Influencer Marketing: Create A Partnership That Really Works w/ Crossfitters Lauren Fisher & Rasmus Andersen #FreedomFastLane

One thing that turns me off is when people say, hey, I want to send you product. And I'm like, great, here's my address. Like, can't wait to try it. And then all of a sudden they're like, can you post about it as soon as you receive the product? And for me, like, I need to try out your product first. Like, you can't just expect I'm going to get free product and in return post about it on my story or Instagram. That's just like a huge turn off for me. And then I'm just like, that's okay. Thank you.

Build a business, invest the profits. I'm Ryan Daniel Moran and this is Freedom Fast Lane.

Hey, what's up, capitalists? Looking good.

Hey.

I am really bullish on the opportunities that exist in partnering with influencers now. A lot of people I think are interested in influencer marketing, but they do it wrong. They do it in a way where they just are paying for exposure. And to be honest with you, that just feels icky to me. So I think the real opportunity is in partnering with real influencers. That doesn't just mean people with followings, that means people who have real influence. There is a difference. So you might have heard me talk about one of somebody I really admire. His name is Brian Lee. Partners with influencers like Jessica Alba builds the honest company. That's very different than paying a few celebrities to, to talk about your product, your business. Very, very different. So I've been exploring some relationships with influencers and building brands around them. So they've got buy in, they have congruency with their message and it doesn't feel so icky and it gives you an unfair advantage in launching a real brand. I think this is really the next wave of opportunity and it's something that I'm deeply exploring. So one of my business partners, Max Kerwick, he runs the Brand Builder podcast, just recorded an interview with Lauren Fisher, who is the biggest CrossFit influencer in the world. 1.1-ish million followers, competitive at the CrossFit Games. And Max had Lauren on the Brand Builder podcast, which you can subscribe to over@capitalism.com or you just search for the Brand Builder podcast. And this is a really, really good episode. So I wanted to share it with all of you who are building businesses, investing the profits, building physical products, brands creating products. This is really, really good. This is kind of the next wave. The influencer partnership game, I think is the next wave. So I hope you enjoy this chat from the Brand Builder Podcast. With Max Kerwick and Lauren Fisher.

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I'm your host, Max Kerwick and I'm here with Erasmus Anderson and Lauren Fisher. How are you guys doing today? Good.

Thank you, Max, for having us.

Yeah, yeah, absolutely. I appreciate you guys joining. I'd love to just start off, you know, obviously I know who you guys are. Anyone who's familiar with the CrossFit space will know who you guys are, but I'd love to give everyone else who might not be familiar with you just kind of an intro on kind of who you are and what you're all about. You go ahead.

Well, I'm Lauren Fisher and I'm a seven time CrossFit Games athlete. So if anyone doesn't really know what the CrossFit Games is, is basically the fittest test on Earth for people in my field. Rasmus also has competed the CrossFit Games multiple years now. So basically competing now for seven years and I'm only 25 years old and this past year we were the third fittest team on earth, placing ourselves on the podium.

Hell yeah.

Similar, Lauren. Like I've done CrossFit now for 10 years and been at the games for a few times. We happened to be on a team together a few years ago and this year I'm referring to we went team again and we were on the same team. So we've been competing both as individual athletes and then like a few times now we've been on a team together and just lucky enough to be able to share the competition floor together. It's pretty amazing.

Yeah. Yeah, that's awesome. And yeah, it was really, really exciting. I watched the final event with you guys and just kind of the competition is still. It's been crazy how much CrossFit has evolved over, you know, whatever the past 10 years or something like that, or seven years at least since you started actually competing at the Games, Lauren. But it's was pretty cool to watch the team event this year. I'll also add that you guys have quite the following on Instagram, right? Lauren, you have over a million followers. Rasmus, you're what, around 60, 70,000 somewhere.

In that range Just behind her? A little bit, yeah.

Just a little bit. Yeah. Yeah. Cool. Good stuff. Well, yeah, so I wanted to have you guys on here for a couple reasons. One, because I know that you guys have started to make the transition from just kind of being audience builders and, you know, advertising to your audience or, you know, doing, you know, sponsored posts and stuff like that to actually kind of creating a business of your own. And so I'm interested in kind of that entrepreneurial journey. And then I also, I also think that a lot of the people listening probably either don't know how to work with influencers or frankly just do a really terrible job of doing it. So I'd love to hear from your perspective as people who have audiences who work with brands and things like that.

Some of the best practices, some of the things that stand out to you from the influencer side, what you want to see from the brands that you work with. Cool. Yeah. Yeah.

I think we live in a good world, right? Social media seems to like taking a bigger and bigger part both in. Well, on our side as an influencer, we're obviously trying to build an audience, but also now transition into business. We're also getting the side of things where how powerful influencer can be in terms of building a business. And it's crazy how much social media really play a big role in a lot of things nowadays.

And I was gonna say, I think for me, just with over a million followers, I know where one way where brands go wrong is them sending a direct message to an influencer. You get over 99 plus messages a day, and the likeliness that they're gonna see that message from a brand is highly unlikely. So for someone like me, I prefer if they just click that email in the link in bio. And basically they send me a professional email and basically they explain who they are, what they're about, and if I'm interested in a collaboration rather than someone shooting me Instagram direct message. Like today, for example, someone sent me an Instagram direct message and asked for my rates. And they were like, can you. We want to pay you $50 for a post. I'm like, my posts are way more valuable than $50 and I'm just gonna click accept and ignore this message and not even reply back. So that was like, one of the biggest things is sending a professional email over direct messaging. Someone like myself or Rasmus.

Yeah, got it. Okay, so that's interesting because I know that, you know, there's. I think the DMing thing probably works for people who are just kind of starting out as influencers. Maybe people who are, you know, maybe they've just hit 10k or something like that, or maybe even a little bit before more kind of. I think of those as, like, local influencers. But when you talk about, you know, someone sending you a professional email, like, what does that look like? Like, what do you like to see in that. That note that makes you say, like, okay, this person's actually pretty serious and worth having a conversation with.

I would jump in really quick and say, like, well, Lauren's absolutely right, but I think, like, just a little bit of research. You don't have to do much research. Just do a little bit of research. Like, make sure you're spelling them right. I don't know. Like, obviously my Name is a little bit different and most people's name is a little bit more. You have to do a little bit of research and that's right. And spell it right. And you don't have to do much research to really understand, like, what. What are we doing? Sometimes people reach out and they're like, oh, you're doing fitness. And like, oh, you must be like going to a bodybuilding.

Like, it's just.

They got a complete different idea of who we are. And like, what, like, what are people following us, who they are and if we actually want to work with us, like, just spend like at least five minutes, do your due diligence. Like, who are we? And like, who is our audience? I think that's one thing to spell our name right and know what industry we're in. And then I would say lastly, like, understand what sort of rates we are. Obviously Lauren I at different rates. Like, I have less follow than her and obviously I'm somewhat cheaper to work with. But like, when someone reach out, as Lauren is saying, like, when someone reach out and offer you $50 for a post, like, it's just like, it's not even taking serious. It's like almost a waste of time on both ends. This is no reason.

Yeah, well, that kind of blows my mind because, like, I don't know if someone who had like 800 followers would just like post something for 50 bucks, you know, like.

If it was just like my friends following me, I don't think I would post something for $50.

Like, I'm kind of confused. I'm like, what generation are we losing right now? $50 for a post? Yeah, I was really confused about that. So I think understanding, like, who you're reaching out to based off their following, like their engagement and kind of understanding, like, what their value is for their post compared to, say, if you reach out to someone like Grassmith who has a little bit smaller audience, but it might be more niche than, like, my audience is going to be much bigger. But maybe you might get more value out of paying someone who's a smaller influencer. Just you need to understand, like, who you're reaching out to and like, what type of audience they have.

Yeah, got it. Yeah, that makes a lot of sense. And I'm all about, you know, just from a brand perspective and from an audience perspective just, you know, understanding people as deeply as you can. But, you know, it's not, you know, for the brand owners listening out there, it's not just understanding your own audience, it's understanding the audience of the people that you're. You're reaching out to. Because. And I guess I would love to know more about just kind of the journey. Lauren, I'm sure you just started posting, and Rasmus as well, just you started posting kind of organically about CrossFit and about your journey and all that kind of stuff. But what has the journey been like to build the following that you have now?

I was on Instagram back in like 2011, 2012, and back then I just kind of wanted to use Instagram to filter my photos in high school. So I was like, oh, I really like these filters. Going to start doing this Instagram thing. And then it kind of started getting a little bit bigger around 2012, I think 2013, when they came out the 15 second Instagram videos, that's where I was like, I started posting just a 15 second clip of me lifting. And it got so much engagement, so much engagement, so many likes. Because back then there was no Instagram algorithm. So I don't know if I just got into Instagram at the right time, but slowly I just started to build my audience. So I just remember, like my freshman year of college, which was probably about seven years ago, I told my friend, I was like, oh, I just hit 10,000 followers and now look, I just slowly built it all the way to like over a million. But honestly, I think now it's just so much more work putting in the effort every single day to kind of give the best possible content for your followers. Like, you can't just post like a lifting video. Like you can. It's different for certain people, but you need to, like, put a lot more effort into your captions, your content, and in order to keep growing the following. And now there's Instagram stories. So it's a whole lot of work to just keep growing that following. And then I started dating Rasmus. I kind of attest his followers to me giving him a shout out, people are like, who's this guy Rasmus? And then they started following him.

I won't say that's entirely true. What is somewhat true, right? Like you.

Yeah, yeah, of course.

Separations with like, people who have more followers than you and you tend to like, get some of their following. I mean, I would argue that, like, Lauren's right, that when we both started quite early, Lauren a little bit earlier than me, and back then it was like the more you posted, the more engagement you had and the more people followed you. It was quite easy almost no matter what you posted back then, especially coming from like, somewhat of an athlete's perspective. It was relatively easy to gain followers, whereas nowadays there's definitely a lot more going into it just with the algorithms. Like, it's not just posting and then.

You'Re good to go.

There's a lot more work put into it.

Yeah, but I think one of the things that's impressed me following you guys is that it's, you know, it doesn't seem to be just about volume. It doesn't seem to be about, you know, kind of just trying to post to game the algorithm and things like that. There's a lot of authenticity there. There's a lot of, you know, your core message hasn't changed. The type of content that you post hasn't really changed. Right. And clearly it still resonates with people. And so I guess, you know.

What is that? Like, there's an element of, like, how much is it just you kind of being yourself versus how much is it like, figuring out kind of, oh, this is what my followers like? And I kind of post that type of content.

I think it's definitely quality over quantity. I know for me, personally posting on my own Instagram, it's much different than if I were to go post on my business Instagram. Grown Strong. So for myself, I live in the moment on my own Instagram, and I post authentic things that are happening for that day. So whether it's a lifting video, what I did for my workout, what I'm eating, like, I just, like, stay true to myself, and I'm not really planning out my content ahead of time. And I might find inspiration in, like, the moment I'm working out. And then all of a sudden I post to my followers, like, hey, I went through this workout today. Like, I wasn't feeling super motivated. And just kind of remind people, like, you, you're not, like, you're not the only one struggling with this. And then if I'm posting on Grown Strong, I like to plan out my content in advance just because I'm providing value to my followers. It's not an individual posting on it like it's a brand, and it also should resonate with every single person following it. So, like, I'm planning out workouts, motivational quotes. I'm planning out, like, yeah, basically anything and everything that's going to just help with someone who's resonating with the brand. So recipes.

Yeah, I would say, like.

Lauren's being a very authentic. Lauren's younger, doing a really good job of that, and she's always been doing a really good job of that. I'm trying, but, like. And I would say I am too, but Lauren's definitely doing a really good job. And I think the people following Lauren, they're following her because she is authentic. So I think Lauren doesn't need to be, like, playing a different role because the people are there on her channel because they like her authenticity. Like, yes, just being her being authentic. What I was referring to. Sorry about like, the algorithm and stuff like that, but Instagram doesn't really change the way we are posting. I would say change more in terms of the way we're engaging with people. So, like, we comment back on people. So, like, in terms of, like, what we are trying to provide people with, like an authentic side of our inside of our life and life as an athlete, that hasn't really changed. I would say it's more like the way we were. Like, now we have to respond back to comments.

Got it. Okay.

Responding back to DMs. So that's really. That has changed quite a bit. But the posts we're making are pretty much the exact same.

Yeah.

Yeah. Cool. Yeah, that's awesome. And I think it's cool too. Cause your audiences have continued to grow too. There's a lot of people that I've seen that maybe they got into Instagram early and they kind of got to a certain point and then it just seems like they just have completely leveled off or they're slightly shrinking or something like that. And both you guys seem to have healthy growth too, which is cool. What has the process been like? You mentioned your brand grown strong, which both you guys work on together. What has that process been like, transitioning from.

Life as an athlete and as an influencer to business owners and entrepreneurs?

Oh, man. One hell of a process. I think we come from a world where we know how to train and be an athlete really well. And to run a business is not our strong suit. So, like, that's a lot of learning. Curve is very steep, but it's really interesting. I love it. I think we both really like that side of things. And to be honest, it's also about really a passion of teaching people to live a healthy lifestyle. For me, it's been a life change to get into fitness. Not just CrossFit or become an athlete, but to get into fitness and really see the side of the. Of just doing something, exercises. That really changes me, not only physically, but also mentally. And being able to sort of teach that to the rest of the world is something that I'm really passionate about. And in order to really do that you can do that through social media, but I think you can also do that through a business and really scale that and reach a massive audience, hopefully and obviously create a business out of that, but also really hopefully make a big change. That's something that I really love.

And I was just gonna say it's just different transitioning from like an athlete to a business owner because I'm so used to like I went to college and I was training also to compete at the CrossFit Games. Then I graduated college and then I was just a full time athlete. And so it's just wake up, eat, train, recover, sleep, repeat. I didn't really have to think about anything else. Like I didn't have to worry about anything else. And now we have this business like we want to grow because obviously CrossFit isn't going to be around forever and, and so now it's like finding that routine and structure. Okay, well now I need to wake up earlier because I still have to train, but now I also have to work. So now you're gonna have to like work in the morning before training, go train, then you're gonna kind of have to come back, work again and then go back to train and then you're gonna have to work again after training. So now it's just finding more time in your day to do like everything we wanna do. So it's definitely been like a hard transition I think for us. Cause we're just so used to just training and that's it. And, and like taking naps throughout the day. Yeah, no, seriously, those naps are non existent. Cause we're constantly trying to work on something for our business.

Yeah, for sure. Well, and I think that's something that, you know, a lot of people probably don't even think about. You know, it's the. Cause not only you're professional athletes, right. But you're also professional content producers. Right. You're essentially a media company as well on the influencer side and you have another business. Right. And so kind of taking all of those things together that you know, obviously the professional athlete and the media company, those are entrepreneurial pursuits on their own. Right. And then you add more classic entrepreneurship with starting a business and doing all that kind of stuff. I mean, I just don't even know how you, how you handle all that kind of stuff, how you have enough energy to get through the.

I would love to follow up on that Max, because I think you understand, you understand that side of things, how much time it takes. But I really don't think People understand that like Lawrence spends. The way we're actually doing it right now is that we both go train. We spend around, roughly around the same amount of time training. Because if you want to be the highest level, we need to spend that amount of time training. So we do that. And it's quite a lot. It really is. People think, oh, you just go train. That must be the easiest lifestyle ever. But no, it's actually very hard mentally and physically. It's really, really hard in your body. And what people don't understand is that when you go to the gym and you exhaust yourself so much as we actually do when we come home, like, it's really hard to like all of a sudden switch your brain on, okay, now it's time to work. Now it's time to answer emails, now it's time to build like all these things. That is really hard. And then the other side of things, like people, they all think that, like especially Lauren, but I'm large following. Okay, money is just coming in. Sponsors is giving you money and now you just like, now all you have to do is they'll make a little bit of post. But like, there's so much work going into it. Like literally that's almost a full time job. Being an athlete's a full time job and then running a business. So like it's like we train, I take side, like I take kind of like care of the business and learn a little bit more of the social media. But like we're really running around like all day long and working. Yeah, people don't really understand that it's actually interesting.

Yeah, for sure. And so how do you, how do you guys manage that? I mean, you know, there's got to be days where you're like, I just, you know, I need that nap. Or there's got to be days where you're like, you know what, I really feel like I need that nap, but I'm going to have to just push through and get this done.

You know, I think for us, well, Thursdays and Sundays are off days. So those are the days where we're like catching up on work. And usually people on Sundays, like they rest, go watch a football game, some sort of fun activity. But we don't really have those days ever. Like we're constantly trying to work, do something that's creative. So I think we're just in a constant grind mode right now, like just grinding it out and then we're always like, we're gonna get more time, we're gonna get more time. Like it's the whole hardest part. Just like starting your business and getting it started. Erasmus is always the one. Like don't worry, like few months from now we're gonna get more time, but then it always ends up happening where we don't have enough time. But like I think we love it so much. Like being an entrepreneur, being an athlete. And so I don't think like we'll change it for anything. And right now we're at our peak age to compete, so eventually it'll kind of turn into now it's just fully focusing on the business and we'll no longer be like full time athletes anymore. So right now we haven't made that transition, but I think eventually that will be our transition is where we're fully focusing on the business and then that's where we get the extra time to do like fun activities outside of our normal day to day work.

I think, honestly I think it's just about maximizing the time you have available and be efficient. And don't get me wrong, we're not great. I'm not saying we're perfect or anything, but we've definitely come a long way from the days when we were just taking naps between session. Man, those are good days.

Those are good days for sure.

But now it's a lot more like, well, if I want to, I know that I need a lot of catch up in terms of education, in terms of business side of things. So like I'm like every single time I get in the car, whenever I'm driving, I'm always putting on a podcast. I never listen to music whenever I wake up. Like we obviously were trying to establish some sort of routine, but it's pretty much right away on the computer, make a cup of coffee, Lauren makes breakfast. I get on the computer and do work as soon as we get back from the gym. It's just work at nighttime. We don't stop like until probably 7 or 8 o'.

Clock.

That's kind of when we get off the computer. And then we put an episode or whatever on the TV and Netflix and then it kind of like calms us down. And then like it's bedtime right after or maybe a book. That's kind of the process. So this is. We cut out all the unnecessary thing like in terms of having fun and play time. And we only keep it in there whenever we feel like it's now it's needed like now. We haven't had a date for like quite a few weeks now. Let's go out to night and whatever.

But.

I mean, don't get us wrong, like we still have fun. Like we still. And I think like when we're in the gym, like we're hanging out with our friends, like we're working out and like we're having fun inside the gym. But I think if people were to ask us to maybe go out for like few drinks at night and go out like partying all night, we'll probably be the ones that want to maybe have one drink or two and then we're probably going to bed at like 10:30. So like we do enjoy ourselves. It's. But I think, yeah, finding balance.

Yeah, it's definitely. Well, it's balance and it's just trade offs and you know, I love what you said. You know, kind of we're at the prime of competing and we have this opportunity now and just kind of you can see how the work ethic that you have in CrossFit and in athletics is transferring over to the other pieces. Because I don't know that everyone would be able to that. And I know just from my own experience that it's not just the training.

Aspect of like when you're in the gym, it's also like making sure you're getting enough sleep, right? And that the sleep is high quality food, making sure you're getting enough calories and like the kind of, the constant eating and all that kind of stuff. And so there's just a lot, there's so much that goes into it. And that's always really impressed me that you guys have been able to kind of tackle all these different aspects.

So I have one question again, kind of going back to my experience. I know when I swam I kind of thought like, oh, I'm going to have all this discipline. I'll be able to go out and just kind of do whatever I want afterwards. And I realized.

When I got done, I was like, oh, actually what I'm good at is showing up and doing exactly what someone tells me to do. Like, I'm really good at being coached. So how has the experience been going from something like that, a very structured environment where you have a coach and all that kind of stuff, to more of a business environment where you guys are kind of having to come up with things on your own, not just the programming that your clients are doing, but also just kind of filling out your day and how you approach it and all that kind of stuff.

I also noticed. Well, that's really good thing you brought up. Just because I noticed for myself, I enjoy getting a program and having someone else tell me what to do, and I'm going to go and do it. And then I'll also put in my extra work above that because I know it's going to help me get better at that spot thing. So with a business, I know now I'm struggling because it's like, it's me having to develop the content. I don't have someone writing out my content calendar and telling me, hey, you need to go take this picture today, and you need to write this caption. Because if someone told me to do that, it would be so easy for me to go and write my content calendar. But instead, it's me having to develop, like, the whole idea behind it, and then I have to figure out what the caption is going to be. Okay, we need to go this day, and we need to take pictures and stuff. So it's kind of figuring out exactly how to develop that structure and figuring out that it's not like no one else is gonna be dependent on you. It's like you, yourself, and I and Rasmus. So him kind of telling me what to do helps with that. Because sometimes we'll be like, hey, Lauren, we need to do this today, like, xyz. And then that gives me something to do. Like, okay, I need to know. I know now I need to get this done for the day. So I think it's really good that we have each other.

I was gonna say, like, Lauren's right. Like, she's been always very structured. She, like, when she gets a program from our coach, like, she's doing it, like, to the T, like, she's not missing anything. She adds a little bit to it. Well, I'm, like, always, whenever I see the program, the first thing I do is changing everything on the program. So I do my own thing. So, like, I have a different mindset. And I think that actually, as Lauren's saying, it plays together really well. So, like, when it comes to the business, I probably take the lead a little bit more and then tell her, like, sometimes, like, this needs to get done, and then she gets it done. So that's one side of things. But then I'll say what really has been crucial is having the right people around you, right? So, like, having the people you can work with that tells you what needs to get done. And we've been very fortunate to just stumble across people. That has been very helpful to us. Max, you've been great. There's a lot of people around the world that has been really great to us. And we also Have a Lawrence brother. Actually, it's a business part of ours and I think it works really well, really well together as a team. So we all have different areas where we sell in and just finding that network, I think has been extremely important.

Yeah, for sure. Well, and I love what you talked about there and kind of dividing and conquering, focusing on the areas where you're strong and where you're strong and where your brother's strong and kind of making sure that things are getting done but not feeling like any one person has to be responsible for everything.

Cool. And Rasmus, I love kind of the way you talked about it too, just in terms of transitioning from music to just listening to podcasts and, and kind of giving yourself your own education. I think that there's. There's so much content out there these.

Days, man, that's a whole different subject. But man, there really is. You can take a full course on YouTube right now. Like, it's insane how much you can learn. And honestly, even better, probably even better content because it's relevant to now, like the. A living. I just think it's crazy how much I've actually learned from just listening to podcasts and self education versus going to school. Insane.

Yeah, for sure. So we've kind of talked around Grown Strong for a bit here, but I'd love for you guys to just to kind of tell anyone who's listening kind of what Grown Strong is all about and, you know, kind of what you guys do and all that kind of stuff as well.

So Grown Strong is an online fitness brand for women. Basically, we want to empower women to be strong and confident in all aspects of life. So we offer a fitness program. We give them different time domains based off, like, what they're going to be working out for that day. So whether they only have 30 minutes, 60 minutes, 90 minutes, you're always going to be able to get your workout in. So we help people stay accountable with their workouts and then we also give them nutrition advice. Basically anything you can from like elite side coaching.

But yeah, I think like, Lauren touches really well. Like, we do have a fitness program, right, like for specifically females. But I think it goes well. Be off that. Like, beyond that. Like, we are trying to, like going back to what I was saying earlier, teach how powerful fitness can be, not just to change the physical aspect, but also just everything beyond that. And I think we're trying to do more than just that. We're really trying to establish a place, a platform where people can come in and leave later on. Not just they changed because they followed their fitness program, but they learned, hopefully, a lot of value. A lot of value you can take with them. So we have a nutrition coach. We have, obviously, the fitness program, but we were just trying to do a lot more than just that. We're really trying to educate people and create new habits, and we're constantly doing new things for that. So, like, it's a. It's a constant thing that is involving, and it's a platform where we really try to teach people to create new habits and change themselves for the better. Cool, right?

Yeah, yeah, yeah. No, that's great. And I know just from, you know, having worked with you guys a little bit, you know, the thing that has impressed me the most is, you know, there's a ton of fitness programs out there, but you can really tell, kind of just by talking to your followers and to the people in the program, kind of the effect that fitness can and has had on their life. Right. This isn't people just trying to lose that last five to ten pounds. Right. It's really about people who are using fitness as a tool to kind of change their life and change their outlook on life as well. Exactly. Okay, cool.

I was going to say, I know fitness has helped me so much in my own life, and just in high school, I kind of wish there was a fitness program for women out there that would help me fit in, because personally, I was the girl who was doing a CrossFit on the side, and I had a little bit more muscles and was not like the same as all the other girls at school. So I kind of wish there was a fitness program, like, Grown Strong, because we're trying to challenge women to lift weights and not be afraid to have a little muscle. It's just going to carry over to all aspects of life. And so for me personally, I wish in high school we had that. And then that's kind of like what we're going for. Like, we really want to challenge women to, like, lift weights, like, lift heavier in the gym. But also, too, I think that carries over just outside of the gym as well, because it just makes you a whole lot stronger with whatever you have going on in your day.

Yeah, that feeling of achievement, you know, when you accomplish something, when you hit a pr, when you get that weight over your head or whatever, you know, that definitely kind of bleeds over and. Yeah, yeah, very cool.

Okay. So kind of going back to where we started, right. Kind of on working with brands. You know, we've got some. Some kind of simple tips Here, not, you know, not just shooting the $50 DM, but, you know, kind of having the professional email kind of explaining kind of what you guys are about and, you know, kind of how this is relevant to your followers and all that kind of stuff.

Lauren, I know that you work with a whole range of brands, right? You work with brands that are a little bit on the smaller side, that are maybe more local or e commerce type brands. But then I've also seen you work with Colgate and Jeep and all that kind of stuff. What are the partnerships that you find are kind of the most successful and the ones that you like to do the best?

I like to work with partners that I 100% believe in the brand. I never want to work with anyone that I don't believe in the product or what they're offering. So if someone immediately tells me, hey, I want you to drink this tea, it's gonna help you become skinny and lose weight, and I want you to promote it to your followers, I'm like, well, that doesn't resonate with me because I know that a tea isn't gonna help you lose weight. Like, there's a lot more that goes into it. So I have to fully resonate and stand by the brand. And most of the brands I work with, they feel almost like family to me. It's just like, feels like a whole, wholesome family brand. And those are the type of people I want to work with, not people who are just trying to like, make a quick buck or quick make some easy money. Like, I want people who actually believe in what they're standing for. So that, to me, is what stands out from some of the other brands.

And that goes back to, like, again, being authentic, right? Like, it's easy to post about something.

That you believe in.

I mean, like, for example, like, we had a meal delivery yesterday, like, from one of our friends. It happened to be actually a guy, and now a guy we kind of became friends with. But, like, he, like, we try to pay him and he venmoed us money back. But long story short is that, like, I love to take a picture of that food because that food is damn good. Like, it really is good. And it's such an easy thing that I was probably gonna take a picture of anyway to post it. But, like, it's just going back to being authentic. Like, if we work with brands that, like, we believe in, it's gonna be very easy to take and create content that's gonna be authentic.

Yeah, for sure. So what can. And again, I'm just I'm thinking for the people who are listening who by and large have, you know, price, sort of E commerce brand, probably some sort of brand where they sell something on Amazon or they sell on their website or whatever, what can someone do? Like if you're not familiar with the brand, when they reach out to you, when they have an opportunity, when they want, you know, what can they do to kind of communicate like hey, we, you know, communicate the quality of the product or you know, make it seem like an interesting opportunity.

Well, I was going to say like sometimes it actually been quite powerful in terms of getting to work with us has been sending like a package and then follow up on an email. So send like it always depends on what product we're talking about here. But let us take like a hydration, hydration tablet or whatever it may be. Like they've been, sometimes they've sent us a package first, maybe ask for our address and just be like, hey, I'm going to send you like a free package, care package, fill. And then like I'm going to follow up and let me just ask what you really thought about it. Like that's been sometimes pretty powerful because we're receiving product and we're actually able to see the label, test it out, interact with it. So that's been pretty good sometimes because we actually been surprised about that. This is actually pretty good. I would love to do some sort of promotion for this. So I think that's one way to kind of get in touch with that. And again, going back to know who you are, like Lauren's a very holistic type of. I'm not sure exactly what type of person she is, but like she's a person who believes in good quality organic products. So if you're a person that wants to work with Lauren, maybe again do a little bit of due diligence. It doesn't take much of research to find that out. And then like if you want to work with a mo, like do that due diligence and then maybe if in Lauren's case reach out and say like, hey, we are product that are focused on sustainability, organic ingredients, whatever it may be.

Right.

That resonates really well with Lauren. I think that could really be helpful.

And I was just going to mention, I think one of the one things that turns me off is when people say hey, I want to send you product. And I'm like, great, here's my address. Like can't wait to try it. And then all of a sudden they're like, can you post about it as soon as you receive the product. And for me, like I need to try out your product first. Like you can't just expect I'm going to get free product and in return post about it on my story or Instagram. That's just like a huge turn off for me. And then I'm just like, that's okay, thank you. Like I don't need the product.

Yeah, you can keep it. Like I think for us like have the people try the product first and then reach out to the follow up with them. Be like, hey, this is, did you like the product? Like what do you think about it? What do you think about it? And then like that would be there. You be like, can I like get your email or whatever it is so we can like or get on a phone call so we can talk more about a possible collaboration and not immediately asking for that post or Instagram, even an Instagram story. I think people don't realize how valuable an Instagram story is. It's almost even more valuable than an Instagram post these days.

Yeah, well, because you can have the.

Swipe up and yeah, the swipe up link and all that. So I think people need to realize like they, they both are very valuable.

Yeah, for sure. Well, I like that too because you know I'm all about just in business and brand and all that kind of stuff, building relationships. Right, and building relationships with your customers. But also, you know, if you're going to partner, if you guys are going to partner with a brand or a brand is going to partner with you. Right. Ideally it's not just a one off, you know, take a look at this product. Here you go, never talk to you again kind of thing. Right. It's something where you, you identify with the brand, the brand matches your audience and all that kind of stuff and you're able to create kind of a relationship like with Jeep. Right. I saw you post several times kind of throughout that whole process or lesser evil snacks, you know, another one of your sponsors, right? You have those, those people that pop up on a regular basis that you can tell you actually believe in the product.

I also want to say, Max, you ask like what type of companies we like to work with, what type of dealers we want to do. There's obviously there's two sort of like structures when, like when we work with someone that's either like a retainer sort of speak like or a monthly sort of a retainer for a year contract typically where you're like, well, every month, like you post X amount of times in return I get X amount of typically money or whatever it may be. Right.

That's typically the deals we look to do. Both Lauren and I, we like to have a year contract just so we know well for the next year we're getting X amount of money and we can provide X amount of value. And it also, it gives us longer time to really tell a story about whatever product may be. And it also feels a little bit more authentic sometimes when people come out and we just do more of a one off deal, one off post, those are a little bit harder to do just because you can't really be authentic when it's just a one off or two off post. And also in terms of value from a company's perspective, I know what we are charging and it seems that there's a lot more value access to have a year long contract because typically the cost per post is actually a lot lower. And in terms of how many times we're going to hit a person with a product, we're going to hit them a lot more times throughout the year than just a one or two off. Those deals are a lot more lucrative I think for both sides. And, and the last thing I want to say is that sometimes people reach out a commission based sort of salary like, based on like hey, can you post about a product and then you get like X amount of percentage of the sales. I don't think any Laura and I are doing any of those deals anymore. Just be aware of that if you're a company reaching out that I don't think many influencers like to work off of those deals anymore nowadays.

And I would just like to mention, I think there's two types of influencers. I think there's the influencer who's more of the blogger and they'll post about different products all the time. But they're trying to just show like they're blogging about it every single day. Like here are my top 10 foods I like to eat post workout. And then they're going to maybe tag 10 different brands for that post. But for someone who's an athlete and they're probably only going to be posting about one brand because they have certain restrictions where they can't be posting about other snack brands or other food brands just because two, I think like the bloggers, you understand they're going to be posting about multiple brands, but the athletes, like they're only using one product all the time. Like for example, like my supplement company, I'm only drinking their protein shakes post workout. Like I'm only taking their fish oils and magnesium because for me, I like to establish a routine and consistency. So I'm not going to be taking multiple different brands every single day just because, hey, they're going to pay me X amount of money to post about them. So I think just kind of understanding who you're working with.

Yeah, no, I think that makes a lot of sense. And yeah, because, you know, going back to the one off posts and things like that too, it's like, you know, how often have you gone into the grocery store and bought a product that you see for the very first time on a shelf? Right. Like, it just doesn't really happen. You have to kind of be familiar with it and all that kind of stuff.

Exactly.

And so I think that makes sense on why there's a lot of value. And then, Lauren, what you just said, I think there's like a. That just kind of points back to how all of the different areas of like just being aware of who you're talking to. Right. You guys aren't just business owners. You're not just content creators, you're also professional athletes. And you know, it is not in your best interest to be switching up products all the time just to, you know, see. Oh, okay, cool. I can get a little bit money here. A little bit money here. Right? It's like at the end of the day, it's about performing and doing all that kind of stuff, making sure that you have consistent. So makes a lot of sense.

Okay, guys, well, this has been really great. Is there anything else that you want to cover?

Oh, man, I feel like we print pretty well around everything.

No, yeah, I feel like we covered pretty much about everything. Yeah.

Awesome. Cool. Well, this has been a lot of fun. I really appreciate you guys taking the time. I know you obviously have a very busy schedule. Where can people follow you, get more about you and get more about growing strong?

Follow me. At Lauren Fisher, they can follow Grown Strong. That's G R O W N strong. And then at Rasmus WA Anderson, they can also look me up at lauren-fisher.com or grownstrong.com okay, awesome. Yeah.

Well, thanks guys. This has been really great and we'll talk soon.

Thank you, Max.

Thank you, Max.