Creators Interview; Justin Moore ; You can live into that vision

Hey, hey, you're listening to the Level Up Creators Podcast. Amanda Northcutt here, founder and CEO. We help digital creators and thought leaders like you turn your knowledge and experience into rock-solid recurring revenue, and we are so glad you're here. Welcome. Today I'm thrilled to welcome a very special guest, Mr. Justin Moore. Justin is a sponsorship coach, author, and founder of Creator Wizard, a school and community that teaches you how to find and negotiate your dream brand partnerships so that you stop leaving thousands on the table. His latest book, Sponsor Magnet, offers a succinct distillation of his ideas and frameworks for securing successful brand collaborations along with his amazing wife, April. He has been a full-time creator since 2014. Nice. And has personally made over $5 million working with brands. Justin brings a very unique perspective because not only has he been a creator in the trenches doing sponsorships for years, but by running an agency, he has an insider knowledge behind how big brands actually choose which influencers to partner with and why they pass on others. Justin's mission is to enable creators big and small to land 1 million brand paid brand partnerships by 2032. That is a massive mission. We got to get into that a little bit. But without further ado, welcome Justin. I'm so glad you're here.

What's going on, Amanda? So thrilled to be here.

I am so excited to talk to you. This has been a long time coming. And you are calling in, you said from?

I am calling in from Minneapolis today.

All right. And did you grow up in Minneapolis? You said you just moved here a couple months ago.

No. Yeah, I grew, I grew up my whole life in California actually. But, um, my, uh, my mom and my sister live here now and, uh, you know, it was just getting to this point in our lives. My wife and I were thinking, you know, it really would be nice for my kids to grow up with the cousins and be closer to the family. And, and, uh, so, but yeah, it's very cold right now. I think it's like negative 10. Feels, they said it on the thing. It said feels like negative 5. I was like, oh, okay, awesome. So, uh, no, but so far, so far it's been so, it's

Oh my gosh, your first winter in Minnesota.

First winter. First winter. Yeah, it's, it's, uh, it's a little intense. I'm not gonna lie. I mean, I've visited here, you know, tons and tons of times, you know, over the years, but, uh, it's, it's a bit different living here, I must say.

Did you get like the giant snowsuit onesies for all your kiddos to bundle up in?

Well, you know what's funny? Did you ever see the movie A Christmas Story? Uh, you know, where Ralphie's brother is like bundled up in this thing. He can't even put his arms down because the, you know, the thing is so big. We did, we just watched it. We watch it every year. Uh, but yeah, very much my wife is like, you know, both of us California our whole life. And so she went a little crazy on all the gear and the gloves and the Sherpa stuff and the gator neck, you know. So, but we're making do.

Yeah, quite the switch from the Bay Area. But, you know, kids, they'll adjust. I'm worried about you and April more than anybody.

We're kind of homebodies though, so it's like kind of okay. We'll just turn the heater on.

There you go. There you go. And I see a fireplace in your background, so I hope that sucker works.

You know, it does. I, I did a podcast one time and I turned it on. I was like, oh, it'd be so nice, like crackling in the background. And it was like a furnace, like 20 minutes in. I told the host, I was like, hold on a second here. Can I just, I really need to turn this podcast off. It's not going to be a good look.

Oh my gosh. That's too funny. Um, all right. Well, for those in our audience who might not yet be familiar with your work, can you share a little bit of the details of kind of the path that led you to, uh, becoming, I mean, really the go-to expert, I think, in the world for creator sponsorships and brand deals. Obviously beyond what I shared in the intro, but loop us in.

Yeah, honestly. So the, the, the quick story is that my wife started her first YouTube channel in 2009. I was not doing this. It was her. She started kind of a beauty skincare cosmetics channel just as a hobby on the side for fun. I was actually in medical devices at this time, so very much not influencer marketing or the creator economy. And how it started was, was brands started reaching out to her early, early on, but not to pay her. It was like, hey, let me send you this free thing. And she was like, Yes. Amazing. We were like, you know, in our early 20s, no money, you know, living in a studio apartment. And, you know, makeup is expensive. You know, her hair curlers are expensive. And so she was— for years, I was just like, yeah, sure, send the free stuff. I'll talk about it in my videos, this kind of thing. That was kind of the universal answer. Mm-hmm. And then I started going to business school at night, part-time after work, and I started taking these classes around advertising and marketing and negotiation and things like this. And just kind of the gears started turning. And I would read all these comments on April's videos where it was like, oh, thank you so much. I just went to their website and bought it, or I just went to Target and picked this thing up. I never heard about this brand. And I just kept thinking, I was like, I kind of feel like we're getting the short end of the stick here. Like a $30 hair curler. I don't just don't feel like, you know, this is a fair trade. And so I said, the next time a brand reaches out to you, ask if they have a budget to collaborate with you. She said, there's no way that a brand would ever be willing to pay me money. I was like, come on, just try. So the next brand that reached out, sure enough, she said, hey, do you have a budget to collaborate? And she's— and the brand said, said, sure, if you can include us in 2 videos a month, we will pay you $700 a month for 6 months. And we were like, what? Like, this was— you gotta remember, like, we were—

Right.

We had only ever thought that this kind of W-2 incomes, you know, you work for your time, and that's how you make your money. This was the very first time where it was like, wow, there's like ways to make money in the world that are not tied to your time. Right. And that was like a huge inflection point for us. So over the next decade, basically, we've made over $5 million working with partnership with partners, 550 sponsorships that we've done personally. And so that was like a big part of our, of my experience is actually in the trenches doing all these deals. Around 2015, I started thinking my mind is always kind of like wandering and thinking like, okay, we got to diversify here. Like, this is going great. But like, there's no way that people are going to like watch us forever, watch us on the internet. Because, you know, we eventually made multiple channels, a cooking channel, family blog, etc. And things were going well. But like, I was like, okay, we've got the tiger by the tail here. What can we do to kind of leverage this into kind of the next chapter of our careers? And so this is when I decided to start an influencer marketing agency to essentially bring brand partnerships to other creators. And the pitch was very simple, Amanda. It was like, we would go toward the brands that we had just worked with personally. And we were like, hey, do you want to work with more creators? Because we've got a bunch of friends who are also awesome. And it was a very simple pitch and it worked super well in 2015 because like influencer marketing was still pretty nascent. Mm-hmm. A lot of these brands and agencies didn't really know what they were doing. And so ultimately, you know, did thousands of deals through the agency, paid out millions of dollars to other creators. And then everything came crashing down. 2020 hit, I had, you know, I had multiple full-time employees, a huge payroll, like it was things were going a lot, you know, lots of clients, like it was going great. And then basically, so you're gonna, you're gonna enjoy this, or maybe not. Our primary clients were CPG, retail, Travel and hospitality. And so what happened when COVID hit, right? Basically the 3 hardest hit sectors. And so basically contracts got, you know, eviscerated overnight. I had to lay off all my employees. It was absolutely the lowest point in my entire life. And to top it all off, I was $100,000 in debt.

Yeah.

And there was this real kind of long, dark night of the soul where I was like, I don't know what the next chapter is for me. I don't know if there is a next, next act for me. Mm-hmm. Um, and then I just kind of started— I, I, first of all, I wallowed for a good couple months. I'm not— I wasn't like the next day I was like, yeah, this is awesome. It was like a couple months. It was like pretty low, right? And then I honestly started in the kind of ashes of all that. I started thinking about this pretty unique perspective that I had now, which is I've done all these deals myself, but also ran the agency. And I was in the boardrooms with these big brands and advertisers who were like, hey, we don't wanna just pay you $5,000. We wanna spend $1 million across like 200 creators, right? What is the platform strategy? What types of partners should we be working with? It's just like a very different conversation, you know? Um, and I've been on the receiving end of thousands and thousands of interactions with creators directly now, where we would come and bring that, you know, logistics and, you know, negotiations and all this stuff. And I just see so many mistakes that people were making on professionalism, etc. And so really, all I thought was like, I'm gonna make some YouTube videos, I just need to scratch this creative itch I have. I feel like maybe I should— this would be interesting to some people. And that was how it all started. I really didn't think this was going to be a new business. And of course we can get into, you know, kind of this Business Creator Wizard that I've grown. But, uh, that was how— that was the, the genesis, was just starting to make these weird YouTube videos all around sponsorship strategy.

I love this. Okay, so you have a pretty deep background in business. You come from the B2B world. You said you were in medical device sales, right? And how long did you do that for?

I was in product management.

Product management. Oh, okay. Oh, interesting. Okay. And how many years were you in that before?

Well, I mean, I'm an engineer by my background, um, and so I was in engineering first and then I switched over to product management. So I was From 2007 to 2014 when I quit. So my, my full-time job, so 7 years.

Okay, amazing. And I imagine that experience was helpful to sort of help slingshot into— like, you're thinking with a business hat on, right? It's a little bit different from being a healthcare professional, for instance, and then not having the business side of things and bringing that in. But okay, but what I'm seeing is this pattern of you identifying Uh, opportunities for exponential leverage. You're pulling that lever and you are parlaying that into the next opportunity. You've done that repeatedly. And even with COVID um, oh, that just makes my heart just sink. Um, laying off employees. Oh, I'm so sorry you had to do that. But you made—

It was awful.

Yeah. I mean, to say the least, like really. Um, you made a lot of lemonade out of those 2020 lemons.

Um, Yeah, man.

So I mean, what is April? What is her current status? You know, as a creator, what is she doing?

She's slowed down, actually. I mean, this has been again, like going back to why I started the agency to begin with. Like, you know, a lot of it was on her, you know, for many years because she, you know, she had grown her social platforms and, you know, we were making content together and things like that. But in reality, a lot of the brand partnerships that would come inbound, they wanted to work with April. She was like kind of the, the face and, you know, the talent essentially, right?

Yeah.

And, and so that was a lot of pressure on her, you know, and being a new mom and juggling that with all the, you know, amazing opportunities that we had, of course. But at the same time, it was a little— it was a lot, you know, and I always felt really drawn to lighten that load for her for many years. And the agency was a big swing at doing that. And of course, so that was, that was another reason why it failing was so crushing because that was, it was like a personal failing that I felt that I couldn't keep the promises that I had made to my wife, you know, and that, that was, that was what made it also probably the most devastating thing. And so that actually is one of the really rewarding things about this Creator Wizard business growing is that I've now been able to basically say like, hey, like, You can finally like slow down. Like you don't have to be on the content hamster wheel that you've been on for so many years. And that has been very, very fulfilling. So of course, she's, you know, she's kind of a hustler at heart. So she's, you know, she's doing deals kind of whenever she wants to now. It's not like she is going like rogue or something and not, not posting anymore, deleting all her accounts. But it's been, it's been a welcome change.

That's cool. It sounds like you'll have a really special and hard-fought Um, partnership. And so I think that's really cool and kind of, I like the concept of sort of taking turns and letting your spouse, you know, step up to the plate and take a big swing and kind of my husband and I are very, very similar. And so I love hearing that. And that leads in perfectly to my next question. Um, so as someone who has, I mean, is successful, you're really balancing life with a thriving career. How are you managing it all? And can you tell us about kind of juggling business growth while being present for your wife and your young kiddos? Um, yeah. How's that going?

It is going. I, I don't know if I'm proud to say I very much throughout my life have been kind of a workaholic. I really— honestly, it's because I love this. I love what I do. Even when we were just doing the social media stuff, even when I was doing the agency stuff, I, I only know like 100% or like more than 100%. Like, I only know one speed when it comes to building something. Mm-hmm. And so that makes it challenging to balance other stuff. You know, I have a real, like, you know, for example, like, we're really involved in scouting. I'm an Eagle Scout, and I really, you know, believe in scouting for my kids. And so my kids are in scouting. And so that's like one big, a big part of our life. And so I always prioritize like those types of things. I always prioritize like my health and fitness and things like that. But in terms of like my other hobbies, in terms of the things that I do, Other than working? Uh, not a lot of things, Amanda. And you know, the funny thing is that I think part of it is that when you're a creator and you're building your own business, there's kind of a never-ending to-do list. There's always like, oh yeah, like you listen to some podcasts and you're like, I should have a Pinterest strategy, you know? And then it's like going down the rabbit hole of like doing that, you know, juggling all the plates at the same time. And so, um, Absolutely prioritize you know family and balancing all that. But I really love what I do, and so I feel like maybe it's okay to not.

What what is the age range of your kiddos?

They're seven and ten. Two boys.

Two boys. Seven and ten.

Okay.

All right. And that's a lot. I feel you.

Yeah. Yeah.

Have this like amazing drum set sitting like. 2 feet from my desk right there, like my dream drum set. I played drums since I was 8 years old and like finally, you know, like had the money to buy it, no problem. But then I play it maybe once a month and that sucks. But, uh, yeah, this running a business thing, um, and in many ways you and I both with Creator Wizard and I mean, you are multi-hyphenate to the extreme at this point and, you know, running Level Up Creators and it's like birthing these businesses and support that, supporting them and employees. I mean, My gosh, it's a lot. I really can't imagine doing any of this as a solopreneur. I would be a pile or a puddle on the ground at this point. It's just, it's so much work.

You know, okay, so now that I know that you are a musician, so I was like 100% sure that I was gonna be a concert pianist when I was young, actually. Like that was, that really, so I'm classically trained in opera. Like I was, you know, composing, I composed hundreds of songs over the, you know, when I was younger. And I was like very sure I was gonna go to music school and all that. And so talk about like this like circuitous path that we have in our lives. For a long time, I don't know if I'm really curious your thoughts on this, but like for a long time, whenever, you know, I would think about the fact that I wasn't playing music or the fact that I wasn't composing or whatever, I would get really, really wistful. I would think like, what am I doing? Like, this is— this is— this really my path? Is this what I'm supposed to do? And somewhere along the lines, I switched from that sadness or nostalgia to like that was a chapter in my life. And like, I get as much fulfillment from music, from this business stuff as I used to from music. And that wasn't always the case. And so I'm curious how you feel about that because like that, that's been a weird— my mom always be like, she always like cries whenever I play piano, like what could have been kind of thing, you know? But it's like, I don't know. I don't know if you feel that same way.

I think it's very useful to think about life in terms of phases and stages. And the word balance is I think a distant idea at this point. And then thinking more in terms of seasons and the ebb and flow of life and making sure that, you know, when your kids are growing up in particular, that you are present and have correct prioritization. That being said, I mean, I've been working 12 hours a day and weekends for several months now, um, as I am scaling up, hiring, built a 7-figure company in under 2 years. And we're women, woman-owned, like very, very, very proud of that. Um, So that is this season. And I'm fortunate in that our son is 13. And so he has a life and, um, you know, wants less of our sort of one-to-one time. So, so long as we are around and being intentional, like I take him to professional sports games pretty frequently, like that's kind of our thing. And we travel quite a lot as a family. And so we're trying to have a steady presence and, and being very involved in his life as he will allow us to be, allow us to be involved at this point. Uh, but also kind of have these inflection points intermittently that are kind of creating a rounded out experience of his upbringing and what will be defining of this season, hopefully for him. But right now what's defining for my husband Travis and I is that I am in startup mode and, you know, almost out of this like really, really difficult but wonderful and exciting season. I also love business, like completely obsessed with business. Um, but my husband has a wonderful job. He's brilliant. Um, Um, but it's also running our household at this point. I mean, almost entirely. And we have, uh, household staff to help keep the wheels on. Otherwise we would be nonfunctional. It's just not possible. So, um, I feel you and you're really in it with a 7 and a 10-year-old. So it's cool that y'all have your, your things, you know, Scouts, Scouts being super important. And, um, I also love that you're setting a good example in terms of work ethic. I love that April is also very successful. And so your boys get to see. A woman in that role—that's very important to me and like our mission at Level Up Creators. But okay, we're getting like way off on a tangent here, and you and I could talk about this all day. I think we're cut from a very similar cloth. So I'm gonna bring us back to talking about sponsorship, sponsor magnet, and things like that. So tell me what type of creators you usually work with, and we're gonna kind of like dig into the book.

Yeah. So when I started, I thought it was just influencers. I thought it was going to be like YouTubers, TikTokers, Instagrammers. Those are the people. People who, you know, you look at any survey, like, that's the number one revenue stream for a lot of influencers, right? And so I was like, you know, even on my sales pages here, you know, for my courses and things like that, that was— I was like very explicit, like, this is the type of creator I serve. And so a few years into it, I started getting all sorts of inquiries from kind of non-traditional creators, you know, like podcasters, bloggers, event organizers, newsletter operators, like all these people who They're like, hey, it seems like you only work with influencers, but I'm doing sponsorships. Can you, can you help me? And for a long time I was like, no, get away from me. You're not my ideal customer persona. You know? No, I didn't say it like that, but you know what I mean? Like, that was like kind of the idea. I was like, no, I'm, I'm trying to like narrow down on who I'm trying to serve. And I was talking with my copywriter Purna one day and we were talking about this thing and she was just like, why are you doing that? That's so stupid. Like, you're depriving so many people from like a transformational shift in their life and business. The stuff you teach is universal. And I, for some reason, I felt for so long that I was, it was going to be this gargantuan effort to try to adapt what I taught to like non-influencers. And literally, I went back through all of my frameworks and collateral, and it literally took me like a day to just be like, basically be like, okay, well, if you're a newsletter operator, this is kind of how this would apply, right? Mm-hmm. And so ever since I made that kind of pivot in the business about 2 years ago, Man, it was like a hockey puck at that time because I think there was just— there was a pent-up demand for this type of information, especially from the nontraditional creators who hadn't really considered sponsorships as a viable revenue stream. And so this is— this is one of the things that I've distilled into the book is just not just the— again, what we talked about at the beginning is like in the trenches many years doing lots of deals, running an agency, hearing the kind of behind the scenes, the things brands are saying behind people's backs and not telling you, but also like I have some pretty spiky points of view about why you shouldn't hire a manager, why you shouldn't have representation, why you should do this yourself, why you should learn it, how you can create a system. I talk about my 8-step sponsorship wheel framework. That's kind of one of the primary throughlines throughout the book. And I feel extremely confident that anyone picking up this book is going to make more money on sponsorships, guaranteed.

I mean, you've got the demonstrable track record of success with your client list right now. So yeah, I would say so. And isn't that funny? I think that's a good lesson that you're pointing out about, um, as business owners, creators, solopreneurs, whatever label you want to attach to yourself or not, uh, when we are coming out of the gate with, you know, a new business or a new product or service, we are creating a hypothesis about, uh, who is going to be most attracted and best suited to What we're doing, what we're selling, what we're offering. And I mean, we did the same thing. We came out of the gate with one ICP and have pivoted and drilled down like very specifically at this point to LinkedIn creators and subject matter experts. So typically these are people who are on LinkedIn or Twitter X Twitter. And so I just think that's an interesting lesson also for creators who are listening to understand is that. Your business, once you've got your products in place, like you're running experiments constantly and you are just starting with a hypothesis. And when you learn new information, you can make a different decision. And of course, that not only applies to business, but life as well. And it's so important to, um, hold loosely, I think, to the ideas that you're coming into business with and having a growth mindset and listening to people who are experts like Justin, like myself in our respective areas. We've really, really like niched down and have that demonstrable track record of success, but hold everything loosely, have a growth mindset, continue to learn and be open to something completely different coming your way in any way, shape, or form. That's a little bit of a tangent, but I love that you recognize that and you pivoted and that has been very rewarding. It sounds like,

you know, it's funny, the, the thing you brought up about experimentation and having that mindset of iteration, uh, that has been, if I had to think of like a, a single theme throughout the last, you know, 4 years growing this business. It's been that it's been like, okay, I'm just gonna like try this. I don't know if it's gonna work. Yeah. And we'll just kind of see what happens because, you know, it really is kind of this building the plane as you're flying it, so to speak. In fact, today is very timely. I just launched something I'm calling the 10K Copies Challenge, Amanda. Okay. And basically what I've decided to do is so, so I have this— okay, back up. I have this goal that I want to get the book into 100,000 creators' hands. Wow. In 5 years, which is extremely aggressive. There's very, very few books that sell that, self-published books, you know, that's what I'm doing, that sell that many copies. And so I was like, okay, how am I going to do that? So I'm basically talking with everyone I know, all the authors, everyone I respect. And someone gave me a really interesting piece of advice. So they were like, you know, if anyone tells you they know how to sell 100,000 books, just don't believe them because it's really, really hard to do that. But you can really muscle your way to 10,000 books. And if you write a damn good book, then word of mouth will take over after you get into, into 10,000 hands. And so I said, okay, let me modify this to how, how, what could I do to try to get this book to 10,000? Right. And so of course, being on your podcast is one of those things. You know, spreading the word, being annoying to my own audience about it forever is another way. Um, but I was like, okay, uh, what else can I do? And so I decided, I was like, okay, what I'm gonna do is I'm gonna create milestones. So every time we sell a certain number of books, 1,000, 3,000, 5,000, 8,000, that is going to unlock a new bonus for everyone in the community. And so you all, not only will it help me in getting more books sold, but also you're going to get something amazing, a private workshop invitation or a private, you know, secret video that I'm filming, all these things. So again, I have no idea if this is going to work. Is it fun? Hell yeah, let's go. You know, so I don't, you know, honestly, I think that, that having that idea or that philosophy, that disposition when you're playing the great online game, I think is, is really, really critical.

Mm-hmm. Yes. And working iteratively is one of our core values. And that is so important. Do not bite off more than you can chew. And you were talking about kind of like shiny object syndrome earlier at the top of the podcast. And it is so important as a creator to have focus and to have goals and to make sure that what you are doing is really in your wheelhouse. I mean, I'm a firm believer that people should spend 80% of their time at least doing the things that they are uniquely qualified to do and will Bring the greatest leverage to the business. So, and I love what you're talking about this new strategy. I got your email this morning about rewarding everyone. You're aligning incentives. You're saying, okay, help me sell this, you know, share this out to your community and I'm going to give you something too. You're not just ask, ask, asking. So I think there's a lot of sales strategies that the creators who are listening can learn and, you know, siphon off from this podcast completely inadvertently. It's not our intention going in, but I mean, you are such a strategic thinker and I can imagine your experience as an engineer. And a product manager working in iterations, thinking linearly has served you well in this regard as well.

Appreciate that. Most of the time I feel like I have no idea, no idea what I'm doing, but, uh, yes, let's go with that. Yes, very strategic.

But if you're working iteratively, you're learning as you go.

It is, it is true. You know, I think also it's low ego. I think that's a big part of it is like, I, if it doesn't work, I'm not crushed. I'm just like, okay, like people didn't want that thing. That's okay. I tried to launch a membership after, you know, this is— I think it was maybe cohort 5 or cohort 4. I don't know. So I had this cohort-based course called Brand Deal Wizard for many years that was like the primary thing I was doing. It's now an on-demand program. But I had this idea to launch a membership on the back of that because I thought, okay, everyone just learned about sponsorships. What's the natural next step? Have a fully diversified creator business. I was like, yeah, that sounds like a great idea. You know, influencer or affiliate marketing and merchandise and courses. And I can— I've done all those things. Like, I could help a lot of people with these things. But again, it was a thesis. And so I did it kind of Kickstarter style, or Groupon style. I was like, hey, if 5 people don't join this, I need 5 people to join this. Otherwise, I'm not gonna do it. Because that's like a lot of work. And it's just a lot of curation weekly, you know, people coaching, all that. And so only one person joined. And I was bummed, but I was like, well, I guess they didn't want that, so I'm not gonna launch it. And so I went back and I literally sent a survey. I guess going back to the iteration thing, I sent a survey saying, why didn't you join? And, um, the overwhelming comment was basically people were like, look, I learned a lot in your course, but, uh, I just need ongoing help with it. Like, can you, can you just like help provide ongoing support? With sponsorships? And I was like, yeah, sure, why not? And so that's where the coaching program came from. So again, a lot of it just comes from, like you said, like just having an open mind.

Yeah, life in business is not Field of Dreams. It is not the situation where if you build it, they will come. So I love that you did not spend a ton of time building out a whole entire membership program and offer and landing page and email marketing automation and paid ads and lead magnets. And it's just like, oh, you tried it. And, you know, once you taste failure, Big or small, um, I think your fear will reduce. And so understanding that failure is okay and that your worth as a human being is not tied up in what you do and accomplish, like you are inherently worthy. And so, you know, if other people are tripping about your failure or dragging you down, stop hanging out with those people. Stop listening to those people. Um, And surround yourself with people that are going to be helpful. Harvard has taught us a lot about that. I think there's a statistic that we cite quite a lot. It's like 95% of your success is determined by the top 5 people in your circle. So, how the people around you view failure matters a lot. And people who are wildly successful in business or even moderately successful, I would say, since like the, you know, making it past the 1-year mark is very rare for a startup. Making sure that you're okay with like you can you can fall down and get back up. It's okay. You can make the the lemonades out of lemons, and I do like Justin that you doubled down on the sponsor stuff. Like you listened to your community, and you actually gave them what they wanted. And I bet that product has been quite successful. Yeah,

it's been good. I want to say one thing on the topic of failure though, which is that I think a lot of people do not have. a support system around them or friends around them who they, they can commiserate with about this stuff. And instead, they're following lots and lots of business guru-y type people on the internet who only flex the positives. Unfortunately, that's what works the best on social media to try to market your own products and things like that. And people very rarely say like, hey, here's a post, this, this thing didn't work. This actually failed. There's a big L that I took. And so I think a lot of people don't think that this is why I talk about it a lot, because I think a lot of people I find myself gravitating to people who share the downs as well as the ups a lot more. I'm just like, wow, this is this feels a lot more real because I've gone through that. I've launched something that didn't work, and it's so easy to get intoxicated by the six-figure launches or the seven figures of you know revenue and all that. And I just feel like that's not reality for most people. And I just think it's really important to understand that you have to surround yourself with people who are. Also sharing that the losses because I think it's way more way easier to learn from that stuff.

Yes, thank you for saying that. I cannot stand marketing like that. That is so overtly aspirational and leveraging you know tried and true psychological principles not for good. I cannot stand it when people do that. So I'm glad you pointed that out. That is a really good thing to remember. Stay away from people who are saying you're going to have a six-figure launch of your course. It doesn't happen except for about 2% of the time. So thumbs down for me on that. Okay. Sponsor Magnet. What inspired you to write this book and what transformation do you hope it brings to content creators who read it?

All right. We're going to get a little existential here for a second. Um, going back to the whole, you know, at the beginning, work-life balance, family prioritization stuff, you know, we've been doing this for 15 years. Um, And I don't know, I think it's just a matter of getting older. I've started thinking about, you know, what's— what will my time on this earth have been for? As cheesy as the word sounds, I start thinking about like legacy. What's my legacy going to be for my kids, for me, for, you know, like what, what, you know, 2,000 YouTube videos that I've published? Yeah, that's cool. Hundreds and hundreds of newsletters that I've published. Yeah, that's cool. cool. Distilling everything that I know around brand partnerships into a book, that felt pretty damn awesome. That was what it— that's what I felt so pulled to do. Yeah. And it also was a forcing function because I'd never had to sit down and draw, go from zero all the way to, hey, you're ready to, you know, make a bunch of money with brands. It's always been like I've been like biting off pieces of the thing. Here's a YouTube video, here's a podcast. So there was really no content format that I had where I could just be like, hey, here's everything I know, or that someone could recommend to someone else too, you know? And for a long time, let's be real, I do have impact aspirations. I want to help educate the next generation of creators. I have a big— you mentioned that million sponsorship mission that I have. Yeah. And for a long time, I thought the free YouTube videos and the free newsletters, that, that would be the way to like reach the largest mass. But the problem is, what I realized is that the vast, vast, vast majority of people are not sitting around and thinking about sponsorship strategy of creators. They're not sitting around and thinking about this. They're, they're thinking about making better content and growing their audience. And that's really what they're spending most of their time doing. The people who are actively having issues with sponsors, I do great with those people that they join my course, they do coaching, it's fine. That's great. But I had to find a way I was like, how can I just like speak to those people who are sponsorship curious. Um, and putting it in my book as an audiobook or reading it on, on a plane or vacation or something, uh, that felt really exciting to me. And so again, going back to it's a, it's a, it's a thesis. I, I don't know if this is gonna work. I don't know if this is gonna be the thing. Um, but I'm taking another swing. It was a big swing because I'm devoting a lot. I devoted a lot of time to do it. Uh, and, you know, time is our, our, uh, scarcest resource. Um, but I feel pretty, pretty sure that this is like the right move. I don't— and again, like going back to your, your second part of your question of like, why, why is it going to be helpful for, for creators? Um, again, if you're, if you're someone listening or watching, and maybe you've done a handful of deals, um, and maybe, maybe one of them didn't go well and you swore off sponsorships forever because you're like, no, I'm just gonna like directly monetize like, you know, coaching courses, memberships, whatever. I don't want to deal with sponsors. Like, that's That's a nightmare. Absolutely read this book because I think you'll have a mindset shift around, you know, why sponsorships, I believe, can actually deepen your relationship with your audience/customers rather than feel like a money grab. It's actually something you do in service of your audience. And yeah, I'm just, I'm very excited to kind of hopefully change the mindset of people who previously thought sponsorships weren't for them.

Love it. And yeah, writing is the great clarifier, Right? And so, if you've got to map out your entire methodology, that is extraordinarily clarifying. I encourage people to write out their methodology broad strokes. It's like, what are these specific solutions that you are uniquely qualified to provide for this pocket of the internet, right? They, they're feeling this pain. You have the solution. You can't help everybody. You can't be everyone, everything to everyone. And if you're talking to everyone, you're talking to no one, right? So, we're going at a very specific niche level, and then, okay, what are the steps it's going to take from A to Z to achieve the value outcomes and transformation that that pocket of the internet needs? So I know you already have pretty extensive product and service ladder, and you've got lots of opportunity for LTV, customer lifetime value maximization within that product ladder. I love that you're massively widening the top of your funnel with this book, but I would imagine that based on the work you've put in to write the book, and you did clarify and really drill down on your entire methodology, like Like, my gosh, surely there's more additions to your product ladder coming later in the 2020s based on your work here. No.

You know, I was just on Nathan Berry's podcast and, you know, he has this framework around the skyscraper or the strip mall. And a lot of creators get into this idea where it's like, okay, I'm going to release this and then I'm going to release this and then it's got this new course and then I've got this new paid newsletter and I've got this Mm-hmm. And a big part of, of the challenge, I think, with that approach is that people just don't know what to buy. They don't know what to sign up for. I actually faced this when I created a lower ticket course that I call Gifted to Paid, where I thought, you know, I've got all these people in my audience who they're getting a bunch of free stuff, you know, and they'd really like to figure out how to convert those into paid partnerships. And so I was like, let's make that at a lower investment and an on-demand program versus the other one, which used to be on-demand. Um, and so even that, I was like, okay, 2 courses seems like it'd be pretty clear, like which one to get. Cause I was, this one's for intermediate and advanced. This one's for beginners. But still that was the number one question I got. Which one should I join? I don't, I don't know which one I should buy. Uh, so I ultimately discontinued that course and wrapped it in as a bonus of my, my other course. But it was like, again, I think, I think people underestimate the con— how, how much people can get confused in the market. And so my approach. with like how I'm looking at my product ladder after the book comes out. This is one of the things I talked about with Nathan on his podcast is like, I believe that my coaching program is going to become my main offer. I want it to become my main offer in a year or 2. I want 80% of my revenue to come from coaching. Yeah. And, you know, that is going to clarify a lot of business changes that I need to make if I want to drive everyone into the coaching program. I have to really stop, you know, talking about the course as much. I have to maybe make incentives for, hey, if you join the annual coaching, you get the course for free. Or like, there's all these different things that I can— that I'm going to try because I truly believe that the coaching program has the best— not only the best ROI for our clients, but it drives the biggest impact long term. Because again, the coaching model that I have is very different than traditional management or representation or brokers or anything, is that we do not— Yeah. not charge a fee. It is— or we don't charge a percentage of your deals. You pay us a flat amount of money every month or for the year, and you keep 100% of your earnings. We're basically on speed dial for you setting your pricing and your proposals and negotiations and stuff. So I just think there's literally no one else that offers this. And I think, like, you know, there's people who are making 6 figures a month in sponsorships in our program, in our coaching program. So it's like pretty good ROI. And I just, I just think that this is going to be This is going to be what our business becomes in a couple of years.

Amazing. And, you know, coaching business is quite scalable the way that you're running it. So I think that's awesome. And your methodology, your book will help, I'm sure, train other coaches that will come behind you and support your methodology. And I will say that I love your methodology because it creates incentive alignment between the brand and the creator, whereas if you insert this third party of an agency, their incentive is to get as many deals as possible as fast as possible to whoever is in their portfolio of companies because they get a commission. They don't care if they burn a bridge between you and your audience and there's not value alignment or really, you know, again, aligned incentives or an offer that matches. And so the way that Justin is teaching you to create partnerships with brands is completely aligned. And I think it's important to say that, I mean, you are so effective at empowering and equipping creators to do this themselves. I'm sure many of them come to you and don't think that they are capable of having these conversations. It's probably a pretty extraordinary degree of discomfort that comes from, you know, a selling conversation, a financial negotiation. Many people are very uncomfortable talking about money as it is. But ultimately, this also makes me think of Taylor Swift. I'm a huge Swiftie. I'm like major Taylor Swift fan. But she has doubled down on her creative control. She controls and owns everything. The movie that she put out about the Eras Tour, you know, she approached MGM and a couple other big studios and they're like, oh, we can have this done in 18 months or 24 months or something like that. And they were like, nope, we'll get it done in 2. We'll hire our own people. We own the rights. We sold the rights to Netflix or whoever. This book, she just self-published a book. And freaking crushed it on the sales front. It came out, I think, on Black Friday.

It's crazy.

Yeah. But this is, this is, you are enabling that model for individuals. And I think that is inherently valuable for people to have control over their own businesses and understand that they can, maybe they don't have that knowledge now. They are not equipped to have these conversations now, but that you are providing this bridge. where people can really go and knock it out of the park on their own behalf. So I'm big on like betting on yourself, having a growth mindset, and then stepping up to the plate. You know, learning more and taking action every day should increase your confidence, and you are providing that on a very significant level. So I love your method.

That is super, super kind of you to say. Honestly, you know, if I had to share a quick anecdote, like of all of the people that we knew over the last 15 years who have been creators, friends of ours, people we've known, almost without exception, the people who delegated the business stuff, the business side of stuff to a manager or someone else, and they just kind of wanted to focus on the creative stuff and they were just kind of in, you know, in the clouds. Almost without exception, those people are no longer creators or they've really, really struggled. And almost without exception, the people who took their business seriously Said I'm going to learn this stuff. I'm going to understand the economic engine behind why, like how I can keep you know the stamina and and the lights on and and not just survive but thrive in this business. Almost without exception, those people are doing still doing really well. And so that again, that's an anecdote based on I know a lot of people. And so it's like pretty pretty clear. I think that no, there's no one. There's no one coming to save you. There's no one person who you can hire who's going to be your inflection point, your ticket to success. I strongly believe that that it's you. You're the only person who's ever going to care about your business as much as you as you should, and so you got to learn this stuff. And and that's really what I'm hoping the book helps people do.

Yeah, you're helping people be their own agency, their own ambassador. I love that. Like we're really big on equipping and empowering people to go from just creator content creator to creator CEO. Like we're going to help you become the person that we know that you can be, and you know employing that growth mindset is indicative of. Or I think at least correlated, if not causal, to your success. Like however far you think you can go is how far you will go. I think Oprah has a quote around this. It's basically like think big because you come, you become as big as your your thoughts allow you to be, right? You can you can live into that vision if you actually believe that you can do it. So it's a good way to approach life. Okay, we only have a few more minutes. Have a bunch more questions, so we're gonna have to. Rapid fire. Rapid fire, I guess, sort of. Uh, okay. So at Level Up, I think, you know, we are all about creating opportunities for monthly recurring revenue for creators. I do not like the roller coaster of launch, launch, launch, launch, launch. And we like to apply MRR, our MRR method, our proprietary methodology, even through brand partnerships. So in your experience, uh, what are the circumstances under which a brand could A brand would consider turning a, you know, one-off brand deal into a long-term partnership or ambassadorship, which would of course be to the end of creating monthly recurring revenue instead of a one-time, you know, earning.

Yeah. Yeah. I mean, the, the, the short— the truth of it is, is that a lot of brands don't want to do recurring deals with creators at the beginning because they've been burned too many times with creators who are terrible and not professional and not communicative and all that. And so it's really, in my experience, it's really tough to convince a brand to do a recurring deal right out the gates. This is why a lot of brands do want to do at least an initial engagement. You know, you blow their socks off with how amazing everything went, and then that's when you pitch them this recurrent thing. I will say, though, that like there are like some brands that are starting to wise up to this kind of always-on influencer campaign idea where they're always activating, they're always engaging. But that's still a minority. The majority of brands are still in this kind of traditional campaign mindset where they're doing the one seasonal quarterly campaign and they're putting all their budget into it and they're going to work with 10 people. And then they just— so it's like the incumbents, I would say, are still— that's kind of still their strategy, the media agency, PR agency kind of strategy. But the digital native, the direct-to-consumer brands, the brands that have launched on TikTok and have seen a lot of success, Those brands understand the value of having this always-on nature. And so my advice to any creators listening who want to get deals like that is to just understand you have to be patient sometimes and understand that, you know, brands have been burned by really bad people in the past, but it's just your job. It's just your job to show them why you're different.

Mm-hmm. Yeah, I absolutely agree. Nobody's going to be willing to do recurring revenue deal or ambassadorship Up front, you do have to prove yourself. But the good news is there's a lot of low-hanging fruit there because the expectations honestly that brands feel for influencers are really low because of exactly everything that Justin just said. And so if you are professional, clear, communicative, proactive, you just do what you're supposed to do in the contract, like meet the deadline, send the script, send the draft.

The bar is the basement. Please believe me.

The bar might be below the basement. Basement, unfortunately. So for those of you who are willing to actually do this and follow Justin's process, like, my gosh, leverage the recurring revenue, um, that could be available to you should you be able to stand out amongst a group that is not necessarily terribly difficult to stand out in. So, uh, okay, thanks for saying that. That's great. And, uh, okay, we gotta talk conference. You have a pretty unique conference coming up in March of 2025. We're recording this in December of '24. Uh, it's unlike anything I've ever seen, much less in the creator space. So can you tell us a little bit more about what people can expect in the conference and if you have tickets left?

Conference is a dirty word, Amanda. We're not using the word conference here. Oh, my bad. This, this— no, I'm just kidding. Uh, it is— I basically took everything that I hated about conferences and said, I'm not doing any of those things at this event. Um, basically there's no— so it's called Sponsor Games and there is no panels, there's no keynotes, there's no workshops, there's nothing for you to fall asleep at. Basically what I'm doing is I'm turning my 8-step sponsorship wheel into 8 games that you can play to master the concepts. So step 1, our first game is pitch. Second game is negotiate. Second, third game is contract. So basically we're turning all the frameworks and principles that I teach in the book into games that you're going to play in breakout groups with other creator attendees. And so it's going to be an absolute blast. And not only that, there are going to be 8 finalists, 4 who basically advance to the culminating Sponsor Tank event on the final day where you will be pitching actual brand partnership managers at brands who will be on the judges panel. Uh, and you'll, there'll be a grand prize of, um, of cash and, uh, lots of other like kind of prizes and stuff for people. So, uh, it's gonna be so much fun. Uh, yes, we actually have, um, uh, a handful. Let me see, actually, I'm gonna tell you right now. I think we have 6 early bird tickets left. Uh, we're almost sold out of early bird tickets. Um, nice job.

And where is it? What are the dates while you're still— while you're looking?

Yes. Uh, it was 7. We have 7, uh, early bird tickets left. Uh, March 16th to the 19th in San Antonio, Texas, right on the Riverwalk. We rented out the Jack Gunther Pavilion at the Briscoe Western Art Museum. Oh my God, it's gonna be— it's gonna be so much fun.

That's a nice time to be in San Antonio for sure. Everything will be in full bloom. So beautiful. Oh my gosh, the lantanas down there and the The agaves and just, oh my gosh, my best friend lives in San Antonio, so I spend quite a bit of time there. Yeah. Okay. And the Riverwalk is a really great area. Okay, cool. We will do a rapid fire on this one. What are your top 3 actionable tips for creators looking to dial up their brand deal game?

Number 1, delete your pricing in your media kit if you have it. You're leading the witness. Brands, what if the brand would have paid you 10 times as much as you had in the media kit? Number 2, when you reach out and pitch a brand, Don't make it about you. They don't care about you. They care about themselves. Research what their campaigns that they're running, what they ran in the past, and say, "Hey, are you going to run that campaign again this year? I would love to support you." That's what they have money for—not to pay random people who reach out. And number three, just be nice. Be a nice person. Like it's another human on the other end of this this brand, and they want to enjoy their daily life and their daily work. And if you can just Make them look good to their boss or make them look good to their client if it's an agency. That's it. That's all you gotta do. It's simple.

Exactly. And that goes right along the lines of it ain't too tough to stand out. Just go a little bit of extra mile, a little bit more research. What influencers have they worked with in the past? What kind of campaigns have they done? What ideas do you have that you can bring to the table? I love that. Um, all right, Justin, last question. Where can our audience learn more about Sponsor Magnet and connect with you online?

All right. So it's just sponsormagnet.com. And I have some absolutely insane bonuses that I'm offering as part of the book. I'm giving away my sponsorship tracker template, this really sophisticated tool I built in Notion, and giving that away for free. I've got 15 negotiation scripts. So if a brand says X to you and you freak out, you're like, I don't know how to respond to this, then I've got 15 different scripts like, oh, like, hey, join our affiliate program. And you're like, no, I'd actually like to get paid. Then, then, you know, I have like very different things you can say to brands in those scenarios. I got a bunch of different checklists and, and templates and things like that up the wazoo. But yeah, sponsormagnet.com.

Holy moly. That's a lot for under $20.

I, yeah, I mean, totally. It's funny you should mention that because I feel the same. Like, geez.

Just that script alone. Um, it's gotta be worth, I mean, all of your experience and knowledge going into that. I'm like, we're going straight up value-based pricing. If it's real good, I bet that thing is worth $5,000.

I think it's— I mean, again, like I go back to the impact goal. I was okay. Last, let's bookend this. I was scared. I had fear. I had fear, Amanda, that if I put everything I know into the book, why would people hire me? This was, this was the voice that I had inside my head for a long time before I wrote the book. And I got some really good advice from my friend Pat Flynn. Uh, from Smart Passive Income. And he basically said, you do not need to worry about that. Put everything you know into the book and people will still hire you. It doesn't matter if it's an exact duplication of what your course is. Uh, people always need help with their specific situations. Um, and that really was a liberating conversation. Um, and so anyone listening to this, if you're fearful about doing something or fearful about giving people too much, like, Um, just silence that voice and just know that when you start, when you lead with a service mindset, everything works out in the end.

Oh, love that. You can just drop the mic right there, Justin. Thank you so much. We really appreciate you taking the time to be here with us today.

Thanks again for having me, Amanda.

And thank you, listeners. Time is precious. We appreciate you sharing yours with us. We help creators like you at levelupcreatorschool.com, where I, our team becomes your full-stack team of advisors and includes No fluff creator courses, a vibrant creator community, and more, all on a subscription basis. See the show notes for more information and a suite of high-value free resources. We will see you next time on the Level Up Creators Podcast.