Brand Deals and Sponsorship Workshop - YouTube Business Week 02

And we are live. Hey, everybody. This is Roberto Blake. Hope you create something awesome today. Welcome back to another Wednesday workshop, except it's Thursday this time. I had some family stuff on Wednesday, but today we've got another workshop for you from our YouTube creator playbook. This week, we are focusing on sponsorship and brand deals, and we're going to walk you through a lot of the finer details of that. So we're going to be going through the full presentation. and walking through the playbook i have about roughly a 20 page or so presentation for you more toward the end we'll get q a from the chat and i believe we are streaming right now to facebook linkedin live youtube live twitch.com x.com and kick.com So we're streaming in six places at once, thanks to StreamYard. And while this particular live stream has nothing to do with YouTube strategy, we do want to shout out our friends over at 1of10 for being a channel sponsor and also being one of the best, if not the best tool in YouTube strategy right now. We've got a lot of great features for you, including their niche finder, the ability to research outlier videos, curate thumbnails for inspiration. analyze youtube thumbnails and titles and they also have a title generator and thumbnail generator for those of you who are rookies and really stuck and that's your biggest barrier is your ideation process and packaging it's probably the best tool in the market for you right now so you can check them out at oneof10.com use code roberto They'll give you a 20% off discount. And I believe that is a lifetime discount. So make sure you're checking that out. Code Roberto at checkout. Thanks to our friends over at oneof10.com. Now, we're going to get pretty much straight into our presentation in terms of the YouTube business playbook. And we're going to talk about sponsorship and brand deals. We're also going to cover a few YouTube stats and statistics that you guys definitely need to know to help set. expectations for you. But we also want to make sure you get the full slide presentation and that you know that that is available. So we want you to check that out over at awesomecreatoracademy.com slash bizweek02 as in the number zero and the number two. So that's www.awesomecreatoracademy.com slash bizweek02. You do have to type it in that way. You could also screenshot and use the QR code in order to get the full download of the slide deck and presentation that you're gonna see tonight. So just so we have some clarification on who I am, what I'm about, I'm a YouTube educator who has been doing content creation for well over a decade now. I've done multiple, multiple six figures across multiple streams of income as a content creator. And one of the things we're going to talk about throughout our talks is diversification of your income streams to become a full-time content creator. That is something I teach here on the channel. I grew from zero to 100,000 subscribers before teaching anyone about growing their YouTube channel. I'm one of the... main creator educators who can say that they grew to 100,000 subscribers before doing YouTube help content. I did tech tutorials and camera gear. Some of you may remember me for my photography, graphic design, and video editing tutorials on YouTube from many, many years ago. I occasionally still do tutorials today. My biggest source of income as a content creator tends to be brand deals there's nothing wrong with it also being your education based business if you happen to do coaching cohorts courses or digital downloads there's nothing wrong with that it's completely valid for education content to make its money that way in the same way that's valid for entertainment based creators to get support from patreon for example but my main source of income typically is sponsorships brand deals and ugc content which is what tonight's presentation is all about there was a point when i had affiliate marketing as my number one source of income and i was an affiliate uh with amazon influencer in the early days of content creation it was actually the first time i started making a thousand dollars a month as a content creator was because of the amazon affiliate program it used to be called amazon associates now they have the amazon influencer program some ways it's better some ways it's worse we'll talk about that in another episode but Yeah, I've been doing content creation for over a decade. I do very well. I make multiple six figures a year and I do it in the main ways that most content creators do. A combination of sponsorships and brand deals, platform revenue, whether that's YouTube AdSense. I also get monetized from x.com because I have 100,000 followers over there. So I make a couple hundred bucks a month there. It's not a couple thousand yet. I'm hoping that by the end of the year, it'll be at least $1,000 to $2,000 a month. Right now, say it's usually about maybe $300 a month. Sometimes on a really good month, it's $400 a month. So different platforms monetization there are negligible money. from Meta on Facebook and Instagram. I'm not as active on those platforms yet. I do get royalties from LinkedIn because I licensed them a course a few years ago that I filmed in person for them and they paid me upfront money for that. They flew me out to Carpinteria. They had to fly me out twice because of the California fires and I'm bringing all this up because again, I licensed. content to them. And I still get royalty checks for that content. About four or five years later, I'm still getting royalty checks for that. We filmed that right before all the craziness and the pandemic. So we filmed that in like, I think 2018 or 2019, I forget, 2018, 2019. And I'm still getting checks for that today. I wrote a book. I still get royalty payments for that. Very minimal money from my music licensing in Spotify, Apple, um and amazon music uh but again conversation for another time main thing you need to know is i figured out how to be a full-time content creator and diversified multiple streams of income so i can qualify to tell you how to do that how much money can you actually make as a content creator not one size fits all some of you do entertainment some of you do education some of you are really pursuing this as a business some of you You're pursuing as a hobby and hoping to break even. What is realistic is that even though 97% of creators never get the 10,000 subscribers, less than 4% of creators are in the YouTube Partner Program, the truth is you can make real money with this if you take it seriously. That could be $3,000 a month. It could be $30,000 a month. It depends on realistically what your business model is. We talked about that in our previous week one presentation, along with how to set up your LLC. And it largely comes down to, are you going to get brand deals and sponsorships? That's the big difference in usually what makes someone a full-time content creator, not AdSense. AdSense is how you get started. Maybe it's how you invest back into your channel. It's how you deal with making some money while you're trying to grow an audience. But AdSense is not the main way people make a living. I know a lot of people... choose to still believe that relative to their situation. But I'm here to tell you that the truth is over 60%, according to all of the reports that we've seen, about 60% of full-time content creators are full-time content creators because of sponsorship brand deals and their UGC partnerships. That's just the truth. There is money in ad revenue on these platforms, whether it's YouTube or TikTok, et cetera, but it's mostly brand deals that pay the bills for most creators majority of the time. Whether they acknowledge that or not is up to them. There is substantial money to be made, not only with the regular sponsored content you see on platforms like YouTube, but with UGC, user-generated content, where you make content and license it to the brands. If you have enough clients, as a content creator and you don't do just one-time brand deals, which we'll talk about, you do long-term partnerships, you can make $10,000 a month purely from sponsored content. I've made over $100,000 a year repeatedly from sponsored content because of long-term contracts. So. It's something you want to be looking at very seriously. It's why it's the theme for tonight's workshop. A lot of content creators do not talk about brand deals because of NDAs and contracts, but also to be honest with you, a lot of creators would be embarrassed or ashamed at how low they price their brand deals. They don't want to enable competition. A lot of vloggers will loosely talk about brand deals, but they will not give you specifics. The most viewed videos about brand deals are not from educators. They're from entertainers and vloggers. And while we understand that people want to hear from the creators making similar content to what they would like to make, a lot of those people just are not good at teaching this stuff. And a lot of them just are not in a position where they can be honest about how much money they make. Either because of the contracts or frankly, because they do not necessarily want competition. I'm in a very, very unique niche. Telling you guys anything that I can outside of contract stuff and literally showing you what my rate card is is not gonna enable my competition because I don't really have competition. I have a few colleagues, comrades, friends in the niche that I'm in around creator education. There is not nearly as much money in this field as you would all like to believe that there is. And it's a very small community and most of us are friendly with each other. People knowing what I charge for brand deals is not going to hurt me the way that would if I was a gaming channel or a vlogger. So here are some stats you need to know about YouTube. Just to give you reasonable expectations and help you understand. The overwhelming majority of creators, 97% of creators never reach 10,000 subscribers. 90% of creators never reach 1,000 subscribers. the overwhelming majority of channels do not have large audiences. When you go to the YouTube homepage, you're being marketed the 0.05% of channels on YouTube in many cases, sometimes the 0.5% of channels that are very large and get a lot of views. 88% of videos on YouTube never break 1,000 views. All right? So it is not that everyone out there is massively successful with viral videos and large fan bases. If you feel that way and you get discouraged, it's because you're seeing selection bias on the YouTube homepage by default, and you and people like you may just all watch big creators, which is not a neg on you in any way. 90% of the traffic on YouTube goes to the top percentage of channels, so it's not really your fault. It's just selection bias that makes you believe that everybody's winning when the majority are not. You just never see what would be the phrase they say. So again, there is a pre-selection bias there, and there is just a cognitive dissonance in the fact that you do not see the majority of failures. They don't exist to you. They are invisible to you as a viewer. Even if you yourself are a content creator, the majority of creators who don't make it are invisible to you, but they are the reality. The big creators you watch are the outlier. They are not the norm. Now, to help you succeed, we do focus on a strategic business framework. for YouTube specifically. And we've outlined this in our previous week one session that you can still watch over on the YouTube channel. We keep our live stream sessions up for you to watch and so they are archived. But this would basically represent the main things that help you have a proper creator business. And again, the mods in the chat are making sure that you have the link to the slide presentation. It's also in the description on YouTube if you want to get access to that over at Austin Creator Academy. Last week in our session, we really focused on incorporating your LLC, why you need to use bookkeepers and CPAs, how you attain your tax EIN number from the government, and why you need to set up your business bank account and payment processors. We went heavily into that. Today, one of our biggest focuses is going to be brand deals and the long-term partnerships with that. And this does represent off-platform revenue for most of you. The same with the UGC, the user-generated content side of it. So that's going to be very important here because this is going to give you an opportunity. If you do have reach and views and a reputation, then sponsored content on your own platforms is the route to go. If you don't have a large audience, but you have very powerful, strong niche content, good editing, good production values, or you're the right representation, UGC content can allow you to make money through those partnerships off platform. by making content for the brands to post on their social media using you as a spokesperson not because you have a large following but because you have an authentic connection to the consumer and you represent them so even if you're a small creator if you bring big creator energy then ugc content creates an opportunity to make substantial potential money even if you have a smaller audience If you're also trying to grow and you're under 20,000 followers or subscribers, in particular on YouTube, one, we definitely recommend you use our free Creator Foundations course over at AwesomeCreatorAcademy.com, but also we did a 12-week free workshop here on the channel that you can still watch right now. It's on the homepage of my YouTube channel. If you go to YouTube.com slash at Roberto Blake or... If you go to the live tab on my YouTube channel, you will still see all 12 of those workshops. We usually do these on Wednesdays. Tonight's a special occasion we're doing on Thursday. Had family stuff yesterday. But if you go and you look on the YouTube channel, you will see those previous workshop episodes. And we focused on YouTube growth and strategy for beginners that are under 20,000 subscribers. It was when I had 20,000 subscribers. that I grew to 100,000 from 20,000 in 14 months. So there's not an accident that that was the target number for those lessons. Now, there are 15 creator revenue streams. There are more, but these are the main ones to focus on to become a full-time content creator. And these are the main ones that we try to teach on. The main thing tonight is gonna be the sponsored content and UGC partnerships. Those are going to be the primary ones we focus on. We will address these other revenue streams throughout the coming weeks. This is a six-week session for these workshops, and we're on week two. So you got another month of this to look forward to. What I will say is building out the right income portfolio and balancing these out, I'm not telling anyone they have to do all 15 revenue streams all at once, but I do think... that it's important for you to just know what is possible and know what your options are. Now, briefly, the way that YouTube sponsorships work, again, a lot of people think it's a mystery, and I get it, a lot of creators don't openly talk about this. I've done several videos on the subject on my YouTube channel, but... Honestly, besides NDAs, non-disclosure agreements and contracts, the main reason that most people don't talk about YouTube sponsorships and give you details around it is their knowledge on it, even if they're doing those partnerships, is very lacking. Most creators are young. And most creators also are people who didn't work in corporate. They went from, and it's no offense to people who work these jobs, but a lot of people went from retail to creator life, or they went from food services to creator life. And they never negotiate a salary in their life. They never negotiate a contract. They never ran a business where they had a client services business and had to write up contracts, scope of work, deliverables, ownership agreements, et cetera. So they wouldn't know what's involved. beyond the YouTube videos they watched from somebody else who also may not have known. Or if it was myself or Justin Moore or someone like that, maybe it was the more experienced information. So I do think that the information that you get when you watch people talk about their brand deals, and it's no offense to the entertainment-based creators, I think it's very thin. Because I think it is hard for people who themselves are not education-based content creators to teach anything because their main goal is to make an entertaining video for you, not to teach you how to do something. Beyond that, I think it's just that most of those creators wanted to do this for fun. It happened to become a business. They didn't start with that intention. And that's where maybe many of you are at. However... That does mean that that person is not always going to be in the best position. And it sounds like I'm being very negative here, but I'm just being honest with you about why it's so hard to find this information. It's not something most people are in a position to talk about. Money makes most people uncomfortable. Most people also... don't know how to communicate effectively when it comes to teaching, if their goal is to make you laugh or to make you smile, they would rather be funny and make sure that you stay watching the content. They'd rather be engaging and make sure you watch the content than prioritize whether you learn the thing that you need to know. And so you're going to find the information from that side of the house is a little thin. Here is the deal. businesses that want to market their product to a creator's audience are willing to pay for that. We typically see that passively through ad revenue through the YouTube Partner Program. Brands pay money in a live auction called Google Ads for placement on a cluster of YouTube channels. Some of them do this very broadly, even randomly. using automation and AI within Google Ads to pick channels and videos for them. Some advertisers target videos specifically and run ads against them or channels and run ads against them. However, viewers can skip these ads at the beginning of a video or in the mid-rolls of videos. And so brands who want more access to the audience often will partner with a content creator. If they partner with a content creator, then some new options in terms of reaching that audience become available. And so the new options that would become available to those brands would be that if they work with a creator, that creator can now, to some degree, advocate or vouch for the brand and pass on some of their credibility to the audience when it comes to that brand. This is how sponsorships and brand deals typically work. Another aspect of this that a lot of people don't necessarily anticipate is that a content creator also may get to influence the direction of those brand relationships and those integrations. That means a creator can work with the brand and it might be a dedicated video that's all about the product. And the video, you could argue, is an advertorial. This is what's called a dedicated video. An example of this would be if you usually watch someone who's a Brawl Stars creator and then they make a video that's about a World of Warcraft mobile game that's not even in the Supercell ecosystem. It's still a mobile gaming video, but it's a dedicated video that is about this game other than the game you're used to them playing. Now, usually that kind of integration can turn off some audiences. There are instances where it's warranted and instances where it turns off the audience. I've seen creators with 2 million subscribers struggle to get 10,000 to 20,000 views when they do a dedicated video like that. usually their audience doesn't hate it, but less people choose to watch that video from them because it's not what they're known for and it doesn't fit the majority of the audience. However, in that situation, brands do know that and they pay substantially more for those, sometimes three to five times more, depending on the nature of the video. Now, what most creators do is they do integrations instead in those videos a creator makes a video that is closer to what they would normally make and then they also incorporate the brand into that video hopefully organically with a 30 to 90 second ad read that usually is authentic and still represents the main talking points of the brand while letting the creator have some level of creative control. The way some creators keep this fun for their audience is they turn the ad read into a skit, a sketch, or to some degree, a minor product demo of some kind. Again, this is a harsher interrupt to the audience when it's an entertainment channel. In education channels like mine, it's usually easier because it fits with the actual content dedicated videos work for me too because usually if i do a dedicated video it's just a dedicated tutorial where the brand is sponsoring the full tutorial and the tutorial is only useful to somebody who is trying to use the software or solve the problem the software provides for in the first place so for me that one's actually really easy um and it's not that alienating um because again if you're trying to solve a problem let's say you were trying to do something with video editing specifically in the first place let's say i took on a sponsorship with gling ai which is an ai video editing tool because it removes the silences and pauses from your video basically in one click if i literally uh made a video ang tutorial and i said um um the tutorial was um remove pauses and silences from video editing in just one click, full step-by-step tutorial. That's like a very easy value proposition to make a dedicated video around if I was working with Gling AI, right? If I was working with Adobe and the thing was how to improve your audio in one click, and I did it using the Adobe Podcast Enhanced Tool. and I go full tutorial. That's an easy way to do a dedicated video that doesn't alienate the audience. Education channels are more, let's say, attuned to doing that sort of thing because it really makes sense. And yes, it does... depend on how receptive the audience is to certain deals. Again, my argument is that education-based creators have an advantage in brand deals despite smaller view counts because one, education-based creators usually get to deal with an older, more affluent audience and then also brands that have higher margins, higher price points. Now, with entertainment channels, if they're viral entertainment channels, of course, because they have the reach and the views and the reputation, they can just get big deals just because of just the scattershot of just how big their audience is. It could make sense for a brand that's a consumer brand. That's the difference. I would say that the best content creators for brand deals are actually education-based channels and lifestyle channels because lifestyle channels have a deeper authentic connection to the audience. And then if you do a sponsorship with a lifestyle brand, you can do a long-term deal to be an ambassador for that brand. And then your audience is just always going to see those products in the background of your videos. So it's a form of product placement. So that makes absolute sense. So I would say education and lifestyle creators. actually win when it comes to brand deals the most overall. The variety of brands they can work with is higher. I would say entertainment creators struggle more with brand deals. And I would argue that TV show reviewers, gaming channels, and sketch comedy channels probably struggle the most when it comes to brand deals and their audiences being as receptive to them or the brand deals just naturally even fitting with the content without interrupting in the first place. And I would say in those instances, they absolutely usually don't get to do dedicated videos. They can only really do integrations without upsetting their audience or with it even making sense for the brand. And again, that's not to be very negative toward... um you know comedy and prank channels and gaming channels and tv and anime reviewers and reaction channels it's just that it's not the best fit that audience really already hates ads in an extreme way and they really just want uh the brain rot entertainment for the most part so it's a lot more challenging to get those audiences to be receptive. Even if they love the creator, they just hate ads that much. I'm not saying don't do brand deals in that situation. I'm just pointing out the reality and that you have to have a thick skin for it and you have to make it make sense. So hopefully you guys understand how that works. Now, there is a methodology that I've created around brand deals. And I do talk about a lot of this in my other videos and in other workshops, but what brands need from creators is more than just views because since creators get paid through ad revenue on YouTube and TikTok for the views that they get. Creators tend to narrowly look at their own value through only that lens. And they think, if I don't have views, I don't have value. There's more that you can bring to the table. And there are more ways to work with and promote a brand than just shouting them out or featuring them on your YouTube videos or your TikTok videos specifically. There's a lot more that you could offer as far as deliverables for the brand. And a lot of the scope of this is based on a few things. Some people think that everything is about reach, but there are other filters here. If you have viral reach, but you have a terrible, terrible reputation, brands may not work with you. If you're known to be hard to work with, or you're going through a scandal, it doesn't matter if you get viral views. People don't want to be associated with someone who's going through reputational damage at the time. If you're being sued, Brands probably don't want to associate with you if you're in the middle of a lawsuit. If you're being canceled, brands don't love to associate with you while you're being canceled. So reputation would matter. And then what about your relationships? What about your relationship with the brand? What about your relationship with the audience? You know, if you've talked negatively about a brand in the past, there's a very good chance they're not going to work with you. Now, Because again, it's a sour relationship. It's a negative relationship. However, that's not to say you shouldn't authentically say what you believe about products, brands, and services. But if you're hyper negative or you're toxic or you're very vulgar about how you say something, it's not always what you say, it's how you say it. Some brands will be like, if you're very professional, they'll be like, you know what? You're right. We could do better. Could you help us and consult with us on making the product better for someone like you? Or what would it take for us to win you over from that competitor? Or what could we offer you that makes sense for you and your audience that makes you give us a chance? So the relationship you have with the brands does make a difference here, both for initiating deals, but also for returning deals. Let's say you did a deal with a brand and the relationship was very good. It's a very high chance you can work with them again. But if you had a relationship with a brand and you didn't deliver for them, or it was a very negative experience for the brand, they are not going to necessarily want to do repeat business with you. Even if you got them a bunch of views, but you were terrible to work with, they can find someone else. So you have to understand that relationships are a filter. Reputation is a filter. Here's another one. Let's say you get a lot of reach, but the brand doesn't make any revenue. They don't make any money. they're probably not going to work with you again. It doesn't make sense for them. Getting all those views and getting no sales is not a bargain. So a creator that they worked with that had less views, wasn't as popular, but outsold you 10 to one is a better deal. And that's why micro influencers and nano influencers have an intimate relationship with their audience. And a good reputation in their niche and their community can beat a big creator who doesn't have those things and just gets viral views, but no emotional investment from the audience, no buy-in, and no trust. So a creator who has trust because they have a strong relationship with their audience, a good reputation overall and are considered to be trustworthy, has the ability to... absolutely crush somebody who's a much larger creator who has a bad reputation or no emotional depth in the relationship with their audience. And you know, someone who can tell you all about that is my friend, Justin Moore. He is the author of Sponsor, Magnet, and the Leader of Creator Wizard. And they also have their brand, their Sponsor Wizard, I believe it is, course, or the Brand Wizard course. And so, yeah, Justin can tell you all about that. He's a subject matter expert on sponsorships. And while he has his own point of view, I'm sure he agrees with a lot of this. One day very soon, we'll do something if he's up to it here on the channel, specifically talking about this. So again, you want to have a good reputation of being easy to work with. You want to be respected by your peers and your niche. A lot of your peers can recommend you for opportunities. I recommend people for opportunities all the time. In fact, one of the things I do every time a brand deal comes to me is I recommend three other creators that the brand should work with. It helps the brand in finding qualified people a lot more easily. And it also helps me. in building deeper relationships with those creators if they get picked up. And so some of them repay the favor, some of them don't. But the thing is, there's not a downside to it for me. So it's something that I do. But I don't recommend people, obviously, if I have a bad relationship with them or if they have a bad dubious reputation for not... following through on things so again your relationships and your reputation with your audience with your peers and with the brands that you work with is extremely important it is a filter for whether opportunities and resources come to you and that is something you need to be aware of reach does matter but it's not always the most important thing if a brand can choose between having a bunch of reach and no revenue or a lot of revenue and minimal reach they will always choose more revenue every single time so if you can signal that you drive revenue to a brand with social proof such as doing affiliate links affiliate marketing if you do affiliate links you can use affiliate links as case studies in your media kit you know a lot of you will probably again you don't like the idea of building a media kit or buying a template for a media kit you're like i'll just download the media kit that youtube gives me in the analytics dashboard the the media kit youtube gives you in the analytics dashboard has no place for you to do a case study about how much money you generated in affiliate revenue for a brand or another related brand or in that product category. If you're somebody like Gameski in the tech community, he sells out entire categories in Amazon when he recommends something as an affiliate. That is a case study he could put in front of a brand that would tell them, oh wow, Gameski sells out categories. He moves product. Let's go with him. Screw the reach, we want revenue. That would be a case study. That case study doesn't exist in the media kit that YouTube gives you to download in analytics. That's why it's free. It's free because it's not going to do all these extra things that create context. It's not going to, that media kit that YouTube lets you download isn't gonna help your reputation and show them all the other brands you've previously worked with. You don't get to have those five, six, seven, eight, nine, 10 logos of your previous brands. if you just download YouTube's media kit. One of the reasons we made the Brand Deal Starter Kit is we made the Brand Deal Starter Kit and we gave you a bunch of great information in there, but we also gave you media kits that you can download and customize with anything that opens Photoshop. Adobe Express is free and will open up Photoshop files. Gimp is free and will open up Photoshop files. Photopea.com, P-E-A.com, photopea.com is free and will open up Photoshop files. brand deal starter kit templates and make your own media kit and you can do case studies, you can put in the references to your previous brand deals and slap those logos in there and what it was like for you to work with those brands. Those are reputation signals, but they're also revenue signals to show, hey, I go out there and my audience buys and I have a buying audience, they have strong buying power and they will trust me. So you can use that. You can use your affiliate sales from Amazon. You can use your affiliate sales from software. You can even do a case study on your own merchandise sales if they were significant or your digital download sales if they were significant. And these signal to a brand that you have the trust of your audience and that they will put their buying power behind you. So a revenue signal is more powerful to a brand than a reach signal. And a reputation signal that says, hey, other brands, trust me, you can trust me, is also a signal. to a brand that's very important your reach and your rep and your relationship your reach and then things like your engagement your relationships comments sentiment etc those things are extremely helpful too not to be neglected that's why they're all in this diagram and that's why i talked about them at length you need to understand that so it's more than just your audience size you have to look at these other variables Now, I put together a framework to help you understand value-based pricing in your brand deals so that you don't price on views. This is called my deals framework. This is something I teach in Awesome Creator Academy. So this is very important. And we try to help you establish a lot of this with what we do in the brand deal starter kit. So the deals framework is about the deliverables. The deliverables are how many assets the brand is going to get when it comes to the content that you're delivering. Very important when it comes to both UGC content, when it comes to sponsored content on your channel, very important. Exclusivity. Exclusivity is based on whether or not you're going to work with competitors in a 30, 60, or... 90 day range or a year wide. If you do a longer contract amplification, Oh, I can use, um, my other social media platforms. You, yes, you're getting my YouTube channel, but Hey, I also have an email list. Uh, what about us plugging something in there? Could you get through my, can you get the more budget if we do that? Hey, I have an Instagram or Tik TOK. If I do some stuff over there, can we get more budget beyond just the YouTube videos licensing? Hey, what if I let you license pieces of my content, my B-roll, or use my name or my testimonial in your content to promote? Is that worth more to you? Can we reach the number that I want? Scope. Hey, here is the entire project laid out. Here's the details of it. Here's what I'm guaranteeing you. Don't guarantee views. And let's do that. So again, those are the deals framework. So. how ugc we keep talking about ugc we keep talking about um user generated content this is where instead of posting it on your own platform like your youtube channel your instagram or your tick tock you post to the brand's social media you either hand it off to them on their behalf or you guys do a collaboration something to that nature you could even give it to them to use in their advertising their website or in traditional media what have you. I did a UGC partnership with Kajabi where they actually used my testimonial and my name, image, and likeness on a billboard campaign for Times Square and also in LA, in Los Angeles. That was a great UGC partnership. We did a UGC partnership with some stuff on Instagram as well. Those are ways you can work with a brand and wasn't required for me to post on my social media. We did some amplification there, but this was a very good project. The billboard project was a lower four-figure deal. I did a different project collaboration with them last year, and that was a mid-range five-figure deal that was very lucrative. And so when I say a mid-range five-figure deal, what I mean is over 50,000. I'm not going to give you the exact specifics for NDA, but by telling you north of 50,000, you can use your imagination. So that would just be an example. I've done stuff with Adobe. I did a lower figure five-figure deal there. By that, I mean under 30,000. So those just give you ideas of what is possible. I believe with Adobe, we did a six video UGC deal on their YouTube channel and their social medias. So that was an example of that. I did a UGC thing several years ago for them regarding some of their mobile app stuff. And that I believe was mostly on Instagram. And I believe that that was a four figure deal. It was under 10,000 and it was over 5,000 for that. So again, that gives you just an understanding of what's possible. These kinds of deals are more reputation-based. If you're an education-based content creator or a thought leader, then they are about the size of your audience. They are about your credibility. So you need to understand that the value of a personal brand there is very different. Now, for a lot of my clients that are entertainment-based channels, a lot of it is based on their engagement and their reach. And they can get deals. Sometimes they get 10 times the reach, but only half the money. Why would that be the case? It depends on the brand you're working with because of their budget. Because if the brand you're working with, if the most expensive thing they sell is $50, and I work with a brand where the most expensive thing they sell is $5,000, more reach isn't necessarily gonna get you more budget than I'm gonna get. And I don't say that to brag. I don't say that to put anyone down. I'm using it to paint the harshness of the reality that if you're in the entertainment realm, in YouTube, both in ad revenue and in sponsorship, your money amplifier is largely based on reach. because it's the main commodity that you offer. And the brands that really prioritize that are mass market consumer brands, which means that they're selling something that has to be affordable for most people. If your content reaches most people, then you can only promote and sell things that are affordable to most people. This means usually you can only get brands that usually sell things under $100. If what they're selling is under $100, the budget for them to break even on your audience, if they were to pay you, let's say the brand you work with, the most expensive thing they sell is $100. It's the most expensive thing, but that's not even their main point of sale product. Their usually average transaction is $20 to $50. If you want $5,000 from those people, you have to sell $100. to 300 units of product out of your entire audience before they ever break even. If that's the case, at a minimum, you usually would have to reach to get that. Oh, maybe if you were good enough to turn 1% of your audience into customers, which would be doubtful, you'd have to reach 30,000 people to sell that much. But if you have a mass... audience and they're usually younger, college age or lower. They're usually not that affluent. They're usually close to being broke. They're not really a strong buying market. The truth is for that brand to break even, the odds are you'd have to get 100,000 to 300,000 views before they can sell enough units to make $5,000 back and for it to make sense for them to just break even, not even be profitable on working with you. That's a really difficult position. That's why entertainment channels get loadballed and you may not think it's fair, both on ad revenue and both on sponsorships. And it's predicated based on the fact that the audience is usually younger. The broad appeal reached also usually reaches an international audience. And then on top of all of that, again, it's a less affluent, younger audience with less buying power and they're watching entertainment. It's not exactly putting them in a position where they value buying something. um that's consumable so it's a little bit difficult to make that work now you can leverage a lot of these other things as an entertainer which is why i told you don't sell only on reach is why i told you look at licensing because they can put a value on that look at exclusivity because they can put a value on that Look at amplification in your other social media profiles because they can put a value on that because it gives you more opportunity to sell. Maybe you don't reach as much of a buying audience on your YouTube channel. Maybe you do on your TikTok. Maybe you do on your ex. Maybe you do on your email newsletter if you happen to have one, even as an entertainer. Maybe there's other forms of a collaboration that you do with them that make sense for them where they pay you for a service that justifies. uh more of that break-even point so that's where it um starts to be a negotiation that you have to do and that's why you know we have to do the money dance so to speak with education thought leader channels there's a deeper buy-in With a stronger, more affluent audience, usually a thought leader is focused on a specific cluster or constellation of problems their audience has. So narrowing in on those problems makes sense. And a lot of those things are also either high ticket or subscription, but it's not a significant lift for a good chunk of the audience. A primary example is a lot of you here, you're already using software in your everyday life. You already have software and subscriptions. In some cases, it wouldn't be me selling you another subscription in terms of a software. It would be you probably canceling one or two other softwares because the software I decided to promote solves the problem and you can cancel two or three subscriptions and consolidate down to one subscription and save money. Or if I have a coupon or discount code for a software, maybe that saves you enough money that makes it worth switching. Or it's too good of a deal to pass up to start because of the deal or the offer. And for the brand, it makes sense because it's recurring revenue. Because what if it's a subscription? If it's a subscription, in the lifetime, they might make $1,000 from one person. paying me 5,000, if they know their LTV per customer, their lifetime value per customer is $500,000, I only have to sell 10 units. I don't have to sell 300 units. That's the difference before break even, before break even. That's the difference. It's even possible that one of my customers in the lifetime could, in theory, still break even for them. And then also education content tends to be more evergreen. than entertainment content, which means that the promotion lives on on my channel and they have a lot more opportunity to break even from that recommendation and from the sales generation. If I can prove that with affiliate marketing numbers, by the way, it sweetens the pot and makes that negotiation much easier, which is why I believe in doing affiliate marketing and using it as leverage for sponsorship and brand deals. Too many of you as YouTubers, whether you're entertainers or educators, because by the way, for entertainers, Well, one, before I go to entertainers, the greatest affiliate marketers in all of YouTube are not educators and are not course sellers. The greatest affiliate marketers in all of YouTube are lifestyle content creators, both for female lifestyle influencers, but also men's lifestyle and fitness influencers and men's lifestyle and tech influencers are the greatest affiliate marketers of all time in YouTube and in social media. They really are in terms of your raw units, scale, uh revenue potential lifestyle based creators for women that are doing lifestyle fashion beauty makeup um and decor they crush it men lifestyle either tech um or or uh travel or um tech travel or fitness men's lifestyle content focused on those things absolutely crushes it when it's affiliate marketing entertainment is hit or miss. If it is the gaming niche, the intersectionality of tech, lifestyle tech, gamers paradise, man cave, a cozy streamer aesthetic on the female gamer side, those crossovers of tech and lifestyle in gaming allow for affiliate marketing. If you're feeling a little sad of, oh, I'm a gamer, I don't have access to these other revenue streams. It's about how thoughtful or creative you are about it. And it's about putting yourself in that position. So it's not off the table. You just have to be very smart and very intentional about how you're approaching this and making it profitable. So my brain was skipping ahead to profitable when I conflated the words there. So that's on me. That's what I get for doing this so late at night. But what I'll say about it is it's not off the table. So these are different profit centers. And again, the affiliate marketing, and a lot of you, unfortunately, have been talked out of affiliate marketing. Oh, affiliate marketing is a scam. All affiliate marketing is is commission sales, and you're actually getting paid when you refer somebody or you promote a brand. You want to promote a brand for $0 and work for free, you're welcome to do it. If you feel like affiliate marketing is a scam, you can promote any product you want and never get paid and make corporations millions of dollars all you want. I think that most normal people think it's okay to get a 5, 10, 20, or $30, sorry, 30% commission off of the money they make for a corporation. I think that if you make a corporation money because you referred them and people trust you, that maybe, just maybe, you should get a cut of the value that you created for one of these corporations. They're going to make millions and billions of dollars either way. What's wrong with you getting 2%? What's wrong with you getting 10%? What's wrong with getting 20% if you bring them a customer? So again, I don't understand all the negativity around affiliate marketing. I don't know who convinced y'all or brainwashed y'all. that's all a scam you can literally join the amazon influencer program like most normal content creators you can start making some commissions off of it youtube incorporates affiliate marketing into the youtube shopping program uh through product tags for both long form live streams shorts and even through youtube community tab post you guys may not realize you can use youtube shopping affiliate in youtube community tab post and you've been able to do that for about a year now So again, you can use the affiliate marketing not only to make money, but to build a revenue case study to show brands that you can convert units and not just drive eyeballs, but you can drive sales. And then you can use that case study in order to convince them to take a risk on you and that you won't just. Get them a bunch of eyeballs that don't convert. You will be able to move dollars. You will be able to move units here. And that's something that's very, very important. The brand is not here for views. They are not like you. They're not a content creator that worries about attention. They only want traffic because it drives transactions. That's the key. The bridge to that is the trust that you're able to instill in your audience in the brands that you advocate for. Now, one of the other things you need to do in this case, by the way, is authentically market, authentically advocate, authentically promote these things. The reason that I bring up lifestyle influencers so much and education influencers is because it's easier to prove that they believe in what they're promoting. If a lifestyle influencer promotes something, and then every time you see their vlog, they're using, like female lifestyle influencers, for example, if every time they do a get ready with me beauty video, They're using the brushes and makeup that they just promoted with a brand and they're using them two months later. You can believe them that they weren't shilling something they don't believe in and that they use it every day. That's why lifestyle influencers are the best marketers for both influencer marketing with brand deals and affiliates and UGC and brand ambassadorships is because if that beauty guru is constantly in the mirror and you're able to see the makeup on the counter from all the brand deals. and that they use it, you're able to see those palettes. The authenticity is built in because it's something they're using every day. If someone's a vlogger every day or every week and they're promoting something and then you keep seeing it in the background of vlogs, it signals to you that, oh, they really actually believe in that thing because they own it, they've kept it, they keep using it. Oh, they bought another one. Oh, their collection of that thing they promoted is growing. They're a customer just like me. That's why lifestyle influencers are able to rack up on that because they can, through their lifestyle content, portray the lifestyle that they're promoting. That's the key. They use, the people see them using the product every day, every week, every video. and if it's not being used actively in the video they see it in the background they see it in the aesthetic and it reappears even when there's not a promo or a campaign going on so that's why the influencer side for lifestyle influencers both men and women works the same thing is true in um the space of tech and education videos is a gigi is a primary example let's say i ended up working with dji for example You guys can trust me if I were to get a sponsorship with DJI that I'm not just shilling product because you guys can see for yourself that I literally have these two sets, actually I have three sets of DJI wireless microphones. You guys see that I have four DJI gimbals, eight DJI drones, all bought out of pocket, by the way. Like I literally own over 25 and I've registered them in the app. I own over 25 DJI products. You guys see them in the background of my videos. You see them in my post on Instagram and X. So again, to some degree, I do tech content and lifestyle content on my other platforms. I'm actually going to be relaunching a tech channel, by the way, that I started and stopped during the pandemic. Two videos, got to 1,000 subscribers on that. uh creator gear guide channel we're gonna be relaunching that with some drone content some content on camera gears and lens buyers guides because i have like all the sony lenses but that's my point my point is uh you guys get to see me literally using sony cameras on my desk all the time you get to see them in the background in my uh bookshelf and bookcase all the camera gear all the lenses um all the time you guys see me using the elgato stuff all the time whether it's my elgato pedal that turns my lights on and off the stream deck on my desk you see the desk uh tour videos those are the things that actually are used to produce my content and you see them in the videos and in the behind the scenes on Instagram usually and on X. Therefore, you know that I buy things out of pocket, I keep them forever and I promote them and they are the gear that I actually use. This is why tech creators are great for both affiliate marketing and sponsorship that is authentic to their audience because no one can debate that I am authentically advocating for the things that I promote in tech. when it's literally on my desk in my office tours and that you see them in my three desk setups you see the same brands every time you see black magic for the atem mini pro in my desk tours you see um the roadcaster pro you see the um you know like elgato lights you see the other sony camera you see the elgato prompter when i promote that you see the lg widescreen you see the aperture lights you see them whether it's that one over there or the one that's behind me you see the same recurring brands over and over so if i were to work with those brands it'd be a shock to no one because you see them in my literal three desk setups that i have um plus my travel setup so you'd go so anyone who would say oh roberto doesn't really believe in that brand and he's shilling it would not make sense it would and they'd get called out for that because again it'd be purely authentic because well he's been using those products for for eight or ten years and he has like multiples of them i doubt they sent him three different desk setups so like you know apple apple doesn't even sponsor anybody but you get my point so if people can see you using the products over and over and they can see it as part of your authentic personality or lifestyle that you're really fan of that when you work with those brands nobody's shocked that you work with those brands same thing for your affiliate marketing if you're promoting those things but you also clearly are a fan a fanboy a fangirl and you buy them yourself out of pocket all the time then it's very hard for people to be contentious about it people don't like being sold to but people You can attract people who want the results that you have or want the lifestyle you have. And so then that would attract them to the content and it would feel more authentic. Now, when it comes to getting brand deals, the biggest mistake most of you are making. is you are failing to do outreach directly to the brands and you're waiting to be noticed, you're waiting to be discovered. You are wallflowering and hoping that brands notice you and it's not gonna happen, not usually. And when it is, it's not the brands that you want. This is also why a lot of you are falling for brand deal scams and why brand deal scams end up hacking a lot of people's channels is because they are waiting for outreach to happen to them instead of doing, they're waiting for inbound marketing, they're waiting to be discovered, and they're waiting for the brands to reach out to them. A lot of times that's just a scam that happens because they'll send a phishing link or a fake download and they'll hack your YouTube channel. You wanna always check links with a link checker before you press anything when it comes from someone you don't know. Very important. At some point, we'll do a safety and security workshop. That one will probably only be like maybe a three or five week workshop. I'll see if Leron Sergeyev wants to collaborate on that one because that'd be really good. But yeah, I think that safety and protecting your privacy as an influencer is very important. Now, what I'll say about this is, again, you should make a list of the brands in your niche that work with creators. You should find 10 or 20 of them to start. I even believe considering a dream 100 list of brands you would work with, that's important. So I'd write down a bunch of brands you'd absolutely love to work with, the people you want to work with, the people on your whitelist. And I think you should largely not consider brands that don't make your whitelist. because they're not a hell yeah, so it's a hell no. Now, there are exceptions to that, but I think this is usually a very safe way to make sure you're working with authentic brands. You don't wanna work with fly-by-night companies either. You don't wanna accidentally promote a scam company to your audience. So for a lot of you, it's better to work with brands that you already buy from. So let's take me for example. Like I made a list of companies, but I can tell you companies I've worked with. I've worked with YouTube. So that one's an obvious one. I've worked with YouTube and been sponsored by them before specifically to promote the YouTube partner program. So I've worked with them before. That was UGC content as well as some content on my own channel. I have worked with Sony before. I've worked with Adobe before. And what do I have? I have Sony cameras. I have over 10 Sony cameras, I think. um of varying types i think it's 10 i think it's eight or ten three four six and eight nine yeah it's something like that i think it's like eight or ten i have like eight or ten sony cameras something like that so if i work with sony no one is second guessing it right you should work with brands that you already buy from I have gotten free stuff from Elgato. I haven't been paid by Elgato, but they've sent me free stuff before. Interestingly, I think the amount of free stuff they sent me was half of the value of all the stuff I bought from them out of pocket. So again, no one be surprised. Aperture has sent me free stuff before, especially when they were a smaller company. I don't think we did anything where money changed hands before, but I do think they've sent me like at least... $2,000, $3,000 worth of products in terms of lights. And I think I spent $4,000 with them on lights myself. So Aperture, right? If I were to work with any of these companies, no one would second guess it. Adobe, I've been editing with Adobe for over 20 years. No one would second guess that. You should make a list of all the brands that you buy from. You should make a list of all the brands that you buy from. And those should be on a list. And then you should work with those companies or try to work with those companies before you take outside partnerships from people who are brands you've never used before. If you work with brands you've used, then it'll feel more authentic to your audience and they'll be able to trust it. And you will feel better about the promotion. And also you'll feel better about doing the outreach. We have a quick question here from the salon guy, friend of the channel. Roberto, as a brand myself, why do some creators turn down commission only deals? If they are so big or popular, why don't they just do a percentage deal instead of a rate? So this is a good question. The reason is usually because even if they have the influence and they have the juice, there's not a guaranteed outcome. In many cases, you could ask yourself, How many commission-only deals have you ever taken out of the percentage of non-commission-only deals you've ever taken? When people are big and popular, it's still a risk to tie their reputation to a brand's reputation only for that to not work out because even if they're big or popular, it doesn't mean that their audience will value the offer. And then to risk your reputation with no guarantee of an outcome, is not a good thing we're not just talking about risking uh lost time and labor but again if i'm going to tie my reputation to another person there is no scenario where i'm willing to do that without some upfront investment and some compensation for tying my name and my brand to their name and their brand that is just something that I would not be willing to do when I was small. And I most certainly am not willing to do it when I'm larger either, especially if you're larger. If you're larger, I don't think you risk reputational damage or you risk association without some type of guarantee. It's not reasonable. The other reason they won't do it is this, in some cases, is because they just have other offers. If someone's offering you commission only, and someone's offering you upfront money, you usually take the upfront money because it's guaranteed. They say a bird in the hand is worth two in the bush. Certainty outweighs potential. Potential is an unknown. If someone has a choice between the unknown and the known, psychologically, almost everyone will choose the known. It is what it is. That's just human behavior. Why do most people choose a salary? over entrepreneurship. Entrepreneurship is make it, take it. Entrepreneurship is proven to have the most potential upside. So why isn't everyone a business owner? Because there's not a guarantee. If you take a salary, you can foresee what your lifestyle is. You can predicate stability. You can make a plan off of the certainty that a salary offers. Potential is risk and most humans are risk averse and most people are conflict avoidant. Commission only entertains risk and also entertains conflict. Most people opt out if they have another option. So again, you are one brand. They could be talking to five brands, 10 brands. If another person offers more security, security is more attractive than potential for the majority of people. There's a small subset of the population for whom potential outweighs security. But I've paid creators that brought in zero sales. Too many creators talk a big game with no results these days. I agree with that. That's why in my other slide, I mentioned that the key here is one, proof of revenue and also reputational value. So don't go off of someone's reach, which is them talking a big game. One, do you have a relationship with this person to where you feel they feel invested in your success and where they won't let you down? I have a longstanding, abiding, personal investment in some of the companies that I've done deals with because I'm a customer, I'm a fan, I want what's best for the consumer, I want what's best for the company. I, under no circumstances, want to see Sony, DJI, Adobe, Blackmagic, or Elgato, or YouTube, or Google, under any circumstances, fail or have a negative impact. I have a personal, emotional investment. So I have a relationship with them that precedes any business that we would do together. I have a relationship where I have emotional equity in these brands. That's the thing that I have. Now, on the other side of that, I've also built a relationship with some of the people I work with at these companies to where I will not let them down. I will not do something late. I will not do something halfway. I will not. And if something falls short, I would be the kind of person to make it up to them. So you have to look at relate. If you're a brand, have authentic relationships with the people you work with as a brand and make sure they have an emotional investment in the success. Also, if you know them, like them, and trust them, then they have a reputation that says they will deliver, they'll get results, and that they will make it up to you. So that's a key. And then also make sure that when you want to deal with influencers, if you're a brand watching this, make those influencers bring proof of their ability to generate revenue to the table. Brands don't have to question my ability to drive sales because I publicly post the screenshots of my own sales from Austin Creator Academy. I publicly post the screenshots of us driving people to our email newsletter. I prove my conversions all the time. The thing that suffers for me right now is reach, if anything. Reach? Reach is the lowest it's been a while because I don't publish regular YouTube videos and I don't publish YouTube shorts. If I go back to doing videos every day or 150 videos a year, my reach will go back up to about 300,000 to 500,000 views per month on the channel, which is great for the niche that I'm in. And I will average somewhere between a low ball of 10,000 to 50,000. um per upload with my outliers one out of ten of my video outliers doing um 150 000 views over a 12 to 18 month period those are the stats i know my stats that cold which also helps impress the brands but i'd have to be posting with that frequency not counting youtube shorts not counting live streams right but that would increase my reach it's the one vector that i have to address I have strong relationships with people in the industry. There are a couple of more relationships that the build or rebuild because some of the people I've worked with have retired, unfortunately passed away or unfortunately left the companies that they're at. So I could stand to shore up some of my relationships. I could stand to renew some of my relationships. Right now, I don't have long term contracts. I have some I have some extended contracts, but I don't have any 12 month contracts right now. or I actually have one, but it's a prepaid contract. I have a prepaid contract. I have two extended contracts, but they have specific extension conditions that are, they're event triggers. They're not monthly recurring, if that makes sense. My reputation has never really been stronger. So I have that and I have proof of revenue. And I also have the reputation of, oh, well, here are all the other companies I have worked with. So I have those three things. Strong relationships could be stronger. I could work on that. Reach is my biggest vulnerability. The rest I'm solid on. When it comes to influencers you work with or you yourself as an influencer, take that paradigm into consideration. And so you want to vet those things. And if you're being vetted, you want to know where your strength lies and where your weaknesses lie. Because right now my reach is not as strong as it has been in the past, I don't sell that idea. I don't sell the idea that I'm going to reach the most people. I sell the concept of, do you want me to be someone who stands by your product? Do you want me to be somebody whose reputation is tied to yours? so that is something uh to consider here so hopefully um that gives you uh some insight from the brand side salon guy and for any of the influencers watching um hopefully that helps you So DePaul has a question. Thank you for the super chat. If I want to work with a grill brand because I'm going to be building an outdoor kitchen on my parenting vlog channel, but I don't have the sub count and traffic yet, should I wait before I reach out to them about the partnership? So what I would do is I would actually reach out to them about a UGC partnership. I would reach out to them about a UGC partnership and how you can work on their platform because what they need is they need authentic people. So having... a great dad grilling and chopping it up for them could be great content for them so don't sell on your reach sell on the repuse uh the reputation and representation value sell on the concept of the fact that you would be able to connect and be the relationship that builds the bridge to the audience because you represent those dads out there grilling and chopping it up so i i would do that And I would position against that. So I would pitch a UGC partnership. And then the thing is, if you're going to feature the grill on your channel, again, I would obviously want product placement. I'd want you to get a grill. Maybe you don't just get a grill for yourself. Maybe you ask them, hey, can I get three of these to do as a giveaway? And the thing you're going to pay me for is really the UGC content that's going to live on your Instagram, TikTok, and YouTube. I'll even license it to you guys and you can license it and you can use in your ads. I don't mind being on TV and telling mom about it. So I would say. You do something like that, for example, and that's much, much more appealing to them. The giveaway maybe even helps you grow the reach of the video and grow your audience overall. So again, a lot of you could be leveraging brands to grow your own audience size and reach by saying, hey, you can pay me less, but I want to do a giveaway or hey. pay me but pay me for the ugc content and the licensing agreement and yeah i'll do stuff on my channel but that's not the main allure here my channel is really for the giveaway and that's gonna make you guys look good and i'm gonna use that i'm gonna grow my audience and so there boom you do that with the giveaway so a lot of you could be leveraging brands and work with like um 10 brands a year do a giveaway on your channel once a month because you have 10 brand relationships Do UGC with those brands, get those brands to give you something. Even if it's 500 bucks for the UGC, think about it. If you did 10 brands a year, you did $500 in cash on the UGC side, but you get them to give you equivalent of a couple of hundred bucks worth of product. And then on top of that, you got to do giveaways for your audience. You could grow extra audience off the giveaways. Sometimes that's a good idea. Sometimes it's not. Depends on what your platform is. Depends on how you feel about giveaways. You could do that. but hey, it's a growth engine. You can get some money, 10 brands, 10 giveaways, 500 bucks. It's $5,000 a year you didn't have. You've used that as a war chest to improve your channel rather than improve your lifestyle. And you could look at that wave, okay, that's an investment. So I got to invest in my channel. I got $5,000 as a war chest to invest in my channel. It's $5,000, $8,000. I got thousands of dollars worth of free product for myself. I use that. product to make more content. I made money from that content. So think about, you work with 10 brands, you get some free product. I would use that product. Three to five videos, I would be using that product. I'd be promoting the affiliate links myself. So think about it. You got some free product. You did some giveaways. You have a growth engine for your channel. You're getting to make content. If I make three videos, three videos, if you don't make like off of those three videos between affiliate revenue, and ad revenue if you don't make another 500 off of that um you might need to rethink how viable this is um so i would do that so boom you do that so three videos between ad revenue affiliate should make you another 500 you got 500 for the ugc content and licensing maybe it was more like if you're small i'm just assuming you're small so this is maybe what you're able to negotiate and you got free product so you got free product you got 500 on the ugc you got 500 between affiliate and ad revenue combined so you made a thousand dollars off of each of these 10 partnerships you made 5 000 to 10 000 you got free stuff you giveaways that made your audience happy in the giveaways you should make sure that the winners tell them hey it'd be great if you tag me as the winner in the thing and tag me and tag the brand. Now you're escalating the promotion of yourself and amplifying yourself and the brand on this. This is why this is especially good for Instagram and TikTok. Boom. So now you're also augmenting more growth even from the giveaways beyond your own content. The winners are growing you now. So the brand's growing you by amplifying your content, licensing you, tagging you, shouting you out. The audience is growing you through the giveaways. and through tagging you as the winners. You made money on the UGC side. You made money on the affiliate side when people actually bought from you. You made money on the ad revenue as well because you negotiated not turning ads off in the giveaway for the deal. How did you lose? So again, tremendous opportunity to leverage everything to your advantage, absolutely. You now also now from the affiliate side, get a case study. from your affiliate sales or add to your case study off of that. You get to use the logo of the brand in your media kit because you did the UGC deal. You get to use the case study from whenever the numbers were on the video and the engagement. If you did any amplification in social media, you get to add those up and say, here's the overall traffic and use that as a marketing tool to future brands or for a recurring relationship with the brand that you worked with. See, again, this is the kind of brand strategy that I teach in Awesome Creator Academy to our students. This is the kind of information you'll find in the Brand Deal Starter Kit. And when we do our UGC course and our Brand Deal Secrets course, this is the kind of information that will be in there. Because, again... Literally, just by doing this, even if you're a small creator, small creators can win on UGC because it's a service and it's licensing content. It's giving brands content. It's being their video producer, video editor, model, and spokesperson. You're upselling them amplification through the giveaways and amplification through the social media post. It's an upsell. It's added value. So you can easily, even as a small creator, get a couple hundred dollars out of this by saying, oh, if you're going to give me free product, whether it's paid or $0, give me more free product so I can do a giveaway. Because then at least you can use that to grow your audience and you can use that and have the brand promote the giveaway. So now the audience is growing your channel and the brand is growing your channel. That's the answer. That's the actual strategy. This is the strategy we teach. And we teach the nuances of this. And also in the Brand Deal Starter Kit, we actually give you email. outreach templates for those of you who don't know how to write an outreach email to save your life we give you that for you who don't know how to make a media kit we give you the media kits to customize and add your details and add your own case study in and we give you examples of things so in your creator business you need to think of person problem product and position So person, who's your audience avatar? Who's your customer avatar? Who are you trying to reach? Who are you trying to serve? Who is the tribe you want to attract? Who is your community? So that's your person. This is the representation of that. We call this the audience avatar and business is called the customer avatar, right? So you need to think about that. Now we'll get the problem in product in a minute, but I want to talk about position. What's your position in the market? My position in the market is I'm the tough love. a coach for content creators. I'm a creative entrepreneur. I'm not just a creator. I'm a creative entrepreneur. I am a business person in the creator economy. I'm not an entertainer. I'm a thought leader. I'm not an entertainer. I am sometimes entertaining. I am not really an edutainer. I am an educator first and I am an entertainer last, but I'm also a businessman. My position in the market is, do you want tough love? Go to Roberto. Do you want somebody to be a straight shooter? Go to Roberto. Do you want someone who's unapologetic about capitalism and saying you deserve to make money if you create value? Go to Roberto. Do you want somebody who focuses on the monetization side of YouTube and treats YouTube and content creation as a business, as a career, as a commodity, and not as an art project? Go to Roberto. If you want... cheerleading, don't go to Roberto. If you want to be encouraged purely as a hobbyist, don't go to Roberto. Roberto wants people to make money. So like, that's the deal. What is your position in the market? How are you different than other people? Justin Moore is different because he specializes. He focuses on brand deals, specifically with Brand Deal Wizard and with Sponsor Magnet and with his stuff. You know, me, I actually differentiate by not specializing in a specialty. I specialize in diversification. Diversification of income and revenue streams is what I specialize in on the monetization side. That's my position in the market. My position in the market is on the strategy and YouTube growth side. I am not about viral videos. I'm about consistent evergreen videos, sustainable growth, and about being able to run the numbers. So I'm a numbers guy. I'm not an art project guy. I'm a numbers guy. I'm not a viral video guy. I'm a, hey. whether it's entertainment, lifestyle, or education, let's make evergreen videos that we can monetize and profit off of for one year, three years, five years. Let's make money off of one video and milk that video for five years. That's who Roberto is. So I'm the no-nonsense guy. That's who I am. I'm the monetization guy. I'm the slow and steady wins the race guy. I'm not the viral video guy. I'm the YouTube baby steps guy. So that's the key. is you have to position yourself in the market. If you're a gamer, are you the gamer that creates a cozy environment? Are you a cozy aesthetic gamer? There's a market for that. SunPi is a good example of that. Are you somebody that is extremely energetic, funny, and charismatic? Okay, so maybe that's more of a PewDiePie. Like in gaming, are you a pro gamer at the highest level of what you do? Or are you the person that brings personality? Or, you know, do you augment the gaming element of what you do by adding cosplay to that? Is that your gimmick? Is that your positioning in the market? That you're such a big fanboy, fangirl of this, that you play the game, but you also play the game in full. costume and regala. That's the thing. So what's your positioning in the market? What's your uniqueness in the market? What's your differentiating in the market? If you are a lifestyle content creator, are you someone who's doing a relatable, affordable lifestyle instead of the spectacle of like, hey, let me show you luxury. Let me show you luxury experiences without luxury prices. That's a position in the market. A position in the market is, let me show you luxury experiences without luxury prices. That's a position in the market. Hey, let me show you how to get more with less. That's a position in the market. Hey, let me show you how to learn anything that you want to learn. And I will always break it down into five simple steps. That is a position in the market. So how do you make yourself unique in the market is something that is incredibly important. to your overall creator business model. Now, a lot of you say, hey, Roberto, I'm an entertainer. I don't solve a problem. Yes, you do. If you're an entertainer, you do solve a problem. How does someone navigate to your content when they're bored? How do they relate to your content and make your content priority? So your goal as an entertainer is still to be a destination channel. Your goal is that for the niche that you're in to be the guarantee of a good video or to be the guarantee of a wholesome video or be the guarantee of a unapologetically authentic video or to be the answer to, hey, if you're the counterculture, come here, watch this channel. I'm the destination for the people who disagree. That is what makes your destination channel. So the thing is, you can be, if you're a gamer, you could be. um the most wholesome gamer and the place where people know it's safe for their kids to watch it because you don't curse you're not a degenerate they know that they're in uh their kids are safe with you if they care about gaming that they have a creator that's not going to abuse that relationship or in any way exploit their children so that could be a problem that they solve for hey My kid is really into Minecraft or really into Roblox or really into this, but I don't want them to be in front of somebody who curses all the time and who's a bad influence. Okay, if you create that content, you're solving a problem for those parents of those young gamer children. That's an example of that. If you are an entertainer and let's say you are... let's say that you're a movie reviewer, for example, if you're the movie reviewer who absolutely avoids spoilers, that is something that people will value. If you're a movie reviewer that specializes in a specific genre of films and they're only gonna get that, like let's say someone specifically, I just want, I don't want someone who does variety. I want someone who covers exclusively sci-fi and fantasy films. Boom, all of a sudden, you have the perfect YouTuber that when you want that, that's where you go. So again, narrowing in on a problem that you solve for the audience, you could think of a problem as a preference in some cases or a priority. I usually break things down to persona, problem, preference, and priority. But in many ways, you could make a problem fit those dimensions. Yes, for example, safe for work creators. Great example, right? So then a product. Product is like, Roberto, I don't have a product. I like, well, one, okay, great. Work with a brand who does. Another avenue with this, potentially if you're big enough or if you're specific or niche down enough, get the company to co-brand a product with you and now get a royalty. on everything that sells i justine gets a royal a royalty from condor blue on every cable that she sells from the i just dean uh pink cables and purple cables uh she gets a royalty because it's a co-branded product peter mckinnon gets a royalty for everybody who buys the peter mckinnon edition nomadic uh bags that um camera bags he gets a royalty on that he gets a royalty from polar pro pro polar pro on every nd filter and polarization filter um for camera lenses that uh sells through them so it's a royalty marquez gets a royalty on every of his uh sale for his collaboration with dbrand and also um for his collaborations with ridge wallet so royalty so um if you don't have a product if you're big enough co-brand a product with a brand if not make a product whether it's your merchandise or whether it's a digital download product whether it's an online course make a product If not, go into affiliate marketing, advocate for the products that exist in your niche that you like and that you use and are familiar with and that you love. And hopefully then work with those brands later down the road. Also, your own membership, and we'll talk about memberships in one of our other workshops. Your membership is a product. It's a productized experience. You can sell a $9 membership, sell an archive of photos and videos for $9 a month. The archive is the value. uh if you don't think that that works or oh why would people pay for that over netflix people paid for back in the day back in my day uh people paid for niche magazine subscriptions every month some people still pay for niche magazine subscriptions every month or every year i have a forbes magazine subscription so again people will pay for an archive We will talk about that in another workshop. We will talk about that in another video. Audience avatars. I talked a little bit about this. What problems are unique to your audience? What are the personality traits and characteristics of your audience? This tells you what brands they will align to and what you can do for them. Preferences. What is a preference of theirs and what is a priority of theirs? These things... will determine the buying behavior of your audience if you want a buying audience you need to understand these things in general this could help you grow your audience if you just care about growth but from a financial standpoint this is extremely important we talked about ugc um and sponsored content before a lot of you don't realize how much diversification exists in sponsorships and UGC relationships. Again, you can get paid for licensing content to a brand. You can get paid for the content itself, both on your platform or their platform. You can get paid for a long ongoing ambassadorship relationship where there are a lot of different variety of things going on. You could get commissions. You can negotiate a brand deal where you do get... money up front, like Salon Guy was talking about, but where you get some commissions. Some people would be willing to do commission only, make it, take it. If the commissions are high enough, somebody might be willing to do that. So that is an opportunity. Primary example. I don't know who on earth I would do this deal with, but if somebody wanted... to do commission only and they had a sizable audience and we were aligned and i had a good relationship with them i don't know who this would even be i mean i could think of one or two people i'd give them a 50 commission on everything they sell for awesome creator academy i probably can think of maybe two people but if i was going to do that i'd probably have like five people that i do jv joint venture partnerships with for that we talked about that in another video um but yeah brands can where ice uh If they sell my thing, I get 50% commissions on everything they sell. But if I sell their products successfully, I get 50% on all those sales. I can name a handful of people I'd be willing to do something with. I'd probably do something like that with Nick Nimmin or Justin Moore or Jay Klaus or Daniel Batal. or somebody or brian g johnson it'd have to be somebody i have a good relationship with and whose reputation is beyond reproach and that i know drives revenue and who reaches a similar audience those would be my criteria for something like that i would not do that to somebody off the street who ask so you think about like that brands are the same way by the way you could do jv is another thing but with brand partnerships some brands will say hey we'll give you this amount of money and we'll also give you a commission or hey we'll give you this amount of money and we'll let you still keep the affiliate program or hey We'll make you a super affiliate. We'll bump your commission from 20% and we'll give you 30% or 40%. Those are opportunities. So commissions exist within sponsorships as opportunities, but you can still get upfront money. You can do licensing and you can also renew licenses. Renewing a license could be free money for no extra work. You do long-term ambassadorships and get recurring long-term contracts. with that and they could also help you, you could grow each other in terms of size there. And of course you can do the traditional content sponsorship. So again, there's diversification even within brand deals. Even within brand deals, there are four or five or six different ways to make money even within brand deals. Why you need a media kit. Again, it's not just because we sell them through Awesome Creator Academy and the Brand Deal Starter Kit. It is because of the thing that I showed you earlier and outlined earlier. The opportunity to contextualize your brand, tell your own story, advocate for your audience, demonstrate multiple social media platforms and your reach and your combined aggregate numbers, and the ability to create your own case studies that show you can drive revenue, the ability to advocate for your reputation by showing what you've done with brands you've worked with in the past through either logos or case studies there, and the ability to articulate the relationship that you uniquely have with your audience. And again, showcasing your aggregate reach. across all of your platforms, not just one, and letting brands know all the offers and different ways they can work with you. So it's not just about having your rate card, it's about the ability that you can showcase a variety of information that makes it more, let's say, makes it more appealing, makes it more attractive to work with you when all of those things are taken into consideration. Just downloading the media kit that YouTube gives you in the analytics dashboard doesn't cut it and doesn't cover all these things. Terry W, thank you for the super chat. Terry W says, I love your thought of the pivot from PM niche to delivering execution to create TAM, total addressable market, pillars, people leading without authority, process delivery systems that work, platforms using AI to get work done. Yeah, absolutely. um i'm glad that that helped you out terry appreciate you yeah but um again several reasons i think for you to have that media kit now you don't have to be like me and put your pricing in your media kit i do that for the benefit of a learning opportunity to content creators it's the example other people use in their workshops is my media kit so i'm kind of very proud of that and again it's one of the only things out there transparently just telling you hey here's what somebody's numbers are here's what they're getting So I'm okay with that existing as a teachable thing because my goal is to help other creators make money. Again, not necessarily maximize my influencer money. I'm okay, unlike most people. Like, it will not bother me if someone says, Roberto, you're making more money from your courses and coaching now than you make from being a content creator. I'm like, well, which one of those things do you think has more scale? Does product have more scale or does service have more scale? Oh, product has more scale? Okay, great. So it makes sense that a thousand customers, 10,000 customers outweighs 10 brand relationships and that having a thousand dollar LTV per customer outweighs making one penny per view on YouTube. Oh, I'm shocked that I could make more money with courses than I could with ad revenue since ad revenue pays a penny per view and one customer might be worth a thousand dollars or more in lifetime value. oh perish the thought to make a thousand dollars on youtube you have to in my case with a high rpm reached uh 10 to 15 000 people to make that same money i could do one customer depending on the offer so one versus 15 000 which one of those things is easier to accomplish right so again i digress i'm just making a point that um i'm fine with I'm fine with not maximizing my creator revenue potential to maximize my educator and business potential. It's a trade-off I accept. It's a criticism that I do not think is a good faith valid criticism because, again, I think that saying, oh my God, you make more money from products than you do from labor. Well, I'm like, yeah. if something's based on my time and the other thing is based on unlimited uh is based on no time if something can sell for me 24 7 with unlimited inventory versus the thing i can accomplish with 24 hours in a day and a frail human body um yeah i think that the unlimited potential of the machine outweighs my mortal corp corporeal form uh and i don't think it's close i think the machines can outwork me so yeah So that's kind of my thing, is I will accept that criticism to some degree, but I will also dismiss it as invalid because the math just doesn't math. So I can't outwork a machine. I could die trying like John Henry's steel driving man, but it'd be a very, very poor attempt on my part. So one of the things I want to give you guys here is a quick checklist for sponsorship. These are things that I think you need to do successfully. Define the deliverables and the deadlines because what you want to do is you want to make sure that you know what you owe and when it's due. So this will be in your contract. Never do a brand deal without a contract, by the way. Clarify the exclusivity and competitors. Usually you don't want to let them be vague on this. Make them list the three to five competitors. excuse me make them list the three to five competitors they don't want you working with or mentioning for exclusivity define the length of time for the exclusivity don't not let them be vague or cagey on that in the contract ever It will come back to hurt you. So you want to do that. Usually the exclusivity is 30 days. You can get them to do 90, but they should pay you more for that. So that's a pricing lever. We talked about the five pricing levers that I prefer. Outline the creative brief and amplification. So get details and specifics about the content and what are the. uh do's and don'ts and where the non-negotiables for the brand make sure that you're not vague on the amplification um as well in your other social media and also what language is allowed and not allowed in your social media amplification same thing reverse that and say how you want to be um credited if they amplify you how do you want to be credited how do you want um to be presented? Is there a title or a way that you want your name put out there? Do you have any kind of conditions on the trade dress, et cetera, et cetera? Confirm the licensing rights and the duration of those licensing rights. Do not sign deals in perpetuity. If you can help it, look for that in the contract. Do a find, replace, just use command F4, sorry, not command F4, command F and do a find for the word perpetuity. You want to avoid that, line item them out in any contract. Establish the scope of work. Make sure you know what is owed and what the specifics and details are and parameters are for the contract. And then finalize the compensation and contract terms. Make sure that's what's agreed upon and make sure you know how much you're getting paid. Is any of it up front? When is the due date? Is it net 30 as in 30 days after published date? Is it 60 days after publish date, next 60? Usually industry practice is net 30. Try to negotiate for net 15, get 15 days after publish. um get the specificity of how they process payment do you need to be in their uh payment processor is there a vendor portal that they have etc do they need your routing number bank account number for an ach debit are you doing paypal if they're doing paypal will they cover the fees so you get exactly what you're owed so will they bonus that uh etc etc How to negotiate the brand deals. The negotiation can be intimidating. What I will tell you and one of the things we talk about in the brand deal starter kit is getting them on a call. Do not negotiate everything via email. The email outreach is to get them on a Zoom or Skype call or whatever it is. Well, Skype doesn't exist anymore, so it'd be a Zoom call. So get them on a Zoom call, a Google Meet, whatever it is. Get them on a call, negotiate virtually face-to-face if you can't do it in person for any reason. Do it that way. Get them on a call. Even if it's a phone call, get them on a call. Close the deal. Be able to read their voice, their cues. Be able to use all of your charisma. Be able to read the vibe. You're going to get a better deal that way. So that's what I would say is important there. In talking price, talk about price toward the end of the call rather than the beginning of the call. Paint the vision of the relationship and the pitch. Come prepared, by the way, with a pitch on here's your concept, here are your ideas. Paint the vision of what they're getting. So now there's something to lose. Get to the money. at the end of that because now you've painted the picture and they can decide what they value that at or whether what you're valuing it at is appropriate. If you're a small timer, ask them for what their budget is. Just ask them for their budget if you're a small timer and you don't know what to charge. And if you're worried, oh, well, what if they screw me over? If I let them decide... uh to tell me the uh price or the budget i'm worried they're gonna underpay me or undercut me if you're scared that a brand is gonna undercut you or is gonna screw you over you shouldn't be working with them in the first place i'm dead serious if you think a brand is so unethical that they will um cheat you and lie to you and undervalue you in order to get something out of you and exploit you you shouldn't be working with them if that's what you're afraid of You should be working with a brand that you believe is ethical. So that's my answer to that one. So just ask them for the budget if you don't know what to charge. That simple. You don't know what you're worth. You don't know your rate. Ask them to tell you. And if they are who you believe them to be, if they're a brand and a company that you love, then they should be able to see your value. That sounds really... naive. And that sounds like, wow, that's like a real role. I don't think it is. I think it's just being straight up. I don't have time for people who don't see my value. And I don't have time to have anxiety about these things. Me, I tell people my rate, and then it's a yes or no, or it's a, hey, well, I have this budget. Okay, here's what I can do for you, that sort of thing. But for a lot of you, who may not be in that place or have that confidence or have that large of an audience or reputation, your best bet is to ask someone what their budget is and then tell them what you are willing to do for that budget or say, hey, if I do more for you based on one of these five levers here, one of these five things I can do, if I do more for you, can I get this much money instead? That's your negotiation. That's your haggling. Again, I wanna thank you guys for taking time with this presentation. We're gonna go do a little bit of Q&A. We've almost gone for two hours now. I want to invite you guys to join us in Awesome Creator Academy on Tuesdays and Thursdays. We meet at 6 p.m. Eastern Standard Time usually, and we talk a lot about these things, whether it's brand deals, content strategy, growth, monetization, memberships, how to increase sales on our products, any and all of it. We have a combination of entertainers and influencers in Awesome Creator Academy. We usually have about 100 members active at any given time. We're probably going to cap it at about 150 members for the pro group membership. So again, you have access to that. If you can't join the pro group, consider joining the basic membership and get access to all of our digital downloads and resources. Our members get all of our products, courses, downloads, email swipe files, every product that we have. However, if you can't... attend the meetings that's not something you think you have time for uh or the pro group is just a little bit of your price range consider joining the crater academy basic membership you can find out more details at www.awesomecreatoracademy.com join if you want to have additional one-on-one coaching um you can join the vip membership get access to the pro group and all of our digital resources and courses but also get quarterly coaching one-on-one with me if you want to join the vip level of the membership so all of that and details are at www.awesomecreatoracademy.com join if you want a 90 minute one-on-one strategy session with me go to www.awesomecreatoracademy.com coaching and you can get that there so there's the link and uh you can go ahead and sign up so uh that's pretty much it for tonight's uh workshop beyond the q a i'll answer some of your questions here in the chat if you have them um and so happy to do that we'll probably do about maybe 15 more minutes of q a and then we will call it a night and get you guys off to bed and off to whatever your day looks like for friday and so you can enjoy your weekend we usually do our workshops on wednesday i just had a family obligation yesterday so we couldn't do it um but we also make the slides available for you the link is in the description you get all the slides um we'll be doing this again next wednesday um so hopefully you guys will be able to make it uh for that And then on Fridays, we typically do YouTube channel reviews. Last week, I was not able to make it for YouTube channel reviews last week because I was speaking at VidCon. And so since I was speaking at VidCon, I was not able to attend our office hours. Yep, that's something I was able to do. But we'll be making it up to you this week on Friday. Let's see. Yeah, I had fun at VidCon. Oh, yeah, and it was on my birthday, by the way. We only have one question in the sheet. Hang on. Let me bring up the sheet here. Thank you. Thank you. All right, so Observer Andrea asked if Discord is suitable or too unprofessional for calls with brands. A lot of times it is, and you'd be surprised, a lot of the people in the marketing app brands are not familiar with Discord. Everyone basically is familiar with and knows what Zoom is or has used it. You just got to use Zoom. I know a lot of you, especially the younger creators, are really into Discord, but it's not really what you want to do for the business side of what you're doing when it comes to working with brands and professionals. It's not ideal. a lot of them don't know how to utilize this a lot of these folks are older and they're not on either the tech or gaming side discord is much more tech gamer friendly which is why a lot of you guys um do it zoom is for business like that's just how uh the people in marketing especially people in marketing over 30 people in marketing over 30 there a lot of them will not know what discord is and even if they do they don't see it as professional uh it's going to work against you more than for you just because you're comfortable with it doesn't make it a good idea get used to the idea of doing zoom do zoom or google meet they have no objections to zoom or google meet they're familiar with those everybody is after the pandemic it works in professional circles it's what you need to be doing so yeah uh do we have any more questions on this topic around uh brand deals and sponsorships you're gonna watch the replay Yep. No, I've been public about it. It's my birthday. It was my birthday at VidCon. I've said it on all my social medias. And then my birthday is in my Twitter bio. It's right there. And I think famous birthdays missed me this year. They used to never miss me. They would get my birthday wrong, but they used to never forget to wish me a happy birthday over on X. But I guess I'm not famous enough for them these days. i'm not that upset about it i'm mostly being sarcastic yep no it's all good yeah um zoom and google meet is usually what you want to do um again uh discord we're years away from that being normalized in the business world and working with brands uh i don't think it ever really will be i know that i may make a couple of people sad or frustrated i really like discord or whatever it's like guys This is going to be Zoom or Google Meet. That's what you got to do if you want to work with these brands. It is what it is. But if we don't have any more questions, I guess that I'll just remind everybody that the downloads for tonight's workshop, I think one, we don't have many questions because I answered so many of them by just virtue of the presentation. But also I think it's that a lot of people are tired. It's actually almost 11 p.m. Eastern Standard. For those of you on the West Coast, um you're probably still just uh tired from getting off work if you're watching from the west coast we have almost 300 of you across all six platforms so really appreciate you guys tuning in tonight remember links to everything i mentioned are inscription down below make sure you're checking out the brand deal starter kit make sure you're checking out awesome creator academy we've got discount code for you for the brand deal starter kit use code 20 off for 20 off And that will work basically anytime you're watching one of these live streams. If it is still the summer, however, and you use code SUMMERSLAM25, I believe you get 30% off. So you can use either of those codes. The 20% off is good anytime. SUMMERSLAM only is good this summer of 2025. So those... coupon codes are available for the brand deal starter kit and the YouTube starter kit. We do no discounts on Awesome Creator Academy or on my coaching calls. So the price is the price when it comes to those. We have links for everything in the description for you. We also have a link to the slide presentation for you to get all the slides and all the info. And this presentation will be live on the YouTube channel. We keep those up. You can go to the live tab on my YouTube channel where we have that. We usually also have a playlist for the individual workshops. You can also watch last week's workshop from Wednesday. It is live on the channel. That one is about setting up your LLC, making sure that you have your tax EIN number, and making sure you set up your business and your payment processors, your business bank account, your payment processors for your creator business. So we definitely made sure we covered that as the first one in our workshop series. So that's something to think about. It looks like I have a question here. Any tips for reaching out to NFL football player agents for meet and greets for family owned barbecue restaurant? You'd want to look into identifying who those people are locally to you and you'd want to find an organic way to interact with them. That's really hyper specific, man. And again, I would say, one, whatever you do in that situation, you need to bring some kind of body of work. You need to show them why it's worth it. And you need to probably raise the social value of the business in terms of social media. So I get that you would be a local family-owned barbecue restaurant. Get your socials up. It's not the only thing that matters, but certainly it's helpful because you got to remember, This is a big ask for them. And then you have to also show that this would be able to be a secure event. You might want to try to figure out how to get other micro celebrities or micro influencers in your area. to start doing things like this at the restaurant as a warmup before you approach anybody this big. That way it's like they aren't the ones taking a risk and being the first ones to do it. So before you get the NFL football players involved by reaching out to their agents, maybe you need to be able to get some meet and greets from some other prominent local figures. Maybe you need to get the mayor of the town to do some kind of event with your restaurant. And that would like, oh, we have heard of you. You've been in the paper before. We heard about that on the radar. Oh, you did something with the mayor. You need to not make an NFL player be the first major hometown hero that does some collab with your restaurant is what I would say. Yep, no problem. But yeah, I think that that's it for tonight. Other than that, we will most likely see you here tomorrow night for YouTube channel reviews if nothing else happens. And other than that, we'll hopefully see you here next Wednesday for our next workshop. So we'll try to schedule that in advance so you know what to expect from that one. Other than that, you guys stay awesome. Have a good night. We're going to end it with you learning a little bit more about AustinCreatorAcademy.com and everything we offer over there. Stay awesome. Bye. Becoming a content creator can be a very lonely process and adventure, but it doesn't have to be. When I first got started going from zero to 100,000 subscribers, I had to do it all by myself. I didn't have a community of like-minded and like-hearted creators to talk to or to ask for advice, and I certainly didn't have a mentor to guide me along the way. I built the Awesome Creator Academy Pro Group because when I was getting started, what would have meant the world to me is not to have to struggle alone when it comes to being a full-time content creator. If I had a community of creators that I could talk to and share information with, I would have avoided a lot of mistakes in my early career. And there would have been opportunities with brand deals where I would have gotten a better understanding of how to negotiate. And I wouldn't have undersold myself. I wouldn't have been taken advantage of in those early situations. So in the Awesome Creator Academy Pro Group, myself and our co-instructor Andy Rivera, we meet twice a week for office hours with our creators and we share information. We talk about how we're building our creator businesses and we offer constructive criticism and critique on the things that we're working on for our projects. You'll be part of a community of usually around 100 like-minded creators who are taking this seriously just like you are. You'll also have all access as a pro group member to all of our past, present, and future courses, training. templates, digital downloads, and swipe files. You have full access to our creator blueprints where you'll see our systems and the frameworks that we use to execute. You know, you always fall or rise to the standard of your systems. A lot of people really underestimate how important that is. We have digital download templates that can help you so you don't have to start with a blank canvas. These done for you files. are actually incredibly helpful, especially for things like your thumbnails, your media kits, and anything you need for your branding as a content creator to look professional. We have email swipe files that help you with reaching out to brands. We have great information in helping you price yourself and build your packages appropriately. And remember, as part of the pro group, you have the opportunity to ask questions from myself and all the other creators participating. And so this means that if you need to ask questions about negotiation or a brand deal, there's something you're not sure about, you're trying to find a better monetization opportunity with merch or affiliates, you have people who have done it before who are already making money that you can reach out to for advice. As I said, when I was starting out and I was flying solo, this is the thing that I wish I'd had the opportunity to be a part of and it would have made all the difference in the world in helping me be an even more successful content creator. If you have questions, you can always reach out via support. We're happy to help you figure out if the pro group is right for you. Also, we do have the opportunity to become a VIP member if you also would like quarterly one-on-one coaching with me directly. Now go out there and create something awesome today and hopefully we'll see you in the pro group. Take care.

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