LIVE from Independent Podcast Conference 2023 in Philly

Somebody who doesn't know of any better, or their name is Dave Jackson, or it's Super Tim Bryant. Give it up. Good deal.

Thank you, sir.

You're so welcome. What's an honor?

Oh, no, it's an honor to be here with you.

No, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no.

All right.

Nope, nope. Can I grab the clipper Oh yeah, I gotta open up the thing. Oh yeah, uh, here's the clicker.

Okay, sweet, sweet.

And I got my bell now, so—

oh yeah, it's been in the back the whole time.

Wait, what?

It's been on the desk the whole time in the back.

No, it wasn't. Melissa brought it.

Oh, okay, maybe not then.

I promise I sent it to you 5 times.

Yeah, I got it.

Okay, cool, cool.

You're out.

All right, thank you. So I'm going to do my best, uh, Pinky and the Wiz voice here, but only Dave can do it correctly. So we're going to talk about podcasting for the man, which is what I do. Um, so again, my name is Timothy, uh, Bryan, otherwise known as Timothy Chemo Bryan, otherwise known as I Do 9 Podcasts. So basically what we're going to be doing here is, uh, we're going to talk a little bit about my backstory because it's kind of vital to understand what we're going to be doing here. I'm going to be talking about the current state of podcasting for the man. What do I mean by the man? I mean the federal government, of course. So please pay your taxes because I have twins and they need to go to college, and I have an unhealthy habit of podcast equipment thanks to, uh, you know, a lot of people here in this room. I won't mention names that told me to get an RE320, and I won't— yeah. Don't talk to Matt because you won't have a bank account afterwards. We're going to learn a foreign language. Oh yes. Oh cool. You got the buzzer.

Perfect.

So I'm going to teach you a foreign language. It's called federal ease. Then we're going to talk about— we're going to find out who the gatekeepers are and how do you get around them, because I'm all about getting around stuff. I'm an Air Force guy. I used to work for the Army. I know gatekeepers, and I know how to have fun and get around the gatekeepers. And then my last thing is, and my favorite thing is, with them. What's in it for me? So this guy here, you will know, um, this one was, uh, from some podcast festival, and, uh, and this guy was asleep for it, but I'm glad he's not asleep for it this time because, uh, he's definitely awake. Uh, but, uh, hey Dave, this might be good for your show. So this is because of my podcast story. So, um, podcasting for the federal government— we've all heard, uh, that, you know, with podcasting, it takes, you know, it's overnight success in about 3 years, right? Federal government? No. Federal government says, hold my beer, 11 years. I've been working at this for about 11 years now, and for most of it, I didn't know what I was working towards. But I'm here today to say, hey, I've got 6 podcasts for the federal government. They're paying me very well. I'm very happy with that. Um, but how I— how did I start off? Well, I started back in 2006 doing podcasts poorly, poorly. Thank God I lost the hard drive on that one because you can't hear them. You can't. Um, Kyle Bondo keeps on saying, dude, no, no, I can, I can get it for you. No, don't touch my hard drive. Leave me alone. We don't want that stuff coming out. But in 2016, I started doing podcasts more real. And then I came and met, you know, this fine young gentleman right over here and really got serious about it.

Thank you.

Yes, next time I'm bringing them. So I started getting really hardcore into podcasting about 2016, and I was working for the Army at the time. Remember, I'm Air Force working for the Army. It was a whole Good Morning Vietnam thing, okay? It really was. That really happened to me. And my commanding officer— well, let me tell you what I did in the Army. We were there to help soldiers that were wounded, ill, or injured either go back to their unit or go out into the civilian world. And what a fun thing that is for somebody that's been doing a job for 20 years. It's extremely scary. And I add on top of that, you go to a base where your family is not, so you have no support network. And you're getting told, yeah, you did great for 20 years, get out, have fun with that. So I'm the guy that got to say, all right, now we're going to teach you how to get in the federal government. And over 5 years, I've got, proud to say, over 500 folks in the federal government that way. So I know a little bit about, you know, federal resumes, although I'm not going to be, you know, teaching how to do that today. You can contact me later on. But what they wanted to do is they wanted to do another newsletter I don't know about you guys, but I'm subscribed to about 150 newsletters and I read 3. Dave's is one of them, but, uh, the other 2 I won't mention. But they wanted to do a newsletter and I was like, why don't we do a podcast? They're like, what's a podcast? I'm glad you asked. And I sold it to them and I didn't speak their language. I didn't know what's in it for them. They didn't understand. I was a poor communicator of podcasting. At that time. So they said, yeah, we're going to pass on that. But they knew me as the podcast guy in the Army. So, um, that podcast didn't even get off the ground. It didn't even happen. However, because I said the word podcast so much, somebody else heard about it in the Public Affairs Division for the Army— not for the little unit that I was with, for the big Army. And they have a podcast now called Soldier for Life. I helped do the technical direction with it. I explained to them what a podcast was. I told them go to Libsyn and get hooked up. So they're still with Libsyn as far as I know, and they're in their 13th season. And what they do is they help soldiers still feel part of— once they get out of the military, they're still part of the team. So it gives them a sense of community, which is fantastic for them. You want to leave it But that happened in, you know, 2016, 2017. So I got tired of working for the Army because, you know, Good Morning Vietnam, you can only watch that so many times before you know all the jokes and you're like, okay, yeah, let's move on. So I was interviewing for my current agency right now, which is CBP, uh, Customs and Border Protection. And I do have to do a disclaimer, they are not sponsoring me here for being here today, and I'm not recruiting for them, and You know, if you have anything bad to say about them, I have worse things because I work for them. But in that interview, they asked me, you know, hey, uh, have you ever used technology to reach out to, um, the families of the folks, uh, within the Army? I said, well, I, you know, tried to sell them on the whole podcasting thing, and I was like Here's the thing, I will help you set up your podcast. I don't care the outcome of this interview, I will help you set up your podcast. I'm getting paid by the federal government, so it's free of charge. A week later, I was at New Jersey Atlantic City, uh, IndiePodCon, and I got a call and they said, you got the job. Oh, by the way, we need you to fill out your background investigation. It's due on Monday. So thank God I was at Ocean's Casino because I was working late nights. I was meeting with everybody in the daytime, but at night I was just like pounding away this, uh, background check, which is about 80 pages, nothing big. I got the job. I got the job. So you would think, okay, Tim's in, he's with CBP, and, uh, He's going to start podcasting. No, no, that doesn't happen. If you want things to happen quickly with the federal government, go someplace else. Go, go to, you know, state government, go to local city government. It might move faster. I doubt it, but it might. So it took about a year, and I was in the middle of a review with my, uh, with my director. And she was like, wait a minute, you're the podcast guy for CBP, aren't you? Because I'd be all through the pandemic, I was giving podcast recommendations for different shows, for different topics— resiliency, alcohol abuse, suicide prevention, all of that. Every day in our team's channel, they got a new podcast suggestion, a new podcast suggestion. Every meeting, I'm like, you know, that'd make a great podcast. I heard it's for about a year. So I'm in this review and my director goes, you know what, we just hired a suicidologist, uh, for our division to talk about suicide prevention. Okay. He wants to do a podcast. Okay. He's ex-Air Force. Okay, I'm there with you, I'm there with you. "Can you meet with him right now?" Done. I have nothing else to do on my schedule for the rest of the day but talk to this guy. And that's what we did. Literally, we ended that call, went to the other call, and now we're 21 episodes into CPP Suicide Prevention Podcast, which, let me tell you, that has gone through a lot of changes because the first question is, what's a podcast? I'm like, come on, okay, I didn't— obviously didn't evangelize well enough. So we went to the public affairs division and they're like, yeah, we want to put this on YouTube. And I can feel Dave already saying, but it's not a podcast. We just called it a podcast. It didn't have an RSS feed at the time, but it went on YouTube. My public affairs division, um, for every video that they put out they maybe got 500 hits, 500 views at best. We ended our first year with 16,000, and that's because we were promoting the heck out of it. It was something that our agents needed, because a lot of people don't know this, but CBP has a suicide problem. We have a lot of agents out in the field, out in the boonies, and they have no resources out there whatsoever. So You know, things happen. So we did that podcast, and I was part of our resilience division, and, uh, that one has gone fantastic. That one's gone gangbusters. We moved it from just a YouTube channel and just internal podcasting through our Teams channels and through our, um, not Substack, uh, having an MS moment here. That's okay. Um, but But we all, we use a media host called DVIDS, D-V-I-D-S. And that is a media host that has videos, it has podcasts, it has two of mine on there, and all these kind of media outlets that all talk about the federal government. It's run by DOD. So it's, I don't want to say it's like Libsyn or Podbean or anything like that, but it's really close to that. And if you're interested in learning more about your federal government, because You're paying taxes, right? Like to know what's kind of going on. Um, you can definitely click into that and I'll be happy to show you how that works. Um, it is not intuitive. It is from like the 1980s, um, the format and the UI. I'm going to fix that in about 10 years and they'll pay me a couple million dollars for it. But that is how I got to 6 podcasts that the federal government is paying me to do on top of my regular job, which is I do financial wellness, I do Palm Springs community support, and my favorite, telework. I love telework because that's the only way I can do 6 podcasts. So that is my— because of my podcast story. Who'd like to get paid? Anybody? Anybody? Perfect. Yeah, everybody.

Good deal.

Federal government pays well.. And it's hard to get fired. It is hard to get fired. I haven't tried, but I know some people that should be fired. But federal government does pay pretty well for what they do, and they pay pretty steady. And then when you retire, there's that lovely pension that they have with it. So you too can do 1, 3, 5 podcasts for the federal government. You're still going to get paid the same amount of money. Don't get me wrong, I don't get paid per podcast.

Really?

Yet, yet we're working on it. We're working on it. It took me 11 years to be an overnight success with the federal government, so I'm working on that. That's next week. I gotta cure world hunger this week, so, you know, a little bit busy, but I can do it. But yeah, you can do multiple podcasts for the federal government. Now, there are a number of podcasts about the federal government but there's only about 50 from the federal government. And out of those 50, there's a lot of them that haven't produced anything in 5 years. CBP is one of them. Exactly. Well, they— I haven't gotten to those agencies yet, but I know I'll get to those agencies. Yes, you will. I, I'm going to try. Um, but yeah, there's, uh, you know, there's a bunch that haven't done anything in 5 years. CBP I did one podcast, one episode, 10 years ago, and it was horrible. Someone's cracking on it. I wasn't working for CBP at the time, so obviously it was crappy. All right, so who's going to listen to these podcasts? How did we get 16,000 views on YouTube? Well, you have an audience of potential 2.1 million federal employees. Now obviously you've got to get the word out to them, you got to show them how to use the stuff to get to the podcast, but you have a potential audience of 2.1 million employees. What else do you got there? You have— oh yeah, we're worldwide. CBP, just my agency alone, we are all over the world. Anything that is coming in here, uh, through customs we got our finger on. TSA, there you go, it's another federal agency all over the world. The Army, another federal agency all over the world. There's 435 federal agencies right now as we speak. You have target-rich environment, as we like to say in the Air Force. Target-rich. Pick an agency that you like. If you don't like CBP, that's cool. I've already got the, you know, the lockdown on CBP. But let's say you like the IRS, you want to talk about taxes, why not go for it? Absolutely. SBA, Small Business Administration, bingo, right there. Okay, take— you take SBA, you take IRS. Yeah, you got IRS. Okay.

Yes. Yeah, I have a question off the live stream. Who are the audiences for all these podcasts for the federal government, would you say?

Depends on the podcast. It really depends. So for our suicide prevention, that is for technically CBP employees, but we put it out externally to talk to people about, you know, the pressures and to remove the stigma of finding mental health resources and for talking about the stigma of suicidal thoughts and what you can do to help yourself out with that. So for that podcast, that's what, that's what the audience is. For other podcasts out there, out there, it just depends on the agency and what they're into. Consumer Fraud Protection Bureau, CFPB, they don't have a podcast yet, but they would have a great audience of folks looking not to get messed over by credit card companies. Or by, you know, payday loan companies. I'm working on them next, and my next agency to knock out, so don't take that one from me because I really want that agency too. But then the audience is— and it can also be an internal audience. So like I said, we have 2 external podcasts, we have 4 internal podcasts. Um, the other external one we have is called Living in Recovery, and that's for our agents or our employees that are going through a 12-step program, either AA, NA, whatever it is. And we are talking about when you ask for help, it doesn't impact your career negatively. We want you to get better because, quite honestly, it costs a lot of money to bring somebody into the federal government with all the background checks and all that kind of stuff. And to kick somebody out of the federal government, you got to do a lot to to get kicked out of the federal government. But if you do that, you will get kicked out and, you know, you're gonna lose out on your background investigation and your security clearance. So we're trying to keep people from doing that, from, you know, sabotaging their careers. The other 4 that we have in there— and I'll get the next question, I promise— is we have recovery conversations where we actually have— it's not host-led, it's employee-led where they talk about their experiences in recovery and how their supervisors help them through it. We have another one with our EAP, our Employee Assistance Program, talking about all their services. We have another one— oh gosh, I knew I was going to forget all of them. That's the problem when you do 9 podcasts, you forget which one goes to which one. Dave can tell you all about that. Um, but yeah, we have 4 internal that deal with different aspects of it. We don't have one for financial wellness because I'm too busy to do another podcast. I need to have another one to make. But yes, another question.

Yeah, Rita Rich online asks, uh, how do the agencies promote your work, and did they promote before the first episode dropped?

No, the only way we got promotion Initially, I had to write up the ad copy and everything like that, and I had to figure my way around our public affairs internal and then externally. We're promoting it to CDP employees for the Suicide Prevention and for the Living in Recovery podcast, but we don't go out to— well, I take that back. We do put it on our Twitter feeds and our Facebook, but it's kind of like one of those run-and-gun or shotgun methods, which I don't recommend, uh, because, you know, who cares about that stuff? You know, it's just noise coming in, it's just static coming in unless you're really interested in suicide prevention or living in recovery. So, uh, we don't promote it like we should yet. That's a big thing you're going to hear me say. Yet, but I have a plan to help that, help that out. But yeah, there's 435 agencies out there, 435. Anything that you can think of, federal government does. So who's filling the void with this? Now my numbers are a little bit old, so Daniel J. Lewis can probably give me better numbers, but we're looking at about 6,000 podcasts out of 4 million that we're at right now, 6,000 that deal with the federal government. So it's not just— there's about 50 from the federal government, but then 6,000 that talk about the federal government. What does that look like? Well, we're in the other category, and the other category is 4%. So we're a part of 4%. So this is kind of a really— I don't want to say it's a new thing, but You're really starting at the very base of this. And where can it go? It can only go up with the right people involved with it. Do you speak federal lease? Anyone here speak federal lease? Good. I do. So when I say to you GS, WG, SES, that means nothing. But you can go on to the number of different OPM, which is Office of Personnel Management. And we love acronyms too. But I got to keep on reminding myself, don't use the acronym, use the actual word. You can find out exactly how much I make. Public knowledge, doesn't matter. You can know right now, I'm a GS-13. Step 3. But then if you're thinking about, hey, I want a steady paycheck, then you check OPM, Office of Personnel Management, and you can find out where you're at in the country, how much you're going to make per year in that position. Other thing that you need to realize is job titles. Job titles don't mean a thing. My job title is Program Management Analyst. What does that even mean? I don't know, and I've been there for 4 years. My position description is I review classified materials. I've not seen one classified document come through my desk once in 4 years, nor do I want to. The only one I want to keep them at home, but then that's another story. Oh, that's, that's a bell ringer right there. Thank you. Big thing is other duties as assigned. That's what my podcasting comes in because I could sell it to CBP and go, this is other duties as assigned besides reviewing, you know, classified documents that I don't review at all. So you can pretty much name what your job is going to be once you get in, and that's the problem is getting in. But if you can speak federalese, if you know what a GS is, general schedule, That's a, uh, a pay band. That's how much you're going to get paid. WG— that GSs are— I don't want to say we're white collar, but we're whitish blue collar guys. Uh, WGs are our technicians that make our cars go. They do the hard work. They're our blue collar guys. Our SESs, which I never want to be an SES, that's a Senior Executive Service. They top out at about $140,000 a year. That's it. That's what they're going to get. Um, but they have a lot of responsibilities, and they are, um, political appointees a lot of the times too. So, you know, when the president changes, SESs go bye-bye. What else we got here? Collateral duties and hiring authorities. Let me talk about hiring authorities for just a second here. This is going to help you get into the federal government. I'm a disabled veteran. I'm 90% disabled, service-connected from the Air Force. I know I don't look it, but I'm 90% disabled. That means when Ross applies and I apply for a job, I get— we're all equal, everything's hunky-dory— I get 10 points. And if I— if Ross and I apply and he's 5 points ahead of me, They got to explain why Ross is a better candidate than I am. And I'm a pretty good actor, so I can pretty much, you know, pretty much get the job with my veteran status. If you have a disability, a documented disability, that's 5 extra points on your resume. So make sure that if you're thinking about getting in the federal government, and I'm not here to recruit anybody into the federal government, but you can utilize this for your Fortune 500 companies. You can utilize this for your Fortune 1000 companies, getting in there and doing, you know, let's say you're already working for, uh, I don't know, Verizon Wireless. Get in there and start up a podcast company, the podcast arm of Verizon Wireless. Why not? But you want to know what your hiring authorities are, and you want to utilize them as best as you can. So again, you'll have my email, and I will I'll show you how to do that. Where do you start? It's the resume. The resume. The federal resume is pages and pages long, and it is very confusing, and a lot of people don't know how to do it. But there are people that will teach you how to do it. I'm sure there's a podcast. If there's not, then that's my number 10 podcast, and I will show you guys how to do it through that. But you need to have a really good resume. You need to The, the thing with any resume when you see a job posting is that's your first test. They want A, B, C, and D, you give them A, B, C, and D, plus I can podcast too, plus I can do this other stuff. As long as you cover A, B, C, and D, you got a good shot. Disabled veteran, you got a better shot. Um, USAJOBS, if you've ever been there, it's It's confusing as all get-out. But you got a guy already in there that knows how to get you through that. But that is the gateway to get into the federal government and to knock that resume out. You want to look at that job posting. You want to read the job posting. If you don't do A, B, C, and D, and you have somebody looking over your resume that feels like they're getting underpaid, and they really hate their job because they're not doing a podcast, you have no chance of getting that. No chance. This is the same thing for any company that's out there, okay? If you— it's a test. If you can't pass that first test, you ain't getting in. You have no chance of doing a podcast for that company. So make sure that you're reading the job posting. And then special hiring authorities, like I said earlier, disabled veterans, uh, disabled folks not associated with the military. Some agencies are trying to hire IT folks and give them a special leg in. So if you have IT experience, okay, you can get into the federal government under special hiring authorities and get paid extra money. Because who wants extra money, especially working for the federal government? Thank you. All right, 8:10.

Sure.

Oh yeah, sorry. Okay, okay, very fast. Two organizations that you want to know about: AIR and NAGC. AIR is Association of Independence in Radios. They have a lot of podcasters, they do a lot of education. Fantastic group. Once you get your federal job you get the federal government to pay for your memberships into this. All right, so these are two great places to start off. And who are the gatekeepers? Gatekeepers are HR folks, and a lot of them are underpaid and really angry folks. So make sure that you do A, B, C, and D. Make sure you follow that because that will get you in a lot quicker. The other thing is public affairs. My first thing with the Public Affairs Division, what's a podcast? Be able to explain to them what a podcast is and what's in it for them and how to do it. Make sure all your technical background is really good and your processes are really good and really sharp. And how to sell yourself? What's our pain points in the federal government? Resiliency, suicide prevention, addictions, all that stuff are great topics. For federal podcasting. That's what they want. It's hard to get people in, so that's what they want to have you do, is do all those kind of topics. So if that rings any, uh, kind of things with you, fantastic, knock it out. How long is the process going to take? A long time just to get in the federal government and then be 11 years success like I was. It'll take you, depending on your clearance level, 6 months to a year just to get in the door. And then you got to convince them once you get in the door that this is one thing that they want to do. Skills— make sure that you have all your skills listed there. What's in it for me? Who likes a stable paycheck every week or every 2 weeks? I do. Getting paid, being able to be creative because I'm a creative kind of guy, and then you get to educate others and My time expired like 3 minutes ago, so I'm going to give it on to the next one. Thank you so very much.

Give it up for Tim. I think, uh, I think I was supposed to switch this back to, um, This is— I think it's a 4-3 right now, maybe. Oh, it's a vacuum auto.

Okay, that's good.

I wasn't sure.

Anyway, well, that's not good enough for Super Tim. All right, so, uh, you took— but while you were up here, I didn't— I didn't see that. All right, um, oh, so real quick, uh, who, who wants to do something after we get done here? All right, so I'm, I'm going to, uh, book a Topgolf. We can take up to 12 people, um, because we get 2 days, it's like 6 and 6. So, um, can I get like a real head count? And I will book it. So once you— how are you gonna get there?

My dad.

Does he know that? On the text?

It starts—

so the, the room, the, um, the current, uh, booking is for 8:30, so I don't know if that's like late or whatever, but like that's what's available for 2, 2 days. And, uh, I, I'm taking care of it, so you don't have to worry. I mean, food is on you, but I'll take care of the, the base. So who wants to go top it off? 1, 2, 3.

You guys want to go?

It's not— oh, so does everybody know what Topgolf is? Does anybody not know what Topgolf is? So it's like— all right, so you've been bowling before? Bowling, yeah. So it's like bowling but with golf. Like, they have like the different golf clubs there and there's different games, and it's for intermediate to, you know, or beginners to, to experts. Uh, it's a lot of fun, and it's more fun than bowling because you're not like in a dark room. Yeah, that smells. It's open, and you know, it's open air, air-conditioned. Uh, we get the air conditioning outside and all that. It's amazing.

So, so, it's amazing.

So, so, all right, so raise your hand if you're, if you're in so I can get a real count. So I— 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, Yes, they're gonna be asleep already. It's so easy.

8:30.

All right, uh, so like, so, so, all right, so like right at the cusp of needing 2 bays. How many, uh, what was it? 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6. Yeah, I think it was 7, 8. Okay, if he wants to come, he can come. I mean, I'll get to it, I'll get to it. All right, we'll have 2 bays. Um, it's just north of here.

Um, I think it's like exit 40.

Yeah, I was looking at Dave as if he lives around here. Um, yeah, it's like exit like 38 or 40 on 295. So it's, it's— what are we at, 20? It's like 20 miles from here, straight up.

It's like right off the highway.

North or south?

Yeah, so you could head out, you know, head up north, uh, from there.

It'll be on your way.

All right, uh, our next speaker is coming up. Uh, I need— it came quite a distance, uh, as well. Uh, everybody give it up for Super Isabel!

Thanks, Joe. You're so welcome. Thank you. Hello everyone, how are we?

Fantastic.

Thank you.

Great.

Thank you.

Come on, gentlemen, how are you? We're good, thank you. I, I don't do quiet talk at you for 20 minutes. I'm gonna be bored, you're gonna be bored. I have ADHD, I can't be bored, it won't be fun. I think you won't like it, I promise. So today I am going to talk to you guys about how to make more money. So kind of like Tim did, except for instead of doing it through the government, I'm going to teach you how to get brands to pay you to talk about them. So who wants to make more money? Thank you. In the back, really? You don't want to make more money? He's not even looking at me.

He's incredibly wealthy and he's got twins.

He needs to make more money. Did somebody say he's incredibly wealthy? Good for him. That's not accurate. You can come on back and teach us how to do that because that would also be cool. I work hard at this. All right, so my name is Isabella Marquez. I own Marquez Social, and what that means is I work with brands all over the country and help match them with influencers, whether that's on YouTube, on Instagram, through podcasts. So all day long I am vetting influencers who apply to work with our brands. So I have really good knowledge on what the brand is looking for as well as the expectations that we have for— and I use the term influencer broadly. By that I mean somebody who is looking to get paid. And one thing that I'm going to put this down since my wrists are not that strong. So one thing I want to clarify that I think is super interesting, especially right now, is that you don't have to have, you know, 40,000 subscribers to be making money. You don't need to have thousands and thousands of views or listeners to make money. What you need to be is incredibly consistent. So we're going to kind of break that down. But I work mostly with micro influencers. So I was making— well, I guess whatever, I'll just be transparent. I was making like thousands of dollars on Instagram just from Reels when I only had 2,000 followers. I now have almost 8,000 followers and I'm making even more money. Um, that being said, I've helped the same thing with YouTube and podcasters, so this is relevant to you no matter the size of your following. We will talk about kind of how to put yourself in the right mindset of scaling. So, you know, whether you have 2,000, you know, subscribers, what that might look like for you. If you have even just 40 and you're like, okay, maybe I'm not ready yet, but I want to understand how to monetize and get myself ready to do so. Sound good to everybody? Okay, great. If at any point you have questions or you want me to answer something specific to you, let me know. Um, I'm pretty quick on my feet and we might be able to kind of just like workshop it together. I want you to get a game plan out of this and not leave being like, well, that's great, that was information, what am I going to do with it? Um, okay, so I think the mindset that I like to have with all of this is really like, I work— so I work with brands, but I've also, before that, I coached different people, like the influencers, like I said, who want to make money. And so they would come to me, and the thing that I noticed often was a lack of mindset, not a lack of capability. So a lot of times people will say things like, yeah, but I only have this many followers, or yeah, but I talk about this really specific topic, or how could I work with, you know, this clothing brand when what I'm talking about is, you know, Jesus, or what I'm talking about is church, what I'm talking about is like rock stars. It's really, really just about believing that what you're putting out there has value, which inherently is true, right? Because people are listening to it.

They're involved.

You're building a community. You're, you're forming this group of people who are coming to you for information on whatever it is that you're talking about, which means that they're also going to come to you for your recommendations on things. So that being said, here is the checklist that I love people to have in mind before you go out and pitch yourself. And yes, you're going to pitch yourself. That's what we're going to talk about today too, because so often it's Yeah, but nobody messages me. Yeah, but like, none of the brands reach out to me. Well, congratulations, go get them. What would you do, sit around if somebody didn't want to come on your podcast and you want to build a podcast? No, you would go get guests. So go get money. It's simple, really. Okay, so first things first, if you want to start making money, you have to be consistent. So consistent is kind of a subjective word, but it's consistent for you, right? So for me, this point I post 5 videos a week. Brands know that, my followers know that, they expect content from me Monday through Friday. For me, that's consistency. For you, that could just be Wednesday, Friday, that could be just Wednesdays, once a week, once a month, whatever it is, it just needs to be predictable. Brands want predictability. So when you're looking for sponsors, if it's inconsistent and you know you're doing twice one month and then you skip a month, then you do 3 times the next month, Unless they're— unless that— go ahead, you have a hand up. I want you to finish your sentence. Okay, um, unless that is somehow planned, that doesn't really work. Brands are going to be really, really hesitant to give you money if they can't look back at 3 months worth of consistency. So when you're saying posting, um, are there particular, uh Posting where? Um, are we talking about all social channels? It depends on where, where you deliver. So the reason I'm being broad is because like I deliver on Instagram, but you could deliver on Apple Podcasts, you could deliver on YouTube, you could deliver on Facebook, TikTok. It really doesn't matter. And in fact, you really only need to deliver well on one of those— YouTube— to make money. Um, my recommendation actually is to always master one and then maybe feed the others just a little bit. Like, I do well on Instagram, sometimes I repost my stuff on TikTok, but I'm not on there engaging and strategizing in the same ways. Then once you've kind of like really built out one so it almost runs on its own, then you can really start investing in the other and go back to your same sponsors and say, hey, you know, when we started together, I was just Instagram. Now I'm Instagram, YouTube, and Apple Podcasts. And my, you know, reach has gone up by this much, I would like you to triple what you're paying me. And it could happen. Is that— that's excellent. Okay, great. Um, okay, so consistency, whatever that looks like for you with posting your content. Also consistency in engagement. Sort of when I asked earlier about the, um, Shark Tank like episodes and like why Joe chooses to do those, that's The fact that he leans into that would help him with sponsorships and getting money because he sees those are consistently getting higher engagement, consistently performing better. That also plays into consistency. Now, if you have like 1 or 2 things that flop, it's not the end of the world. It's not going to keep you from getting money, but really playing to that as well. And also a brand can look at that and be like, okay, well, he talks about Shark Tank and business a lot. His brand is super consistent. He posts very consistently. If we give him this product, it's likely going to fit whatever he does for the next 3 months. We can predict that his brand will still align with our values. So that's on the brand side. On the use side though, also it's really important to keep in mind that like, yes, thousands of dollars from any company sounds fabulous, but it has to be in line with your company as well, right? Like you don't wanna work with a brand who their values don't align with you. So for example, I had almost closed a deal with this leggings company that I was very excited about. And last minute I was like, I should just do like a little more research. I looked into the CEO, found he had posted a couple of things that like really went against the things that I do. It would've been a great deal. My closet would've looked awesome. I decided it wasn't for me. You know, you can respectfully turn it down. And then 6 months later I got a brand deal with Lululemon. Which was way better than what I had wanted prior. And that's just to say that I also did that with $3,000. So again, all of these big brands and money can come to you. You don't have to be, you know, I don't have a million followers. There are plenty of like women my age online, like, you know, 35 times the following that I have. So the way that I kind of did this for myself was I kept running like notes in my phone where I would write down like the different brands that I was using every day, whether it was like what I'm drinking, eating, shopping, to kind of see what actually resonated with me. So that way I could use that as like my reflection point and be like, okay, you know, this brand reached out, like does that really align with what I do every day? Have I ever even used it? Or, okay, these are the things I use every day. How can I get in contact with the right people? These are the brands I should be representing and sharing because they're actually authentic who I am and what I'm trying to do. Are we all still with me? Any questions so far?

Yeah.

Have you ever changed brand where there's like one that you always use and there was another good one, the one you used you couldn't break through, so you're like, let me try using this one because they're good enough?

And that's it. Yeah. Okay, I have a— hmm, I kind of— and it's hard because I want to share, but I'm also out on YouTube. And so I'm trying to like thinking about that, but the answer is sort of, right? Like there have been brands that I was like, this is the dream, and this is the— like out of, you know, pretend, I don't know, out of every water bottle company in the world, like this is the water bottle that I want to use. But if something better comes along that's willing to pay me more, give me a longer contract for sponsorship, and I still believe in the product, I'll do it. It It really has to still fit though. And I have done things, and I find too that like my things that do best, they're not always where I'm paid the most. They're where I feel the most authentic. And I believe my audience sees that. And it's also more authentic to my audience inherently, right? Because they follow me for a reason. Then they're sharing that with their friends way more. Is that helpful? Yeah.

Yeah. How do you disclose for the FCC— not FCC, FTC— because you have to disclose.

You do.

Yeah. So there's a couple different ways. It depends on what you're doing. I would say like one great thing to cover your bases no matter your platform is within your caption. You just have something that says like hashtag paid partnership with insert brand. That'll pretty much cover your butt all the time. That being said, I'm not a lawyer. Um, so like, you know, if it's— especially if it's like a much larger deal, that's something you want to be super careful about where like you're really getting heavily taxed on it. Um, but yeah, always make sure at the very least you have something. Tag doesn't count because tag doesn't—

but there's like a paid partnership.

If you're talking about Instagram specifically, yes, you can do a paid partnership label. Um, but I'm thinking like more podcasting and YouTube, like within the caption is always a really good place to put it. No, no, no, don't be sorry, it's good. It's—

yeah.

Uh, when you're compensating from these people, is it— or companies, is it based off of like if somebody buys No. Or just a general— never. Okay. And why? Because there's two ways to play the game. Well, no, but a lot of people make a lot of money off of affiliate links, so it's, it's totally valid and it's possible, but you have to ask yourself, what are you better at, right? So like, when a brand pays me, they're paying me for X amount of content for X months on my feed. I always incentivize 6 and 12 month contracts. You're going to meet a lot of people who go, yeah, just work one time with the brand. No, like, you will work with me for at least 3 months because that's what's going to make my audience react. That's what's going to look natural, and I'm not going to spend my time learning your brand if you're not going to stay with me, right? This is a partnership. So I also think brands take you more seriously that way because you're talking shop. Like, I know what I'm talking about. I think sometimes it's like, oh, look at the pretty blonde girl on the internet. Like, no, I know what I'm talking about. This is business. Like, we're— I'm serious. And I think, you know, people make the same mistake with any kind of content creator sometimes. It's like Oh, they just want money. Like, no, I'm here, I want to build a lasting partnership. And I think it also shows the brand too, like, that you're invested in them, like you're invested in really promoting and moving the product. But I do know some content creators that do really, really well with affiliate links. So for example, um, you could work with a— some brands it's higher than others, but some brands will give you like 10% on every sale. If the product is worth a grand and you sell a lot on affiliate links that could be worth it. For me, I feel like people come to me for reach, like they want to know more or less. Like, I do a lot of like, these are the local restaurants I go to. Like, I did one for Glorianne for the tea shop, and people might go to the tea shop because they've seen it, but they're not directly like buying tea on my link, so it doesn't work as well for me. But you can always play with both models. And some places will only offer you one, and you have to decide whether or not you want to invest the time, because I honestly feel like having an affiliate link is like also having to run a sales funnel, you know what I mean? Any other questions on that? Okay, cool. Um, okay, how to pitch yourself. So you're making this running list of the different places that you want to sponsor you. The most unsaturated way, I think, to make money, and the way that I like to do it the best, is I go to LinkedIn And I go to the company profile that I want to work with, and I look for whoever is in charge of either first and foremost influencer partnerships, or then brand management, and if neither of those, then marketing. And I will send a direct message to the person, something along the lines of, hi Alan, you know, my name is— or I don't actually start with my name, I always say like, I've been drinking Stewart's Coffee since I was 16 and enjoying their ice cream since I was 4. I, you know, it's the backbone of who I am and how I exist in upstate New York. It's an ice cream shop in upstate, if you're, I don't know, I guess it's not as relevant to you guys, but just pretend that you know what I'm talking about. You know, I have a strongly engaged following of, describe the people who listen to you, history buffs, like podcasters, whatever it is, the way that you can, an accurate way to describe your audience that also connects to the brand. So I would say like, I have a strong following of Upstater with a wicked sweet tooth, right? This is an ice cream shop. Um, I would love to share your ice cream as my top recommendation for ice cream in Upstate New York. Insert one idea about how you would incorporate them into your podcast, into your videos, and then say, but I would love to learn more about your marketing goals so I can deliver for you. And that's the key. A lot of people don't ask the right questions. They just come, kind of like you were saying before when you were like, oh, can you just give me this artist? No, I'm not just gonna give you this artist. No, I'm not gonna just give you this sponsorship, but we're creating something together. We're building a relationship. So I thought about it enough that I have an idea, but I'm also open to what you have to say. Yeah, so I do that on LinkedIn. That's my favorite way. Email's another good way. It can be harder to find like the direct email of the person. On LinkedIn, you know you're getting into their inbox, which is really great. And Instagram. I used to recommend that if you were looking for sponsorships on Instagram or LinkedIn, you had to engage like liking their photos, commenting on their photos, all that stuff before you message. I find that statistically there's no difference. You should just do the outreach and then follow up. Sort of, kind of everybody's mentioned this a little bit, but I like to follow up about 3 times before I kind of just give it some space because again, you don't want to be a stalker. Like, you can kind of lay off, but sometimes people will come back or, you know, maybe it's not the right season. Maybe I'm reaching out to ice cream in February, right? You got to be smart about when you're doing it. And they might come back and say, hey, we're not looking for this. Great. A no is not a no. A no is I'd like to ask why, right? I mean, In this scenario, at least, just, you know, so if somebody says like, you know, we're all set on this right now, I say, great, is there a better time of year for me to come back and ask this again? Like, can I ask why you think this isn't a great fit for a partnership? Is there something I can do to help us collaborate better? And anytime you can turn this into a phone call, that's always the move because it's so hard to read cadence. It's so hard to, you know, you can never totally, and you guys are podcasters, you know, like, You can explain yourself so much better over a call. You can create connection over a call. And you can also set up, even if it still isn't the right time, that relationship where then you can go back in 3 months or 6 months, pick up the conversation and say, great, how can we work together now? And a lot of people won't follow up if they say, hey, reach back out in 3 months. So if you do, again, I think it shows that you mean business. Um, let's see. Honestly, yeah, I mean, I think those, those are really my key tips. And I'll just go back on the LinkedIn thing one more time. I've reached out to a lot of people on LinkedIn who are like, creators never come this way. They normally just give me like a copy and paste message. So I think again, really personalizing that beginning part of why you want the sponsorship to how the brand relates to you in your life is— and even if it doesn't, get creative. How does it relate to your audience? Why is it relevant? Why is this mic the mic that should be sponsoring your podcast that you could say, you know, podcast presented by blah blah blah microphone. Why? Because your audience is podcasters and if they hear that, they're likely going to just go buy that mic. Anything that you're using to set up your podcast, you should probably be getting paid by that brand. What you're wearing, if your podcast is on YouTube, they should probably be paying you. From your glasses to your shoes to your rings to your necklace, your earrings, your shirts, your undershirts, your bra, like whatever the hell it is depending on what it is that you're talking about, You should try to get a sponsorship. Um, you're giving them free advertisement, right? So you can also say, hey, I've worn, you know, this hat in, you know, 900 out of my 970 podcasts, and it's reached over X million people. It's time we work together. So you can— you, you have like things to bring to them too, right? You're not just walking in blindly. You've already given the gift of free advertising. It's time to get paid. And on that note, That's kind of it for me. So does anybody have any other questions? Yeah, um, can you give me an example of what would be like a good content for a podcast? Because I mean, I've watched a lot of Instagram Reels, but it's usually just for like nothing related to podcasts. I don't know what would be a good example. So like, are you talking about what would be a good like brand to work on, like to sponsor your podcast? Well, uh, not necessarily that, just like what, what would the content itself just kind of look like? Um, yeah, to put together for like a reel or something for a podcast. So if you're pitching for a sponsor for your podcast, you would talk about that sponsor on your podcast unless you also happen to have a really good Instagram following. Um, so for example, if you were— let's say there was like a sweatpants— well, give me it, give me something. What do you like to use? Uh, Um, favorite drink, snack? Uh, chocolate chip cookies. Okay, great. So it's like— okay, pretend it's like Nestlé chocolate chip cookies. So you're starting your podcast, you kind of get into the podcast, and then you're like, guys, this— I literally, like, I am having such a happy tummy moment. Like, I'm so full of Nestlé cookies right now. I just made them for my family, had to do a little bit of family time before I got into the podcast room. Just let you guys know where I'm at today. Hope He's having a good day. You just set it up. You roll it right into the narrative. And it's a way to present the brand, present that you use it, but make it sound more natural. And brands are gonna like— every brand I work with, when they say these were the best, you know, influencers we worked with this month, hit your head, it's always the ones who roll the content in naturally and not the person who goes, you have to buy Nestlé because Nestlé is really delicious and it's in my fridge and I work with them, so 'You should buy it.' You know, it's not wrong, but it's not nearly as good. Yeah. Yeah.

Is there any reason why you would encourage someone just starting out who doesn't have a following to not go affiliate route before being paid up front?

Yeah, I mean, I, I understand, and I see both sides of the conversation as far as affiliate versus getting paid up front. The argument for the influencer would be anytime you're talking about a brand, you're advertising that brand, period. ROI, return on investment for marketing, is incredibly hard to prove no matter who's doing it. And the problem with affiliate links is I could post me and my Lululemons and you might go buy it because you saw me post it, but you really might not use my affiliate link. Typically it takes 7 tries like 7 viewings of something for you to go out and do it or buy it. So I normally, as the influencer, I'm going to get the short end of the stick unless I'm saying here's 90% off Lululemon, use my code, you know, something so big that you're going to remember it and use it.

Right, but you, you already have this established audience.

If someone's just starting— I didn't when I was doing this. I started getting paid with, I want to say I think 2,000 followers, which is pretty— it's not, not big at all on Instagram. Um, and it's the same thing with like different podcasters or TikTokers that I've worked with. Um, I mean, but you also know your audience. Like, if your audience is super prone to clicking on the links in your description, if they're super— like, if you have mega super fans who are gonna go do that for you, then the affiliate link could be a great way to make money. But also, some of it's just basic math. How much do I need to make in order to make money off the affiliate link versus like what would they pay me if it was just an advertisement? You can always do both too sometimes.

So do you ever think about, um, conflict of endorsements as far as where you're putting your time and your effort and focus and things like that? And is there any concern about product endorse overlap or conflict?

Yeah, absolutely. So two separate questions. First question, um, you need to be careful that you're not oversaturating your feed or your podcast or your YouTube channel with paid stuff, right? Because eventually people are going to be like, is anything on here genuine? So the way I like to think about it is everything I talk about should be my curated list of my favorite things that my audience would love. And some of them just happen to be paid. But as long as everything still fits the brand very clearly and aligns well, I think the issue comes when it's like, let's say, like, I don't know, you, like, if you have your podcast about, um, you were saying, like, talking about pop culture, like, retroactively, and then all of a sudden you're like, you need this dental floss, like, people might kind of be like, you literally never talk about self-care. Like pretend, you know, why are you talking about like your ablutions that you do before you go to bed? Like your nighttime activities, why are you doing this? So I think that's sometimes where the issues run in. I tell people for social media, like in an ideal world, you would post like 1 out of every 10 things would be paid. That's a high ask, but it's, I believe in setting a high bar. And if you miss it, you're still doing well. For podcasting, I think the way I view it a little bit is, again, it depends on the person because some people can just kind of sell and it rolls in. Like, I do think there's a lot of things you can talk about in pop culture that you could sell more easily because you could be like, oh my God, I remember these jeans when they were popular because, you know, you can buy them at ASOS now. You know, you could possibly roll that in better. So it also depends on the length of the podcast. I've listened to podcasts before that are, you know, 20 minutes long and there's a 5-minute ad. Like, why is there a 5-minute ad in a 20-minute podcast? It doesn't make any sense. I do know too, for most podcasters, that a lot of the way brands pay you is for 1,000, yeah. So I think that's the way that most podcasters get paid. I also think that some podcasters are, a lot of them are switching to video and cutting them into short videos. To go make them better, possible better revenue off Instagram and TikTok, especially if you have that good following and you're already producing video, which I know is a pain in the butt. Like, it's, it's a lot to do a lot of platforms, but there is money in it if you are willing to go be a shark and get the money. If you're gonna sit around and hope that deals come, then you probably won't. Other questions? Oh, did we— did I do both sides of that?

No.

Yeah.

Okay, cool. Oh, okay, perfect. Thanks, guys.

Thank you. Your story, uh, oh, uh, about like brands and dealing, it reminded me of, uh, a YouTuber. Uh, well, first off, give it up for, for Isabelle. Oh, and before I forget, uh, I did get the base secured is for $8.45 up there. Um, but it reminded me of this, uh, this guy Rafferty. Uh, he has like a— oh my God, a family blog where they have like a family blog for like a long time. Um, but now he produces other content and consulting and stuff like that. But, um, he did a brand deal, uh, with Mattel, and Mattel kept asking for like cutbacks and cutbacks and cutbacks and cutbacks in it, and then Uh, the ultimate end up— ended up being, uh, this.

Barbie.

So that's awesome.

We are partnering with Barbie on this video because the girls love Barbie.

Yep.

So I'm totally supportive of it. By the time we got done with the video and went back and forth and back and forth with Mattel, it was no longer authentic to us.

It ended up just feeling— yes. So Mattel stole the— all the love. know that they, that they had because of the original stuff that they were like, oh, we can do all this creative stuff. And they're like, yep. No, no, no, no, no, no, no. And that's ultimately what got into the video was my kids love Barbie. Great.

Awesome.

That's. I'm sure they sold tons of Barbies, you know, because of that.

That happens all the time too. Like it's time joy, money, like you're talking about earlier, like finding brands that will actually let you like authentically produce.

Yeah, Yeah, it is, it is tough. So, and then you have, um, the brands that end up like being a scam or being entangled in, uh, well, FTX being FTX or being, uh, Anchor, uh, is a company as well that, you know, any of these brands that you tie yourself to, you know, what's, you know, what scheme or what kind of issue are they going to have that's now you're being roped into unknowingly, um, not not great. So those are the, you know, those are things you really got to consider, uh, when doing that. But I think if you, um, you know, if you've been using a brand for a long time, like an ice cream shop, and you're like reaching out and you have like a local audience that would actually know who that is, it could, you know, be a great partnership. But anyway, uh, let's, uh, we got our next speaker up. Let me try to get back on track here. Um, all right, so, uh, I at this time I would like to invite Super Bob Thibodeau to the stage. Good enough for Bob.