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

Summary

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The Side Hustle Show – Episode 694

“Your Path to $1k+ Brand Deals, Even With a Small Audience”

Host: Nick Loper
Guest: Justin Moore (Author of Sponsor Magnet, creator partnerships expert, creatorwizard.com)
Date: September 4, 2025

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Overview

This episode dives into the actionable strategies for landing $1,000+ brand deals—even if you have a small or niche audience. Nick Loper and guest Justin Moore, author of Sponsor Magnet, break down exactly how creators with even hundreds (not thousands) of followers can secure meaningful sponsorships, what brands actually want, and how to position yourself for repeat and long-term brand partnerships. The conversation is filled with detailed case studies, pitch methods, pricing tactics, and practical tools, ending with new business ideas and marketing tactics that listeners can implement right away.

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Key Discussion Points & Insights

1. Why Small Audiences Can Win Big Brand Deals

• Justin’s Case Study: Dr. Alex (vet with "Digital Pathology Place") secures lucrative sponsorships despite “hundreds of listens” because of a highly-targeted, influential audience (lab techs, C-suite hospital staff, pharma pros).

“She is absolutely crushing it with brand partnerships, Nick. ...all the people who are in this kind of niche community, these are the people that we want to get in front of.” — Justin Moore (02:00)

• Why Brands Love Niche Audiences:
  High-value, hard-to-reach, or professionally influential audiences can be more valuable than large but generic ones, especially for B2B or industry-specific brands.

2. The Importance of Positioning and Pitching (04:22)

• Not Just Impressions:
  You won’t land big deals just by selling “impressions” if your numbers are small. Instead, pitch your capabilities: content creation, marketing know-how, and understanding of the brand's needs.
• Creative Pitch Example (UGC):
  Offer to create high-quality content for a brand’s own channels—a turn-key package for corporate use, regardless of your own audience size.

“I would love to create content on autopilot for you… $7,500 a month. What do you think?” — Justin Moore (05:16)

• Transition From Creator to Consultant:
  Acting as a UGC (User-Generated Content) creator, you provide brands with reusable, branded assets—which is increasingly valuable as short-form content dominates.

3. Key Trends Brands Care About (07:25)

• Huge Shift to Short-Form Content:
  Over the last 18–24 months, brands are reallocating budgets to TikTok, IG Reels, YouTube Shorts, etc. They value content they can repurpose for ads, their own channels, or evergreen uses.

"There absolutely has been a gargantuan shift to short form content... because of the increased repurposability..." — Justin Moore (07:25)

• Licensing & Usage Rights as Upselling Points:
  Don’t forget—selling more than just a “post,” you can charge for the license to reuse your content.

4. Landing Your First Deal – How to Target Decision Makers (09:36)

• Step 1: Identify Sponsored Content in Your Niche:
  Track which brands sponsor other creators similar to you (search for #sponsored, “partnering,” “sponsoring” on social and YouTube).

• Step 2: It’s About Audience Alignment:
  Focus pitches on why your audience is a perfect match for the brand's goals, not just on your own enthusiasm for the product.

• Step 3: Survey Your Audience:
  Use polls, surveys, newsletter questions to discover what they buy, what problems they have, or common products they use—powerful ammo in your pitches.

“What brands care about is, hey, does your audience represent a pool of future prospective customers of us? …you need to illustrate to them [that] your audience has existing affinity.” — Justin Moore (10:15, 12:39)

5. Finding the Right Contacts (16:36)

• The Job Title Search ‘Hack’:
  Use Google to search: [Brand Name] + [Relevant Job Title] + LinkedIn, e.g., “Acme Co Influencer Marketing Manager LinkedIn”
  • For bigger brands: Influencer Marketing Manager, Partnerships Manager, Affiliate Marketing Manager.
  • For smaller brands: look for Director of Marketing, Social Media Manager.
• Email-Finding Tools: Hunter.io, Apollo for email addresses.

“It’s so much easier to find the decision makers these days than it was like 10 years ago…” — Justin Moore (18:06)

• Instagram DMs Caution:
  May work for small brands, but for bigger companies, community managers checking DMs rarely have sponsorship authority.

6. The ROPE Method for Pitching (19:44)

• R: Relevant
• O: Organic tie-in to your existing audience/content
• P: Proof (results, affiliate sales—even just reader feedback)
• E: Easy to execute (make it concrete and simple to say ‘yes’)

“Your pitch has to be relevant to a campaign that the brand is either currently running or has run in the past… show how you’ve helped other brands achieve results… [and] something very, very concrete…” — Justin Moore (19:44–21:25)

7. Packaging and Pricing Your Offers (22:43)

• Never Give Just One Price!
  Offer 3+ packages—never just “$500 for a mention.” Brands will simply compare you by price and move on.
• Differentiate Packages by Outcomes/Brand Goals:
  Don’t just offer more posts per package. Design packages to meet various goals: awareness, repurposing (ads/UCG), conversions—then offer an “everything” package.

“Tie your packages to the brand's goals... Package one is the awareness package... package two is the repurposing goal... package three, that's the conversion package... and package four: all of the above.” — Justin Moore (24:36–25:57)

8. Agencies/Managers vs. DIY (26:20)

• Be Your Own Rep:
  Agencies and influencer managers are incentivized to fill quotas, not prioritize your unique value—creators who take direct responsibility see more sustained success.

“The people that have decided that, like, this is my business… Those are the ones that are still doing really well and thriving.” — Justin Moore (27:16)

9. Common Mistakes (28:37)

• Execution is Everything:
  Failing to communicate, missing deadlines, going off brief, and being hard to work with means brands never come back.
• Follow Up With Post-Campaign Reports:
  Most creators never re-contact the brand—collect all feedback (positive and negative), send results, and pitch the next collaboration.

“The onus is on you to put together what I call a post campaign report, where you’re sharing not just the quantitative data of how the campaign went, but the qualitative data.” — Justin Moore (29:38)

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Notable Quotes & Moments

• “You don’t need to have a massive audience for this. You just need to have the right audience.” — Justin Moore (02:21)
• “Instead of paying me a flat rate... pay me a percentage of your ad spend. Meaning, if this asset starts performing really well... the more money you spend, the more I make.” — Justin Moore (06:43)
• “Start with brands that already sponsor creators—much easier sale, shorter sales cycle.” — Justin Moore (09:36)
• “Don’t make the mistake of thinking the brand cares that you like their product—their priority is affinity with your audience.” — Justin Moore (12:39)
• “I never lose. I either win or I learn.” — Nelson Mandela, quoted by Justin Moore (30:59)

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Timestamps for Core Segments

• [01:24] Introduction of Justin Moore; setting up the power of small audiences
• [02:00] Real-world example (Dr. Alex): niche, small podcast, huge brand deals
• [04:22] Strategies for creators with sub-1,000 followers
• [05:52] Pitching UGC/content creation vs. selling impressions
• [07:25] Short-form content boom and the value of licensing/rights
• [09:36] Finding which brands to pitch; researching competition/peers
• [16:36] Tactics to reach decision makers at brands (LinkedIn search ‘hack’)
• [19:44] The ROPE method for writing pitch emails
• [22:43] Packaging, pricing, and not making it only about post quantity
• [26:20] Pros/cons of using agencies or managers
• [28:37] Mistakes that kill repeat deals; the importance of follow-up reports
• [34:36] [Business Idea Donation]: Trend Sync web app concept
• [39:25] [Triple Threat]: Justin’s marketing tactic—a paid challenge funnel that nearly breaks even upfront, then converts to high-ticket coaching customers
• [45:50] [Tool Recommendation]: Whisper Flow (accurate, formatted voice-to-text app)
• [47:13] [Book Recommendation]: Double Your Profits in Six Months or Less by Bob Pfeiffer
• [49:02] What’s next: Sponsor Magnet Podcast launch; Sponsor Games live event

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Additional Segments

Business Idea Donation: "Trend Sync" ([34:36])

• Problem: Staying ahead of online trends, memes, viral moments for content planning is overwhelming for most entrepreneurs/content creators.
• Solution: A web app that analyzes your brand/industry, then provides a tailored digest of trending sounds, memes, holidays, and even scripts/ideas for your audience/brand voice.

“I would become a customer day one. ...my extremely online assistant that I just don’t have time to consume all this content.” — Justin Moore (35:54)

Triple Threat

1. Marketing Tactic ([39:25]):
Paid “challenge” bootcamp (ex: 10K Brand Deal Challenge)—a live, high-value experience that nearly covers ad spend upfront, builds trust, and upsells into high-ticket coaching.

2. Tool Recommendation ([45:50]):
Whisper Flow voice dictation: speak, get perfectly formatted text in any application.

3. Book Recommendation ([47:13]):
Double Your Profits in Six Months or Less by Bob Pfeiffer — practical, no-BS advice on cutting costs and boosting revenue; forced Justin to re-evaluate consulting expenses immediately.

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Actionable Takeaways

• Leverage Your Niche: Your audience (no matter the size) is valuable if it’s highly targeted. Highlight this exclusivity.
• Offer Content Creation, Not Just Sponsorships: Pitch “done-for-you” video assets, UGC, podcast hosting, etc., for brands to use on their own channels.
• Research & Personalize: Use LinkedIn job title search tricks to land in the right inboxes, and customize every pitch based on the brand’s history and goals.
• Always Offer Packages: Three or more, segmented by brand objectives (“awareness,” “content,” “conversions,” “all-in”).
• Follow Up: Always report results (both numbers and qualitative feedback) and proactively pitch another collaboration.

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What’s Next for Justin Moore

• Sponsor Magnet Podcast: Newly launched (“first episode with Nir Eyal,” skepticism-to-sponsorship discussion).
• Sponsor Games (2026): In-person, experiential event gamifying sponsorship skills.
• Continued development of challenges, coaching, and new SaaS/content tools for creators.

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Links & References

• sponsormagnet.com — Justin’s new book
• creatorwizard.com — Free sponsor audit tool and coaching/info
• Whisper Flow: whisperflow.app (or search for the current site)
• Bob Pfeiffer's book: Double Your Profits in Six Months or Less
• Hustle Show’s custom playlist: hustleshow.co (as referenced)

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If you want a practical, no-BS masterclass on landing brand partnerships—regardless of your platform size or industry—this is a can’t-miss episode.

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Transcript

[A]

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[B]

Dude. Nick, I'm so thrilled to be here, man.

[A]

I am pumped for this one. Stick around. We're covering what brands really care about, how to reach the right decision makers and how to maximize your earning power not just with one off campaigns, but with long term partnerships. And that's just round one. We've got three rounds with Justin today including his business idea donation for side Hustle Nation and the Triple Threat. But first, just want to get a sense of what's possible in this world. You've got dozens and dozens of people that you've worked with. Is there anything that really stands out to you in terms of like a really small audience sized creator who landed something meaningful?

[B]

Yeah, 100%. So I have a coaching client, her name is Dr. Alex and she has a podcast called Digital Pathology Place. Okay. She's a veterinarian, like a physician and her podcast on average gets hundreds of listens, not tens of Thousands. And her YouTube videos same, you know.

[A]

Okay.

[B]

And she is absolutely crushing it with brand partnerships, Nick. Because if you think about who is in her audience, it's the lab techs. It's the people who work in the C suite at the, at the hospitals. It's the people who work at the biopharmaceutical companies. And if you're over here, medical device company xyz, and you're sitting here thinking, how am I going to spend this $20 million marketing budget? This is what they're thinking, right? They're thinking, okay, well, maybe we could continue buying ads in that prehistoric trade magazine that sits in the doctor's office.

[A]

Yeah, I was going to say trade magazines, sure, right.

[B]

That. Whoever knows if the, anyone reads those, maybe trying to run like pay per click ads on Google. It's heavily regulated, so they may not even be able to run ads on Meta. You know, who knows? Or maybe they could roll out the red carpet for someone like Dr. Alex. They could say all of the people, even though it's a small audience, all the people who are in this kind of niche community, these are the people that we want to get in front of. So let's fly her out to our factory. Let's, let's pay her to come and speak on stage on our behalf at an upcoming trade industry event.

[A]

Okay.

[B]

And so she has her business funded by tons of these niche medical healthcare players because of who she represents. And so again, like, she's not, she does not have hundreds of thousands of followers, but brand partnerships has become a huge part of her business.

[A]

Does it need to be a B2B type of play? I mean, we've seen some examples on, on the show in the past. Brian Orr comes to mind from the H Vac school. Like, we're going to create a podcast for H Vac technicians and help them train, you know, how to be better at their job. Killer business. And Harry Duran comes to mind with the vertical farming podcast, where it's like, we're going to talk to founders and CEOs of vertical farming companies and it's like so niche specific. It's like, like you said, if you want to spend this ad dollars, we're the only game in town or we're one of the only new media games in town. But do you see, it's almost got to be kind of in that micro niche B2B type of market.

[B]

I wouldn't say B2B necessarily. B2, it definitely helps because there's a lot of businesses who are seeing the light in terms of the value of working with creators and entrepreneurs in this capacity. But I do think having some sort of niche helps. However, what I would say though is that let's say you are Small. Let's say you have sub a thousand followers or listeners or subscribers or whatever. What you pitch to the brand has to change, though. So if you come to them and you say, you know, I would love to talk about your, you know, your brand or your product on my YouTube channel or my podcast or my newsletter or something, and they go take a look at it, and you're getting an average of 100 views per video or listens or whatever. Yeah, not really gonna move the needle for them. Let's just be real here, right? And so how about instead, if we approach the pitch a little bit differently? So what I would do is I would say, okay, let me go and do a holistic analysis of this brand's social presence. Let me see. Are they posting on social media at all, or do they have a podcast for their brand? Do they have a YouTube channel for their brand? Are they sending. Do they have a blog? Are they sending out a newsletter? If they are posting on some of these platforms, is it good content? Is it consistent content? And. And then I would reach out to them and I would say, hey, listen, love your brand. However, I think you could be telling your brand story in a much more compelling way. I would love to create content on autopilot for you. I'll send you five, ten videos a month. I'll do, you know, I'll stand up your podcast. I'll be the host. I'll interview people on your marketing team. I'll interview my friends. It's turnkey. $7,500 a month. What do you think? And yeah, syndicating that content on my platforms could be part of it.

[A]

Okay.

[B]

But also, you're saying, hey, go take a look at my platform because it serves as my portfolio. Even though I might have a thousand followers, like, I know what I'm doing when it comes to creat content. And so again, as you grow, depending on your size, what you pitch us to change.

[A]

Okay, so this is where it blends from being a UGC partner or being a marketing consultant or so to speak, or content creator, versus we're buying impressions from you. If you're. If you don't have a lot of impressions to sell, you got to get a little more creative on. On the other side. And we had a woman on the show who was. The brands didn't care about the size of her following. They wanted the content to post on their own channels. And it was like sometimes 2, 300 bucks, sometimes a thousand bucks a video.

[B]

Yep.

[A]

It's like she got really good at creating These hooky little short clips. It was like the hourly rate from some of that, if you put that together was like, oh my gosh, this is fantastic.

[B]

A hundred percent. And if you can start getting really creative about negotiating those types of deals for UGC or user generated content is you may determine once you get pretty good is like, hey, instead of paying me a flat rate or paying me a thousand bucks or whatever it's going to be, pay, pay me a percentage of your ad spend. Meaning like if this asset starts performing really well and converting very well, the more money you spend, the more money I make. So there's really creative ways that you can start thinking about setting up compensation with these types of arrangements.

[A]

Yeah, this is one of the, I mean especially UGC is one of the biggest shifts that we've seen in the space. It's been almost 10 years since the last time we did a dedicated episode about landing sponsorships, landing brand deals. I mean, what are some of the other big shifts you've seen here?

[B]

There absolutely has been a gargantuan shift to short form content. I mean, you know, when we started out back in 2009, we had a blog, we had a YouTube channel and brands were just starting to dip their toes into the idea about, you know, paying someone to like talk about them in a YouTube video. And long form content, podcasts and so on was like, that was really the kind of the standard. And then obviously it sponsored blogs and so on too. But over the last for sure 18 to 24 months, a lot of brands have shifted a much bigger percentage of the marketing pie over to short form content, whether that's Instagram Reels, TikTok, YouTube shorts and so on. One of the reasons, Nick, is because of the increased repurposability of those assets. So when you sponsor a blogger or a newsletter operator or YouTuber or something like that content, that integration, let's say that sponsorship goes live on the brand, on that person's platform and then for a lot of them that kind of disappears into the ether. Especially with like newsletters and all that. Yeah, some YouTube can have like more of a, of an evergreen shelf life.

[A]

Okay.

[B]

But if you think about a 30 second video or a 60 second video that someone might create, oftentimes the brands are negotiating for the rights to put that content elsewhere, maybe on their website, on their social media to run paid advertising with it. And so now the ROI or the roas, the return on ad spend that they're thinking when they pay you 2,500 bucks or whatever, or 10 grand, it starts becoming like, okay, I understand why I need to pay this creator to secure those rights. So there's a lot of different reasons. And, and of course, like, there's a lot more mind share around. Around people consuming content in that format. And so that, that's been a big shift.

[A]

Got it. So that's something to have in your back pocket as you're approaching brands. It's not just something that's going to live on my channel. If you want the, you know, reusage rights, the recycling, the licensing rights to this content, absolutely, you can have it. But, you know, there's a step up in the pricing tier in that case. So talk me through. I'm a new creator. I don't have a huge following. You pick the niche. It could be the veterinarian thing or something else. But like, okay, I think this is going to be a viable path to monetize, to finding the decision makers to get my first deal here.

[B]

Yeah. So I think the first and most important thing to realize, if I'm seeing, where do I even start, it's like, first go and find, are there other brands sponsoring other people in your niche? That's the easiest way. That's the lowest hanging fruit is like, maybe there's other creators, other newsletters, other, you know, YouTubers that you follow or whatever. And just start acknowledging like, okay, let me go back and look at their last 10 videos. Like, were any of those sponsored? You can even search on people's YouTube channels for hashtags like hashtag sponsored. The word sponsored, sponsoring, partnering. You can start to see like, okay, wow, this person was sponsored by that. And, and that's the best place to start.

[A]

That's a good sign. If that company is in alignment with you. They have budget, they have a track record of making that kind of investment.

[B]

Exactly. And they, and they already see the value in partnering with creators. A lot of times people will go to a brand that has never worked with a single creator, and it's just a, it's a, it's a harder sell. The ed. The sales cycle's longer. You're going to probably get frustrated because you're having lots of conversations that don't lead anywhere. And so I would say start there. For brands that already really kind of understand the second step, and it's a really critical one. Nick is. Is realizing that whether you like the brand or not is kind of irrelevant. It's kind of table stakes. Because at the end of the day, it's not about you, it's about will this sponsor serve your audience because really, what brands care about is, hey, does your audience represent a pool of future prospective customers of us? We don't care that you like the product. We care, is your audience interested in it. And so what I advocate for in my book Sponsor Magnet, is like, let's actually start a proactive dialogue with, with my audience to learn more about them. I want to learn what's, you know, going on in their lives, what's keeping them up at night, what problems do they have? A lot of people get fixated. Oh, I'm in this, like, veterinary niche, or I'm in this DIY quilting niche or whatever. I guess the only brands I can work with are like fabric brands or yarn brands or something. When in reality. Let's pull that example for the thread. Sorry, I did not mean to make that pun. Let's pull that thread for a second. If you start asking questions of that community, I don't know, for example, maybe you realize you send out a, a Google form survey in your next newsletter or you put out a, a pol your YouTube community tab or something and you realize that, wow, I didn't realize 50% of my audience, they homeschool their homeschooling families and they're really into DIY and crafting and all that. That represents a very specific type of psychographic of consumer. Maybe I should pitch a brand like ABC Mouse, which helps kids read. I bet you could probably think of a pretty creative way to integrate a brand like that into your DIY and quilting niche. And so again, it comes back to, like, understanding your audience. And also, you should be asking, like, are there any brands and tools and products that you're using? And lo, right now, what if 30% of them say one brand in particular? Well, you better go take that data and go pitch the brand and be like, hey, I've got this huge cohort of my audience that is interested in using your product. I would love to expose my full audience to you.

[A]

Got it. It was biting my tongue a little bit because, like, well, if you're the face of the brand, if you're the face of your own personal brand and your content, it's like, you gotta be at least comfortable. You know, ideally, you're a user, you're an advocate, you're a fan of this company that you're pitching. It's like, because you don't want to become just a pitch person for whatever random thing. Like, I wouldn't recommend this.

[B]

Oh, oh, 100%. So what I meant is that of course you have to rec like it be a tool that you would recommend, but really that's what not what you should be leading with in your pitch because the brand doesn't care that you like it. They you need to illustrate to them does your audience have existing affinity that that's really what I meant.

[A]

Got it. Okay, so step one kind of creating this list or this spreadsheet of potential partners, the companies and services that you use, the companies that you see sponsoring other creators in the space and maybe the companies that your audience is already into if you do a little survey. More with Justin in just a moment, including how to get in touch with the actual decision makers at these brands and what to put in your pitch. Coming up right after this. Years ago, this is probably 2009, I'm sitting in this conference in Santa Barbara and the presenter asks this question. Are you working on your business or are you working in your business? I saw myself as this full time entrepreneur, but it was this moment of clarity that no, I was still very much working in the business day to day. So when I got back home, that's when I made my first full time hire. It was the first in a long series and an ongoing series of steps in trying to take control by being okay of letting go of certain tasks. Now when you find yourself in that position of needing to hire like yesterday, you need our sponsor Indeed. Plus Indeed's sponsored jobs help you stand out and hire fast. There's no monthly subscriptions, no long term contracts, and you only pay for results. That's why for my next hire, I'm using Indeed side Hustle show listeners get a $75 sponsored job credit to get your jobs more visibility@inn Indeed.com Sidehustleshow just go to indeed.com Sidehustleshow right now and support our show by saying you heard about Indeed on this podcast. Indeed.com Sidehustleshow terms and conditions apply. Hiring Indeed is all you need. With our partner Mint Mobile, you can get the wireless coverage and speed you're used to, but for way less money. I think that's a win we could all use right about now and you can keep your same phone number. Plus, for a limited time, Mint Mobile is offering side hustle show listeners three months of unlimited premium wireless service for just 15 bucks a month. All Mint plans come with high speed data and unlimited talk and text delivered on the nation's largest 5G network. I've been a customer since 2019 and haven't looked back this year. Skip breaking a sweat and Breaking the bank. Get this new customer offer and your three month unlimited wireless plan for just 15 bucks a month at mintmobile.comsidehustle that's mintmobile.comsidehustleen upfront payment of $45 required equivalent to $15 per month limited time. New customer offer for first three months only. Speeds may slow above 35 gigabytes on unlimited plan. Taxes and fees extra. See Mint Mobile for details. What I did early on, and maybe this is kind of embarrassing, but like this was my genius idea, I was going to comb the archives of entrepreneurs on fire, like the last 50 episodes or something that John did and itemized out all those sponsors and identify the top 10, 25, whatever. Like the ones that I like, the companies that I like. The companies that I used say, hey, they're sponsoring this show. They would be a great sponsor for the side hustle show. And beyond that, it's like it went through a handful of those and then, you know, scroll down the website and look for something that says partnerships or work with us or media or. It was like it's kind of where the trail went cold in trying to find the decision makers. And some of it sometimes would come back, be like, well, we work through an agency or let me forward your email to. It was. It was really difficult to actually connect with somebody who had the. The buying authority.

[B]

Right? Yeah, that is a very big challenge for sure. And you can also convince yourself that pitching doesn't work if that's the extent of what you do. And by the way, I just want to like empathize with you for a second there because that's exactly what we did when we started. Right. It's just, you know, because you're not, you don't go to school for this type of thing. Right. Like that seems like an intuitive way to do some sleuthing. But I have this magic search terminology that I share in the book that really helps you triangulate these decision makers at these brands. But it depends on the size of the brand. So what I mean by that is that if you are targeting a small mom and pop shop, let's say less than 15 employees, probably there's only one marketing person who works there, right. The director of marketing, the social media manager, if there is even a marketing person. Right. And so of course you need to change the type of person like job titles that you're searching for. As brands get larger, let's say 16 to 100 employees, they start having a hierarchy in their marketing team. So maybe they now have a marketing manager. They have a coordinator, maybe they have some directors there. And so a big part of what I teach is like learning, learning to start studying, let's say the LinkedIn profiles of some of these roles. So going back to what I mentioned, in terms of the magic search terminology, it's brand name, job title and then the word LinkedIn in your favorite search, you know, let's say Google. And so the reason I recommend this is that I have found that Google is a much better tool to surface the different jobs. Of course you can invest in LinkedIn, Sales Navigator and so on, but like that's like 600 bucks or whatever it is.

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

And so what I found is that you can actually find all these search results of like these people in these marketing teams. And so the first one that I would, I would recommend trying at, let's say a medium sized brand would be, the job title would be Influencer Marketing Manager. Dude, it's so much easier to find the decision makers these days than it was like 10 years ago because pretty much any, every especially consumer brand has either an influencer marketing manager, a partnerships marketing manager, an affiliate marketing manager. And so those are like the best place to start I've found, especially if they're doing these types of activities.

[A]

Got it. And I think that influencer Marketing Manager was the same role that our UGC guest Megan talked about looking for. And sometimes it was just DMing the brands on Instagram, especially if they found what looked like other UGC content in that brand's feed. Hey, you know, I'm a UGC creator. It's like it was, it was a more natural leading. Would you mind putting me in touch with the influencer marketing manager?

[B]

The tricky part though, I'll just put a caution here about DMing brands on social media is that especially as brands get larger, the chances that the person managing the social handle that they have any sort of decision making power for paid partnerships is like really low. Yeah, normally those people are like community managers and you know, they're in the DMS with people who are, let's say it's Chipotle. They're complaining. Someone's complaining about a lukewarm burrito and they're like, here's a $5 coupon. Right? They're not the like, oh, here. Yeah, talk to us about this like Q4 holiday campaign.

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

And so I really would recommend going to the effort of using tools like LinkedIn to triangulate who's actually the decision maker and then using other tools like Hunter I.O. or Apollo or whatever. To actually find their email addresses.

[A]

Okay, so then comes, well, what do I send this person? I'm coming in out of the blue. I'm coming in cold. How do I stand out from everybody else who's doing the same thing?

[B]

Yeah. So I have a pitching methodology that I teach in the book called the Rope Method. So it's R, O, P, E. So what I teach is that your pitch has to be relevant to a campaign that the brand is either currently running or has run in the past. O stands for organic, meaning that you can tie your pitch back to organic work that you've already published. Published that illustrates that your audience has affinity for their brand. Like we were talking about earlier. Your audience, not you. P stands for proof, so you can show how you've helped other brands achieve results. And E stands for easy to execute. When the brand says that they're interested, like, what did you have in mind?

[A]

Got it. What if. What if you don't have any proof yet? If you're like, early on?

[B]

Well, if you don't have any proof, the next best thing would be if you have affiliate performance. So maybe you're an Amazon associate, or maybe you're part of another brand's affiliate program that can absolutely serve as proof that you actually are influential. But if you even. Even if you don't have that, even if you have no affiliate performance, the whole idea of why a brand would want to hire you is that when you say to your audience, like, hey, go do this thing, that people actually take action. So if you've told them to sign up for a webinar before, or you've told them to go check out this thing at this store, and you have DMs, or you have email replies of people saying, like, hey, Nick, thanks so much for telling me about that. I went and did the thing that can absolutely serve as proof as well.

[A]

Got it. One example that stands out is Chris from All the Hacks. He said something like 25% of his audience had used his VUORI coupon code. It was like a huge percent. And it was obviously the people who answered the survey. So it was maybe a little bit biased, you know, by the people who were engaged enough to take action and do the survey. But it was like, that's, you know, really powerful ammunition to take to the next brand and say, yes, these people take action.

[B]

Totally.

[A]

Okay. And then the E was ease of execution.

[B]

Yeah, the E is easy to execute. Meaning, like, we're going to pitch them something very concrete. We're going to say, I'm going to do three YouTube integrations for you. I'm going to have you, I'm going to insert your mid roll ad into the back catalog of my podcast for 15 days. I can turn around the first integration in the next 10 days. I'll grant you usage rights through the, through the end of the year. So it's something very, very concrete versus, hey, would love to figure out a way to collaborate.

[A]

Oh, okay. Okay. So making it an easy yes versus here's three packages to choose from. Just like, no, no, no. Let's start with something simple where they could be like, sure, yes, sign, sign here.

[B]

Well, the likelihood of them saying, yes, sure, where do I sign? Is super unlikely. So the point of having that those bullets of like, here's what I can do for you is more about giving them something tangible to react to.

[A]

Okay.

[B]

So I am a fan of ultimately later down the line after you've had an initial discovery call with them providing packages like you mentioned, but for the initial trying to get your foot in the door, it's much more about pitching them something succinct.

[A]

Got it. Okay, very good. So that is, don't, don't, don't expect somebody to be like, yes, where do we sign? Right out of the gate.

[B]

Right.

[A]

But typically the next step is going to lead to this discovery call and try and craft a more detailed proposal. You know, small, medium, and large type of thing.

[B]

Any right.

[A]

Strategies on structuring those packages?

[B]

Yeah, well, the first advice is don't just provide one package because a lot of people do that. Especially if a brand comes inbound and says, hey, how much do you charge Nick for a podcast at Ad Read or something? And what a lot of people do is they, they just spit back one number. They say 500 or whatever the number is. Right?

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

And so absolutely don't do that because now you've just encouraged the brand to evaluate you a hundred percent on price. There's no other levers that you've given them to. And so they put you into a giant spreadsheet and there's 10 other, 10 other podcasters that they reached out to. And if your number that you gave is just too high based on the, this is what I did when I, when I ran my agency is that there would be this larger budget that we had to work with 20 people. Right. So we have 200 grand or whatever, and we, we were charged by the brand, which is our client, to do this campaign. And so everyone charges differently. So there was this tetrising exercise that we had to do where we would just see, okay, everyone, we went and we kind of kicked the tires on everyone, figured out their rates and like, here's the people that we can ultimately move forward with. And then these people who just like charge too much, like we just have to delete their rows and say we can't work with them. Right?

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

So the first shift is realizing, okay, let's go from only give them one number to giving them at least three different packages. So you say, hey, here's several different ways I can, that you can collaborate with me so that there's at least one package that they can move forward with you at. I talk about like, if you've ever seen the movie Moneyball, I, I talk about this a lot, which is that like, you don't need to be the MVP and have every package be like this knockout 20 grand type thing. Like you could build a really robust business kind of hitting singles and doubles all day long. And in fact, that's really what my wife and I have done for our career. And so that's. The first shift is like going from one number to three packages. And then there's this kind of more complex shift which I think is worth mentioning is realizing that if you are providing multiple packages, don't make the variance between those packages. Quantity. This is what most people do is they say, okay, package one is one post, package two is two posts, package three is three posts. And if you pick package three, I'll give you a 10% discount or something. Right?

[A]

Okay. Okay.

[B]

It's not really that exciting to a lot of brands, especially if you've never worked with them before because they probably want to get at least one engagement under their belt to see what it's like working with you. Because what happens if they get into it and you're a nightmare. Right? You're not professional, you're not communicative. They've had, they've been burned before, so they don't want to do that. And so the better thing to do is to tie your packages to the brand's goals. So one thing that I encourage you to do on an, on a discovery call with the brand is actually ask them, hey, what is success look like to you? What would a win be like? And they're going to say a lot of different things. Probably they're going to say awareness or hey, we want to get your content to repurpose it for ads or oh, we want to drive sales or app downloads or whatever. And so what you do in your proposal is you say, okay, Good, good. Package one is the awareness package. That's where I'm gonna do the podcast insertions. I'm gonna do the dynamic back catalog thing. And then package two. Hey, guess what? That doesn't include any of those things. Package two is the repurposing goal. So in that package, I'm gonna give you five 30 second videos that I don't even post anywhere. You're gonna leverage my name and likeness. I'm gonna make ads for you because you said you needed that, you wanted ads to repurpose. And then package three, that's the conversion package. That's where I'm gonna do the newsletter blasts, I'm gonna do the Instagram stories with a link sticker on every frame to drive people to the trial thing. And then guess what package four is, Nick?

[A]

What's package four?

[B]

That includes everything. And that's the only way for the brand to accomplish all of their objectives.

[A]

Got it. All of the above. Sorry, there's four copies here. Okay. This is really cool. Is there an advantage to say, like, look, I wanna be a content creator. Like, that's what I love. I don't wanna be a salesperson. I like working with an influencer agency, working through a network. Obviously, I'm going to give up a percentage to do that. You know, speak about the, the pros and cons here, man.

[B]

So I could say firsthand from experience, I've been a part of networks. I've had, we've had management in the past and so on, and we kind of have a bit of PTSD from that whole experience, mainly because the financial incentives are misaligned. So let me share a quick example. So when I ran my agency, again, to clarify, we were more like an advertising agency. We were not directly managing or exclusively representing creators. Our clients were the brands. And so when the brands hired us, we would then go after any creator who seemed like they would be a good fit for that. And so what would happen is we would reach out to a creator and we would look at their bio on social media or their blog or whatever, and it would be their manager's email address. And we say, okay, we reach out to them and say, hey, our client is interested in hiring your, your client to do this campaign. And the very first thing that the manager would say, Nick, would be, oh, yeah, she's probably interested, but do you need more people? Because I have 19 other people on my roster and oh, here's all their rates. Do you like any of them too?

[A]

Okay.

[B]

And so a less scrupulous brand or one without ethics would say, oh, yeah, well, actually, I like those three other people, and they're cheaper and better, so let me just work with them, because does that manager care where their 20% comes from? If the only way in which they're being compensated is a percentage of the deal, there's no retainer, they don't care. And so that's one small example that I can share. The other just anecdote that I could. I could share, dude, is that we've known a lot of people over the last 15 years being creators, and almost without exception, the people who delegated this stuff, the people who, you know, I don't want to deal with the business stuff. I just want to be a creator and all that. They are either no longer creators or they've really struggled. And the people that have decided that, like, this is my business, there's no one who's ever going to care about this as much as I do. I'm going to learn this stuff, I'm going to understand, what do partners and brands find valuable about working with me? Those are the ones that are still doing really well and thriving. And so I'm a big proponent of this idea that you need to take true ownership over these assets that you're creating.

[A]

Okay, yeah, that's fair. If you want to play in this business and treat it like a business, you're going to have to learn how to do the business side. Right. Where do you see creators screwing this up? Say they got their first. Yes. And they've been given this $5,000 opportunity. Where does it fall through the cracks? Where do they screw it up from getting that brand ever to call them back again, man.

[B]

So really, during the execution phase of the deal, right? Yeah. You may have gotten the deal across the finish line in terms of signing the contract and the negotiation and all that, but, like, if you are not communicative, if you go off the rails in terms of they approved one thing and you just kind of called an audible while you were creating the content, and then you send it back to them and they're like, this isn't anything like what we had in mind. And then you give them a bunch of flack and saying, like, yeah, well, you should trust me because I'm the creator and I have the creative vision and trust me and all that. And if you're just kind of a nightmare to deal with, that is the time where they decide either, hey, this person's amazing, or, wow, this was a nightmare. We're never hiring them again. So that's that's one piece. The other piece, I think comes towards the end of the partnership, Nick, where maybe, let's say they did execute it successfully and then they posted the content, they invoiced the brand, the brand paid them. And then the big mistake that they make is that they never reach out to the brand again. They just make an assumption that, like, well, if the brand was happy, if they like me, they'll reach out and ask to collaborate with me again.

[A]

Yeah, okay.

[B]

And that's not the case at all. The onus is on you to put together what I call a post campaign report, where you're sharing not just the quantitative data of how the campaign went, but the qualitative data. You know, you have a podcast, right? So you understand that like, oftentimes you may be getting private feedback about that episode or, you know, a sponsorship you might do that's not on a public facing social media platform. So, yeah, on YouTube there's public facing comments, but like, if I do a newsletter integration, oftentimes I'll get replies to that being like, oh, yeah, I tried that software six months ago. Sucks. Or like, I try, you know, I tried that food, you know, a year ago, and it's terrible for X, Y, Z. Reason. Is the brand seeing that feedback? No, they're not. And so it's your job to send that to them, even if it's negative or neutral feedback. And saying, hey, there seems to be a perception in the market that your brand sucks for the following reasons. And if you're not allowing the brand to say, oh, well, actually we have. We completely reformulated our product three months ago. It seems like people don't know that. Great. There's the focus of the next integration. And so it takes a lot of humility and low ego, I think, to actually come to the brand and be like, hey, how'd it go? Right? Did we drive any sales? I think a lot of people are terrified of asking that question.

[A]

Yeah, yeah, yeah. You're like worried to be like, yeah, actually it really, really underperformed.

[B]

And you're like, right, well, and, and what I. My perspective is like, Nelson Mandela has this great quote which is like, I never lose. I either win or I learn.

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

Because if you ask that question, the brand, if they say it went great, great. Pitch them on the next deal. But if they say, well, it went okay, great. We can learn something from this. And, you know, then you, you can help them understand how you can serve them in the next pulse of content.

[A]

Got it. And this would be A great point to ask you, if you're listening, if you have used any of the brands that have sponsored the side Hustle show in the past, I would love to hear from you. We did a kind of a fun creative campaign with OpenPhone over the summer where we made an extended commercial with an interview with the co founder and I got some feedback. I was like, wow, that was kind of cool. It didn't even sound like an ad anymore. I was like, shoot, maybe we should do more of that. And made sure to pass that along to, in my case, the broker and then onto the brand from there. But very, very cool stuff. Sponsor Magnet is the new book. Sponsormagnet.com is where to go to grab your copy and unlock the free bonuses that come with it. Got a nice endorsement from Pat Flynn on that page. We're going to be right back with Justin for his business idea donation for side Hustle show listeners coming up right after this. I'm excited to partner with OpenPhone for this episode. OpenPhone is the number one business phone system that streamlines and scales your communication for both calls and texts all in one, easy to use centralized hub. But before OpenPhone was sponsoring podcasts, they took a more guerrilla marketing approach.

[C]

You probably don't remember this, this is, this is a while back, but when we just started OpenPhone, one of the ways that we got our first customers is through Facebook groups. And I joined a bunch of Facebook groups, including yours. Thank you for not kicking me out. But I, I posted a couple of times and I actually remember seeing there were some of your listeners and folks in your community interested in solving the problem we solve, which is not using your personal phone number for work. And those posts got us some of our first customers. So thank you. It's a full circle moment.

[A]

Oh, that's super fun. Very cool. That's Darina, the co founder of Openphone and sure enough, her posts are still there. Openphone is offering side hustle show listeners 20% off your first six months at openphone.com sidehustle that's O P E N P H o n e openphone.com Sidehustle and if you have existing numbers with another service, openphone will port them over at no extra charge. You know when you're shopping online and you see that little purple shop pay button at checkout, that's a sign that the store you're on is one of the millions of businesses powered by our partner, Shopify. Shopify makes it incredibly easy to start and run your business. For starters, you don't even have to start from scratch. They've got hundreds of beautiful ready to go, proven to convert templates that you can adapt to your brand's style without needing to know how to code. You can tackle all your most important tasks in one place, from managing your inventory to tracking payments to analytics and more. Plus, Shopify helps you make sales with built in marketing and email tools to go out and find new customers and keep the ones you've got. If you want to see less carts being abandoned, it's time to head over to Shopify. Sign up for your $1 per month trial and start selling today at shopify.com sidehustle go to shopify.com sidehustlez shopify.com side hustle all right, we're back with justin moore from sponsormagnet.com and we're here for round two, which is the business idea donation round. This is something you might start yourself if you had more hours in the day. This is something you think Side Hustle show listeners could run with. What have you got for us, dude?

[B]

All right, so I have, I've got a, a brand name for you for this business idea. Okay. It is called Trend Sync. Let me clarify my, my problem here, okay, which is that I constantly feel like there are things happening out there in the world on the Internet memes, trending sounds, holidays that are coming up, you know, things that are relevant globally or like on the Internet that I would love to be able to plan for in my business from a content perspective. But I'm just so busy working business all the time that I constantly feel like I'm, I'm behind. And so the business idea that I would love someone to create and I would become a customer of it, day one is some sort of web app where I can insert maybe my website URL or my LinkedIn profile or a social media profile or something. Have it analyze my industry, my brand voice, my target customer or audience, and give me an entire content plan to generate a content strategy for me. And so it'll, it'll help me think of, you know, what are the upcoming industry events and holidays and awareness days that I need to leverage. If there's a trending sound on TikTok that I should quickly make a sound about to insert myself into the narrative for I, I kind of imagine this to be like my extremely online assistant that I just don't have time to consume all this content.

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

And I think it could be pretty easy to create something like this with AI, I think. And I think this could help Eliminate like a lot of hours and could potentially save me from hiring a VA or an employee or whatever to do something like this. So, yeah, hit me up, please. Like, sell me on this.

[A]

I'm a fan of this. The example that comes to mind is like the Coldplay kiss cam from this summer.

[B]

Yes.

[A]

Where I started seeing the memes before I even knew what it was. I was like, why? Why is everybody is just like, you know, this dude hugging this woman. I was like, why is this going? Why is this showing up in my feed? I didn't want to know what it was. And then my wife was very into it, showed me all about it. It was great. But something like that to keep a pulse on what's going on. And then bonus points if you can kind of give you the easy answer on like, okay, this is going viral. This is what people are talking about. But how do I make it about side hustle stuff or how do I make it about getting brand deals?

[B]

Exactly.

[A]

It's one thing to capture the trend or to be aware of the trend, but it's another thing to like, okay, what do I actually do about it?

[B]

A hundred percent. Imagine if I could get like some sort of daily or weekly email digest with like, here's the top five things that are going viral or trending right now. And here's the idea is quick. Here, here's a script of like how you could make a quick short form piece of content that's relevant for this or something like, oh my God, I would kill for that.

[A]

Yeah. For a time, Ryan Gray from med school HQ was doing really well with this stuff on Instagram. Like he, I don't know if he had somebody on his team, but they would like create these memes and just pivot it to being about kids going to med school and did really well with that. What do you think is the first step here? Is it to create a listening agent is probably not that hard to tap into Google trends or, you know, some what's going viral on different platforms. I feel like that is feasible. And then creating a profile based on your own body of work and your brand voice, like, also probably feasible. And then in the marrying of those.

[B]

Two, I think it's a connecting of pipes, so to speak. I think there's tools out there, like you said, AI listening agents. A combination of that with perplexity and chat or Claude or something you'd probably want to be thoughtful about, like what data you would need, like I said, to actually build a robust profile of the user, like the website the LinkedIn, the social media and so on or maybe feed documents to it or something. Because I think you're right. That would be the really critical piece here is like giving some sort of specific recommendation of how to capitalize on the viral trend or meme or whatever. And so probably the first step for me would be like figuring out what are all the sources that I would need to actually figure out if something is going viral. Like maybe it's Google Trends or maybe it's Perplexity or maybe it's some other other sources. But like you said, I think it would just need to be someone who has a bit of time and technical sophistication to understand how to connect all this stuff.

[A]

Yeah, we did. Well, we've done a couple episodes with Pete McPherson this year. One on vibe coding essentially. Like how do we turn from idea to that potentially people could pay for? And I think that would be worth a listen. We can link that up in the show notes. And then we did this whole episode on kind of just brainstorming different ideas. Wouldn't it be nice if such and such thing exists? And so this fits squarely in that category of this is a personal pain point of mine and now we can turn that into reality. So if anybody goes out and builds this. Absolutely, let me know, let Justin know and we'll try and plug it on an upcoming episode for sure. That is the business idea donation, trend sync. He's even got a name for it. Hopefully you get patent pending, domain registration, everything. And we'll, we'll go for there. But something to connect the Internet zeitgeist with your, with your industry, with your business. So very cool. Let's move on to round three, which is the triple threat. We're going to start off with a marketing tactic that is working for you right now. It's going to be related to the creator wizard coaching business. Could be related to the book. What comes to mind here?

[B]

Yeah, so something that is a nascent and pretty exciting development for us is what I'm calling our challenge strategy. So our coaching business, as you mentioned, is kind of the, the main kind of signature offer for our business. But it's a larger price point. It's. It's basically three grand a year for the group support or ten grand a year for private support. And so basically we will support you with your pitches, your pricing, your negotiations, your package proposals, all that, but we do not take a cut. So that's very different than like a manager or an agent. Like we help you land those deals and you keep 100% of that revenue. But because it is, you know, a steeper investment for that, we've had to think of creative ways, excite and entice people to learn more about the program. And so something that we did just last month was something that I called the 10K Brand Deal Challenge. And so we basically ran a seven day bootcamp that was like live. It was virtual, but it was, it was live. And so we would do, I would do live instruction. It was all about how to craft compelling outreach to, to brands. And so we, okay, talked a lot about some of the things that we discussed in the call today, but really it was helping people overcome a lot of the mental blocks with like, oh, I have imposter syndrome or I don't know what to say or I don't know who to to a lot of stuff we talked about today. And then at the end of that challenge we invited people to join the coaching program if they wanted to. And so the way that the economics worked out is we spent about. This is the first time I'd ever done this, but we spent about $15,000 on ads. It was a paid challenge. So it was, it was $97. There was $197 VIP kind of upsell like tier where I did a private Q and A after the teaching session on each day. And so between the running of the ads and the revenue that we collected from on the registrations, on day one of the challenge, we were about 1800 in the red. So we collected about 15k and then we made about 13 5k on registrations.

[A]

Just up front.

[B]

Yeah. Basically day one we were in the hole a bit. And so at the end of the challenge and then there was like a seven day sales window for the coaching enrollment. Six people had enrolled. We had kind of like a promo price for coaching. It was 500 off. And then we had a three day downsell to my course. And so all in all it was like a pretty awesome model, like to get people excited. We had, we had 79 paid registrations and we had six people enrolled. So it was a 7.5% basically conversion rate or, or enrollment rate from the challenge.

[A]

Six people at 2,500.

[B]

And it's recurring. Right. So it's a, it's a membership model.

[A]

Yeah, yeah.

[B]

I mean this was like the first time that we tested something like this. And, and I'm pretty excited about what this might mean. There was a lot of learnings from it though, which was that we were expecting that the vast majority of the People who came in from the challenge wouldn't know who I was because we were running cold ads, basically. But interestingly, about 75% of people had already read my book.

[A]

Really. So it was like, not. Not that cold.

[B]

Yeah, so they weren't cold at all. This has led us to think, well, maybe it doesn't actually make sense to run paid ads straight to the registration page. Maybe instead we should do some sort of book funnel for paid ads, like driving people to the audiobook or the ebook version or straight to my newsletter, potentially, and then nurture them for over a longer time period on joining the challenge. So our acquisition costs for people to join those other two funnels will be a lot less than getting someone to join a $97 challenge straight off an ad. Right. So I don't know. I'm pretty excited about what this. And this is something we're going to do regularly. We're doing another one in mid September. So. Yeah, I don't know. I don't know if it's going to scale, but so far, so good.

[A]

No, this is really, really interesting. And it's like, I think this is applicable to anybody who has kind of a consulting or kind of a done with you done slash for you type of service where. Or a coaching type of business where it's like getting a lower ticket, initial buy in, getting people excited, delivering consistent content and value, and then saying, like, look, if you want to continue to work with us, these are the results that we've delivered for people. And this is what it's going to be in terms of investment to do this over the course of the next year. And it sounds like you ended up more than doubling your initial ad cost investment.

[B]

I think critical thing about designing a challenge like this, Nick, is helping people understand, like, what. What often happened is that people would reach out to these brands and then they'd get a response and they'd be like, oh, the brand wants to hop on a call. What do I do?

[A]

Oh, yeah, what do I say?

[B]

Right. And so, and it's like, well, this is the perfect reason to join the coaching program. We'll help prep you for the call. Right. And so I think that designing some sort of education where it. It is obvious to your challenge participants why they would want to take the next step is a big part of it.

[A]

And you were doing these live, like, hey, 7 o' clock every night we're gonna jump on and we're gonna talk through this for an hour.

[B]

Mm, exactly.

[A]

Okay. Yeah. This is really, really cool. And so were the ads just the week prior, like leading up to that. Hey, we're gonna, everybody's gonna start on Sunday. So it's not pre recorded or. It's not. It's just. We're all gonna go through this together.

[B]

Yep, exactly.

[A]

The $10,000 brand deal challenge. And now you're gonna have success stories coming out of that. So it becomes a self fulfilling thing.

[B]

I hope so. That's the hope. Fingers crossed.

[A]

Yeah. It was a hundred percent meta ads.

[B]

Yep. We had, we did a little bit of Google Ads as well, but mostly meta.

[A]

Did you upload your customer list or invite your existing email list?

[B]

I did definitely invite my list. I did like a whole sequence on my email list to join the challenge and so on. That 15k wasn't just from people who came from ads.

[A]

Okay.

[B]

But I was retargeting, you know, based on my list.

[A]

Got it. Yeah. I was trying to build that initial audience and people in the creator economy world, fans of, you know, people who use kit or like, you know, there's different ways to slice and dice that audience. But I like this is a really cool challenge thing and we've seen people doing free challenges before. And here's a unique twist on that. Hey, let's get some buy in up front. Weed out the tire kickers and get people to put a little bit of money in and almost make itself liquidating on the very start. And then everything that you sell down the road becomes. Becomes gravy.

[B]

Can I share a quick anecdote about that free thing?

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

Because we had considered making it free and we actually did a promotion with another partner where we offered free enrollment to their members. So we had about 25 people come in for free and basically no one engaged and joined in the challenge who got it for free. And so I think this was like a signal to us that it does make sense to keep this as a paid thing. I think it goes back to the old adage like you just pay attention to what you pay for.

[A]

Yeah. I don't know who first said it, but people who pay pay attention. It's something that's come up for sure on the show. So I love that. That's the challenge. Marketing as the marketing tactics. How about a new or new to you tool that you're living right now?

[B]

All right, so it's called Whisper Flow. Have you heard of this?

[A]

No.

[B]

Okay, so Whisper Flow is an app that you install either on your computer or your phone and there's this little icon on the bottom and you click it and you just Talk into it. You dictate. So whatever active window you're in, whether it's a chat window, an email window, or whatever, you just dictate into it and it formats it perfectly and you don't have to type anything.

[A]

Okay, okay, okay. No, I have. I have heard of this.

[B]

Yeah. So, man, this has saved me so much time because I. I'm just like, naturally. It's, like, way easier for me to talk things out. But the challenge with voice to text for me in the past has always been the formatting sucks. But Whisper Flow is, like, super, super accurate, and it's super lightweight.

[A]

Interesting. And what's like a common use case for you?

[B]

Anytime you're typing anything anywhere in an email, in a chat box, like filling out a YouTube description box, whatever, you just like talking to it, and then it pastes it right into there. It's amazing.

[A]

That's super interesting. I'm the person who, despite hosting a podcast for 12 years, like, needs to see it written down. And, like, that's my form of thinking rather than just speaking. So I don't know if I would be the target user for something like this, but I've heard more and more people. Typing interface, it's a dinosaur. It's going extinct. You know, more and more people are just going to be using voice to do everything.

[B]

Yep.

[A]

All right, Whisper Flow, we'll link that up in the show notes. If you are a talker more than a typer, and your favorite book other than your own from the last 12.

[B]

Months, I brought it here just so I could show you. Okay. This book is called Double your profits in six months or less by Bob Pfeiffer.

[A]

It's a new one, new title for me.

[B]

This book, it's an old book. I think it's like 40 or 50 years old or something.

[A]

Okay.

[B]

This is a newer cover, though. But basically, this guy was a consultant to Fortune 100 companies. It's such a fast read. I read this in, like, a couple hours. The subtitle is 78 Ways to Cut costs, increase sales, and dramatically improve your bottom line.

[A]

Wow.

[B]

And so the book is. Is separated into two sections, which is how to cut costs and how to make more money. Each little step is like three pages or two pages. And there's. It's just so succinct. And it's no bs And I'll give you one tangible example. There was a section in here about consultants, and basically it was like, do you really need consultants?

[A]

Written by a consultant.

[B]

Do you really need that coach? Do you really need that, you know, person that you're paying a thousand dollars a month to to do that, like task or whatever. And right in my head I was thinking like right now it's more a want than a need for me because there was like a couple engagements that I was doing and the real pain point for me was like, I'm just feeling way too stressed out now with my team. And so we made the decision. I was like, I, we really need to hire another like VA or another assistant. And so right there I just, I picked up the phone and I ended those consulting agreements with some of these other people. Cause it was month to month and I was able to take back several thousand dollars that I'm now going to be allocating towards an assistant. It's a really great, succinct read to help you just like do a double take. Like, do I really need to do this? So really, really helpful.

[A]

All right. Double your profits in six months. Bob Pfeiffer, A new title that has never been recommended before in the history of side Hustle Show. So thanks for bringing something new to the table. Very cool. What's next for you? You got the book, you got the coaching business, you're running these successful challenges. What's got you excited for the rest of this year?

[B]

Well, I just launched my brand new sponsor Magnet podcast. Oh, two days ago.

[A]

You heard it here first.

[B]

Yeah, you heard it here first. My very first episode was with Nir Eyal, if you're familiar with his, his books Hooked and indistractable. Yep. So I, I talked with him. He was a sponsorship skeptic. He's someone who's sold a million copies of books and has never done a single sponsorship. And so we were actually in person together and we talked through all of his limiting beliefs around why, why should he even consider doing sponsorships? And so yeah, I'm really excited to just have a forum to have these conversations because there's no other podcast dedicated to this topic. And so the podcast and then also my in person event called sponsor games happening 2026. So very excited for both of those two things.

[A]

Sponsor games like Hunger Games.

[B]

Well, basically what I've done is I've turned my eight step sponsorship wheel framework into eight games that you play to actually master these concepts. So the pitch game and the negotiate game, where you're actually doing real role playing live, like with me on stage, where I'm pretending to be a brand and I say one thing and you have to respond, oh my gosh, yes. Yeah. I have found that like doing these types of activities where you're practicing is the way to learn.

[A]

Yeah. There's a lot of benefit in those mock interviews, the role playing and trying to figure out, yeah, the brand said they want to do a discovery call. What do I say? Oh well, if I'm prepared for that, I'm much more likely to actually present myself in a way that makes sense and lands that deal. Well, that's awesome. So the new podcast, the Sponsor Magnet podcast. Absolutely. We'll link that up. Go check that out in the show notes there. The sponsor games coming up if you want to get more. But actually definitely check out the sponsor Magnet book sponsormagnet. Com. This is Soup tonight. Like this is really, really in depth on everything. You need to get started. Really well done on that. I know it's selling really well and I know it will continue to do that. Also creatorwizard.com I want to plug the like sponsor audit tool. Just kind of a cool unique positioning. So that'[e-mail] we'll link that up as well. Appreciate you tuning in to the side Hustle show. Whether it's your first time listening or your 694th or whatever episode we're on. Appreciate you. If you are newer to the show, you can create a personalized playlist. At Hustle show you can get a custom curated list of our greatest hits episodes based on your answers and it'll spit back out that playlist that you can add to your device. Go learn what works and go make some more money. Again. Hustle show for that. Big thanks to Justin for sharing his insight. Thanks to our sponsors. Did a whole episode on sponsors. Thanks to our sponsors for helping make this content free for everyone. Side hustlenation.comdeals is where to go to find all the latest offers from our sponsors in one place. Thank you for supporting the advertisers that support the show. It really does make a difference. That is it for me. Thank you so much for tuning in. If you're finding value in the show, the greatest compliment is to share it with a friend. So fire off that text message that Instagram DM saying, hey, I think you should check this out. Until next time, let's go out there and make something happen and I'll catch you in the next edition of the Side Hustle Show. Hustle on.