversation stimulated your brain, would love to see over there.

SPEAKER_01 44:06

So I like the last time you were on, a lot of people um talked about it as one of the best uh podcast episodes we had done. I think that there's so much value in this one. So if you're new here, this was the first one you watched, you've got to hit subscribe because we do stuff like this all the time. And definitely go check out Justin. He has got a wealth of information. And for those of you watching the YouTube channel, you might notice that I have my El Jefe Reviews uh televis uh shirt on. That's a friend of mine who also works here at FedIQ and has gone through Justin's program and told me, again, I want to be clear about this because some people are like, oh, you're shilling. I'm not shilling here. I'm gonna tell you a real story. He told me directly, as a personal friend, after he took Justin's um course, that it not only paid for the course and everything, it more than doubled what he was going to be able to make for those things. And that was just someone that I know has personally worked with Justin in a very short amount of time. So definitely check him out. For everyone else, we thank you so much for joining us, and we have another video right here. See y'all in the next one.