From Free Swag to $5M: Justin Moore’s Brand Partnership Playbook

Start at one place, master that, and just listen. What are people valuing about what you're doing? What are people dming you asking you for? There's a lot of people saying, oh, you should do this first. So you should launch coaching program. And it's like, no, ignore all them. Listen to your customer, listen to your viewer. What do they want? And try that first.

A good friend of mine, Justin Moore, is going to come join us and talking about how to get brand deals even if you don't have a huge audience. And then number two, how to turn your business into recurring revenue, which Jeff and Dan just talked about in the last session. So excited to bring Justin Moore up to the stage. Buddy, how are you?

Yo, what's up, Darrell? Excited to be here, man.

You got the Internet back?

I got the Internet back with 30 seconds to spare. I just wanted to go right down to the wire.

For those who don't know the logistics of a live event, Justin sent us a text message a couple minutes ago and said, my Internet just went out.

And we're like, oh, no.

That's an essential part of a live event, Justin.

I think so. I think so. Yeah. But I'm here and it's going to last the whole time, so I'm optimistic.

Yeah. So, Justin, I'd love to talk about your story a little bit more. For those who don't know who you are, you basically went from corporate life into a influencer creator life. And so I just want to hear that story a little bit and just give some folks some context of how you Contour your app 100%.

So I was not doing. I was not doing anything in kind of the creator space. Prior to this, I was actually in medical devices. So in the corner, corporate, you know, 9 to 5 life. And it was actually my wife April, or at the time, my fiance April, who started a YouTube channel in 2009. So this was 16 years ago, way back in the day. This was, like, barely when YouTube had just announced the partner program, you know, so, you know, basically with the partner program is like Adsense, so they pay you a percentage of advertiser revenue on the views that you get. And again, I was not in front of the camera. It was April. She was starting to collaborate. You know, brands would reach out offering free stuff. Not that, hey, we're going to pay you. It's like, hey, we want to give you a bunch of free stuff. And so at some point, April came to me and we had this conversation that, like, you know, she's accepting all these free Free things. Well, first of all, we were stoked about the free things. Just want to clarify here. We were stoked. We were in our early 20s, we had no money. And so free stuff. Yes, send it over. This is awesome. Right? And so I just want to clarify here, like, meet everyone at the same place, because we were definitely excited about the free stuff. But this went on for a long time, dude. It's not like we. We wised up after like a month. It was like years, we accepting the free thing. But what happened was I decided to go back to school and get my MBA at night after work, and I started taking these classes all around, you know, business and negotiation and advertising and marketing and all this stuff. And kind of the gears started turning as, you know, April and I would look and she would get, you know, hundreds of comments on all her videos. Like, hey, just, you know, never heard about this brand. Just went out in the store and got it. Or, oh, went to their website and picked it up. Thanks for telling me about it, April. And we just decided, like, one day, like, I think a free $30 hair curler is not adequate compensation or adequate value relative to what you're actually giving. Giving the brand. And so essentially, the next brand. This was like a couple years into it, I said, april, I said, okay, hey, the next brand that emails you ask them if they have a budget to collaborate with you. And she's like, there's no way any brand's ever going to pay me money. I'm like, come on, just try it. So sure enough, next brand, we asked, hey, do you have a budget? They said, yeah, if you can talk about us in two videos a month, we will pay you $700 a month for six months. We were like, our minds, like, blue. Because I think a lot of people maybe hear on the summit can appreciate that, like, you know, a normal 9 to 5 job, right? Or a normal kind of corporate job. It's like, when are you going to get a raise? Maybe once a year. Maybe cost of living, 3%, you know, raise, maybe once a year. But, like, what we. What we realized was that this kind of creator thing, this weird thing we were doing on the Internet, all of a sudden there was, like, ways to make money in this world that were uncapped. Wow, there's no ceiling to this. And so our. Our instant thought was like, how can we find 10 more brands just like this? And so fast forward 15 years, you know, April and I have done over $5 million in sponsorship revenue personally. And then I also launched an influencer marketing agency where I, you know, paid out millions of dollars to other creators getting them deals. And so this is, this is really kind of the yin and yang of my personality is having been in the trenches for many years doing it personally, but also have worked with lots and lots of other creators getting them business as well.

I love that story. It's like such a, like organic, homegrown story too. Like you all were like figuring out. And that's actually the secret behind most of the creator businesses is somebody sitting in the guest room of their house or on the couch of their house, or a futon in their dorm room, like just trying to figure out how to make money doing this thing. And the only secret is it's like 15 years later. And I love that is that's been a theme for everybody we've talked about here is the secret is there's no secret. And the secret is it just takes time for you to do it. And learning.

Can I can actually, can we even agitate this a bit further? Daryl? Because you're right, most people are only sharing the, the, the Glo, the glazed over version of history, right? It's like they were able to connect all the positive points in reverse and be like, oh yeah, it was this trajectory, positive trajectory upward. I want to share a really important moment which was my largest failure because I mentioned I did all these deals, but I ran this agency. Frankly, the reason I started the agency is that I wanted to diversify our family's revenue because we, you know, the sponsorships were going great. Uh, but I was like, okay, there's no way that people are going to like, continue watching us forever, right? Like, you know, on YouTube and things like that. And so I was like, let me, you know, try to get, you know, use this skill set to get deals for other people. And I really thought that was going to be the way for our family to kind of round the corner, kind of turn the next chapter in this social media journey. And it was, it was going really well. You know, we were doing seven figures of revenue, paying out lots of money to other creators, multiple full time employees. But then Covid hit and it crushed the business. Cyril I. All the contracts that we had with all of our clients dried up. I had to lay off all my employees. It was awful. It was like the lowest, lowest point in not only my professional career, but my life. I didn't know if there was going to be another act for me. And it was in the ashes of that colossal failure that I launched this new business of sponsorship Coaching. And so I think it's just, like, important to acknowledge that, like, a lot of these people who you see on the Internet who have large audiences or have this amazing story, like, the reality is, is that, like, they probably had to go through a lot of really demoralizing failures along the way, and I certainly did.

Yeah. This is the exact thing that we talked about with Martinez yesterday is, like, every single piece of success he's had in his business has come after some point of failure. And the. That's a hard truth. The hard truth is that failure allows us to have the experience of, like, ooh, this thing hurts worse than maybe trying this new thing. And so I'd love to hear a little bit about the journey of. Okay, sitting at. The failure of that agency cannot feel good. You and I have talked about it, so I know that it didn't feel good. What gave you the courage to, like, try another thing or, like, to pivot into this next thing where it's like, hey, I'm actually going to move into more of, like, a. Instead of, like, it was like, influencer mode, agency move mode, and now it's like, creator mode and building books and education and community around what you're doing. What was. What was the impetus for that transformation? What gave you the courage to do it?

Dude, if I'm being honest, I just wanted to feel helpful again. That was. It was the most. I felt so helpless in this stage where, like, everything was crumbling around me. And we were terrified about the. This, like, global health crisis, obviously, but I just. I wanted to feel helpful again. And that's, like, a core part of my being is just, like, just being in service to others. And. And so the reason I decided to start just creating YouTube videos about this weird thing about sponsorship strategy. How do you, like, price a brand deal? How do you behave on a phone call with the brand? Like, just these, like, videos that were knocking around in my head was like, maybe this will help someone. And I never thought, this is going to be my next business. I. I was like. I was like, I don't even know what the business would be. All I know is that I've got an interesting perspective. I've been in the boardrooms with these brands and large advertisers now where they're saying, hey, we don't want to just pay you. April and justin, 5k, 10k. We want to spend a million dollars across 200 people. What. What's the strategy, Justin? What platform should we be on? These are the conversations I was having when I ran the agency. And I was like, you know, this is actually kind of interesting. I, I think a lot of brands are not privy to the conversations that are happening behind closed doors. Maybe I, I am a YouTuber at heart. That's how we came up. And so, like, let me just make some YouTube videos. And that was it, dude. And so what happened is, like, I really. I released those first few videos and people liked them. People started commenting, hey, can you make a video about this? You make a video about this? Fast forward a couple months. I started getting dms, messages, emails. Hey, can you coach me? Hey, do you have a course? And I was like, what? This is like, okay, we've been on social media, remember, since 2009. And, and we've never done anything like that. We've never sold digital products or sold. Had a community or had a course or anything like that. And so even 10 years into the journey, basically, we still felt like, like newbies, so to speak, in terms of learning this stuff. And so really what I did, Daryl, is I binged Amy Porterfield's podcast. For those of you guys who don't know Amy Porterfield, she's like an OG and educator in the space, you know, and, and so I literally just like, I was like, let me just like, educate myself. Let me learn all this stuff. And it, it has been a crash course ever since.

What are some of the myths that you people commonly believe about getting brand sponsorships? Because I actually had an opportunity to go to your conference earlier this year, and I was actually, I. This is not a world that I come from in brand deals and sponsorships. And there were a lot of myths that I think people on this call might already be having. Like, oh, that's not for me because I don't have a hundred thousand followers. I don't have 50,000 subscribers. Like, this isn't a viable way for me to earn money because, like, I'm not an influencer. I don't have huge audience. What are some of the myths, including audience size, that, that people commonly believe about this?

So, wow, I could just rattle off about 10 or 15 different myths, but I'm going to keep to the most important ones here. Um, let's. Let's start with audience size. This is the number one objection I get. I am too small, I'm too early. Maybe I reached out to a brand one time and they say, they said, we only work with people who have X thousand followers or, you know, audience reach or whatever. And then you basically, you think, well, I guess that's what Every brand or company thinks so. I guess I got to get to that level before I can. I'm allowed. I'm worthy to collaborate with a brand. And the pretty surprising thing that I'll share is that actually the majority of my clients, Darrell, in our coaching program are much smaller than most people would expect, but they have a very specific niche. They have a, you know, health care podcast or they have, you know, one of my clients is named Paul Jameson. He has a podcast called the Green Industry Podcast where he teaches lawn care professionals how to grow their business. Right. So something very, very focused. Because if you imagine the types of brands that might want to collaborate with someone like that, especially in that space where they're trying to reach out to prosumers, not necessarily consumers, it's actually people who are running businesses. It's a very different type of customer or consumer segment that may not be easily reachable through Facebook ads or traditional marketing channels. And so even if you have a more modest reach or a smaller audience, they may choose to pay you 10, 20, 30, $50,000 to come to their industry trade show, speak on a panel podcast live from their booth. These are some of the types of deals that we help our clients forge. And so this is the number one mistake I think, is just like thinking that I have to have a zillion followers to collaborate with brands. Let's pull this thread a little bit further. So I talk about something in my, in my book sponsor Magnet called the Sponsorship Continuum. So let's say you are Darrell, let's say you have a YouTube channel, you have a podcast where you're getting hundreds of listens or views on average. If you were to reach out to a medium to large sized brand and say, hey, let me talk about you on my, on my podcast, on my YouTube channel, whatever, they're going to take one look at your videos or your platforms and they're going to say, you know what, this is probably not going to move the needle for us. Let's just be real here. Like, it's not going to move. They have to take much larger swings. Oftentimes if they're spending $50 million a year on advertising, they need to take much larger swings to be able to have an impact for their business objectives. And so, however, that doesn't mean you can't work with them, but we need to change up our pitch slightly. Darrell. So what, what I would recommend to a creator at the earliest stage of their journey would be the following. Let me actually do a holistic analysis of this brand's Social presence. Do they have a blog? Do they have a newsletter? Do they have their own podcast? Are they on TikTok? Are they posting on social media? Does the quality suck? Are they not posting super regularly? Right. Let me look at their job boards. Are they recruiting for an influencer? Marketing manager, a content marketing manager. What do they need help with? Let me do this, like analysis and then I'll come to them and I say, hey, love your brand, but I think you could be telling your brand story in a more compelling way. Let me actually make some content for you on Autopilot. I'll give you five, ten videos a month, pictures, blog posts. I'll start a podcast for you. I'll interview people on your marketing team. I'll interview my friends in the industry. You don't have to do anything. It's on autopilot. It's going to be $7,500 a. That's the pitch. And oh, by the way, go take a look at my podcast or my YouTube channel because it serves as my portfolio. So I think it's just a lot of what I teach people is like there's no arbitrary threshold or audience size that you need to reach to in order to be allowed to collaborate with brands. But your pitch has to change depending on where you're at.

I love this. And I think there's a lot of myths that people have around making money in this way where it's like, oh, this is only for the elite of the elite. You know, it's only for the Mr. Beasts and the Logan Paul's and the Aprils of the world, your wife's name's April, who have like hundreds of thousands or millions of followers. And I think that's a really good way of looking at it. And the thing I like about this best for people at the very beginning is that kind of arrangement gives you a. The confidence that you know what you're doing and be like a quick zero to one way to start monetizing right out of the gate.

So, you know, you know. Yeah, and I want to acknowledge something that Tory said in the chat, which is that it's positioning yourself to show the value that you bring. This is another important insight I think here, Darrell, which is that a lot of people think that sponsorships are just for influencers. Oh, I have to have a large following on social media, but I have, you know, countless examples of people who had non traditional. They did not consider themselves creators or influencers. They had a conference, let's say. Right, that's it. Sponsorships is a big way that people events get sponsors or I have a private community. Why can't you get your communities sponsored and have, you know, once a month the brand come in and do a, you know, a, you know, some sort of session for your members. Like right. Maybe your community is on mighty. Right even. Right. So I think that, I think that there's a lot of opportunity. Do you like that by the way? There's a lot of opportunity for even non traditional creators to do sponsorships even if you're not doing it currently.

Yep, I agree with that completely. And I love the like outside of the box thinking of like Gina and I were actually talking about this yesterday about like what about sponsoring communities and people being sponsored inside of communities. I think there's so many different ways of thinking about how you can earn money in this like sponsorship or partnership type of way with brands. So I love that. What other, what other myths pop up?

Well, I think a big myth is that a sponsorship is just the brand renting your distribution, meaning you sharing about them on your platform. Let me actually talk about a bit of a next level tactic here that might unlock something for people here, which is that, okay, let me talk about what my big priority right now is getting my new book, Sponsor Magnet, in the hands of as many people as possible. A hundred thousand people in the next five years. That's my goal. And so because I self published this, I did not traditionally publish it. I am thinking of every creative way that I can think of to get this book in more hands. And so you know what? One way I'm going to do that, Darrell, is by getting the book sponsored. Let me explain. So what I'm planning on doing is going out and forging partnerships with let's say 5 to 7 like category exclusive partners. So let's say a newsletter platform or a community platform or you know, various partners where you know what they're going to get. They're going to get a limited edition cover where it says it's the you know, brand XYZ edition of Sponsor Magnet. They're going to go forward in the book talking about why having you know, a community is, is great and helps you get more sponsorships or a newsletter, et cetera, et cetera. And you know what? I'm going to do that. They're going to pay for that privilege to sponsor the book and they're going to pay a per book royalty. And, and so every the next time that that brand is sponsoring a trade show or their own event, they're going to print 500 of these books, put them in the swag bag. There we go. Boom. I get more distribution. They're going to email their customer list of 50,000 people showcasing their advocacy for the creator community by giving a giveaway of 500 of these books, maybe using it for high value leads right into some sort of swag retention, you know, initiative for existing customers. And so I think about sponsorships from a 360 perspective. It's not just about me talking about the brand on my platform. What excuse can I give the brand to go email their 100,000 customers about my thing? And so if there is anyone in the chat here who has a creative project like a book or. Or an initiative or some project that they really want to impact more people, how could you forge a partnership, a sponsorship like this, where it makes equal sense for the brand to talk about you to their customers as well?

It's the win, win, win. Right? The customers are winning, the brand is winning, and you're winning and thinking creatively outside of the box of what those things can look like are. Are. It's fun. It's frankly, it's fun. But not a lot of people know that this is a thing that you can do.

Totally, totally. You're only limited by your own creativity.

Cool. Well, I want to be a little bit spicy here.

Okay, let's go.

Partnerships and sponsorships are a great way to monetize, but there's a limit here. At some point, you can only do so many partnerships, or you have only so many days that you could put videos out into the world, or if your whole feed became videos of sponsored content, people are going to stop paying attention. So. And at some point, you can only. You know, there's kind of a limit here. Even though it's better than the nine to five, there's a limit here. And so you as a creator, this is a little bit meta. You as a creator, talking about sponsorships, have actually done courses, coaching community as a way of growing your business as well. So talk about, like, the mix of doing sponsorships and partnerships in this way, but then also moving into courses, community, etc.

All right, so I'm really glad we're bringing this up because honestly, one of the best ways that you can become a better negotiator with your sponsorships is having a more diversified business. Right. Other revenue streams that you can fall back on so you don't have to take bad deals from sponsors that you're collaborating with. And so I have a framework, actually, that I talk about how to think about this. So I call it audience first offers. So it's your psa, your products, your sponsors, and your alliances. So let me explain this. So when you are. Let's say that you are someone who has a direct product business, right? You've got courses, you've got coaching, you've got community, right? A lot of people myopically think that the only way in which I can serve my audience is with things that I directly sell, right? And so I have this conversation a lot with people, and oftentimes a big, huge opportunity is realizing that, like your audience, your customers, they're complex human beings. And if we do not understand what is going on in their life, holistically, we cannot adequately serve them. And so one of the biggest exercises that I encourage people to do to figure out what are the things that you should be offering to your audience is to do something called a psychographic research study. Let me actually send out a survey to my audience in my newsletter at the top of my podcast, show notes or whatever, saying, hey, I am planning out my, you know, next, my 2025 content strategy, and I want to make sure that the content that I create serves you. Let me ask you, it would be mean a lot to me if you could just answer these, like, you know, eight questions or whatever. What types of jobs do you have? Are you married? Do you have kids? What's keeping you up at night? What problems do you have? What brands and products and services are using and loving right now? Is there any products that you wish that I offered that I don't currently? And why? Is there anyone that you'd love to see me collaborate with this in. In this industry and why? So let me explain the data that you're going to get back and how actionable that is. So let's say that you were a creator who was currently only doing sponsorships for, you know, let's say, small businesses, right? You were. You. You help people, like, learn how to, like, grow an audience and get more customers with social media. Let's say that you're. You do this survey and your audience comes back and says, you know what? 40% of us are actually brick and mortar stores. And here you were thinking in that the bulk of your audience was actually online entrepreneurs or something like that, right? So they actually tell you that, you know, what a big challenge of ours is retention or customer onboarding or, you know, hr, whatever, or maybe inventory management. So something like this, right? If you are not actively selling something, that could solve that issue in their life, and yet you have A sponsor that could potentially help them accomplish that issue. Maybe you go out there and forge a deal with, you know, Shopify so you can coordinate, you know, both online and offline resources. Maybe you have a community where you can serve them in that way. That's the products, you've got the sponsors. And then this last bucket is alliances. Maybe you have a friend who's a coach. Maybe. Maybe people come back from the survey and say, I'm having work life balance issues. I'm working all the time. Are you going to launch a pro? Are you going to like, like, you know, launch a, a coaching program for that particular thing? Probably not. But you know what, your friend over here is great. They're a marriage family therapist or they help people with work life balance. You better put their offer in front of your audience. And so the way I think about it, it's these three things, right? I have, yes, I have courses, I have coaching, I have sponsorships. But I'm not going to make a SaaS tool for this thing or I'm not gonna, you know, do coaching for this thing over here. But it's my job to put, elevate other people, other, you know, brands, other. Other coaches, other course creators, other communities. It's my job to put them in front of my audience to help them accomplish that. And guess what's going to happen, Darrell, when you help improve that person's life in that area? They're going to now trust you and feel like, I can finally invest in Justin's coaching program or Justin's community, because I, I fixed this area over here that was lacking. And so you're right, I have, I view as my job, sponsorships is just one thing, but it's my job to look at it holistically and see how can I make these people whole in a way that maybe I'm not even making any money. Maybe it's not even an affiliate deal. I'm just, I'm just putting that offer in front of. So again, I go back to this whole audience first mindset. It's not about you making the most amount of money possible. It's about serving them.

Yeah, it's. It's amazing that this has literally come up in every single session that we've done so far is like, this is how you build a defensible business, is you get really, really good at, understand, understanding your people. You get really good at understanding who they are, what keeps them up at night, what pain points they have, what they're stressed about, where they're getting stuck where they're frustrated. Like that. Understanding is the core principle of every single successful business, whether it's in the creator world or in the brick and mortar world. Like it's just a core tenet of business at large, which is like business exists to solve a problem. So what are the ways? Justin, I want to, I want to tease you on this a little bit. Like you talked about this survey a little bit. But like what are other ways that you really get intimate and understanding the frustrations or pain points or problems that your audience has?

This is one of my favorite reasons that I have a community and like a coaching program is that we are seeing on the ground what people are experiencing on a day to day. I think one tendency is that people try to coaches, course creators, community operators. They try to extricate themselves as far away, Let me just delegate this away. I want to hire other people, a va, an ops person, other coaches on my team. Like whatever type of business that you have, they, they have heard the advice that like I need to concentrate on my zone of genius. My zone of genius is like the content and the thought leadershipy type stuff. But there is a danger there, I think, which is that if you completely remove yourself from what people, your audience and customers and community members are experiencing on a day to day, you run the risk of basically making your, your community, your course, your program redundant or not very helpful very quickly because things are changing so quickly, especially now in the face of AI and so on. And so like you said, Daryl, the most important thing I think is like what are always staying attuned with like what people are experiencing. This is a stupid example, but like remember that show undercover CEO that was like on like you know, 10, 15 years or whatever. And the whole premise was that the CEO or the executive management of the company came and worked as like kind of like a frontline employee for like a week or whatever just to kind of see what they experience. I actually think as creators, as people who are running communities, as corporators, you, we all need to be doing this way more. Going through our own onboarding sequence, like to the newsletter, to the community. I haven't done this in 6 months, 12 months. What are people actually seeing again? What emails are they getting when they, when they join my coaching program or my community or whatever, going through this onboarding flow, seeing, going into the forum, seeing what people are saying, seeing which ones are being most upvoted and how quickly are people getting answered. I think it's like it's, it's, it sounds so Basic. But it's the small game, it's the small stuff that really drastically increases the, the chances that people want, will want to stick around with you. One other very tangible example I can share with you Darrell, is that you know, so I mentioned I have this coaching program and it's annual. It's an annual program. And so you know, we've got this like mass renewal event that's happening soon where people join the program in, in large numbers a couple like maybe about 10 or 11 months ago. And so what we're doing right now is putting together what we're calling retention reports or, or relationship summary reports for these people where we're basically taking all of their posts, all of their comments, all their interactions in the community over the last 11 months and delivering a customized report to them and saying like, look at all the value you got out of this community over the last 11 months. And oh by the way, your community membership is renewing in two weeks. So just, just, just as a reminder, this is how many, how much in brand deals you've gotten or how much we've helped you over the last 11 months. It's these types of activities that really help you stay attuned to what's going on in your, in your community.

Yeah, it's really good. I think you and I have had this conversation about friends of ours who've been in this creator world for a long time. I think businesses start to decline. Either businesses don't take off or businesses start to decline the second that you start removing yourself from relationship with your people. And I think that is key. And I think this happens for several different reasons. Either we start becoming too self important and we think like oh, I've got it all figured out, everybody's here just to hear what I have to say. And we forget our people and we start thinking about ourselves too much or we start thinking about what we need too much and we, we start forgetting about what it is that has made the business come until this point, which is understanding the needs of our people and serving them. And I think that's a huge, huge trend that I've seen across the board here. So moving, moving into like courses, coaching community. You said basically like I started doing this content just because I wanted to be helpful. Again, a surprise. Creating helpful content drew people to you. Moving into the community and courses and stuff specifically had to have been this similar kind of reason, right?

100. I mean really, at the end of the day, once I, here's the thing. Once I realized that like the stuff I was helping people with was like scalable and universal because that was my. I. I think a lot of people can appreciate this. Like I had imposter syndrome at the beginning, dude. I was like, well, my wife and I have done really well. But like, is there something like special or unique about us that this really won't work for other people? That was when in the very beginning I was like, I didn't want to like jump straight to like launching a course, an on demand thing or whatever because I was like, I, I need to, I feel like I need to like test out if this is actually like will work for other people first. And so I did one on one coaching in the beginning. That that was how I started. And it was through that where I was like, okay, I'm starting to get some wins for other people too. This isn't just about like what we're doing. Obviously I ran the agency, but it's like different when you're like actually helping one specific person with their strategy. And so after I got several of those wins under my belt, I started progressing in terms of my confidence. And so the next level up from that was like I launched a cohort based course. So I was like, okay, I'm gonna law, I'm gonna go through my bootcamp basically or my, my process over four or six weeks with a group of people. And so it just like I continued building confidence in this, this what I was teaching. And ultimately this is why I decided to go down this path, is because I developed this mission, this North Star that I wanted to help a million creators big, big and small, or help help land creators land a million sponsorships by 2032. And so I basically sat down and thought like, there's literally no way in which I can do this on a one to one basis. And so what are the ways in which I can impact people at scale? And so I started with the cohort course, I turned it into an on demand offer. I launched the community slash membership coaching program. And then most recently I wrote the book what's One Big Way? Actually, let's talk about this. So this is I think a really important thing. So a lot of people think like it's a very overwhelming process to do all the things, the social media, the podcast, the community, the membership of course is like all this stuff, it's like a lot. And I, and I, and I empathize with that. But going back to the audience, first thing this is, I didn't do all these things at once. Remember I said I launched a YouTube channel to begin with. Then what happened, Darrell, is people said, oh, I love the things you're talking about in here, but I would love to read more about them. I said, okay, let me take the transcripts from the YouTube video and make a blog. That was the first thing. And then the people said, oh, these are great, I love reading these, but I don't want to like visit your website all the time. Can you just send these to my inbox? I said, okay, let me make a newsletter. Then people said, oh, I love reading the newsletter, but I would really love to just like learn more about this on my commute. I can't watch your YouTube videos or read your newsletters. I said, okay, let me launch a podcast. And then people will say, oh, you know, this is just too long, I need something more bite sized. I said, okay, let me do some short form content. And then, uh, some, you know, people said, oh, you know what I would really love to do? I'd just love if you could distill this all into something that's super succinct. Okay, let me write a book. You know, it's one more way people learn in person experiences. That's why I decided to launch the event. And so as I start thinking about building out the kind of cinematic universe of creator wizard of my business, it was all driven by what my audience asked me for. And so I think that this is a very important place to start, which is that you don't feel overwhelmed by doing all of the things. Start at one place, start in one platform, one content format, master that and just listen. What are people valuing about what you're doing? What are people dming you asking you for? And so a lot, there's a lot of people saying who are like, very opinionated, oh, you should do this first or you should launch a course first. So you should launch coaching program. And it's like, no, ignore all them. Listen to your customer, listen to your viewer. What do they want? And try that first.

Listening is the superpower of business. How do you listen without like, how do you know what to follow and what not to follow? Because if I listen to everybody all the time, I'm going to act like a manic, crazy person. How do I know what are the things that I should be listening to and the things that I should be doing and what's right for me and the business versus like just listening to every single piece of feedback that comes through.

So there was a book that you gave me recently, Daryl. We're going to get a Little. We're going to get a little mushy here or a little, a little woo woo. But I think it's important that we go here. So this was the sequel to the Untethered Soul. What was the sequel called, Daryl?

The Surrender Experiment.

The Surrender Experiment. Okay. So for anyone who doesn't know this book, it's extremely interesting and I'm going to answer this where basically the premise of this book and what I'm about to share is that follow your energy. I think this is the answer is like follow where you feel pulled, Follow where you feel the most joy, where you feel like you're. You're feeling energy. If I'm making YouTube, I'm a YouTuber at heart. I love making YouTube videos. I'm never going to stop doing that because video is like my format. I feel so much energy when I get, when I film it, when I get the edit back from my edit, I'm just like smiling ear to ear watching this video because I'm like, this is so good. I love this. Right? Um, I don't feel that same way about other types of things always. I don't feel that same way about short form. I like it. I don't feel that same way I do it. But, like, I think it's like important to like, double down on what feels right. Another thing that I really, here's. Here's another thing that I realized is that my superpower, I figured this out in the last, like, year. My superpower is being in a group of no more than 20 creators where I'm in a small room, I'm in the middle of them, and let's say they're in a circle and we are just like, we're riffing, we're chopping it up, we're talking about stuff, we're going, we're pulling, like doing this type of thing. I'm okay on stage in front of 300 people, but it's that small group that's my superpower. And so I want to do more of that, right? And so I think a lot of it is like figuring. So maybe that means the translation of that is like, maybe group coaching is, is best for someone like that. Or maybe, you know, again, I think it just, you got to follow the energy. And this is one of the premises of that book is like kind of go where the universe is pulling you, right? If it feels like it's this huge uphill battle, you're pushing this boulder every day, taking out your phone and doing a TikTok. Don't do TikTok, go on LinkedIn, go on substack, write a newsletter, make a community, do one on one coaching. There's no right or wrong way to win this creator game. It's all about what feels right for you.

Yeah, that's good. It's really good and really hard at the same time. And I think the only way that you can know that is by, like doing a regular audit. This is kind of what Nikki, Nikki Saunders and I talked about earlier today is like having a rhythm where you're doing a regular audit of, like, how things are feeling and what's working here. And so she's got a morning journaling exercise that she talked about earlier. So if you haven't watched that yet, go back and watch the replay of that a little bit later. But I think that's exactly right and I think we can tie this back in too. Justin is. She said something that blew my mind, which is when you are following your energy in that way, you're being yourself, you're being authentic. It takes so much less energy to be yourself than to play a character in the world. And I think that's so huge. It's like when I watch you and you get into your passion zone, I'm like, man, you are living somebody who's just said, I want to watch this on half speed. And it's like, that's Justin in his natural state. I can tell you in real life, he's not playing a character there. That's Justin being Justin. It takes so much less energy for you to be that than for me to try to pretend to be that, which I'm just not that I live in a different energy space than that. And I love, like, kind of being yourself, being authentic, living in your zone and kind of following that. That energy, I think is really important.

The, the. For those folks in the chat who are more grounded and may think that what I just said about following your energy is too woo woo. What I'm not saying let's just bring it down, back down to earth for a second here, which is that what I'm not saying is you don't have to put in the work. Man, I have worked my butt off over the last four or five years to build this business. And it has, it has at times felt like too much. Like, for sure, there have been moments where I just didn't. I would. I woke up and I didn't want to send out a newsletter. I didn't want to, like, do the group call in the community or whatever. Like So I have those moments, too. But what I think is the most important insight here is that if you can outlast, if you can have the stamina to just put one foot in front of the other and do this thing for years, which is like, you know, I literally do not feel like I have competitors at all, because no one. I'm going to talk about this stuff about sponsorship strategy from now until I'm dead. Like, this is what. This is my. I love this stuff. I breathe it. When someone. I help someone get their very first sponsorship, it just. Oh, man. Inject that into my veins. Like, oh, my God, I love that, right? Because finally they think, wow, maybe I can make this creator thing a reality, right? And so if you can outlast whatever your zone of genius is, whatever the little, like, your superpower is, all you have to do is outlast, Just keep putting one foot in front of the other and obviously, you know, try to make iterative improvements on what you're doing. But you don't have to be the superpower genius and go live, you know, go viral all the time. No, like, if you just continue to be the person for that. I can't. Dude. I can't say. I just got back from VidCon. I just got back from speaking at several different conferences over the last, like, you know, two weeks or so. At least five people came up to me and made the. The exact same remark to me, which is that, man, you're in such a good place. I don't know of any other person that's doing what you're doing. And it's just like, when you find that kind of blue ocean for yourself, it just. Like you said, everything becomes easier.

Yeah, that's good. I had a thought, but I lost it because you were. You're on a roll. It was so good, but I love it, man. I think. I think the. The willingness, like, the willingness to stay in the game is something that Dan Go talked about yesterday. And so just. Just pulling back. That, too, is like, you know, when we get into this zone of, like, oh, I just really want this thing to happen, I'm gonna, like. I'm gonna, like, get into, like, you know, I'm gonna say my manifestation things every day or whatever else. It's like. It's like there's a balance between these things where it's like, I know where I want to go, and it's, like, more about intentionality of getting to that point. Like, instead of intensity, it's intentionality. So what you're talking about here and following your energy. It's like, it's just a barometer of like which direction feels like I'm being most authentic or most me. Coupled with what we just talked about earlier, which is like, where am I bringing the most value? Where am I helping people the most? Like, what's the like Venn diagram between like this thing is really lighting me up and I'm also seeing it have a huge impact on people. And squarely between those two things is where business is made and that creates the kind of sustainability and business building a business that you a like love showing up for. Because who doesn't love being at a business where transformation is truly happening? Number one and two, where you're, you're personally from you, you're pouring out value to a group of people. And I think when things start stalling out or people aren't paying attention anymore, it's because a, you need to maybe level up the skill in communicating the value that you have or you aren't, you've forgotten about the people and you're thinking too much about yourself or you haven't quite figured out how to translate the transformation that you've gone through into the transformation that other people can go through as well. And I think it's really important to keep those things in mind 100% man.

And you know, one thing that I think I'm really, I want to make sure we talk about on this, on this discussion is that, you know, we've talked a little bit about the fact that times are changing things, you know, especially with the rapid pace of AI and what that means for creators in terms of, you know, the AI content slop that, you know, we're potentially already starting to see or may see in the future. I actually think this is a really exciting moment for people who are building community and who are people who are working on their own professional skills. Because in my world, let me, let me share how this is manifesting. So like, you know, one of the things we help people do is like do learn how to reach out to brand prospective brands and sponsors for collaboration. Right. So how do you craft a pitch that is exciting that a brand will, you know, want to get on a phone call with, with you and chat about and what's happened with like a lot of these large language models like ChatGPT and Claude and all that is like pretty much everyone can sound, write like a good enough sounding email now, right? Like that there, there's no longer a barrier of like just like forming sentences that sound actually good. Right. And so a lot of people are discouraged because, like, oh, man, all these brands are getting inundated now with these pitches. It's so much harder to stand out. And so I'm like, well, guess what? That represents a, an amazing opportunity for you to learn how to get on a phone call with the brand. Or maybe how about doing a video pitch to a brand, Maybe you could get, you know, like, really hone your expertise on that. And so I think that there, when, when any new technological development happens, it will always, yes, it's going to be a scary thing, but at the same time, it's also going to open up new opportunities for people who are willing to invest in their own skill set and education and experience. And I think that this is for those of you who really understand the human aspect of connection. I think a lot of what y' all have been talking about over the last, you know, you know, the last day or two here has been that is like, how do you find the humanity in what you're doing to grow your audience, win new customers, build community? I'm excited, actually for what the future means because those of us who are growing this, this part of our humanity, this skill set, I think it's going to be an exciting future.

Yeah, I remember Seth Godin saying once, like, if you can have, like if you can create a tune that one person taps their foot to, then you can find 10. And if you can find 10, you can find a hundred and so on. And I think that's the, that's the same theory and understanding here that we're talking about. It's like, if you can help one person go through a transition or a transformation, you can find 10. And if you can find 10, you can find a hundred. And so one of the things I'd love your thoughts on this is not sponsorship specific, but you've been a creator long enough to have gone through phases of. This is one of the death spiral traps for a creator is feeling stuck, like, it's not working anymore. Like, this is like, the thing I was doing isn't working anymore, or the thing that I'm trying or I'm so passionate about isn't working anymore. What are your thoughts for somebody who's in that space where it's like, hey, I know that I can help somebody. I know that I have something good to give, but, like, I can't find the people I can. Like, nobody wants the thing that I have. Like, what are your thoughts? Because that, that feels like such a real conversation that I have over and over and over again with people where it's like, I know, I've watched their, I've heard their story. Like I, I was on a call with somebody a few weeks ago and she started to cry talking about, I'm like why did you start your business? And she started to like have tearful eyes of like, because I went through this transformation and I want to help somebody else do the same thing. I can't find my people. What is your thought about people who are kind of in that death spiral of like I really want to help people but I keep feeling stuck and I can't quite get past that barrier.

Let me first start this answer from a place of empathy which is that I've been there and guess what? I am in tons of other private communities, group texts with, with other creators, community folks, people who you, who you know, who have pers. The perception is that they're got enormous businesses, everything's going great, they're super happy. Everyone's going through the same thing. Everyone's going through some version of what you just described, dude. It's like, it's just like on a different scale. It's just like, like I, I don't know what happened. Like my, you know, my course was selling, you know, let me share a real tangible example. Let's just get into real numbers here for a second here. So when I wrote my book, I literally took basically everything that I, that I talked about, all my secret sauce in my course, which is a thousand dollars, and I basically put everything into the book. And I knew in the back of my mind that this is probably going to. Doing this, democratizing this information in a very, very price accessible format. A book is going to cannibalize my, my course business. At that time I was doing 15 to $20,000 a month on my course business on demand. So it was like very consistent. I had come to rely on that I had employees, all that. And when the book came out it precipitously fell off a cliff. The course business and, and I, you know, not to zero, but basically. And I knew that was going to happen. I didn't know how fast it was going to happen. And so I knew though that the reason I did that is because I wanted my coaching, my support business to be the main thing moving forward. But it was so terrifying, dude. This was, my book came out in January. This was like six months ago. Right. So it's not like, you know, this was the years ago. No, this is like super recent. And I had to make some really uncomfortable decisions to, like, change some things about my business because of this giant thing that happened. But again, because I really believed in the mission. I believed in the fact that I wanted as many people as possible to have this information. I did it anyway. And I think that that requires my answer to your question, is that, like, you have to go back to the North Star, you have to go back to the mission, which is that if you really want to have this impact on people, even though it might not be working, you still have to continue trying. You still have to find another way up the mountain. You have to, you know, bring in other viewpoints, other experts. That's what I do, is if I'm feeling stuck, I go and I ask other people and I have my hat in my hand, dude. I don't, I don't put on a mask. I don't be like, oh, here I am. Awesome. Look at me. I say, dude, I don't know what I'm doing. It's not working. Can you help me? Like, I feel like an idiot. Can you help me? Like, I will never hesitate to have that conversation and be super low ego about it, because, again, I don't care about my ego. I care about impact. And so if you can help me, if you can help me help my people, tell me what to do. Like, I, I, I will listen to you. And so I think, I think a lot of it comes down to realizing that we're all going through a version of this. And if you can just have the humility to just reach out and ask for help, that's a big part of it.

Yeah, I agree. I think it's the feedback loop, right? Like, if, if you really have gone through a transformation and you're trying to have people have that same transformation, we know that there's something there that works. But it's like, where are we getting the feedback loops from? And I know that you believe in coaching. I believe in coaching on a deep level. I believe in community and being at events like this where I can, like, engage with people who are on similar pathways, where I can, like, find the feedback loop, I think that's the piece that's missing for so many people here, which is like, hey, if I know this is real and I know that there are people out there who are getting it, and I'm not figuring it out, what are the feedback loops? Like, how quickly am I learning? And I think what I see happen a lot of times is people just doing the same thing over and over again, hoping to have a different Result. It's like, I'm going to keep trying again and again and again and again. And it's like there's got to be iteration and speed to deciding and trying different things and just keep going. I think that the story's not over until you decide to stop writing it. And it can get real boring. If you keep doing the same stuff over and over again, the story can get real boring. But, like, as long as you can keep iterating, keep trying, keep learning, keep asking, keep serving. Like, that's where I think things, things make a shift here.

You know, the I, I, I appreciate when people share, like, super tangible examples. So I'm going to give you one more in line with this. So when I first tried to launch a membership or like a coaching program, my logic was like, okay, I just taught you all about sponsorships. Now the next step is let me help you create a fully, fully diversified creator business, right? With affiliate marketing and community and digital products and merchandise and all that, right? And that felt like the obvious next step. But guess what I didn't do, Daryl. I didn't ask if that's what people wanted, right? I was just like, I did this big hoopla, I did the whole rollout, the launch, and I basically did the Groupon model. I said, hey, if five people don't sign up for this, I'm not gonna launch it because I want to make sure it's gonna be a lot of work. So I wanna make sure. And I only had one person sign up. And I was super demoralized, dude. I was like, what, what the heck happened here? Like, I thought this was, like, gonna be, like a great thing. I was super excited. And so I went back, I talked to the people who didn't sign up, and I said, like, what, like, what was the deal? Like, I thought, I thought this would be exciting. And they're like, justin, we don't want that from you. We just need more help with sponsorships, like, ongoing. And it's like. And that's where the coaching program came from. And so I think the other lesson here is that it's not just about trying different things. It's also about you may still be able to launch a community or still be able to launch a membership, but serving them in different ways, right? And so I think even if what you have tried to do thus far, like, like a coaching program or a course or a community or whatever, perhaps it might be a positioning thing or you're not, you know, illustrating the value adequately or not communicating to your people, like, what they're actually what the outcome is, rather than a bunch of features and benefits and all these calls and checklists and courses. They don't care about that. They care about the transformation. Right. And so I think a lot of it also is just like, it's. It's getting in the mud. It's getting mired in the details and being like, okay, let's go through this very slowly. What is it? There's probably six variables that you. All that you need to test and tweak and figure out how you can serve people the best. And it's not an easy solution. I've been doing this long enough to realize, like, I wish. I wish there was. I wish there was, like, one magical person I could hire or one sales funnel, you know, or ad webinar, Evergreen, blah, blah, blah, to look, do. And it would be the magical solution to everything. No, it's not. There's. It's just like. It's an iterative process. And, you know, if anyone promises you that it's easy, just know that it's. It's. It's not that it's. It's not that it's not possible, but it's just like anything worth having is on the other side of hard.

Yeah, that's good. It's a good spot to end. And if a couple of dorks like us can figure it out, then there's a lot smarter people in the chat who can figure it out, too. And I think it's like, it's about like you're looking at me. I'm 20 years into doing this. You've been doing this for, I think you said 15 years with your wife. It's like the reality is, it's like, just keep going. Just keep putting one foot in front of the other. Keep getting the feedback loops, keep asking the people. And if you're stuck, I'm convinced that if you're stuck or things aren't working the way that you want, it's because you've lost connection to your people. So go talk to people. Go figure it out. And I think that's a good. A good lesson to leave on here. Justin, thanks so much for your time today. People can get your book@ sponsormagnet.com the link right here.

My copy is, look at me shamelessly shilling it right here. Sponsormagnet.com let's go.

It's right here. It's this one right here on my shelf. So thanks for being here. I appreciate your generosity today, your enthusiasm, being vulnerable. This is a great session. So thanks for being with us today.

Thanks for having me, man.