How To Be A Sponsor Magnet With Justin Moore

Chris Stone [00:00:01]:
If you're not yet familiar with Justin Moore, he's a dynamic sponsorship coach and the visionary founder of Creator Wizard, where he empowers creators to turn their passion into profits through strategic brand partnerships. With his latest book sponsor magnet, Justin distills years of experience and insights into actionable strategies for securing deals that actually make creators money. So So, ladies and gentlemen, please welcome the one and the only Justin Moore. Justin, man, thank you for joining us.

Justin Moore [00:00:33]:
Let's go. Let's go. Let's get some let's get a hype in the house here. You know what, Jim? First of all, I wanna I wanna share an anecdote. Okay? Because, I was doing a sponsored livestream not too long ago, and I had the exact same thing happen that happened to you. The Internet went out. My microphone wasn't working. I literally and I had a guest.

Justin Moore [00:00:54]:
This is this is what made it terrible. I just had a guest on the live stream who was sponsored. And so my my screen was, like, frozen like this. And then my guest bless my guest's heart. He just kept rolling with it. He just he, like, took the episode over. You know what I did? I got in my car and I drove to Starbucks, and I was like, let me leech off their Wi Fi. Let me try and get back on this live stream.

Justin Moore [00:01:14]:
I get back on the live stream. I I prop my phone up, like, on the windshield to, like, try to get it, you know, so I can, like, do the live stream. It works for about 10 minutes, and then the phone overheats because it was sitting in the snow.

Chris Stone [00:01:26]:
Oh god. No.

Justin Moore [00:01:28]:
And it and it shuts off. So literally, you've been I've been there, man, so don't worry about it.

Chris Stone [00:01:34]:
Yep. Yeah.

Chris Stone [00:01:35]:
It's all good. And that that's a great story. And, you know, it it's like the the great thing about this book, and we're gonna get into it, and I'm gonna I'm gonna I wanna set the table with it. But, like, just this story that you just shared with us right now, a lot of creators have had similar experiences where they just that happens and they immediately freak out. And one of the great things I like about this book, Justin, is you go ahead and you start talking about some failures that you've had because you have this huge track record, this huge amount of experience, and you basically distill it. Like I talked about in the intro, you distill it into a book, like, hey, you wanna know why you should be doing this, this, and this? Because let me tell you a story about something we did 5 years ago that took me 5 years to come up with this process. And to me, that that says value. Right? It doesn't matter where you're at in your creator journey.

Chris Stone [00:02:30]:
Like, you just took all of your your lifelong experiences, except when you were in a hardcore band. You took all your lifelong experiences and and distilled that into a book that someone can just, in in one sitting, sit down and read that book and learn that information. Why did you decide to do that? And and and to just say, look look here, everybody. Here you go.

Justin Moore [00:02:53]:
Okay. This is gonna sound super cheesy, but I I think, you know, all of us here, you know, we're a little older. Right? We're not like we're not young chicks chickens over here. You know, I am approaching 40. And, you know, if I look back on the last 15 years of, of my career with my wife, April, you know, our first YouTube channel is in 2009, so we've been doing this a really long time. We've been full time creators, my wife for 12 years, myself for 10 years. And so we've been blessed to have so much success, a lot of failure too, but a lot of success, and we've learned, so many things the hard way, dude. Like, I can't even begin to tell you, you know, of of the hundreds of sponsorships that we've done over the years, we've literally made every mistake in the book from allowing the brand to use our content for TV ads without any compensation, you know, to agreeing to do stuff for free product, lots of work for free product, to agreeing to things contractually that we shouldn't have, to letting the brand railroad us when, you know, they just decided that, you know, hey, we don't like what you do.

Justin Moore [00:03:57]:
You need to reshoot it. And us, like, not knowing what to do and not knowing how to push back and, but then we've also had a ton of amazing experiences, right? And so this book was colored by a lot of our personal experience having done so many deals, but also the fact that, you know, I ran an influencer marketing agency for about 7 years, and I was kind of on the other side of it where it's now no longer just a brand working with my wife and I, but I'm in the boardroom with these this big brand or this agency, and they said, hey. We wanna spend $1,000,000 across 200 creators. Tell us what our strategy should be. Right? And so it was like a very, very different conversation. And so I really tried, you know, over the last several years as I've as I've been educating creators around the process of sponsorship, strategy, I really tried to distill basically everything I know about brand partnerships into this book, because, you know, two reasons. 1, as cheesy as this sounds, legacy. I I kinda feel like I've published 100 of YouTube videos, you know, tons of newsletters, article, you know, social media posts, but like still somehow a book being like here, here's everything that I know in this tidy little format.

Justin Moore [00:05:14]:
Somehow that still feels like the best way to, to kind of bestow and pass on what I know. And so that's really what I felt drawn to do it for. And then, also, I just feel like there is so many more creators, you know, and this is probably something that I'd be interested in your guys' perspective on is like a lot of creators still don't think sponsorships are for them. Yeah. They think, you know, I don't I don't know if I wanna do that. I'm not big enough, or I don't want a sponsor to, like, ruin my creative integrity. Like, I just I just don't wanna do that. And I and I have struggled over the years connecting with people like that who are skeptical about its value, and so I really felt like the book would would help, you know, me reach more people with this message.

Jim Fuhs [00:06:04]:
Well, I know Chris and I have had a lot of conversations, and and Chris I mean, first of all, you can't read this book just once because you gotta go back. You gotta be dog earring it, underlining, highlighting, tweeting x, whatever, blue sky and stuff out. But how did what did this book make you think, Chris, after you read it? Because I know how you felt about sponsorship stuff in the past.

Chris Stone [00:06:27]:
Yeah. I think, Jim, that to your point, it is it is as much a, reference guide, going forward. Right? So you're not gonna be able you can read it cover to cover as you should, and it's it's easy to do that. I don't mean it's an easy read. I think it's it's so like as you go through it, oh, I should be doing this. I should be yes. Yes. Yes.

Chris Stone [00:06:51]:
And then you get to the end and it feels like it's a lot. Right? But I think, you know, for me, I need reference points like the contractual stuff you start talking about. Like, make sure you're you're doing and we're not gonna we're not gonna, you know, be be lawyers here or talk lawyer speak here, but there is some really important things that you need to do and have in your contract that you put in there. Like and and here's why, and here's a mistake we made because we didn't put this in a contract and here's why you should be doing it. The other thing I learned too was it's worth paying a lawyer to put together this contract for you at least once, but leave the stuff open so that you can use, like, it's the only thing that's gonna change is deliverables, you know, pricing, and and and some other certain things. But there's there's a lot of this stuff that's never gonna change, and paying a lawyer and investing in that is super important for for, for creators to have, you know, on the front end so they can protect themselves.

Chris Stone [00:07:48]:
And and I wanna ask you this, Justin, because I know for me, this was kinda like mind mind blowing in a way, because I know Chris, how many times we've heard this as we've been part of the Amazon influencer program over the years is burn your media kit. Like, oh,

Chris Stone [00:08:05]:
okay.

Chris Stone [00:08:05]:
And I I definitely have always I I agree with you on the pricing thing that you talked about. Like, don't set prices. I I

Jim Fuhs [00:08:11]:
I thought

Chris Stone [00:08:11]:
that's brilliant because that's the other thing in these circles. Right? We hear so many times, like, oh, well, you know, well, Justin is charging a $100, so you gotta charge at least a 100. Well, I'm not Justin and Justin isn't us, but so, I mean, what, I just, the, the, the stuff you're, you're laying out there, Justin, in this book is, is just amazing to me.

Jim Fuhs [00:08:32]:
I appreciate it, dude. And and on the on the note about why it's important to to kinda burn the media kit, maybe, you know what, just for some just for for, for sake of it, let's just douse it in lighter fluid. Let's put it in the bonfire outside and let's let's just light it ablaze and manically dance around it. Okay. I want this to be a, a therapeutic thing for you. I want this to harden carve it.

Chris Stone [00:08:55]:
Yes.

Jim Fuhs [00:08:55]:
This is yes. It has to be like a, like a moment. Like I am never doing this again. I'm never saying to a brand, hey. Here's how you know, the brand says, hey. How much do you charge for 1 integrated Amazon live streamer? How much do you charge for a podcast ad read? And you'd be like, here. Here's my media kit, $200 or or go to this place on my website and just book it. You can just do the Stripe link or my link in bio or whatever.

Jim Fuhs [00:09:16]:
And the the example I always give is that, like, you know, imagine, a brand, you know, starts kicking the tires on on Dealcasters Live. Right? And they, you know, it's a it's a it's a brand that, you know, they feel, wow. This this show is the perfect fit for for us, and we would absolutely love to be their title sponsor for the entire year. And you know what our budget is? It's 50 k. And we see we, you know, we ask for their media kit and the very top package that Jim Jim and Chris are saying is 2 k. I don't know your I don't know your numbers are. I'm just saying 5 k. What whatever the number is.

Jim Fuhs [00:09:50]:
Right? And they say, oh, and to top it all off, the stuff that you're offering to do for them is not interesting to them. They're like, wow, we don't really we don't really want any of those things. In fact, do you know what they wanted? They wanted to fly Chris and Jim out to do some live hosting for an event that they're doing. But you know what? It doesn't really seem like they're interested in that, so I guess we shouldn't ask them about that. Right? And so if however, had you been, you know, on a on a phone call with them, you actually asked like, hey, let's jump on a call. We'd love to learn more about your objectives, gather a bunch of data and then you put together a proposal, a custom bespoke proposal that speaks exactly to the pain points that they just told you about on the phone call. And you ask them about their budget range, this is very different than asking them for their budget, by the way, and we can get into that. This is just a game changer, man.

Jim Fuhs [00:10:47]:
It, it, that this, this idea of charging different brands, different amounts feels scary to people. Yeah. Because somehow it feels like I'm not allowed to do that. Like, of of course, you're allowed to do that. You are providing different brands, different levels of value, and you should be charging accordingly.

Chris Stone [00:11:03]:
I love it. Does this play into what you what you call the your arc framework?

Jim Fuhs [00:11:08]:
Exactly. Yeah. So the arc framework is, basically talking about the 3 different campaign goal types that a brand will have when they wanna collaborate with you. So a is awareness where the primary reason so this is again, take a step back. This is when you say, hey, brand, what does success look like for you? What what what would a win look like if we were to collaborate? And they're gonna say one of these three things or multiple of these things. The a in the ARC framework is awareness. So they're saying, hey, you know, we were previously only available in the UK, our products, now we're available in the US, or we've got this big seasonal promotion that we wanna spread the word about. That's that's an awareness focused campaign.

Jim Fuhs [00:11:48]:
The r is repurposing. So the primary reason they say, hey, Chris and Jim, we love your live show. We really would love to get some content for our own Amazon storefront or our own podcast or our own YouTube channel. Can you make some content for us? It doesn't even need to go live on your channels, right? So that's a repurposing. So they're trying to take the content that you generate and use it in other ways, right? Maybe even for paid advertising. And then the C in the arc framework is conversion. And this is where a lot of Amazon influencers in particular get fixated. And I understand because a lot of Amazon brands are obsessed with conversions.

Jim Fuhs [00:12:22]:
They said, how many sales can you generate? How much ship revenue did you generate? You know, for in this product category, like, all they care about is the numbers. And so people think, so I guess this is what all brands care about. And I've been doing this a really long time. I've worked across 100 that literally thousands of brands at this point between my wife and I and the agency that I ran. And I can tell you that it's just not the case, like brands And actually to to even clarify here, a lot of brands think what they care about is conversion until you have a conversation with them. And you say, actually, ask me why can you tell me a little bit more about why that's the case? Or can you me a little bit more about why you think we should do it this way? And then they'll kinda stammer and realize, well, I guess that's I just thought that's the kind of the way you do it. And then now it's your turn as the expert, as someone who really understands these platforms to educate them and say, actually, well, I'm glad you said that because here has been my experience. I actually think we should do this instead, not that.

Jim Fuhs [00:13:20]:
Right? And no one, maybe no one ever said that to them. Yeah. Right? And so so this this arc framework is really important because depending on their goal, your pricing has to change.

Chris Stone [00:13:29]:
You think it's because creators are just so afraid to create what they think might be friction in in that kind of conversation? Like, I don't want this one to get away. Right? I I I I really want to work with this brand. I finally I've been I've been doing the right things, like, you know, like Justin's telling me to do, and I'm doing the research and I finally have them on the line. I'm just afraid that that this fish is gonna get away. So you just sort of comply with certain things because you want to make it to the end of the line. Like, what when you work with people to do this, how do you get them past that that that mindset and and work through what you're talking about?

Jim Fuhs [00:14:05]:
You know, the undertone to that fear, Chris, is there's a lot they think that there's a line of a 100 other influencers behind them who's willing to take the deal if they don't say yes. If they push back at all, they're fearful that the brand is just gonna be like, well, okay. Sorry. Take it or leave it because I've got a a 100 other creators that are willing to do this for free or next to nothing. And that's a real insidious mindset. It's very counterproductive to your own confidence to be able to educate a brand around this process. My advice in in for for a creator who who feels that way and and look, I empathize. I I was the you, honestly.

Jim Fuhs [00:14:39]:
I was you, like, you know, a decade ago, so I can totally empathize with that. However, this is why I think it's so critical that you are supplementing your inbound deal flow, meaning brands coming to you with you actually reaching out to brands yourself, outbound pitching. Because what you're describing almost always happens when it's a brand coming to you. They say, here's the campaign, here's the talking points, here's how much we're gonna pay you, take it or leave it. And this is where creators feel very, reluctant to pass up the deal or say no or whatever because all this, I'm so lucky this brand reached out to me, right? Like I can't say no, I can't push back in any way versus when you're the one in the driver's seat, you're the one reaching out, you're the one pitching this idea to a brand. Maybe, maybe they've never done live commerce before. Maybe they've never done this thing that you have expertise around. A lot of creators think, oh, every brand does live commerce.

Jim Fuhs [00:15:38]:
Every brand does influencer marketing. That could not be further from the case. There are so many brands who have literally never worked with a single creator. And so it may just take you reaching out and saying, hey, I think you could be telling your brand story in a really compelling way. If we were to partner, here's a couple ideas I have. Now it's a blank slate. Right? And and, you know, you you I think you feel a lot more emboldened and a lot more empowered to advocate for yourself and understand your worth when you're you're in the driver's seat.

Chris Stone [00:16:08]:
I love that. I think that yeah. This this book is not just tactical things. It is that. There's plenty of, you know, you know, if if you preorder it, there's there's, you get scripts. That's already helped me, in in approaching a brand that's, you know, their their first, yes. Their first thing was, hey. We're gonna give you prod you know, free product in return for, you know, the following deliverables.

Chris Stone [00:16:33]:
And, you know, it's always been, you know, alright. Here's my here's my boilerplate return. Here are our terms, you know, type of deal. And what usually happens is ghost. Right? Like, oh, these guys have their act together. Like, we might not want to work with this person. But I love the fact that understanding your your value, but it, like, works into creating these compelling pitches. A lot of it's based in research.

Chris Stone [00:16:59]:
Right? So, like, if you you know, Jim and I sat down when we started doing the show, Justin, and we were like, I man, I really wanna work with this company. I I wanna work with this company because what we're doing is remote production and podcasting, and so obviously the you know, we're we're working with, you know, certain gear, but but what we started doing was instead of going to these brands and saying we have this show, we'd like to be able to do it, we started using their products. And we start we we we we'd be like, we understood it. We started demonstrating. We started, like, becoming experts on their products. And when we did get in a conversation and we were in this wheel that we're gonna talk about, it it one of the things that they said to us, Justin, was, listen. This is this is going this is a great relationship for us because you guys already use our stuff. And when and when I heard that, I was like, you can't sit back and go, I wanna do this because I want free stuff, or you wanna do this just because you want money.

Chris Stone [00:17:59]:
Like, you you have to understand, like, you're working with someone, like, you're sitting in a conference room with them at a table. Like, research them on what brand campaigns they were running over spring. What what were they doing over the summer? What what makes them tick? What you know, follow them on socials, start chiming in with them so that you when you're in a conversation, they're not just brand x, brand y. They're you're actually coming in saying, I can fulfill this problem that you have that I'm identifying and researching. How does someone even start being able to develop that kind of those those kinds of techniques?

Jim Fuhs [00:18:37]:
Well, first of all, I'm so thrilled to hear that they're you're already, like, absorbing so much from the from the book, especially the the section on pitching, because really at the end of the day, I I very much consider myself an amateur sleuth. I don't know why, man. I just love clicking around on the Internet and Don't make it creepy. I'm not gonna make it creepy, but I'm just saying I'm kidding. Here's what I'm saying is that, brands leave a lot of breadcrumbs. They leave a lot of breadcrumbs on the Internet. They are telling you it's not that difficult to ascertain what they care about. You can look at their press releases.

Jim Fuhs [00:19:16]:
You can look at what their VP of marketing is posting on LinkedIn. You can look at their blog. You can look at, you know, campaigns they they were running last year by scrolling back on their social media and seeing what they were posting last April. Oh, they're they they're talking about the Mediterranean diet month. Oh, they're probably gonna run that similar campaign again this year. It seems like pretty important to them. I should probably reach out and say, hey, are you running that campaign again this year? Love to support you. Right? Pretty simple stuff.

Jim Fuhs [00:19:40]:
But again, it's showing that you're re you're not just a random creator reaching out and being like, pay me with your hands out, which is what most people do. I have all these, you know, followers, all these views and demographic. Yeah. Moe Moe, may I please, sir? May I have some more? Right? Like this is again, I've been on the receiving end of those pitches for years years years. I know I know what that feels like. Versus you get a email where the subject line is, you know, hashtag, you know, summer product, you know, acbee summer, whatever the brand is, like the a a campaign hashtag that they used last year, that's in the subject line, you know, campaign hashtag in 2025 question mark. It's very probably gonna open that email. Mhmm.

Jim Fuhs [00:20:26]:
That's a relevant campaign they ran last year. What is this? Who is this email from? Who's this person? First line of the of that email is not, hi, I'm Justin. Here's a link to my Amazon storefront. Here's the link to my YouTube, my podcast. I've got this many followers. They don't care about you. They don't know about you. You know what they care about themselves? They say, hey, here's what I think you care about.

Jim Fuhs [00:20:46]:
It seems like you were doing this. Are you gonna be doing that again this year? This is an inference. Right? Mhmm. This is an infer I don't know if this is what you care about, but I think you do. I've researched it. Just by the very nature of doing that research differentiates you from other creators that are reaching out to them. And so this is what I call my rope pitching method, r o p e. So r is that relevancy that you're mentioning, Chris.

Jim Fuhs [00:21:09]:
Right? It's relevant to them. O stands for organic, meaning that in your pitch, you're ta you're linking a piece of content that is relevant to the brand that shows that you have or an organic affinity, that your audience has an affinity for their brand, their product. This is really critical because a lot of creators that look, the brand doesn't care about you. At the end of the day, they care about being able to access your audience which is a big pool of prospective customers for them. Right? And so your job is to illustrate that your audience is filled with all these people who are chomping at the bit to buy their product. Right? And so it's not enough to just be like, I love your brand. I've used it for 3 years. That helps, but kind of that's table stakes.

Jim Fuhs [00:21:49]:
That's that's what what everyone's saying. Right? And so the o that's the o, and then the p is proof. So you could say, hey, here's how I've helped, you know, Shure achieve results, or here's how I've helped, you know, Ecamm Live achieve results or whatever. And then the e is easy to execute, and this is where you're actually telling them exactly what you're proposing to do for them. I'm gonna do 2 integrated Amazon live streams. I'm gonna do it in a you know, put some podcast ad reads. I'm gonna do 4 newsletter blasts. I can turn around the first post within 10 days, you know, are you free on Thursday at 10 AM to talk about this? You're actually pitching them something.

Jim Fuhs [00:22:20]:
So I know that this might feel a bit overwhelming if you have never done deals before, but I'm telling you, if you just keep your pitches in this very, very simple format where it's all about the brand and it's very, very little about you, good things will happen.

Chris Stone [00:22:35]:
I love that. I think that's so important because I think, you know, it's that whole thing of, you know yeah. When we were talking, Justin, you wanna talk about yourself. You don't really care about me. It's kind of that same as that, that Dale Carnegie principle. Talk about the company, talk about what they are looking for, not about, oh, this is what's in it for me. And I think that that is such an important factor. And I love how you laid this out.

Jim Fuhs [00:23:00]:
I also think going back to the arc principle, you know, I think and I think Chris and I have stayed away from brands who, like, wanna, like well, we wanna know how much you sold because part of it is really, we can't control that with what we do. We can build awareness, but it's like a lot of sales. Right? When you talk about the difference between marketing and sales, I can bring them to you, but you gotta close the deal. They're not giving us the power to close the deal. And so I think the way you kind of flipped it of, like, hey, don't worry so much about sales, but worry about how can I build awareness for these brands and their products is just is powerful?

Jim Fuhs [00:23:35]:
You know, on that note, I'm really glad you brought this up, Jim, because I have a section in the book where I talk about, actually, it's your job as a creator to tell the brand that their checkout process sucks. It's your job. You're like you, you may never have thought that that was your job. You know, the brand says, Hey, here's the link to drive everyone towards. Let's say it's on their website or some other e commerce provider or whatever. And you, you visit that landing page and it's confusing, the copywriting is not very good on the page, the, the copy on the button or the call to action is not good. It's your job to tell them that constructively, obviously.

Chris Stone [00:24:14]:
Right.

Jim Fuhs [00:24:14]:
But it's your job to say, hey, I actually think that we should do I could actually share a quick story about this. So I was doing a deal with a financial services company, and we I was gonna be doing some newsletter, integrations for them, and the landing page that they sent me, it was confusing. I was like, this is it's not clear what the product does. I don't think my audience is really gonna understand the value of this product and I think it's an amazing product because I use it. Hey, Brand, I would love to volunteer. I'm not contractually obligated to do this, but I would love to volunteer to create a video that would go on this landing page, where I do a screen share and I show how I use the product. And what we're gonna on the top of the thing, it's a banner that says why Justin Moore loves the brand. Right? And the three reasons, and I have the video here, and then the copy on the call to action button will be really clear.

Jim Fuhs [00:24:58]:
And the brand was floored. They they were shocked that I was willing to do that, to go the extra mile.

Chris Stone [00:25:07]:
So smart.

Jim Fuhs [00:25:08]:
Why why wouldn't I? That's going to lead to more conversions. And then the brand's gonna wanna hire me again. Right? So it's like these things that a lot of creators think is not their job. Hey, I'm not a copywriter. I'm not a user experience expert. Like, who am I to give them feedback on, like, how to make it better? Guess what? Learn it. You gotta learn this stuff. It's actually your job.

Jim Fuhs [00:25:28]:
Yeah.

Chris Stone [00:25:29]:
I you know, that is that is such killer advice with working really with any company, whether it's a a brand or whatever. It's like you could very easily say, hey, your baby's ugly. You know, your website this is this is, you know, whatever. You guys fix this, you know, or not say anything. Right? Which is worse. But instead, you were like, I don't wanna put them back into work. I need to be I need to be a little more, you know, comfortable pair of shoes if I'm gonna be able to do more than this one and done approach. And you talk about this in the book is, you know, creating these longer lasting relationships with these brands.

Chris Stone [00:26:06]:
And I think a lot of creators, especially when they first start, they think, alright, well, I just knocked this one out. Now, I'm here. Where's the next product? Where's the next brand? Who's the next thing? And then, you know, they're not they don't understand that it's not just about this one. Right? It's about it's about the future. So if you would just kind of talk about that and and maybe, maybe some examples of how you were able to build that trust.

Jim Fuhs [00:26:31]:
Do the the the analogy I give it's it'd be like quitting your 9 to 5 job every month. You get a new job. Right. You just did the whole interview process. You proved yourself internally. It's your 1st month on the job, and then you do great work for them. Right. Everything's going great.

Jim Fuhs [00:26:47]:
And then you hand in your notice. You're like, all right, see you. And you never talk to them again. This is literally what you're doing as a creator when you just, you know, you don't talk to the brand again. And there's actually, I mean, this is a joke, but like, I I understand the reason. I I know the reason why most people don't do it, why most people don't reach back out to the brand again, because they're scared that it didn't go well. They're scared that if they say to the brand, hey, how'd it go? How many sales did I generate? Or how many clicks or leads did I drive or whatever? They're scared that the brand is gonna say, actually, 0. We hate you.

Jim Fuhs [00:27:21]:
We want our money back. You're you suck. Like, why like, you know, like, there's terrified that this is what the brand's gonna say. And and almost no 0 scenarios is a brand gonna say that to you. And even if they do, that's data. That is data. Okay? So now I need to think, why is that? Why why did I not drive any sales? You know what? I should probably do my own analysis, my own introspection. How can I improve? Is there a way in which I could have talked about the product better? Is there a way in which I could have improved, the tracking mechanism? You know, is there a way that I should be doing amplification to drive, you know, additional eyeballs on this that I should be selling through to additional sponsors and or to, you know, to to new sponsors in the in the future? Rather than getting salty or embarrassed, you gotta treat that as a learning opportunity.

Jim Fuhs [00:28:10]:
So the, the, by the very nature, I mean, Nelson Mandela has this great quote where he's like, I never lose. I either win or learn. And I and I think that that mindset is critical going into asking these questions like, hey, sponsor, how'd it go? I wanna know. I'm invested in this. I want to know. And, I could share a quick anecdote here. I was talking with Nathan Barry, who's the CEO of Kit, which is a, you know, $40,000,000 a year email marketing software, you know, that, like, you know, it's a big, big company. Right? And I I I talked to him about this very subject.

Jim Fuhs [00:28:41]:
I said, this is why I think a lot of creators don't work with brands in a recurrent nature very often. And he said, you know, this is a really good point, Justin, because if we hired a creator to talk about kit, which is, you know, formally ConvertKit, and they didn't drive the number of, you know, signups in new new kit accounts that we were hoping that they would relative to how much we paid them. If they came back to us with what I call a post campaign report, this is something I talk about in the book, and they said, hey, we got a bunch of feedback from our audience. These were like people who are DM ing us on social or replying to the email when the newsletter went out. And they said, hey. Yeah. I've heard of ConvertKit or I've heard of Kit, but I'm on Mailchimp. I've been on it for 10 years.

Jim Fuhs [00:29:27]:
I've got a zillion tags in there and sequences and automations. It just seems like it would be such a pain in the butt to to, you know, migrate. I I I don't wanna do that, so I'm not gonna do it. If if if you were to feed you know, give that feedback to to to the brand, Nathan said, man, if we knew that, then that would allow us to say to the creator, hey, we actually have a concierge migration team, it's free. Let's talk about that in the next integration. Where we can reeducate the market around a service that we have that they may not have known about. And so, something I talk about a lot is like, how do you proactively overcome objections, proactively brainstorm? When I go live with this sponsorship, what is my audience gonna say? Are they gonna say it's too expensive or, oh, I tried it a year ago and it sucked or or, you know, you're you're a consumer. When you're looking on Amazon about ready to click something, you're thinking in your head, is this is this a good deal? Can I find this for cheaper somewhere else? Is it gonna work for me? Let me read the reviews.

Jim Fuhs [00:30:19]:
Right? This is what people are doing when they hear about your sponsorship. So your job as a creator is to proactively overcome those.

Chris Stone [00:30:26]:
Yeah. I think a lot

Chris Stone [00:30:27]:
of people when they're looking at this, they think of it more of, you know, straight up marketing, straight up, you know, cost center sort of impressions and and all of that. But this is very much about sales. This is very much about, you know, not just selling yourself, but, you know, I I lived in sales for a number of years. And, it's not just about writing a purchase order or, you know, and here I am dating myself. Boomer alert. You know, it's it's not just about, you know, that you like, the relationships are the is the grease in the wheel. And in doing that, what you're talking about is like, hey, I've identified something in here, and I want to help you, and here's how I'm gonna be able to do it. And then read it back and go, you know, hey, here's here's here's what happened on my end.

Chris Stone [00:31:18]:
What are you guys seeing? Like, you're a you're a member of the team. And when they see that and they see these other, influencers that are just taking a check and not doing it, then your value goes from here to here, and it's it's it's incredible stuff.

Jim Fuhs [00:31:35]:
Dude, so so let's pull this thread just a bit more. Please. One of the other reasons why I wrote the book candidly is that, you know, if you open up TikTok or you open up Twitter or x, the vast majority of the conversation around sponsorships is brands suck. They're trying to take advantage of the creator. They're trying to low ball them. They're trying to screw them. You have to defend, you know, protect yourself whenever you go into the octagon, you know, in negotiating with these brands. It's like it's like Yelp.

Jim Fuhs [00:32:04]:
Right? Like, people only go on there to talk crap. Like, you know, if they're mad, they don't go on there to profess their love. Oh, I had this great sponsorship. It was amazing. The brand was awesome. I love to see that. And so if you're just a casual creator, you think you're probably you probably think sponsorships are terrifying. Like, I don't wanna do that.

Jim Fuhs [00:32:20]:
Like, it sounds awful. Right? And so a big part of why I wrote the book is to introduce this alternative perspective. Like, sponsorships are awesome. I can count on one hand the number of deals that truly were terrible and truly went south out of 1,000 plus that I've done. Right? And I think this is, you know, if you can transform, you know, you mentioned, you know, this, You know, the, the, the visual I love to give is like, you're not like on either side of the table. It being like you're on the one side of the brand on the other side, and it's like this confrontational negotiation. You're on the same side of the table. Right.

Jim Fuhs [00:32:54]:
You're both looking at the whiteboard and you're being like, okay, here's, here's where we're trying to get. Here's where we are. Here's where we're trying to get to. You're pointing, you got, you're both pointing together. You're like, how can we both get to that outcome? This is, this is the visual that you need to really hammer home when you're collaborating with brands. I think.

Chris Stone [00:33:12]:
Yeah. You're you're really you just hit on it. You're problem solving. Right? You're part of the team trying to solve the problem. How do we get more of this product into the hands of the consumer as opposed to what's in it for me? What's in it for you? And I think, you know, you talk about the sponsorships really is a win win win, and that is so important. Right? It there there's not there's no reason for anyone to be a loser because if it's a bad product, you're both gonna lose. If it's if it's a good product, right, the company's gonna do well. You're gonna do well.

Chris Stone [00:33:42]:
The cons everyone's gonna be happy. And I think that is another you know, that's a great point you bring about thinking about where you're sitting. Right? It's not it's not, you know, we're at the negotiation table. Who's gonna blink first? Yeah. I think that's amazing.

Chris Stone [00:33:57]:
I I wanted to touch something because I we we jumped in, you know, we we jumped in, like, the the 5 foot, middle of the pool and swam into the deep end. I wanna pull us I'm gonna pull us over to the shell.

Chris Stone [00:34:09]:
You're gonna pull us out.

Chris Stone [00:34:10]:
Yeah. We're gonna they call this a pattern interrupt.

Jim Fuhs [00:34:13]:
Throw throw us a lifesaver, Chris.

Chris Stone [00:34:15]:
Right. Okay. Let me pick the needle up on the record. Again, boomer alert. Alright. So, right now our chat's not, exactly working on LinkedIn, but I have this, comment from somebody named Jamar John Johnson. Thank you for watching. Jamar, he's got all things, all kinds of great things to say, but he did say this, Just signed another sponsor deal contract today.

Chris Stone [00:34:38]:
I need that book. So those those that are listening and, and watching, sponsor magnet by, Justin Moore is available for preorder, on his site at at Justin Moore oh, sorry, at sponsormagnet.com. But, also, you can go to Amazon and preorder that as well in one format. This book is gonna be out January 21st.

Chris Stone [00:35:02]:
Do I have that right?

Jim Fuhs [00:35:03]:
Or It is. Okay. January 21st, and it's chock full of of I mean, not only is the book chock full of stuff, but I've got a huge list of bonuses that I cannot wait to, unleash into the universe, stuff that I've actually never offered outside of my my, like, paid programs, actually. Wow. So hey. Hey. Look. We got Jeff.

Jim Fuhs [00:35:23]:
We got Jeff. I'm Jeff. Look at that.

Chris Stone [00:35:26]:
We got we got the he's Jesse says howdy, boys. Farewell. I

Jim Fuhs [00:35:31]:
thought that was I thought that was a caption. You you oh, there's a comment. Oh, you're pulling. Sorry.

Chris Stone [00:35:35]:
We'll make

Jim Fuhs [00:35:35]:
Jim I thought it was like a lower third. You know, it's funny. I'm gonna be on Jeff's podcast. That's why I was like, oh, that's

Chris Stone [00:35:44]:
so funny.

Jim Fuhs [00:35:44]:
Yeah. He's

Chris Stone [00:35:45]:
he's he's absolutely fantastic.

Chris Stone [00:35:47]:
Yeah. Social media news live, shout out to that, as well. So, yeah, Jamar John Johnson says that, apparently he's, speaker. Always be speaker. Go speaker. Go broke. Entre Promedian. So anyway, Jamar, thanks for joining us.

Chris Stone [00:36:05]:
Jeff C, thanks for joining us. So, Justin, you know, for for those that are getting started, and we we started talking about all kinds of stuff that are well into the negotiation thing. But I wanna I wanna dial it back a little bit because I think there you talk about very early in the book, these are 9 mistakes that, people go through. I'm not gonna go through all 9. We'd be here all night. But the one that really got under my skin in a good way, because I think no. No. Listen.

Chris Stone [00:36:34]:
Listen. It's kind of like like, you know, when somebody that's I'm intrigued. No. Faith based and they go to church, like, the best sermons are the ones that make you feel like, I should be doing that, I should be, you know, or whatever. And this got you know, these for me, I wanna be able to read a book that isn't just softballs. You know, I want I wanna be able to get that that kind of value. So you talked you talked one of the mistakes, I think it was the first few mistakes you said is don't aimlessly create and define what you call a surprisingly transformative promise. And can you talk about maybe what what exactly that means? Because it really pertains to what Jim and I do because we felt like we really weren't attracting the right people because they didn't understand really what we were about.

Chris Stone [00:37:21]:
So we had to really kind of formulate what you talk about as your surprisingly transformative promise.

Jim Fuhs [00:37:27]:
Yeah. So, STP, as I call it, not to be confused with the band, the the amazing nineties band that Chris and I were talking about earlier, which I've totally seen live. They're amazing. So, you know, I see this trap a lot, especially on social media platforms, where you kind of go where the algorithm goes. You say, oh, I'm gonna make this piece of content and, oh, that it was a trending sound and it went viral. So I guess I guess I should be making more of that content. And so the algorithm says jump and you kinda say how high and you just kinda, you know, float through. You you have basically no focus, on on your platform.

Jim Fuhs [00:38:09]:
And so when a prospective brand or a prospective follower, frankly, lands on your profile and is trying to decide whether to follow you or not, or trying to decide whether to hire you or not, if it's a brand, it's like a a very quick pass because they can't really wrap their heads around what it is that you do. Right? And so the surprising transformative promise exercise is actually kind of laying out a statement for yourself that can double as, a statement that you put in your, social media bio or your about section on your website. My STP for my business creator wizard is I teach you how to find and negotiate your dream sponsorship so you stop leaving 1,000 on the table. That's my STP. Boom. And so the so if we if we kinda deconstruct it there, the surprising part is, you know, I call myself a sponsorship coach, right, which, first of all, is is pretty novel. I think a lot of people see that, and they're like, what is it? What is a sponsorship coach? I actually don't know what that is. Is it a manager? No.

Jim Fuhs [00:39:14]:
I'm not a manager. It's an agent? No. I'm not an agent. I don't take a cut from your deals. I teach you. I educate you, and you keep everything. So so that's surprising. Right? It's like, I I guess this is interesting.

Jim Fuhs [00:39:24]:
I wanna learn more about this guy and how he might be able to help me. Right? Transformative, in the STP is that I'm actually, like, you're gonna go from point a to point b if you follow me. Right? I'm gonna help you, you know, go from here, no sponsors, to over here, to lots of sponsors and making more money with sponsors. And the final is promise. It's like, I'm gonna I'm gonna help you do it. Right? I'm I'm gonna teach you. I'm gonna I'm gonna do it for you. It's not about me.

Jim Fuhs [00:39:50]:
It's not about my adventures on social media. It's about, hey, I'm gonna help you do this thing and and achieve this outcome. And so, the reason that that's so useful from a brand perspective as well is that if I can click on someone's profile and I read that their STP, I instantly know whether this person's audience is the type of customers that I'm trying to reach. So, the example I I shared in the book, it was a a creator that I was coaching named Olivia, and she was a petite fashion blogger, primarily on Instagram. And, you know, her her bio previous to to going through this SCP exercise was something like, you know, the cutest and, you know, cutest everyday styles, petite fashion, something like that. So something very generic, you know, indistinguishable from the a 100000 other influencers on Instagram, you know, that, that have a bio like that. And once once I coached her through the SCP process, her her bio transformed into, helping you find, petite outfits to look and feel your best, something like that. And, It was, I mean, just, first of all, think about how much clearer that is.

Jim Fuhs [00:41:02]:
If I'm a brand, oh, everyone in her audience, if I'm a petite clothing brand, oh, I wanna hire her. This is perfect. Like every, and, and, and that, this is what works because every brand has a mission and a value, a values behind their brand, ethos behind their brand as well. And if they know that's the that that is aligned with, with, with this creator, man, that goes such a long way. And so it's, it's just such a and, and again, if you're a follower and you're looking for petite fashion advice, I wanna follow Olivia because I know exactly what she's gonna help me do versus it seeming very narcissistic. Oh, it's all about her and her outfits and all this stuff. And, you know, so, I think it's a really important process to kind of sit in that and think about what your own creator identity is maybe without getting too existential. It's it's just a important process.

Chris Stone [00:41:47]:
Yeah. It's But it's very much about, like, saying here here's the here's the solution that I provide for whom that I sell and what's the outcome. Right? And that that is again, it's like it it it's not marketing 101, but, like, if you can think like that as opposed to, like, constantly trying to prove yourself and your subscribers and, like, oh, gosh, I gotta make sure I I have this and I have this up here and I have this up. No one cares, folks. They just care if you want no brands care. They they want to for you to provide a solution for this problem that they have. And it's, it's brilliant. Jim, what were you gonna say?

Chris Stone [00:42:30]:
Yeah. And, Justin, I think what really, I think you're empowering the creator to think about is this is about building relationships. This is about how you actually are helping people as opposed to what's in it for me. And I think the problem with a lot of these young creators, right? I mean, you think about when you started as well as we didn't have that experience. Right? We're we're not really coming from the corporate world or things like this of where we understand negotiation and how things work, and you're really helping people put the processes in place that are gonna help them get successful.

Jim Fuhs [00:43:08]:
Man, look, I, I empathize with, with creators, especially ones that are coming up. Maybe they never even had a real job, frankly, honestly, a lot of creators. They started creating content in school or something, maybe their social media blew up and they were able to parlay that into a, you know, into a career, but they were kind of building the plane as we were flying it. Frankly, we were doing that. My wife and I were doing that for we had no idea what we were doing. And so, I, I know I'm facetious with a lot of the kind of jokes and anecdotes that I share, but I totally empathize. It's hard. Like, well, a lot of us didn't go to school for this to be a cold hard negotiator and to learn how to like advocate for yourself, especially frankly, and I don't know, maybe we're gonna go somewhere deep here, especially if you grew up in a household where money was taboo to discuss or it was, or is a scarce resource.

Jim Fuhs [00:43:58]:
Yeah. And you just didn't talk about money. And so the idea of like doing that for yourself as an adult is is can be treacherous. It can be kind of traumatic. I I can't tell you how many careers I've talked to who I I asked them, you know, they joined my course or whatever, and I I kinda had an initial conversation with them and they said, you know, I've been getting sponsorship emails for years, for 2 years, and I've deleted every single one of them. Got terrified. I'm terrified of responding to these brands, of not knowing what to say. I just I'm I'm, you know, I had a childhood where my, you know, I just my parent, we knew we were dirt poor, like, so this this I feel guilty, you know, that I'm making this money.

Jim Fuhs [00:44:37]:
Like, there's a lot of head junk, I think, that can go into some of this stuff, and it's it's really important not to cross over that, I think. And so, again, one of the things I'm hoping that the book will help is just, like, giving you that confidence that you may not have had growing up.

Chris Stone [00:44:51]:
Yeah. I think part of it too is is, you know, delivering these very, you know, like the scripts, the the process, that you know, because a lot of times, like you said, there's not there has never really been a road map for a lot of this stuff, you know? Like, you're walking into a field and there's all kinds of weed. Nobody's gone through and mowed the lawn. You you're kinda like, alright. I think I should be doing this, and you're just kinda throwing it over the fence and hoping it works. Like, you actually took this stuff and you created this framework, which I I I really wanna talk about this, this sponsorship wheel. You know, and, you know, you love you love this graphic so much, I'm gonna have to send it to you after the show. But, for those of you

Jim Fuhs [00:45:32]:
You did the the colors. You made the colors look great. I don't even have that version of it. I'm like, dang, can you be my graphic designer, bro? Man.

Chris Stone [00:45:39]:
I'll send you a contract after the show. But,

Jim Fuhs [00:45:42]:
Oh, make sure there's usage rights in there.

Chris Stone [00:45:44]:
Okay. You got it. You got it. So for those that are just listening, this is, Justin has what's called a sponsorship wheel. And this one this one got me. This one got me because, it it not only does it give you the the the steps and he walks you through each one of the steps and why, but it it it's a wheel because you're not done after you've done after you've delivered the the analysis to the brand. You're not done. Because what you've done is created a relationship.

Chris Stone [00:46:17]:
Right? So by the time you get, done with your analysis, you're pitching that very same brand for another, another deal, another idea, more concepts. And I love this. Justin, can you walk us through and I'm gonna I'm gonna stop you on the one that got me.

Chris Stone [00:46:37]:
How about that?

Jim Fuhs [00:46:38]:
It's like

Chris Stone [00:46:38]:
a little fun game. I bet

Jim Fuhs [00:46:39]:
you know that it's teaser there. Okay. So, yeah. So the sponsorship wheel is my 8 step, methodology essentially to take a brand from the very beginning, basically pitching, this, you know, opportunity. And by the way, so step 1 is pitch, but a lot of people think of a pitch as like something that you are reaching out and doing to a brand. Right? You're you're actually reaching out and pitching them. But in reality, even if the brand reaches out to you, you still have to pitch them on why you're the best person for the job because they probably reached out to 20 other creators at the same time. Right? And they're they're looking to move forward with 5, but they reach out to 20 to see who's interested, who, you know, who what their what their rates are and this type of thing.

Jim Fuhs [00:47:17]:
Right? So they kinda have to Tetris the budget together. So you still have to kinda convince them that you're the right person, to to collaborate with. Step 2 is negotiate. Right? This is where, you know, they're interested. They said, okay, what's it gonna be? How much is gonna how much, you know, is it gonna cost us? This type of thing. And then as we talked about a bit earlier in the live stream, like, you have to do this question, this discovery process where you ask them questions, you have to, understand what their objectives are so that you can put together a proposal that actually makes sense. Step 3 is contract, right? This is where, you know, as you said, Chris, like, we gotta memorialize all of the deal points into something written where we're both signing on the dotted line here, and there's a heightened level of commitment and expectation, beyond just like a handshake or in an email thread or something. Step 5 is, or sorry.

Jim Fuhs [00:48:06]:
Step 4 is Okay. Stop.

Chris Stone [00:48:08]:
This was me. Okay.

Jim Fuhs [00:48:10]:
This is what

Chris Stone [00:48:10]:
got me, man.

Jim Fuhs [00:48:11]:
Alright. Alright.

Chris Stone [00:48:13]:
This is you're talking right to me right now. This is like, when I got to this, I was like, dang it. This is what I needed. I'm sorry. I'm sorry to interrupt you, but, this this was Don't. No. Concept.

Jim Fuhs [00:48:24]:
Hear that. I'm glad to hear that. And I'm gonna go I'll, I won't be like a, you know, a mean 3rd grade teacher who where you forgot your homework. Tough love. So so here's the tough love that I'm gonna give to Chris and to everyone listening here who may have done this in the past. So step 4 is is what I call concept. And so a lot of people skip over this step where the brand says, okay, sounds good. We, you know, we shake hands on the, on the rate, we sign the contract.

Jim Fuhs [00:48:51]:
Go ahead, do it. You're the creator. We trust you. Go ahead, go wild. And what you quickly realize, and this is what happened again, the the lessons that we learned over the years, is we said, okay, great. They trust us. And then we go into, like, you know, our little cave. We create the content, and we bring it back to them for them to review, and they say, this isn't what we had in mind at all.

Jim Fuhs [00:49:11]:
You need to completely redo this. And we were like, what are you talking about? I thought you trusted us. Right? I thought you said you wanted it to be organic and authentic and, you know, yada yada. Right? And so, this is a game changer here is is basically realizing that even if the brand is not asking you for a concept, you have to give them 1. Yeah. And you have to say, hey, here is how I am going to bring this to life. Here's 2 to 3 sentences at a minimum of, like, what I'm gonna say, how I'm gonna demonstrate this, and allow them to give you some feedback on that, to be able to say, hey. Actually, that that's a terrible idea.

Jim Fuhs [00:49:45]:
We want you to do something entirely different. That's great. That's that's totally fine. You know what that means? It's because I didn't do any work. All I did was write these paragraphs, and I'm I'm really glad to know that you don't want you're not you don't wanna do this direction because, now this means I can you know, I save myself the time and the headache of us getting into this really contentious situation after I already created everything. Oh, what what now? Are you gonna pay me more of this type of thing? So, the concept stage so why tell me why, Chris. Why is this is this because you haven't been doing it or you've been burned in the past or what?

Chris Stone [00:50:13]:
Well, it's it's twofold. It's it's like you said, you you you know, you just get this glorious, hey, guys. Go crazy. You know? Do what you do. Mhmm. You know? And then you just you you deliver something based on, you know, like it's almost like if you're across this this river and, you know, you you see these smoke signals coming from across the or off the way, and they're like, oh, it says that they need water and pancakes. So you put together your water and pancakes, you put it on a raft, and you push it across the water. And then he gets over there and they're like, water and pancakes? Not at all what I wanted.

Chris Stone [00:50:48]:
I don't know. But I it it got me in that so I so from your example, very much the same, like, you you said you wanted this. I thought this is what you wanted. No. And then you're in that conversation, and you've wasted a lot of your time.

Jim Fuhs [00:51:03]:
Mhmm.

Chris Stone [00:51:03]:
And you're ended you may end up just scrapping it altogether and you're having to do, even more. But the other thing was my my question is, a lot of times, we'll take that concept and really have it in the contractual thing. And I think what you're saying is is not doing that, not having sort of the the more of a baked in concept at that point, maybe we're not even ready to have that conversation about the concept in the in in step 3.

Jim Fuhs [00:51:30]:
So in step 3, what often so what I've oftentimes found is that there's this you know, as part of the concept stage usually, this is when the what's called the creative brief gets finalized. So oftentimes the brand knows that they wanna work with you, but they don't know the exact details of, you know, what the talking points are gonna be like and in the exact messaging or the timing. There's still, it's kind of like, you know, there's a, it's a moving target to some degree. And so it's ideal if a lot of that stuff is finalized, like as soon as possible, right? So you can see it all upfront and know whether this is a partnership you wanna, entertain or move forward with. But a lot of times it's not finalized. And so as long as you know, the broad strokes of like roughly what they're trying to do with this promotion, signing the agreement with, you know, with with clauses in there saying that there's going to be an approved, you know, there's gonna be a creative brief that, you know, is gonna be finalized before, you know, during the concept round and things like that. And again, this creative brief is coming from the brand. This is not something that you have to do.

Jim Fuhs [00:52:30]:
This is you asking them, hey, give me a one pager basically of like, these are the 3 to 4 most important things that you want me to to get across in this integration and the one call to action. What is the one thing we want our audience to do when we call, you know, when we, when we talk about this? And, you know, once you have that in hand, you know, the, you know, baking a concept into the contract can sometimes be a bit challenging because things change. You may have found this, like, things change all the time, a new requirement come up, comes up like, oh, man. I'm sorry. We didn't know this before, but we gotta do this instead. And this is different, you know. And, yeah, you may be a bit, you know, annoyed by that, but that that's just, like, part of doing business, I think. Things change, so you do have to be a bit flexible.

Chris Stone [00:53:19]:
Awesome. Very helpful. And so, after concept produce

Jim Fuhs [00:53:23]:
Yeah. So so after concept. Yeah. So I no. No. Don't. No.

Chris Stone [00:53:28]:
We don't.

Jim Fuhs [00:53:28]:
Don't. Uh-oh. No. You don't know how to do that. You wanna know why? Because people go off script. They have an approved brief. They have an approved concept, and the brand says, yes. Do it.

Jim Fuhs [00:53:40]:
And then the moment that the creator sits down to film or the moment they sit down to create the thing, they read it back and they're like, actually, this is I don't know. Now that I'm, like, saying it, it doesn't feel right. So I'm just gonna do this other thing over here. This is better. And then they deliver it, and the brand's like, what the heck? Like, this is not what we agreed to. Right? Or or, you know, you are there's this, there's this hilarious GIF. It's like one of my favorite GIFs where, you know, there's a ceiling fan and, instead of the blades spinning and rotating like this, the light bulbs are spinning on on the ceiling fan like this. Right? And it's a perfect analogy for, like, how sometimes people demonstrate products incorrectly when they do sponsorships.

Jim Fuhs [00:54:23]:
They're, like, holding it the wrong way or it's, you know, it's they're using it incorrectly or it's like a, you know, the the way in which they're telling people to use it is, like, unsafe and the legal team is gonna freak out from the brand or something. These are all, like, really important. Here's this basic one. Pronouncing the name of the brand correctly.

Chris Stone [00:54:39]:
Oh, god.

Jim Fuhs [00:54:40]:
Oh my god. Oh my god. I can't tell you how many times when I ran the agency, man, we would get a content back. We'd get hey. The creator says, oh, I love your brand. I've been using it for 3 years, and then they mispronounce the name of the brand. I'm like, really? Really? You love the brand? Really? Right? So, you know, the again, this is this exact thing happens. You're like, oh, we know how to do produce.

Jim Fuhs [00:54:59]:
We know how to do it, dude. This is why you got this this Yeah.

Chris Stone [00:55:05]:
Yeah. Or asking them what's off limits. Right? What what what should I not say? Who should I not mention? What should I not mention? I think is is super important.

Jim Fuhs [00:55:15]:
You know? So critical, dude.

Chris Stone [00:55:16]:
You know, you talk about you you you were kind of like, you know, somebody looking at a, you know, a script or or an outline of what should be said or or as a part of the deal. I think this plays a little bit into it. We're gonna pause on on the wheel. It it plays and I wanted to talk about this is that, you know, a lot of times creators, another bit of mind junk, is they look at TikTok or they look at Instagram or they look at these places and they go, I don't wanna be that person. They think that,

Chris Stone [00:55:42]:
you

Chris Stone [00:55:43]:
know, this person looks like a shill, or they're they're doing something that is, like, that's not me. Like, how could that be me? So you're you're in this conversation with a brand, and you're coming up with these concepts, and you you you have these outlines. And then when they go through it, it doesn't feel like you. How do you work with creators to have them continue their authenticity? Right? Because that's where the trust with their existing, you know, people that they have can be difficult when you're working with these with these brands, when they want us they want you to maybe say some things in a certain way that you're not comfortable with.

Jim Fuhs [00:56:20]:
We could go a lot of different directions with this question. The first place I wanna go is understanding that sponsorships is a totally reasonable thing for you to introduce into your business, to allow you to continue to make great content and great art for free. And if you are not telling your audience this and helping them understand that fact, that is a problem. You need to be able to break the 4th wall and say that to them. Thank you so much. Without you, audience, and without this sponsor, I would not be able to continue to do this. And closing that loop and helping people understand that, is so important because otherwise it just seems like you're trying to line your pocket. You're just working with this brand, you know, make money for how many, how much content do we generate in general as as creators for free? Virtually the vast majority.

Chris Stone [00:57:29]:
Yeah. Yeah.

Jim Fuhs [00:57:29]:
Right? Right. The vast, vast, vast majority. So if you are if if 5%, 10%, 25%, maybe more of your content is sponsored, is that a really that bad of a thing? I just surely don't think so. In fact, if you want to continue to have the stamina to create for a long time period, you need to be able to have a economic engine behind your business that allows you to continue to not just survive, but thrive. And so feeling confident that like, you know what, it's actually okay for me to do this is so critical, dude. And of course, If you get into a situation with the brand where they're asking you to do things that you're uncomfortable with or asking you to regurgitate really robotic sounding talking points Again, that is your it's your job now to, again, push back and say, actually, that is not a good idea. We should do this instead. So it just goes back to the reeducation thing, I think, or be able to assess that before you even take the deal and know that you shouldn't take the deal based on other data points.

Jim Fuhs [00:58:39]:
So, you know, if you if you if you go and you see there's a bunch of really terrible reviews about this company or you see, you know, friends of yours have worked with them and it was a nightmare, like, maybe you shouldn't do it. I I, you know, like, you should, you know, not ignore the red flags.

Chris Stone [00:58:53]:
Awesome. Thank you for that. Yeah. That was that was tough love, but I I I took it, man. My It

Jim Fuhs [00:58:58]:
was it was tough love. I saw I saw I saw a single tear roll down your cheek, and I knew I knew I I I hit home with that one.

Chris Stone [00:59:05]:
Chris needs that once in a while. Yeah.

Jim Fuhs [00:59:08]:
He he really does. So so should I do rapid fire the remaining steps?

Chris Stone [00:59:12]:
Let's do let's do rapid fire. Yeah. I was I was gonna move on, but there's, you know, I feel, I, I feel like, you know, the wheel's broken at this point. We gotta, we gotta finish the

Jim Fuhs [00:59:20]:
The wheels broken. We got yeah. Because it won't spin otherwise. So okay. Step. So you produce it. You're an expert now. Feedback again, very critical.

Jim Fuhs [00:59:27]:
Don't be a Devo. Don't be a Deva. You know, don't be difficult if they ask you for a 5 second voiceover change, do the dang thing. Don't be a pain in the butt. Very, very important. And then publish again. You're probably, Chris is about, Hey, we know how to publish. Like we do this all the time, right? No.

Jim Fuhs [00:59:45]:
No. You don't. People are publishing the episode without the right tracking link or the tracking link is there and it's not clickable. You can't actually click it in the description box of the YouTube video or something. You use the wrong promo code. I have some crazy stories in the book around, you know, errors that we made back back in the day. And then the final step is analyzed to your point. This is the probably the most important step.

Jim Fuhs [01:00:07]:
In fact, I have a a coaching client in my program and his name name is Molly, and she said the post campaign report alone often, compels brands to offer another deal because they've never received anything like that before. The only thing that they've ever asked for creators for is basically screenshots probably of their Amazon Associates dashboard or their Instagram analytics or whatever. And the brand said, oh, yeah. Thanks. You know, sounds good. But when you're the one sending them a report with not just the quantitative data that you're seeing, but the qualitative insights, hey. Here's here's how I think the campaign went. Here's comments we got.

Jim Fuhs [01:00:41]:
Here here's some private messages I got that there's no way you would have seen. And guess what? Here's actually some negative feedback that we got.

Chris Stone [01:00:49]:
Oh. And I'm not

Jim Fuhs [01:00:50]:
gonna be I'm not gonna be shy to give you this because I got 3 of these comments saying that the product was too expensive, or I got 3 of these comments that said, you know, this other competitor is better. I actually think we should make the the next integration about this, directing, you know, addressing this head on. Right? How how powerful would that be, to do that as a creator? So it's it's a game changer.

Chris Stone [01:01:11]:
Yeah. It's not just throwing, you know, information to them and making them work on it. You're you're actually like, here's some ideas how I can help you, kinda going back to our earlier conversation. Justin, we could go on for another 3 hours, but we are we are at time. But before, before we do that, we've got some great comments in here. My baby experts who, are you are big fans of, of Justin. Hey, Justin. Great to see you here on Amazon Live.

Chris Stone [01:01:36]:
Joe, appreciate you bringing valuable conversations like this to the platform, Chris and Jim. Yes. Joe, my baby experts, you are welcome. And, Joe just got the book, going Dude. Order.

Jim Fuhs [01:01:51]:
Appreciate you, Joe. Good to see you, man.

Chris Stone [01:01:53]:
Yeah. And then, they've been doing brand deals for almost 15 years and have learned a lot from Justin. Hashtag

Jim Fuhs [01:01:59]:
Dude. The real

Chris Stone [01:02:01]:
The real. Real.

Chris Stone [01:02:02]:
We've got sound effects now, Joe.

Jim Fuhs [01:02:04]:
Let's go. Let's go. Let's go. Thank you, Joe. I appreciate that, dude.

Chris Stone [01:02:09]:
Ladies and gentlemen, the book is sponsor magnet. Go to sponsormagnet.com. There's tons of there's a sick amount of preorder goodies that you get Yes. From this. Tons of bonuses that you get. You're gonna get the first chapter. You're gonna get, 15 negotiation scripts. I did use 1, believe it or not.

Chris Stone [01:02:29]:
And when I see you, Justin, I expect a high five.

Jim Fuhs [01:02:32]:
Dude, it's coming. I'm gonna give you a double high five, bro, and chest bump. So you boom, boom, and then chest bump. Yeah. Let's do it.

Chris Stone [01:02:38]:
Chest bump. Oh, man.

Jim Fuhs [01:02:40]:
Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Oh, boy. We gotta we gotta we gotta coordinate it, like, choreograph it. Right. So we don't get injured because we're over 40. Actually, I'm not yet, but I don't wanna injure you.

Jim Fuhs [01:02:49]:
You know?

Chris Stone [01:02:51]:
Oh, this is amazing. So, and then it's also, available for preorder on Amazon. You're gonna at this point, by the time you're watching it, it may already be there in terms of the, the hardcover, paperback version, but certainly the Kindle is live as you see, on your screen. Justin, man, I'm gonna roll it back over to you to say, some final words, before we go. This has just been I I knew that it was gonna be, chock full of value, to use your your words. It was, all killer, no filler. But, I just wanna I wanna thank you for for taking the time. I know that this book, I I can tell, was something you really poured yourself into.

Chris Stone [01:03:33]:
I can tell by after after reading it, but I can also see it in your face. You have passion for it. You have a passion for this in general. And, I just really appreciate you.

Jim Fuhs [01:03:43]:
Dude, that really means a lot to me, both of you guys. I mean, you I just wanna, like, say my profound thanks to you guys because you had me on your show, like, you know, a ways back and, you know, you know, that really meant a lot to me at the time. I was kind of on the up upswing and, you know, no one really knew who I was. And, there's just been so many people that have played such a profound role in in my journey over the last couple of years trying to get this message out, about sponsorships. And so I really appreciate both of you guys. What you what you do is so important and so valuable, and, yeah. If anyone was listening to this and and feel as though, you know what, Justin might have changed my mind about sponsorships, maybe I wanna I wanna look into this, sponsormagnet.com.

Chris Stone [01:04:27]:
That's it. And if you guys have not subscribed to Justin's newsletter, it is, absolutely I I subscribe to actually very few newsletters. I've I've had to opt out of a ton, and I always, Justin, love your newsletter. It has tons of value, and there's always, like, here are 5 things that we just found. Now, you know, I mean, not everything works for me, but that's okay. And to me, that's saying, hey. You're actually doing the work and putting in that value, and the only way you're gonna be able to see these brand deals that, or these these brands that are seeking, influencers and seeking creators and seeking deliverables, whether it's TikTok or Instagram or YouTube video or whatever, just subscribing to that and getting that email for me was incredibly value. I've subscribed for years, and, just, you know, if if you can't afford the book at this point, I know you can afford a free email from, from Justin Moore.

Chris Stone [01:05:25]:
So, thanks to, thanks to Tony. Thanks to Joe. Thanks to Jenny. And lots of people saying they're preordering the book, man. So we're we're hey, Marco, Jeff, C, all you folks that have joined us, in the show. Go to sponsormagnet.com, preorder the book, and as always, don't fear the deer.

Chris Stone [01:05:47]:
Thanks for listening to Dealcasters. Congratulations. You've taken another step forward in your content creation journey. Please don't forget to hit the subscribe or follow button here in your favorite podcast player so you can be reminded every time we drop an episode.

Chris Stone [01:06:03]:
We love hearing from our listeners and viewers. And if you're wanting to watch our shows live on Amazon, feel free to follow Dealcasters Live as well at dealcasters.live. Follow us on Twitter or subscribe to our YouTube channel where we also included added content that you cannot find anywhere else. If you have

Chris Stone [01:06:24]:
questions about this episode or have something you want us to review, you can also email us at Dealcasters at Dealcasters dot live. Thanks again for listening, and you know the deal. Don't fear the gear.