694: Your Path to $1k+ Brand Deals, Even With a Small Audience

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0:01:07 on to the show. This is your path to $1,000 plus brand deals, even. If you’ve got a small audience,
0:01:15 this is how to get your piece of the $480 billion, billion with a B dollar, creator economy pie. And to
0:01:21 help school us on this is the author of Sponsor Magnet, which you can find at sponsormagnet.com,
0:01:25 Justin Moore. Welcome to the Side Hustle Show. Dude, Nick, I’m so thrilled to be here, man.
0:01:31 I am pumped for this one. Stick around. We’re covering what brands really care about, how to
0:01:36 reach the right decision makers, and how to maximize your earning power, not just with one-off campaigns,
0:01:41 but with long-term partnerships. And that’s just round one. We’ve got three rounds with Justin today,
0:01:47 including his business idea donation for Side Hustle Nation and the Triple Threat. But first,
0:01:52 just want to get a sense of what’s possible in this world. You’ve got dozens and dozens of people
0:01:56 that you’ve worked with. Is there anything that really stands out to you in terms of like a really
0:02:00 small audience-sized creator who landed something meaningful?
0:02:07 Yeah, 100%. So I have a coaching client. Her name is Dr. Alex, and she has a podcast called
0:02:13 Digital Pathology Place. Okay. She’s a veterinarian, like a physician. And her podcast,
0:02:20 on average, gets hundreds of listens, not tens of thousands. And her YouTube videos, same,
0:02:21 you know? Okay.
0:02:27 And she is absolutely crushing it with brand partnerships, Nick. Because if you think about
0:02:34 who is in her audience, it’s the lab techs. It’s the people who work in the C-suite at the hospitals.
0:02:40 It’s the people who work at the biopharmaceutical companies. And if you’re over here,
0:02:45 medical device company XYZ, and you’re sitting here thinking, how am I going to spend this $20
0:02:49 million marketing budget? This is what they’re thinking, right? They’re thinking, okay, well,
0:02:55 maybe we could continue buying ads in that prehistoric trade magazine that sits in the doctor’s office.
0:02:57 Yeah, I was going to say trade magazines. Sure.
0:03:03 Right. That whoever knows if anyone reads those. Maybe trying to run like pay-per-click ads on Google.
0:03:09 It’s heavily regulated, so they may not even be able to run ads on Meta. You know, who knows? Or maybe
0:03:13 they could roll out the red carpet for someone like Dr. Alex. They could say, all of the people,
0:03:17 even though it’s a small audience, all the people who are in this kind of niche community,
0:03:23 these are the people that we want to get in front of. So let’s fly her out to our factory. Let’s pay
0:03:29 her to come and speak on stage on our behalf at an upcoming trade industry event. And so she has her
0:03:36 business funded by tons of these niche medical healthcare players because of who she represents.
0:03:40 And so again, like she’s not, she does not have hundreds of thousands of followers,
0:03:43 but brand partnerships has become a huge part of her business.
0:03:50 Does it need to be a B2B type of play? I mean, we’ve seen some examples on the show in the past.
0:03:54 Brian Orr comes to mind from the HVAC school. Like we’re going to create a podcast for HVAC
0:04:00 technicians and help them train, you know, how to be better at their job. Killer business. And Harry
0:04:04 Duran comes to mind with the vertical farming podcast, where it’s like, we’re going to talk to
0:04:10 founders and CEOs of vertical farming companies. And it’s like, so niche specific. It’s like,
0:04:14 like you said, if you want to spend this ad dollars, we’re the only game in town,
0:04:19 or we’re one of the only new media games in town. But do you see, it’s almost got to be
0:04:22 kind of in that micro niche B2B type of market?
0:04:27 I wouldn’t say B2B necessarily. It definitely helps because there’s a lot of businesses who are
0:04:32 seeing the light in terms of the value of working with creators and entrepreneurs in this capacity.
0:04:37 But I do think having some sort of niche helps. However, what I would say, though,
0:04:41 is that let’s say you are small. Let’s say you have sub a thousand followers or listeners or
0:04:46 subscribers or whatever. What you pitch to the brand has to change, though. So if you come to them and
0:04:52 you say, you know, I would love to talk about your, you know, your brand or your product on my YouTube
0:04:56 channel or my podcast or my newsletter or something, and they go take a look at it and you’re getting an
0:05:01 average of 100 views per video or listens or whatever. Yeah. Not really going to move the
0:05:07 needle for them. Let’s just be real here. Right. And so how about instead if we approach the pitch
0:05:12 a little bit differently? So what I would do is I would say, OK, let me go and do a holistic analysis
0:05:18 of this brand’s social presence. Let me see. Are they posting on social media at all? Or do they have
0:05:22 a podcast for their brand? Do they have a YouTube channel for their brand? Are they sending it? Do they
0:05:26 have a blog? Are they sending out a newsletter? If they are posting on some of these platforms,
0:05:30 is it good content? Is it consistent content? And then I would reach out to them and I would say,
0:05:34 hey, listen, love your brand. However, I think you could be telling your brand story in a much more
0:05:40 compelling way. I would love to create content on autopilot for you. I’ll send you five, 10 videos
0:05:44 a month. I’ll do, you know, I’ll stand up your podcast. I’ll be the host. I’ll interview people on your
0:05:49 marketing team. I’ll interview my friends. It’s turnkey $7,500 a month. What do you think? And yeah,
0:05:53 syndicating that content on my platforms could be part of it. But also you’re saying, hey,
0:05:58 go take a look at my platform because it serves as my portfolio. Even though I might have a thousand
0:06:03 followers, like I know what I’m doing when it comes to creating content. And so again, as you grow,
0:06:08 depending on your size, what you pitch has to change. Okay. So this is where it blends from
0:06:15 being a UGC partner or being a marketing consultant or so to speak, or content creator versus we’re buying
0:06:18 impressions from you. If you’re, if you don’t have a lot of impressions to sell, you got to get a
0:06:23 little more creative on, on the other side. And we had a woman on the show who was, the brands didn’t
0:06:27 care about the size of her following. They wanted the content to post on their own channels. And it
0:06:33 was like, sometimes two, 300 bucks, sometimes a thousand bucks a video. It was like, she got really
0:06:40 good at creating these hooky little short clips. It was like the hourly rate from some of that. If you
0:06:42 put that together, it was like, oh my gosh, this is fantastic.
0:06:48 A hundred percent. And if you can start getting really creative about negotiating those types of
0:06:53 deals for UGC or user generated content is you may determine once you get pretty good is like, Hey,
0:06:57 instead of paying me a flat rate or paying me a thousand bucks or whatever it’s going to be,
0:07:02 pay me a percentage of your ad spend. Meaning like if this asset starts performing really well and
0:07:06 converting very well, the more money you spend, the more money I make. So there’s really creative ways
0:07:11 that you can start thinking about setting up compensation with these types of arrangements.
0:07:16 Yeah. This is one of the, I mean, especially UGC is one of the biggest shifts that we’ve seen in the
0:07:21 space. It’s been almost 10 years since the last time we did a dedicated episode about landing
0:07:25 sponsorships, landing brand deals. I mean, what are some of the other big shifts you’ve seen here?
0:07:30 There absolutely has been a gargantuan shift to short form content. I mean, you know, when we started
0:07:35 out back in 2009, we had a blog, we had a YouTube channel and brands were just starting to dip
0:07:39 their toes into the idea about, you know, paying someone to like talk about them in a YouTube video
0:07:44 and long form content podcasts and so on was like, that was really the kind of standard and then
0:07:52 obviously sponsored blogs and so on too. But over the last, for sure, 18 to 24 months, a lot of brands
0:07:58 have shifted a much bigger percentage of the marketing pie over to short form content, whether
0:08:05 that’s Instagram reels, TikTok, YouTube shorts, and so on. One of the reasons, Nick, is because
0:08:10 of the increased repurposability of those assets. So when you sponsor a blogger or a newsletter
0:08:15 operator or YouTuber or something like that content, that integration, let’s say that sponsorship goes
0:08:19 live on the brand on that person’s platform. And then for a lot of them, that kind of disappears
0:08:23 into the ether, especially with like newsletters and all that. Yeah. Some YouTube can have a like
0:08:29 more of a, of an evergreen shelf life. Okay. But when, if you think about a 30 second video or 60
0:08:34 second video that someone might create, oftentimes the brands are negotiating for the rights to put that
0:08:40 content elsewhere, maybe on their website, on their social media to run paid advertising with it. And
0:08:46 so now the ROI or the ROAS, the return on ad spend that they’re thinking when they pay you 2,500 bucks
0:08:52 or whatever, or 10 grand, it starts becoming like, okay, I understand why I need to pay this creator to
0:08:57 secure those rights. So there’s a lot of different reasons. And, and of course, like there’s a lot more
0:09:01 mindshare around, around people consuming content in that format. And so that, that’s been a big shift.
0:09:07 Got it. So that’s something to have in your back pocket as you’re approaching brands. It’s not just
0:09:12 something that’s going to live on my channel. If you want the, you know, re-usage rights or the
0:09:17 recycling, the licensing rights to this content, absolutely. You can have it, but you know, there’s a
0:09:24 step up in the pricing tier in that case. So talk me through, I’m a new creator. I don’t have a huge
0:09:29 following. You pick the niche. It could be the veterinarian thing or, or something else, but like,
0:09:35 okay, I think this is going to be a viable path to monetize, to finding the decision makers to get
0:09:39 my first deal here. Yeah. So I think the first and most important thing to realize if I’m saying,
0:09:45 where do I even start? It’s like, first go and find, are there other brands sponsoring other people
0:09:49 in your niche? That’s the easiest way. That’s the lowest hanging fruit is like, maybe there’s other
0:09:53 creators, other newsletters, other, you know, YouTubers that you follow or whatever, and just start
0:09:57 acknowledging, okay, let me go back and look at their last 10 videos. Like where any of those
0:10:01 sponsored? You can even search on people’s YouTube channels for hashtags, like hashtag sponsored,
0:10:06 the word sponsored, sponsoring, partnering. You can start to see like, okay, wow, this person was
0:10:11 sponsored by that. And that’s the best place to start. So that’s a good sign. If that company is
0:10:15 in alignment with you, they have budget, they have a track record of making that kind of investment.
0:10:20 Exactly. And they, and they already see the value in partnering with creators. A lot of times people
0:10:23 will go to a brand that has never worked with a single creator. And it’s just a, it’s a,
0:10:27 it’s a harder sell the edge, the sales cycles longer. You’re going to probably get frustrated
0:10:31 because you’re having lots of conversations that don’t lead anywhere. And so I would say start there
0:10:35 for brands that already really kind of understand the second step. And it’s a really critical one,
0:10:42 Nick is, is realizing that whether you like the brand or not is kind of irrelevant. It’s kind of
0:10:47 table stakes because at the end of the day, it’s not about you. It’s about, will this sponsor serve your
0:10:53 audience? Because really what brands care about is, Hey, does your audience represent a pool of future
0:10:57 prospective customers of us? We don’t care that you like the product. We care is your audience
0:11:02 interested in it. And so what I advocate for in my book sponsor magnet is like, let’s actually start
0:11:09 a proactive dialogue with my audience to learn more about them. I want to learn what’s going on in their
0:11:13 lives. What’s keeping them up at night? What problems did they have? A lot of people get fixated. Oh,
0:11:17 I’m in this like veterinary niche or I’m in this DIY quilting niche or whatever. I guess the only brands
0:11:23 I can work with are like fabric brands or yarn brands or something. When in reality, let’s pull
0:11:27 that example for the thread. Sorry, I did not mean to make that pun. Let’s pull that thread for a
0:11:32 second. If you start asking questions of that community, I don’t know, for example, maybe you
0:11:36 realize you send out a Google form survey in your next newsletter, you put out a poll on your YouTube
0:11:41 community tab or something. And you realize that, wow, I didn’t realize 50% of my audience, they
0:11:45 homeschool their homeschooling families and they’re really into DIY and crafting and all that.
0:11:51 That represents a very specific type of psychographic of consumer. Maybe I should
0:11:56 pitch a brand like ABC mouse, which helps kids read. I bet you could probably think of a pretty
0:12:01 creative way to integrate a brand like that into your DIY and quilting niche. And so again, it comes
0:12:06 back to like understanding your audience. And also you should be asking like, are there any brands and
0:12:11 tools and products that you’re using and loving right now? What if 30% of them say one brand in
0:12:15 particular? Well, you better go take that data and go pitch the brand and be like, hey, I’ve got this
0:12:19 huge cohort of my audience that is interested in using your product. I would love to expose my full
0:12:20 audience to you.
0:12:23 Got it. It was biting my tongue a little bit because like, well, if you’re the face of the
0:12:28 brand or if you’re the face of your own personal brand and your content, it’s like you got to be
0:12:32 at least comfortable. You know, ideally, you’re a user, you’re an advocate, you’re a fan of this
0:12:36 company that you’re pitching. It’s like because you don’t want to become just a pitch person for
0:12:39 whatever random thing. Like, I wouldn’t recommend this.
0:12:44 Oh, oh, 100%. So what I meant is that, of course, you have to like it be a tool that you would
0:12:49 recommend. But really, that’s what not what you should be leading with in your pitch, because the
0:12:53 brand doesn’t care that you like it. You need to illustrate to them, does your audience have
0:12:55 existing affinity? That’s really what I meant.
0:13:01 Got it. Okay. So step one, kind of creating this list or this spreadsheet of potential partners,
0:13:08 the companies and services that you use, the companies that you see sponsoring other creators
0:13:13 in the space, and maybe the companies that your audience is already into if you do a little
0:13:18 survey. More with Justin in just a moment, including how to get in touch with the actual decision makers
0:13:24 at these brands and what to put in your pitch. Coming up right after this. Years ago, this is probably
0:13:30 2009. I’m sitting in this conference in Santa Barbara. And the presenter asks this question.
0:13:36 Are you working on your business? Or are you working in your business? I saw myself as this full time
0:13:42 entrepreneur. But it was this moment of clarity that no, I was still very much working in the
0:13:47 business day to day. So when I got back home, that’s when I made my first full time hire. It was the first
0:13:54 in a long series and an ongoing series of steps in trying to take control by being okay of letting go
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0:14:45 OpenPhone for this episode. OpenPhone is the number one business phone system that streamlines and scales
0:14:51 your customer communication for both calls and texts, all in one easy-to-use centralized hub. But before
0:14:56 OpenPhone was sponsoring podcasts, they took a more guerrilla marketing approach. You probably don’t
0:15:02 remember this. This is a while back. But when we just started OpenPhone, one of the ways that we got our
0:15:07 first customers is through Facebook groups. And I joined a bunch of Facebook groups, including yours.
0:15:14 Thank you for not kicking me out. But I posted a couple of times. And I actually remember seeing
0:15:19 there were some of your listeners and folks in your community interested in solving the problem we solve,
0:15:25 which is not using your personal phone number for work. And those posts got us some of our first
0:15:28 customers. So thank you. It’s a full circle moment.
0:15:33 Oh, that’s super fun. Very cool. That’s Darina, the co-founder of OpenPhone. And sure enough,
0:15:38 her posts are still there. OpenPhone is offering SideHustle show listeners 20% off your first
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0:15:50 SideHustle. And if you have existing numbers with another service, OpenPhone will port them over
0:15:56 at no extra charge. What I did early on, and maybe it’s kind of embarrassing, but like,
0:16:01 this is my genius idea. I was going to comb the archives of Entrepreneurs on Fire,
0:16:08 like the last 50 episodes or something that John did, and itemize out all those sponsors and identify
0:16:13 the top 10, 25, whatever, like the ones that I like, the companies that I like, the companies that
0:16:17 I used say, hey, they’re sponsoring this show. They would be a great sponsor for the SideHustle show.
0:16:22 And beyond that, it’s like, I went through a handful of those and then, you know, scroll down
0:16:29 the website and look for something that says partnerships or work with us or media, or it was
0:16:35 like, it’s kind of where the trail went cold in trying to find the decision makers. And some of
0:16:42 sometimes it would come back and be like, well, we work through an agency or let me forward your
0:16:47 email. It was like, it was really difficult to actually connect with somebody who had the buying
0:16:53 authority. Right. Yeah. That is a very big challenge for sure. And you can also convince yourself that
0:16:57 pitching doesn’t work if that’s the extent of what you do. And by the way, I just want to like empathize
0:17:00 with you for a second there, because that’s exactly what we did when we started, right? It’s just,
0:17:04 you know, because you’re not, you don’t go to school for this type of thing, right? Like that seems
0:17:10 like an intuitive way to do some sleuthing. But I have this magic search terminology that I share in the
0:17:16 book that really helps you triangulate these decision makers at these brands, but it depends
0:17:21 on the size of the brand. So what I mean by that is that if you are targeting a small mom and pop shop,
0:17:26 let’s say less than 15 employees, probably there’s only one marketing person who works there, right?
0:17:30 The director of marketing, the social media manager, if there is even a marketing person,
0:17:35 right? And so of course you need to change the type of person, like job titles that you’re searching
0:17:42 for. As brands get larger, let’s say 16 to 100 employees, they start having a hierarchy in their
0:17:47 marketing team. So maybe they now have a marketing manager, they have a coordinator, maybe they have
0:17:52 some directors there. And so a big part of what I teach is like learning to start studying, let’s say
0:17:57 the LinkedIn profiles of some of these roles. So going back to what I mentioned in terms of the magic
0:18:04 search terminology, it’s brand name, job title, and then the word LinkedIn in your favorite search,
0:18:09 you know, let’s say Google. And so the reason I recommend this is that I have found that Google is
0:18:14 a much better tool to surface the different jobs. Of course, you can invest in LinkedIn sales navigator
0:18:17 and so on, but like that’s like 600 bucks or whatever it is.
0:18:17 Yeah.
0:18:22 And so what I found is that you can actually find all these search results of like these people in
0:18:26 these marketing teams. And so the first one that I would, I would recommend trying at, let’s say a
0:18:30 medium-sized brand would be the job title would be influencer marketing manager. Dude, it’s so much
0:18:35 easier to find the decision makers these days than it was like 10 years ago, because pretty much any,
0:18:39 every, especially consumer brand has either an influencer marketing manager, a partnerships marketing
0:18:43 manager, an affiliate marketing manager. And so those are like the best place to start. I’ve found,
0:18:46 especially if they’re doing these types of activities.
0:18:51 Got it. And I think that influencer marketing manager was the same role that our UGC guest,
0:18:56 Megan, talked about looking for. And sometimes it was just DMing the brands on Instagram,
0:19:02 especially if they found what looked like other UGC content in that brand’s feed. Hey, you know,
0:19:06 I’m a UGC creator. It was like, it was, it was a more natural leading. Would you mind putting me in
0:19:08 touch with the influencer marketing manager?
0:19:14 The tricky part though, I’ll just put a caution here about DMing brands on social media is that
0:19:19 especially as brands get larger, the chances that the person managing the social handle,
0:19:23 that they have any sort of decision-making power for paid partnerships is like really low.
0:19:27 Normally those people are like community managers and, you know, they’re in the DMs with people who
0:19:31 are, let’s say it’s Chipotle, they’re complaining, someone’s complaining about a lukewarm burrito and
0:19:34 they’re like, here’s a $5 coupon, right? They’re not the like, oh, here, yeah. Talk to us about
0:19:40 this like Q4 holiday campaign. Yeah. And so I really would recommend going to the effort of
0:19:44 using tools like LinkedIn to triangulate who’s actually the decision maker and then using other
0:19:48 tools like hunter.io or Apollo or whatever to actually find their email addresses.
0:19:53 Okay. So then it comes, well, what do I send this person? I’m coming in out of the blue. I’m coming
0:19:56 in cold. How do I stand out from everybody else who’s doing the same thing?
0:20:01 Yeah. So I have a pitching methodology that I teach in the book called the rope method. So it’s R-O-P-E.
0:20:06 So what I teach is that your pitch has to be relevant to a campaign that the brand is either
0:20:12 currently running or has run in the past. O stands for organic, meaning that you can tie your pitch
0:20:17 back to organic work that you’ve already published that illustrates that your audience has affinity for
0:20:22 their brand. Like we were talking about earlier, your audience, not you. P stands for proof. So you
0:20:27 can show how you’ve helped other brands achieve results. And E stands for easy to execute when the
0:20:29 brand says that they’re interested. Like, what did you have in mind?
0:20:31 Got it. What if, what if you don’t have any proof yet?
0:20:33 Early on.
0:20:39 Well, if you don’t have any proof, the next best thing would be if you have affiliate performance. So
0:20:44 maybe you’re an Amazon associate, or maybe you’re part of another brand’s affiliate program that can
0:20:49 absolutely serve as proof that you actually are influential. But if you, even, even if you don’t
0:20:54 have that, even if you have no affiliate performance, the whole idea of why a brand would want to hire you
0:20:59 is that when you say to your audience, like, Hey, go do this thing that people actually take
0:21:04 action. So if you’ve told them to sign up for a webinar before, or you told them to go check out
0:21:08 this thing at this store and you have DMS, or you have email replies of people saying like, Hey, Nick,
0:21:12 thanks so much for telling me about that. I went and did the thing that can absolutely serve as proof
0:21:13 as well.
0:21:19 Got it. One example that stands out is Chris from all the hacks. He said something like 25% of his
0:21:24 audience had used his Viore coupon code. It was like a huge percent. And it was obviously the people
0:21:28 who answered the survey. So it was maybe a little bit biased, you know, by the people who were engaged
0:21:32 enough to take action and do the survey. But it was like, that’s, you know, really powerful ammunition
0:21:34 to take to the next brand and say, yes, these people take action.
0:21:35 Totally.
0:21:37 Okay. And then the E was ease of execution.
0:21:42 Yeah. The E is easy to execute. Meaning like we’re going to pitch them something very concrete. We’re
0:21:46 going to say, I’m going to do three YouTube integrations for you. I’m going to have you,
0:21:51 I’m going to insert your mid roll ad into the back catalog of my podcast for 15 days. I can turn around
0:21:55 the first integration in the next 10 days. I’ll grant you usage rights through the, through the end of
0:22:00 the year. So it’s something very, very concrete versus, Hey, would love to figure out a way to
0:22:00 collaborate.
0:22:05 Oh, okay. Okay. So making it an easy yes versus here’s,
0:22:09 three packages to choose for. Just like, no, no, no. Let’s start with something simple where they
0:22:11 can be like, sure. Yes. Sign, sign here.
0:22:16 Well, the likelihood of them saying yes, sure. Where do I sign is super unlikely. So the point
0:22:21 of having that, those bullets of like, here’s what I can do for you is more about giving them
0:22:23 something tangible to react to.
0:22:23 Okay.
0:22:29 So I am a fan of ultimately later down the line, after you’ve had an initial discovery call with
0:22:33 them providing packages, like you mentioned, but for the initial trying to get your foot in
0:22:36 the door, it’s much more about pitching them something succinct.
0:22:41 Got it. Okay. Very good. So that is, don’t, don’t, don’t expect somebody to be like, yes,
0:22:45 where do we sign right out of the gate? Right. But typically the next step is going to lead to
0:22:49 this discovery call and try and craft a more detailed proposal, you know, small, medium and
0:22:54 large type of thing. Like any strategies on structuring those packages?
0:22:59 Yeah. Well, the first advice is don’t just provide one package because a lot of people do that,
0:23:03 especially if a brand comes inbound and says, Hey, how much do you charge Nick for a podcast
0:23:08 and ad read or something? And what a lot of people do is they, they just spit back one number. They
0:23:12 say, uh, 500 or whatever the number is. Right. Yeah. And so absolutely don’t do that because now
0:23:17 you’ve just encouraged the brand to evaluate you a hundred percent on price. There’s no other levers
0:23:21 that you’ve given them to. And so they put you into a giant spreadsheet and there’s 10 other,
0:23:25 10 other podcasters that they reached out to. And if your number that you gave is just too high
0:23:30 based on the, this is what I did when I, when I ran my agency is that there would be this larger budget
0:23:35 that we had to work with 20 people, right? So we have 200 grand or whatever. And we, we were charged by
0:23:41 the brand, which is our client to do this campaign. And so everyone charges differently. So there was this
0:23:45 Tetris thing exercise that we had to do where we would just see, okay, everyone, we went and we kind of
0:23:49 kicked the tires on everyone, figured out their rates. And like, here’s the people that we can
0:23:52 ultimately move forward with. And then these people who just like charge too much, like we just have to
0:23:56 delete their rows and say, we can’t work with them. Right. Yeah. So the first shift is realizing,
0:24:00 okay, let’s go from only give them one number to giving them at least three different packages.
0:24:06 So you say, Hey, here’s several different ways that I can, that you can collaborate with me so that
0:24:10 there’s at least one package that they can move forward with you at. I talk about you,
0:24:13 like if you’ve ever seen the movie money ball, I talk about this a lot, which is the,
0:24:20 like you don’t need to be the MVP and have every package be like this knockout 20 grand type thing.
0:24:24 Like you can build a really robust business kind of hitting singles and doubles all day long. And in
0:24:27 fact, that’s really what my wife and I have done for our career. And so that’s the first shift is like
0:24:31 going from one number to three packages. And then there’s this kind of more complex shift,
0:24:36 which I think is worth mentioning is realizing that if you are providing multiple packages,
0:24:41 don’t make the variance between those packages quantity. This is what most people do is they say,
0:24:45 okay, package one is one post package. Two is two posts package. Three is three posts. And if you
0:24:49 pick package three, I’ll give you a 10% discount or something. Right. Okay. Okay. But it’s not really
0:24:53 that exciting to a lot of brands, especially if you’ve never worked with them before, because they
0:24:57 probably want to get at least one engagement under their belt to see what it’s like working with you,
0:25:00 because what happens if they get into it and you’re a nightmare, right? You’re not professional,
0:25:04 you’re not communicative. They’ve had, they’ve been burned before, so they don’t want to do that.
0:25:10 And so the better thing to do is to tie your packages to the brand’s goals. So one thing that
0:25:14 I encourage you to do on an, on a discovery call with the brand is actually ask them, Hey,
0:25:18 what does success look like to you? What would a win be like? And they’re going to say a lot of
0:25:22 different things. Probably they’re going to say awareness or, Hey, we want to get your content to
0:25:28 repurpose it for ads or, Oh, we want to drive sales or app downloads or whatever. And so what you do in
0:25:33 your proposal is you say, okay, good, good. Package one is the awareness package. That’s where I’m going
0:25:38 to do the podcast insertions. I’m going to do the dynamic back catalog thing. And then package two,
0:25:41 Hey, guess what? That doesn’t include any of those things. Package two is the repurposing goal. So in
0:25:47 that package, I’m going to give you five 32nd videos that I don’t even post anywhere. You’re going to
0:25:51 leverage my name and likeness. I’m going to make ads for you because you said you needed that you wanted
0:25:55 ads to repurpose. And then package three, that’s the conversion package. That’s where I’m going to do
0:26:01 the newsletter blast. I’m going to do the Instagram stories with a link sticker on every frame to drive
0:26:04 people to the trial thing. And then guess what package four is Nick? What’s package four?
0:26:09 That includes everything. And that’s the only way for the brand to accomplish all of their objectives.
0:26:14 Got it. All of the above. Sorry, there’s four copies here. Okay. This is really cool. Is there an
0:26:19 advantage to say like, look, I want to be a content creator. Like that’s what I love. I don’t want to be a
0:26:26 salesperson. Like working with an influencer agency, working through a network. Obviously I’m going to
0:26:33 give up a percentage to do that. But, you know, speak about the pros and cons here, man. So I could
0:26:37 say firsthand from experience, I’ve been a part of networks. I’ve had, we’ve had management in the past
0:26:44 and so on. And we kind of have a bit of PTSD from that whole experience, mainly because the financial
0:26:50 incentives are misaligned. So let me share a quick example. So when I ran my agency, again, to clarify,
0:26:55 we were more like an advertising agency. We were not directly managing or exclusively representing
0:26:59 creators. Our clients were the brands. And so when the brands hired us, we would then go after
0:27:02 any creator who seemed like they would be a good fit for that. And so what would happen is we would
0:27:07 reach out to a creator and we would look at their bio on social media or their blog or whatever,
0:27:10 and it would be their manager’s email address. And we say, okay, we reach out to them and say,
0:27:16 hey, our client is interested in hiring your, your client to do this campaign. And the very first thing
0:27:21 that the manager would say, Nick would be, oh yeah, she’s probably interested, but do you need more
0:27:26 people? Cause I have 19 other people on my roster and oh, here’s all their rates. Do you like any of
0:27:34 them too? And so a less scrupulous brand or one without ethics would say, oh yeah, well, actually
0:27:38 I like those three other people and they’re cheaper and better. So let me just work with them because
0:27:42 does that manager care where their 20% comes from? If the only way in which they’re being compensated is
0:27:48 the percentage of the deal, there’s no retainer, they don’t care. And so that’s one small example
0:27:53 that I can share. The other just anecdote that I could, I could share a dude is that we’ve known a lot
0:27:59 of people over the last 15 years being creators and almost without exception, the people who delegated
0:28:03 this stuff, the people who, you know, I don’t want to deal with the business stuff. I just want to be
0:28:09 a creator and all that. They are either no longer creators or they’ve really struggled. And the people
0:28:12 that have decided that like, this is my business, there’s no one who’s ever going to care about this
0:28:17 as much as I do. I’m going to learn this stuff. I’m going to understand what do partners and brands
0:28:22 find valuable about working with me. Those are the ones that are still doing really well and thriving.
0:28:27 And so I’m a, I’m a big proponent of this idea that like, you need to take true ownership over
0:28:32 these assets that you’re creating. Okay. Yeah, that’s, that’s fair. If you, if you want to play
0:28:35 in this business and treat it like a business, you’re going to have to learn how to do the business
0:28:41 side, right? Where do you see creators screwing this up? Say they got their first yes, and they’ve
0:28:46 been given this $5,000 opportunity. Where does it fall through the cracks? Where do they screw it up
0:28:51 from getting that brand ever to call them back again? Man. So really during the execution phase of the deal,
0:28:55 right? Yeah. You may have gotten the deal across the finish line in terms of signing the contract
0:29:01 and the negotiation and all that. But like, if you are not communicative, if you go off the rails in
0:29:05 terms of they approved one thing and you just kind of called an audible while you were creating the
0:29:08 content and then you send it back to them and they’re like, this isn’t anything like what we had
0:29:12 in mind. And then you give them a bunch of flack and saying like, yeah, well, you should trust me
0:29:15 because I’m the creator and I have the creative vision and trust me and all that. And if you’re just
0:29:20 kind of a nightmare to deal with, that is the time where they decide either, hey, this person’s amazing
0:29:25 or wow, this was a nightmare. We’re never hiring them again. So that’s that’s one piece. The other
0:29:32 piece, I think, comes towards the end of the partnership, Nick, where maybe let’s say they did
0:29:37 execute it successfully and then they posted the content. They invoiced the brand. The brand paid
0:29:41 them. And then the big mistake that they make is that they never reach out to the brand again.
0:29:46 They just make an assumption that like, well, if the brand was happy, if they like me,
0:29:51 they’ll reach out and ask to collaborate with me again. Yeah. OK. And that’s not the case at all.
0:29:57 The onus is on you to put together what I call a post campaign report where you’re sharing not just
0:30:02 the quantitative data of how the campaign went, but the qualitative data. You know, you have a podcast,
0:30:08 right? So you understand that, like, oftentimes you may be getting private feedback about that episode
0:30:13 or, you know, a sponsorship you might do. That’s not on a public facing social media platform.
0:30:17 So, yeah, on YouTube, there’s public facing comments. But like if I do a newsletter integration,
0:30:21 oftentimes I’ll get replies to that being like, oh, yeah, I tried that software six months ago sucks.
0:30:25 Or like I try, you know, I tried that food, you know, a year ago and it’s terrible for X,
0:30:31 Y, Z reason. Is the brand seeing that feedback? No, they’re not. And so it’s your job to send that
0:30:35 to them, even if it’s negative or neutral feedback and saying, hey, there seems to be a perception
0:30:39 in the market that your brand sucks for the following reasons. And if you’re not allowing
0:30:44 the brand to say, oh, well, actually, we have we completely reformulated our product three months
0:30:48 ago. It seems like people don’t know that. Great. There is the focus of the next integration.
0:30:52 And so it takes a lot of humility and low ego, I think, to actually come to the brand and be like,
0:30:56 hey, how’d it go? Right. Do we drive any sales? I think a lot of people are terrified of asking that
0:31:01 question. Yeah, yeah, yeah. You’re like worried to be like, yeah, actually, it really, really
0:31:07 underperformed. And you’re like, oh, right. Well, and what I my perspective is like Nelson Mandela has
0:31:12 this great quote, which is like, I never lose. I either win or I learn. Yeah. Because if you ask that
0:31:16 question, the brand, if they say it went great, great pitch them on the next deal. But if they say,
0:31:23 well, it went OK, great. We can learn something from this. And, you know, then you you can help them
0:31:27 understand how you can serve them in the next pulse of content. Got it. And this would be a great point
0:31:33 to ask you if you’re listening, if you have used any of the brands that have sponsored the side hustle
0:31:39 show in the past, I would love to hear from you. We did a fun, creative campaign with open phone over
0:31:44 the summer where we made an extended commercial with an interview with the co-founder. And I got
0:31:49 some feedback. I was like, wow, that was that was kind of cool. It didn’t even sound like like an ad
0:31:53 anymore. And I was like, shoot, maybe we should do more of that and make sure to pass that along to,
0:32:00 in my case, the broker and then onto the brand from there. But very, very cool stuff. Sponsor
0:32:05 Magnet is the new book. Sponsor Magnet dot com is where to go to grab your copy and unlock the free
0:32:11 bonuses that come with it. Got a nice endorsement from Pat Flynn on that page. We’re going to be right
0:32:18 back with Justin for his business idea donation for side hustle show listeners coming up right after this.
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0:34:26 All right. We’re back with Justin Moore from SponsorMagnet.com and we’re here for round two,
0:34:31 which is the business idea donation round. This is something you might start yourself if you had more
0:34:35 hours in the day. This is something you think side hustle show listeners could run with. What have you
0:34:41 got for us? Dude. All right. So I have, I’ve got a brand name for you for this business idea. Okay.
0:34:47 It is called trend sync. Let me clarify my, my problem here. Okay. Which is that I constantly
0:34:55 feel like there are things happening out there in the world on the internet, memes, trending sounds,
0:35:01 holidays that are coming up, you know, things that are relevant globally or like on the internet that I
0:35:07 would love to be able to plan for in my business from a content perspective. But I’m just so busy
0:35:12 working on the business all the time that I constantly feel like I’m, I’m behind. And so
0:35:16 the business idea that I would love someone to create and I would become a customer of a day one
0:35:23 is some sort of web app where I can insert maybe my website URL or my LinkedIn profile or a social
0:35:30 media profile or something, have it analyze my industry, my brand voice, my target customer or
0:35:36 audience, and give me an entire content plan to generate a content strategy for me. And so it’ll,
0:35:41 it’ll help me think of, you know, what are the upcoming industry events and holidays and awareness
0:35:45 days that I need to leverage. If there’s a trending sound on Tik TOK that I should quickly make a sound
0:35:51 about to insert myself into the narrative for, I kind of imagine this to be like my extremely online
0:35:57 assistant that I just don’t have time to consume all this content. And I think it could be pretty easy
0:36:02 to create something like this with AI, I think. And I think this could help eliminate like a lot of hours
0:36:07 and could potentially save me from hiring a VA or an employee or whatever to do something like this.
0:36:10 So yeah, hit me up, please. Like sell me on this.
0:36:15 I’m a fan of this. The example that comes to mind is like the Coldplay kiss cam from this summer.
0:36:16 Yes.
0:36:20 Where I started seeing the memes before I even knew what it was. I was like, why is everybody
0:36:25 is just like, you know, this dude hugging this woman. I was like, why is this going? Why is this
0:36:28 showing up in my feet? I didn’t even know what it was. And then my wife was very into it.
0:36:30 Showed me, showed me all about it. It was great.
0:36:34 But something like that to keep a pulse on what’s going on and then bonus points,
0:36:38 if you can kind of give you the easy answer on like, okay, this is going viral. This is
0:36:42 what people are talking about. But how do I make it about side hustle stuff? Or how do I make it about
0:36:43 getting brand deals?
0:36:43 Exactly.
0:36:47 It’s one thing to capture the trend or to be aware of the trend. But it’s another thing to like,
0:36:50 okay, what do I actually do about it?
0:36:54 A hundred percent. Imagine if I could get like some sort of daily or weekly email digest with like,
0:36:58 here’s the top five things are going viral or trending right now. And here’s the ideas quick here.
0:37:01 here’s a script of like how you could make a quick short form piece of content that’s relevant
0:37:03 for this or something like, oh my God, I would kill for that.
0:37:09 Yeah. For a time, Ryan Gray from Med School HQ was doing really well with this stuff on Instagram.
0:37:13 Like, I don’t know if he had somebody on his team, but they would like create these memes and just
0:37:16 pivot it to being about kids going to med school and did really well with that. What do you think is
0:37:23 the first step here? Is it to create a listening agent? It’s probably not that hard to tap into
0:37:28 Google Trends or, you know, some what’s going viral on different platforms. I feel like
0:37:32 that is feasible. And then creating a profile based on your own body of work and your brand
0:37:38 voice, like also probably feasible. And then in the marrying of those two, I think it’s a connecting of
0:37:42 pipes, so to speak. I think there’s tools out there, like you said, AI listening agents,
0:37:47 a combination of that with perplexity and chat or Claude or something. You’d probably want to be
0:37:53 thoughtful about like what data you would need, like I said, to actually build a robust profile of
0:37:57 the user, like the website, the LinkedIn, the social media and so on, or maybe feed documents
0:38:01 to it or something. Because I think you’re right. That would be the really critical piece here is like
0:38:06 giving some sort of specific recommendation of how to capitalize on the viral trend or meme or
0:38:10 whatever. And so probably the first step for me would be like figuring out what are all the sources that
0:38:15 I would need to actually figure out if something is going viral? Like maybe it’s Google Trends or maybe
0:38:21 it’s perplexity or maybe it’s some other sources. But like you said, I think it would just need to be
0:38:24 someone who has a bit of time and technical sophistication to understand how to connect all
0:38:25 the stuff.
0:38:30 Yeah, we did. Well, we’ve done a couple episodes with Pete McPherson this year. One on vibe coding,
0:38:35 essentially, like how do we turn from idea to app that potentially people could pay for? And I think
0:38:39 that would be worth a listen. We can link that up in the show notes. And then we did this whole episode
0:38:43 on kind of just brainstorming different ideas. Wouldn’t it be nice if such and such thing exists? And so
0:38:49 this fits squarely in that category of this is a personal pain point of mine. And now we can
0:38:54 turn that into reality. So if anybody goes out and builds this, absolutely. Let me know,
0:38:59 let Justin know. And we’ll try and plug it on an upcoming episode for sure. That is the business
0:39:04 idea donation trend sync. He’s even got a name for it. Hopefully you got patent pending domain
0:39:09 registration, everything. And we’ll go over there. But something to connect the internet zeitgeist with
0:39:13 your order, with your industry, with your business. So very cool. Let’s move on to round three,
0:39:19 which is the triple threat. We’re going to start off with a marketing tactic that is working for you
0:39:23 right now. It’s going to be related to the creator wizard coaching business could be related to the
0:39:25 book. What comes to mind here?
0:39:32 Yeah. So something that is a nascent and pretty exciting development for us is what I’m calling
0:39:38 our challenge strategy. So our coaching business, as you mentioned, is kind of the main kind of
0:39:43 signature offer for our business. But it’s a larger price point. It’s basically three grand a year for
0:39:48 the group support or 10 grand a year for private support. And so basically, we will support you with your
0:39:52 pitches, your pricing, your negotiations, your package proposals, all that. But we do not take
0:39:57 a cut. So that’s very different than like a manager or an agent. Like we help you land those deals and
0:40:02 you keep 100% of that revenue. But because it is, you know, a steeper investment for that, we’ve had to
0:40:07 think of creative ways to excite and entice people to learn more about the program. And so something that
0:40:14 we did just last month was something that I called the 10K brand deal challenge. And so we basically ran a
0:40:21 seven day bootcamp that was like live. It was virtual, but it was live. And so we would do I
0:40:27 would do live instruction. It was all about how to craft compelling outreach to brands. And so we talked
0:40:31 a lot about some of the things that we discussed in the call today. But really, it was helping people
0:40:35 overcome a lot of the mental blocks with like, oh, I have imposter syndrome or I don’t know what to say
0:40:39 or I don’t know who to send it to. A lot of stuff we talked about today. And then at the end of that
0:40:43 challenge, we invited people to join the coaching program if they wanted to. And so the way that the
0:40:47 economics worked out is we spent about this is the first time I’d ever done this, but we spent about
0:40:55 $15,000 on ads. It was a paid challenge. So it was it was $97. There was $197 VIP kind of upsell like
0:41:02 tier where I did a private Q&A after the teaching session on each day. And so between the running of
0:41:07 the ads and the revenue that we collected from the registrations on day one of the challenge, we were
0:41:14 about $1,800 in the red. So we collected about 15K and then we made about 13.5K on registrations.
0:41:15 Just up front.
0:41:19 Yeah. Basically, day one, we were in the hole a bit. And so at the end of the challenge and then
0:41:23 there was like a seven day sales window for the coaching enrollment, six people had enrolled.
0:41:27 We had kind of like a promo price for coaching. It was $500 off. And then we had a three day down
0:41:33 sell to my course. And so all in all, it was like a pretty awesome model, like to get people excited.
0:41:39 We had we had 79 paid registrations and we had six people enrolled. So it was a 7.5%
0:41:43 basically conversion rate or enrollment rate from the challenge.
0:41:44 Six people at $2,500.
0:41:47 And it’s recurring, right? So it’s a membership model.
0:41:47 Yeah.
0:41:50 Yeah. I mean, this was like the first time that we tested something like this. And
0:41:54 I’m pretty excited about what this might mean. There was a lot of learnings from it,
0:41:59 though, which was that we were expecting that the vast majority of the people who came in from the
0:42:03 challenge wouldn’t know who I was because we were running cold ads, basically.
0:42:07 But interestingly, about 75% of people had already read my book.
0:42:10 Really? So it’s like not that cold.
0:42:14 Yeah. So they weren’t cold at all. This has led us to think, well, maybe it doesn’t actually make
0:42:19 sense to run paid ads straight to the registration page. Maybe instead we should do some sort of book
0:42:24 funnel for paid ads, like driving people to the audio book or the ebook version or straight to my
0:42:28 newsletter, potentially, and then nurture them for over a longer time period on joining the challenge.
0:42:33 So our acquisition costs for people to join those other two funnels will be a lot less
0:42:38 than getting someone to join a $97 challenge straight off an ad, right? So I don’t know. I’m
0:42:41 pretty excited about what this, and this is something we’re going to do regularly. We’re doing another
0:42:45 one in mid-September. So yeah, I don’t know. I don’t know if it’s going to scale, but so far so good.
0:42:49 Oh, this is really, really interesting. And it’s like, I think this is applicable to
0:42:57 anybody who has kind of a consulting or kind of a done with you, done slash for you type of service
0:43:03 where, or a coaching type of business, where it’s like getting a lower ticket, initial buy-in,
0:43:08 get people excited, like getting people excited, delivering consistent content and value. And then
0:43:12 say, look, look, if you want to continue to work with us, these are the results that we’ve delivered
0:43:17 for people. And this is what it’s going to be in terms of investment to do this over the course of
0:43:22 the next year. And it sounds like you ended up more than doubling your initial ad cost investment.
0:43:26 I think critical thing about designing a challenge like this, Nick, is helping people understand,
0:43:30 like what often happens is that people would reach out to these brands and then they’d get a response
0:43:33 and they’d be like, oh, the brand wants to hop on a call. What do I do? Oh yeah. What do I say?
0:43:37 Right. And so, and it’s like, well, this is a perfect reason to join the coaching program. We’ll
0:43:41 help prep you for the call. Right. And so I think that designing some sort of education
0:43:48 where it is obvious to your challenge participants, why they would want to take the next step is a big
0:43:52 part of it. And you were doing these live, like, Hey, seven o’clock every night, we’re going to jump
0:43:56 on and we’re going to talk through this for an hour. Exactly. Okay. Yeah. This is really, really cool.
0:44:01 And so where the ads just the week prior, like leading up to that, Hey, we’re going to, everybody’s
0:44:06 going to start on Sunday. So it’s not pre-recorded or it’s just, we’re all going to go through this
0:44:11 together. Yep. Exactly. The $10,000 brand deal challenge. And now you’re going to have,
0:44:16 have success stories coming out of that. So it becomes self-fulfilling thing.
0:44:19 I hope so. That’s the hope. Fingers crossed.
0:44:21 Yeah. It was a hundred percent meta ads.
0:44:25 Yep. We had, we did a little bit of Google ads as well, but mostly meta.
0:44:30 Did you upload your customer list or invite your existing email list?
0:44:34 I did definitely invite my list. I did like a whole sequence on my email list of, to join the
0:44:40 challenge and so on. That 15 K wasn’t just from people who came from ads, but I was retargeting,
0:44:45 you know, based on my list. Got it. Yeah. I was trying to build that initial audience and people
0:44:50 in the creator economy world, fans of, you know, people who use kit or like, you know, there’s
0:44:53 different ways to slice and dice that audience, but I like this really cool challenge thing. And
0:44:58 we’ve seen people doing three challenges before, and here’s a unique twist on that. Okay. Let’s get
0:45:03 some buy-in up front. Weed out the tire kickers and get people to put a little bit of money in and
0:45:07 almost make it self-liquidating on the very start. And then everything that you sell down the road
0:45:09 becomes, becomes gravy.
0:45:12 Can I share a quick anecdote about that free thing?
0:45:12 Yeah.
0:45:18 Because we had considered making it free and we actually did a promotion with another partner
0:45:23 where we offered free enrollment to their members. And so we had about 25 people come in for free
0:45:30 and basically no one engaged and joined in, in, in the challenge who got it for free. And so I think
0:45:34 this was like a signal to us that it does make sense to keep this as a paid thing. I think it goes
0:45:37 back to the old adage, like you just pay attention to what you pay for.
0:45:41 Yeah. I don’t know who first said it, but people who pay, pay attention. It’s something that’s come up
0:45:46 for sure on the show. So I love that. That’s the challenge marketing as the marketing tactic.
0:45:50 How about a new or new to you tool that you’re living right now?
0:45:53 All right. So it’s called Whisperflow. Have you heard of this?
0:45:53 No.
0:45:58 Okay. So Whisperflow is an app that you install either on your computer or your phone.
0:46:03 And there’s this little icon on the bottom and you click it and you just talk into it,
0:46:07 you dictate. So whatever active window you’re in, whether it’s a chat window, an email window or
0:46:12 whatever, you just dictate into it and it formats it perfectly and you don’t have to type anything.
0:46:14 Okay. Okay. No, I have, I have heard of this.
0:46:19 Yeah. So man, this has saved me so much time because I, I’m just like, naturally it’s like
0:46:23 way easier for me to talk things out. But the challenge with voice to text for me in the past
0:46:27 has always been the formatting sucks, but Whisperflow is like super, super accurate and it’s super lightweight.
0:46:31 Interesting. And what’s like a common use case for you?
0:46:36 Anytime you’re typing anything anywhere in an email, in a chat box,
0:46:40 like filling out a YouTube description box, whatever, you just like talk into it and then
0:46:42 it pastes it right in there. It’s amazing.
0:46:47 That’s super. I’m the person who, despite hosting a podcast for 12 years, like needs to see it
0:46:53 written down. And like, that’s my form of thinking rather than just speaking. So I don’t know if I
0:46:58 would be the target user for something like this, but I’ve heard more and more people typing interface.
0:47:02 It’s a dinosaur. It’s going extinct. You know, more and more people are just going to be using
0:47:07 voice to do everything. Yep. All right. Whisperflow. We’ll link that up in show notes.
0:47:13 If you are a talker more than a typer and your favorite book other than your own from the last
0:47:19 12 months. I brought it here just so I could show you. Okay. This book is called Double Your Profits
0:47:22 in Six Months or Less by Bob Pfeiffer. It’s a new one. New title for me.
0:47:26 This book, it’s an old book. I think it’s like 40 or 50 years old or something.
0:47:32 Okay. This is a newer cover, though. But basically, this guy was a consultant to Fortune 100
0:47:37 companies. It’s such a fast read. I read this in like a couple hours. The subtitle is 78 Ways to Cut
0:47:43 Costs, Increase Sales, and Dramatically Improve Your Bottom Line. Wow. And so the book is separated into
0:47:48 two sections, which is how to cut costs and how to make more money. Each little step is like three pages
0:47:54 or two pages. And it’s just so succinct and it’s no BS. And I’ll give you one tangible example. There was a
0:48:00 section in here about consultants. And basically, it was like, do you really need consultants written
0:48:04 by a consultant? Do you really need that coach? Do you really need that, you know, person that you’re
0:48:09 paying a thousand dollars a month to do that like task or whatever? And right in my head, I was thinking
0:48:15 like, right now, it’s more a want than a need for me because there was like a couple engagements that I
0:48:20 was doing. And the real pain point for me was like, I’m just feeling way too stressed out now with my
0:48:25 team. And so we made the decision. I was like, we really need to hire another like VA or another
0:48:31 assistant. And so right there, I just I picked up the phone and I ended those consulting agreements with
0:48:34 some of these other people because it was month to month. And I was able to take back several thousand
0:48:38 dollars that I’m now going to be allocating towards an assistant. It’s a really great, succinct read to
0:48:42 help you just like do a double take. Like, do I really need to do this? So really, really helpful.
0:48:49 All right. Double your profits in six months. Bob Pfeiffer, a new title that has never been
0:48:54 recommended before in the history of Side Hustle Show. So thanks for bringing something new to the
0:48:58 table. Very cool. What’s next for you? You got the book, you got the coaching business, you’re running
0:49:02 these successful challenges. What’s got you excited for the rest of this year?
0:49:07 Well, I just launched my brand new sponsor magnet podcast. Oh, two days ago.
0:49:12 You heard it here first. Yeah, you heard it here first. My very first episode was with
0:49:17 Nir Eyal. If you’re familiar with his his books, Hooked and Indistractable. Yep. So I I talked with
0:49:23 him. He was a sponsorship skeptic. He’s someone who’s sold a million copies of books and has never
0:49:27 done a single sponsorship. And so we were actually in person together and we talked through all of his
0:49:32 limiting beliefs around why why should he even consider doing sponsorships? And so, yeah, I’m really
0:49:35 excited to just have a forum to have these conversations because there’s no other podcast
0:49:40 dedicated to this topic. And so the podcast and then also my in-person event called Sponsor Games
0:49:44 happening again in March 2026. So very excited for both of those two things.
0:49:45 Sponsor Games like Hunger Games?
0:49:50 Well, basically what I’ve done is I’ve turned my eight step sponsorship wheel framework into eight
0:49:54 games that you play to actually master these concepts. So the pitch game and the negotiate game
0:49:58 where you’re actually doing real role playing live, like with me on stage where I’m pretending to be a
0:50:00 brand and I say one thing and you have to respond.
0:50:06 Oh my gosh. Yeah. I have found that like doing these types of activities where you’re
0:50:07 practicing is the way to learn.
0:50:11 Yeah. There’s a lot of benefit in those mock interviews, the role playing and try and figure
0:50:15 well, yeah, the brand said they want to do a discovery call. What do I say?
0:50:15 Right.
0:50:20 Oh, well, if I’m prepared for that, I’m much more likely to actually present myself in a way that
0:50:23 makes sense and lands that deal. Well, that’s awesome. So the new podcast, the Sponsor Magnet
0:50:27 podcast, absolutely. We’ll link that up. Go check that out in the show notes there.
0:50:32 The Sponsor Games coming up if you want to get more, but actually definitely check out
0:50:37 the Sponsor Magnet book, SponsorMagnet.com. This is soup to nuts. Like this is really, really
0:50:42 in-depth on everything you need to get started. Really well done on that. I know it’s selling
0:50:47 really well and I know we’ll continue to do that. Also, CreatorWizard.com. I want to plug
0:50:52 the like sponsor audit tool. It’s just kind of a cool, unique positioning. So that’s at
0:50:57 CreatorWizard.com. We’ll link that up as well. Appreciate you tuning in to the Side Hustle
0:51:02 show, whether it’s your first time listening or your 694th or whatever episode we’re on.
0:51:08 Appreciate you. If you are newer to the show, you can create a personalized playlist at hustle.show.
0:51:15 You can get a custom curated list of our greatest hits episodes based on your answers and it’ll
0:51:20 spit back out that playlist that you can add to your device. Go learn what works and go make
0:51:25 some more money. Again, hustle.show for that. Big thanks to Justin for sharing his insight.
0:51:29 Thanks to our sponsors. Did a whole episode on sponsors. Thanks to our sponsors for helping
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0:51:39 latest offers from our sponsors in one place. Thank you for supporting the advertisers that
0:51:45 support the show. It really does make a difference. That is it for me. Thank you so much for tuning
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0:51:55 off that text message, that Instagram DM saying, hey, I think you should check this out. Until next time,
0:52:00 let’s go out there and make something happen. And I’ll catch you in the next edition of the Side Hustle
0:52:01 show. Hustle on.