Jay Clouse [00:00:00]:
Hello, my friend. Welcome back to another episode of Creator Science. This week, we're gonna talk a lot about sponsorship and I'm gonna have a lot of help from my good friend, Justin Moore. Justin Moore is a sponsorship coach and the founder of Creator Wizard, a school and community that teaches you how to find and negotiate your dream brand deals. Along with his wife, April, Justin has been a full time creator for over 8 years and has personally made over $4,000,000 working with brands. He has also run an influencer agency for over 7 years that helped creators earn an additional $3,000,000. Now Justin brings a very unique perspective because not only has he been a creator in the trenches doing sponsorships for years, but by running an Agency, he has insider knowledge behind how big brands choose which influencers to partner with and why they pass on others. The conversation you're about to hear is something we recorded for Justin's YouTube channel about a month ago.

Jay Clouse [00:00:54]:
In 2023, Creator Science earned more than $100,000 in sponsorship alone, but I didn't really have a sponsorship strategy. So in this episode, we changed that completely. Justin helps me see where I'm leaving things on the table. And since this recording, I've brought sponsorship operations completely in house. If you wanna learn more about my new sponsor strategy or partner with Creator Science, visit creatorscience.com/sponsor or visit the link in the show notes. We're already booking into q 2, but I would love to hear from you if you think it is a fit. And if you enjoy this, subscribe to Justin's channel. He helps other creators like me design their sponsorship strategies, and you get to watch it all for free.

Jay Clouse [00:01:35]:
A link to that is in the show notes as well. And later this week, I'm sharing a brand new conversation with Justin on our channel that can help you get sponsored regardless of how big or small you believe your audience is. So we'll get to this conversation in full right after a message from today's sponsors. If I want to do things differently, I need to literally change the structure.

Justin Moore [00:01:58]:
That's Jay. He's a creator just like you. But like Like a lot of creators,

Jay Clouse [00:02:03]:
I don't really have a sponsorship strategy, I would say.

Justin Moore [00:02:07]:
See, here's the problem. Most creators see sponsorships as something that happens To them, the brand reaches out, and we just slot them into our ad inventory. But even if your inventory is booked out for the next Few months, this approach is actually preventing you from unlocking the true revenue potential of sponsorships. And that's why I'm giving Jay some tough love in this Coaching call. Do you realize how terrible of an experience that is for the sponsor? I'll be dissecting his entire business strategy so you can learn the simple changes that you can make today that could 3 to 4 x your sponsorship revenue within weeks. So by the end of this, you'll understand how bespoke solutions to a brand's problems so they pay you more, why your sponsorship mindset is crushing your top line revenue, and the existential risk to your business if you don't take sponsorships more seriously. I'm gonna give you 2 answers. 1 is Justin, the sponsorship coach, and 1 is your friend.

Jay Clouse [00:03:02]:
Alright. My name is Jay. I am probably Justin's best friend. I'm the founder of Creator Science.

Justin Moore [00:03:10]:
Accurate. Accurate.

Jay Clouse [00:03:12]:
I'm the founder of Creator Science. And like creator wizard, I'm trying to help creators, get paid. I don't do as much on the sponsorship side though, in terms of educating or even within my business. I'm really focused on what I call direct revenue sources, things like information Mission products and, even services, royalties, memberships, things like that, and my current own Revenue portfolio reflects that, mostly. So last year I guess, I should say this year. This year, I'm on pace for about $600,000 in total, 70% of that 69% of that is memberships, and my 2nd highest revenue stream is Sponsorship at 13% which is interesting because I don't really have a sponsorship strategy, I would say it's just been kind of like an opportunity that I realized I had because of the platform that I have built But I really looked for turnkey low lift opportunities, And that's that's been good in some ways and challenging in other ways. And so I guess this is a good opportunity for us to talk about, like, how I can turn my sponsorship part of my business into an actual strategy.

Justin Moore [00:04:31]:
Yeah. Interesting. So the current Sponsorships that you have, that 13% of sponsorship income, was that like, where did that come from? Was that all inbound, or was that Were those thing, like, relationships you consciously forged or what?

Jay Clouse [00:04:46]:
So the the the beginning of sponsorship in the business as a whole was the podcast, which was called Creative Elements, is now called Creator Science. I launched that show with a podcast network, and their model was sponsorship. And so from the beginning, we designed that show to accommodate and serve sponsors, and their team would typically find and sell those sponsorships on my behalf as a revenue split. I like that model. That was nice because they came in with, great sponsors, sponsors like Canva and BetterHelp and Notion and Zapier. And it's like, wow. These are the brands that I would wanna work with anyway. You had the relationships.

Jay Clouse [00:05:26]:
You built the the the conversation. You did the pricing. You executed the contract. You Sent me, like, the final, final creative brief, and then I made the thing. Pretty awesome. And so when it when I started to see opportunities for that elsewhere in the business, I Looked for similar opportunities. So, the ConvertKit sponsor network sells my newsletter advertising, and the same group, the Podglamler Podglomerate who handles my podcast ads also handles my YouTube ads. So basically, all of my sponsorship is managed by third party partners and that comes at a cost like a revenue split, a literal cost in that way, and also a cost of some control.

Jay Clouse [00:06:13]:
Right? So, Basically, to me, it's, like, sponsorship happens. It's kind of on autopilot. It's much more classical, traditional Sponsorship rather than, like, I'm not doing custom campaigns. I'm not making content that's specific To an advertiser, it's like I'm making content. That content is sponsored by these Mhmm. These partners, and that's kind of where it stops. And I see some of the stuff you're doing With even some of the same partners, I'm like, oh, that's interesting. I bet Justin's getting paid more because of this also.

Jay Clouse [00:06:45]:
Maybe I should Maybe I should be doing some of, this, like, custom content, but I already create so much content that it scares me to commit to more of it.

Justin Moore [00:06:56]:
Interesting. So couple questions to dig into. So number 1, is that how you'd prefer to proceed from here? Which is like, I want a hands off approach here. I want other people to handle this. I'll they can pick a cut, whatever. I primarily enjoy Making content that I'm already gonna make, and I just someone slap someone else's logo on it. This was powered by blah blah blah or, like, sponsored by blah blah blah Versus, like, creating custom content. Is that your default, like, preference?

Jay Clouse [00:07:23]:
This point has definitely been the preference because The the constraints I'm trying to satisfy are I want to not spend much time on this part of the business because that comes from somewhere. And what I'm trying to build more than anything else is a body of work that is enduring over time that really Catalogs how I think and approach things. And, yeah, well, like, keep working for me once it's done. And that's the content creation that I do right now, and that already takes a lot of time. It's not as if I'm walking around, like, I I got, like, All the slush time that I gotta figure out what to do with. So for me to introduce something in the process that will require more time than it currently does, That's gonna have to come from somewhere. I don't know where that's gonna come from, and that's assuming that I don't augment my own capacity with, like, another person or something, which is perfectly possible over the next several months. But I don't know.

Jay Clouse [00:08:22]:
Here here's something else I'm thinking about with sponsorship generally if I'm Totally candid. I wanna do it differently. I want I I don't wanna say I wanna do it less. But, right now, this strategy is kind of, like, I get past a lot of brands, Some of which I have strong affinity for, some of which I have, like, relative indifference to, but I'm not opposed to. And it ends up with, like, me talking about a lot of brand partners throughout the entire creator science universe. And, There's also some rigidity to it, to be honest. Like, because my newsletters are sponsored on a date basis, like, I send 2 newsletters per week, Each one of those newsletters has typically a presenting sponsor who has purchased that date. I don't have a lot of Fluidity in, like, I just don't wanna send an email today.

Jay Clouse [00:09:16]:
Like, that kinda that kinda sucks sometimes. And, yeah, if we don't have a spot sold, then we're open to, like, partners that maybe I wouldn't be as open to if more of the spots were sold. You know? So Part of me wants to almost reclaim sponsorship areas for my own internal products, but as the 2nd largest Revenue feature of the business right now, I don't feel like I have that freedom yet.

Justin Moore [00:09:44]:
I wanna go down a couple different avenues here, the the avenues. The first one I wanna go down Down is considering diversification much more seriously over the long run. Right? And so if you're yes. You have the bulk of your income is coming from your membership revenue and and other courses and all that stuff right now. And, yes, 13% pales in comparison to the Lots of money you're making elsewhere, but what happens in, you know, 2, 3, 5 years or something like that where Perhaps. Hopefully, this doesn't happen, but perhaps you're not able to have the 200 people in the membership that you you're always at pack peak capacity all the time. Like, that's a a future or a scenario that you absolutely should consider and mitigate in your business. Again, hopefully, that never happens.

Justin Moore [00:10:32]:
Right? But you owe it to yourself and you owe it to your business and you owe it to the longevity of this big body of content that you're creating to figure out give yourself the best long term chances of having a robust business where you're able to Feed your family and, you know, pay your bills and, like, all this stuff too. And so that's the big unlock that I hope I can give you about why sponsorships, In particular, maybe not just sponsorships, maybe affiliate income. There's other buckets that you could potentially consider. But because sponsorships represent the second And most obvious revenue stream, in my opinion, for you and your business, that would be the reason to take it more seriously now. And not to mention the fact that, like, You've you've shared pretty candidly in content and and other stuff about this cap that you've now reached in your community. Right? And that If you want to grow your top line revenue, probably has to come either some other sort of creative tier of the membership maybe, or The most obvious method method to me to grow the top line revenue and buy the Lamborghini, I don't know if you want that, but, would be, probably paying attention to this to this sponsorship strategy. Right? So that's number 1. I want what before I go further, like, what's your reaction to that statement?

Jay Clouse [00:11:43]:
I think about diversification all the time. Like, those 2 things are the 1st and 2nd largest drivers of revenue right now, but What comes in 3rd and what I actually wish was coming in 1st and want to turn into the number one revenue stream is digital products. And so, again, I've the story I've told myself to this point is, well, if I want digital products to be my diversifying and even leading source of revenue, then I need to be diverting as much time and attention as I can towards that area. Again, like, everything is everything is resource allocation, right, at this stage. I feel lucky in that my business is designed in such a way where the people who are interested in my work and following me want to learn from me, and so I have a lot of opportunity for generating revenue through, scalable scalable digital products of some sort. Mhmm.

Justin Moore [00:12:43]:
So let's talk about serving your community because you said, oh, I wanna take back, you know, some of these ad slots that I'm, you know, just giving away to, like, other, you know, Entities or whatever, I should I should dedicate those for my own products, digital products, you know, promoting the courses, the memberships, etcetera. I would also argue that if you looked at the persona of the types of people who are on your newsletter or in your community or just in your orbit, There's lots and lots of ways and lots and lots of problems that these people have that you're never going to be able to serve them with your products. If we look Audience or customer first. It actually makes more sense to figure out how can I serve this person on a whole Through a combination of digital products and sponsorships because then they're gonna trust me more? They're gonna look at Jay. Oh, Jay was the guy who told me about This SaaS platform that, like, now my business is humming because I have this now, and I never would have found out it about it from him. Like, if if If you're able to encourage that type of transformation from someone, they're going to look at investing in your other products and courses and memberships Way more favorably because you're gonna be the guy who helped them change this one thing about their business. And so I actually think it's it's more additive to Your long term goals of selling more digital products, selling more memberships, and all this stuff to do sponsorships. This is my opinion.

Justin Moore [00:14:03]:
Because, again, if you look at it from service first, The goal is serving them and making their lives easier and helping them figure out their problems, helping them launch their 1st newsletter, their course, or whatever. All these things you help people with, sponsorship should play a role in that.

Jay Clouse [00:14:16]:
I agree with that. And for me to do that strategy to the highest degree that I can and feel the best with I would need to be more proactive than reactive with my sponsorship strategy. Right now, I would say my sponsorship strategy is very reactive.

Justin Moore [00:14:34]:
That's a 100% accurate. And it actually leads well into this next point I was gonna make, which is that like like, let me throw it back to you. Like, when a brand or partner comes inbound to you and says, we wanna work with J. Klaus. We wanna work with Creator Science. It sounds like you basically say You take him by the shoulders, and you redirect him and say, go talk to that person. Right? That person. Yes.

Justin Moore [00:14:56]:
This is the number one biggest opportunity for you here, which is that if you, for example, were to claw back maybe claw back isn't the right word, but, like, if you were to say you reserve like, hey. I'm I'm doing twice a week on my newsletter. I'm gonna sell through this, you know, Sunday blast, that inventory. Yeah. You can sell through, you know, for the Partner who's managing it, but I'm gonna reserve rights for my 2nd blast that I go. Because because the the fundamental challenge that you have Is that these brands come inbound to you, and they just wanna partner with you. Like, they gotta figure out they're they're trying to figure out, like, what are all the ways in which I The podcast, the community, the newsletter, like, all these there are all these ways in which you could potentially serve a brand partner, and you have no ability to say, hey. Let me make a bespoke Recommendation to you about the best ways in which I could serve your brand or move the needle for you.

Justin Moore [00:15:45]:
And so now you are at the whims of these independent partners. Right? You've got the ConvertKit, you know, sponsor network over here, which is great. You've got Poglomerate over here, but they're not talking to each other. There's no way in which you can create a holistic Partnership. Because because if you look at my business, you said, oh, I see all these things Justin are doing. Like, virtually everything that I'm doing is holistic. Like, it's not just like, oh, they're sponsoring the newsletter, or, oh, they're sponsoring the podcast. Like, no.

Justin Moore [00:16:09]:
They're doing like, a good example of this is you mentioned, like, oh, all the things I'm doing are are, like, time bound. They're like, they bought this date of the newsletter. Like, the deals that I do, because I know I'm like you. Like, there's some times where it's like stuff comes up. I'm traveling or whatever. Right? And so I recently sold through livestream sponsorships because I do livestreams every week, but I don't pick dates. I said 2 a month.

Jay Clouse [00:16:31]:
Mhmm. Mhmm.

Justin Moore [00:16:32]:
I'm gonna do 2 months, and so I get to choose, basically, if things come up and I'm not able to do it. And so I guess that the point is is is twofold. Number 1, there are, I believe, some fairly simple structural changes that you could make to the way in which you're doing sponsorships, But also some fairly simple structural flexibility changes that you could make so that it doesn't feel oppressive. It doesn't feel like, Oh, I'm happy to devote a bunch of headspace to this now, but you are right. It's more than you're doing now. You're not you're it's not gonna be completely hands off. But if I told you That this could make 13% jump to, you know, 30 or 40% or go from a 10 k a month revenue stream to a 30 k a month revenue stream, is that something you'd pursue? There's probably a number in there somewhere.

Jay Clouse [00:17:15]:
Yeah. There is definitely a number in there somewhere. Like, the the thing that holds me up in this very, very moment is me, personally, my capacity, I don't know how I'm gonna do it. In the near future, though, bringing in a partner into the business, who's also a partner in my marriage, and that is something that Could very well fall under her purview to really help us do things a little bit further because I have literally there have been people who wanted a Holistic campaign, they're like, hey. We wanna sponsor your podcast, YouTube, newsletter, and I'm like, okay. I'm gonna send you 2 intro emails.

Justin Moore [00:17:47]:
Do you realize how terrible of an experience that is for the sponsor?

Jay Clouse [00:17:50]:
I do. I do realize it, and they didn't even quite understand it. So, like, They had to pay literally 2 invoices. How awful is that? Like, go to your boss and be like, hey. I need to I need to make 2 expenses for this one thing. Yeah it's it's it's no so but it's hard because what would you do in this situation where you have 2 partners who are your Your ads and sponsorship partners, would you look to consolidate into 1? Would you be trying to reserve rights holistic campaigns where you are handling somebody who wants to go across all 3, would you recommend I try to handle all of it in house? This is the thing. Like, I realize I'm coming to kind of a Ahead, if I want to do things differently, I need to literally change the structure.

Justin Moore [00:18:35]:
Yeah. I'm gonna give you 2 answers. 1 is Justin, the sponsorship coach, and 1 is your friend.

Jay Clouse [00:18:40]:
We'll get those answers from Justin right after this.

Justin Moore [00:18:44]:
Let let's do the friend answer first, which is, like, I get it, dude. Like, I understand you're limited with your capacity. You're also entering into this new and exciting partnership with your with your wife who's gonna be helping you with stuff, and there's gonna be some period of of adjustment there in terms of trying to figure out how to, like, You know, do everything in a seamless fashion in a way that you haven't before. Right? So that that's that's I acknowledge that. Right? But Justin, the sponsorship Coach is gonna say, what the hell are you doing, dude? You are creating an absolutely terrible experience for your partners and and Drastically decreasing the chances of getting repeat business. The whole point of this is nurturing these relationship because because to to some degree, I feel like Maybe I'm making a false assumption, but, like, you're thinking, like, it's gonna be, just this, like, huge laundry list. I'm, like, talking about different brands all the time. But, like, the goal here is, like, Let's nail down a handful of, like, true partners who are in it for the long haul.

Justin Moore [00:19:38]:
They are become a monthly sponsor of yours. Like, the business that you've built, that is an absolute reality for you. I don't think this is quite as much of a lift as you're making it out to be. Like, I I really truly think it would be a legitimate like, if I if I look at the you know, I'm doing $16,000 a month on sponsorships right now with Creator Wizard, and that is 3 partners. Yes. There are logistics involved in, like, those different conversations and, like, all this stuff, But, like, that number can you know, if if I wanted to, like, crank up the lever a little bit more on that, I could. I'm just not right now because of other priorities. Right?

Jay Clouse [00:20:12]:
And what are those what platforms are you selling sponsorships on?

Justin Moore [00:20:15]:
So so this is the this is the this is the the beautiful part about the holistic strategy. I've I've got the newsletter, right, Twice a week or 3 times a week. The 3rd time is an evergreen sequence, but I'm I'm selling. I reserve the sales rights for one of those blasts. I have my podcast. I have my YouTube channel. By the way, for the podcast, I have both the audio and the video version. I got my YouTube channel.

Justin Moore [00:20:35]:
I've got my private community And the intangible asset that I have, which is me, meaning that there's lots of brands that I'm able to sell through. Hey. Let me come And create some content for you. Let me let me do a webinar with you. That costs money. That there's an investment of me coming and doing that for you. And so, like, those are all and then, you know, like, it's this is simplistic version of it, but, like, those are all things that I can sell. The other intangible Well, aspect here that you are particularly well suited to to market is your influence.

Justin Moore [00:21:06]:
It's very hard to measure, but, Like, being for a brand to be able to say, like, we are partnered with J. Klaus. Like, we we are advocates of his community. That is immeasurable, the worth of that, for them to be able to make Post on social media announcing that and talk about that on LinkedIn and all that stuff too. That is not a tangible asset that you're required to create For a partnership. And so I I would suggest to you that there are a lot of partners out there who would simply get stoked about being able to align themselves with your community, And that's worth a lot because because, again, like, I don't have if you look at the my footprint on social media or if you look at the viewership of my average YouTube videos, I'm not getting, like, tens of thousands of views, dude. Right? But, like, a lot of these partnerships that I'm forging are, like, very, very healthy dollar values, and it's not Because of my metrics on social media, it's because of who I am and who I represent in partnership with their brand. I wanted to take a quick second to acknowledge today's sponsor, Epidemic Sound.

Justin Moore [00:22:02]:
Epidemic Sound is my go to source for all of my soundtracking needs. It's a great tool for online video creators to soundtrack their videos without receiving copyright strikes for worrying about takedowns. And something I talk about a lot is how important it is to use royalty free tracks when you're doing sponsorships. A lot of creators think that, oh, it's okay if I use the latest trending sound on this video or this super popular top 100 song, but I Truly guarantee you that the moment that you submit that content to the brand for review, their legal team is gonna say, oh, sorry. That's not gonna fly. You know, they can't have their brand associated with someone else's intellectual property. So that's one of the reasons that Epidemic Sound is so clutch. Its catalog now includes 40,000 professionally produced tracks and over 90,000 sound effects with new tracks added every week.

Justin Moore [00:22:49]:
All tracks are professionally produced by a diverse Collection of artists and are exclusive to Epidemic Sound. So they've got 2 different plans. They've got the personal plan, which is ideal for for creators because it covers most Platforms like YouTube, Facebook, Instagram, Twitch, and podcasts, and things like that. And they've also got a commercial plan, which is great for freelancers and businesses and agencies who are Looking to soundtrack commercial productions. And, again, with Epidemic Sound, you're allowed to monetize your videos, and you won't have to worry about your videos being demonetized, Receiving strikes or being flagged for unlicensed usage. Perhaps the coolest part is that if you click the link in the description, they're offering you a free Thirty day trial, and get this, everything you post during your trial is protected even if you cancel. So big thanks again to Epidemic Sound for Sponsoring this video because when you support them, it allows me to continue bringing you awesome free videos like this. Alright.

Justin Moore [00:23:40]:
Let's get back to it.

Jay Clouse [00:23:41]:
And I'm I'm just looking I'm doing some numbers now because I haven't thought about this in a long time. I've always looked at sponsorship as, like, found revenue in the business because, like, my my thoughts at point has been well, if it wasn't for these partners, I probably just wouldn't be doing it. But if I trusted myself to sell through at the same rate, I have essentially paid partners $15,000 this year for the sponsorships that I've run. The trade that I Is it is it worth $15,000 to me that I have not put the time into doing it on my own? And maybe maybe the answer is yes. I don't feel I don't feel, like, Terrible about that. But as I think ongoing and the opportunity cost as it grows with, you know, the audience growing and the the sponsorship interest, It probably makes sense to bring it more in house at some point, especially if I have capacity on the team that I've already financially committed to anyway.

Justin Moore [00:24:32]:
Right? Because I think that the the other big difference between the model that you're currently running right now and the model that you would be in control of were you to bring it in house Is that, you are simply a in the in the current model, you are a line item right now. You are a commodity To some degree. Right? It's like how many views did he get on that, you know, or downloads on that podcast? How many opens on that newsletter? How many clicks on the ad? Right? Like, that is that's the model. Right? Contrast that with the model where you're able to you or Mallory is able to sit down with the sponsor on a phone call and say, What is your big goal right now, circle or Notion? Or, like, what tell me what your what are the things that are coming down the pipeline for you right now, you know, from q for q one, etcetera. And they say, we're really trying to spread the word about this, and then you come back and you say, okay. Here's what we heard. You told us this was important to you. This was important, and this was important to you.

Justin Moore [00:25:27]:
Here is a bespoke proposal of all of the different aspects of the business that we want, where we wanna talk about you, and spread the word about Notion AI or whatever it is. Right? I wanna bring someone into my, private community and do, like, a webinar. I wanna, you know, have I wanna interview blah Blah blah blah, and we can do that on the YouTube channel. I wanna right. So it's like now when you provide them these 4 or 5 packages in your proposal and illustrate to them, like, hey. If If all the goals that you said you want to accomplish, the only way in which you can do that is if you go for package 5. Like, you are gonna start making so much more money on your sponsorships now Because what you're proposing is aligned with their objectives.

Jay Clouse [00:26:03]:
Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Right? Mhmm. So so it's

Justin Moore [00:26:07]:
not it's it's it's not just about, like, a direct Dollars to dollars comparison. Like, it's like, okay. Yeah. I have to do all this work to make the same amount of money that I'm currently making. Like, I would I would suggest that, yes, you have to expend effort, but you're gonna be starting to make 3, 4, 5 x on sponsorships what you do when you bring it in house. Like, Guaranteed, dude. Like, I I'm not even joking because you're a smart guy, and so, like, yeah, you're looking at the 15 k now. You're well, I'm just saying, like, you're you're looking at you're just looking at the Team k now.

Justin Moore [00:26:34]:
Like, oh, is that worth it? Like, what if I said, like, you bring that in house, dude, that that 15 k turns into 75 k Yeah. Like, of of incremental revenue.

Jay Clouse [00:26:42]:
Okay. Okay. You're convincing me. You're convincing me. Because I'll be honest, I came in this call, and I was kind of a sponsorship skeptic. I was not it was not a big part of the strategy, and I I I feel sometimes more of a negative relationship to it as part of my portfolio than a positive part of it. Something I think about a lot though, I really like the affiliate model as well because I feel like it aligns incentives and risk very well. Tell me how you feel about this.

Jay Clouse [00:27:06]:
On the surface, affiliates and sponsorships feel very similar, except in a sponsorship world, more of the upfront risk is on the part of the partner in an affiliate world, more of the upfront risk is on the part of the creator. But I feel, like, ultimately, If an affiliate relationship or an affiliate deal goes bad, like, nobody feels wronged, whereas in a sponsorship relationship, if I don't really deliver, it feels like The relationship can sour pretty quickly. How do you think about that?

Justin Moore [00:27:32]:
A couple things. Number 1, there is a third compensation model that is very much value aligned, which is the hybrid model, particularly well suited for someone in your situation because you do have an intimate sense of your numbers, And you have a large track record of of recommending partners and all that stuff. Would be there'd be some sort of base compensation plus a kicker on the back end. I think what you're, like, missing here is that there is a nontrivial amount of effort required from you to make a recommendation, Make a referral. Have a testimonial about a particular brand. And so that content creation or that and you're also trivializing your Influence, which is valuable. You saying, hey. Go check this out.

Justin Moore [00:28:18]:
This is an affiliate link, but, like, you are indirectly putting your stamp of approval on this brand, And, like, you are passing that off. You're you're you're giving that to the brand for $0, which is you're not capturing that. And and and this is kind of an interesting way to look at it, but that that's something you should capture. I think there's very much a a value aligned Model where you say, hey. You know, as part of this deal, it's gonna be 5 k plus 25% of, you know, enrollments or recurring Commissions or whatever it is. And and you could play with those numbers too, by the way. If they're only used to doing affiliates, you say, yeah. You pay your affiliates 50% or 25% or whatever it Like, I'm fine doing a 15% ongoing affiliate deal, but there's gotta be some sort of, you know, flat upfront compensation to capture the effort required to actually get this partnership off the ground.

Justin Moore [00:29:02]:
Second thing is that you mentioned this idea about, like, a relationship getting soured If if, the sponsorship doesn't go so well, in almost all situations, dude, this is all in your head. Like, unless the brand is coming out and being like, You suck. This partnership sipped. Like, we're really mad, which they'll almost never do. The version of it where when it doesn't go so well is, like, it didn't perform relative to our expectations. Like, we were hoping it was gonna be this. And what I like to say in that situation is in though you're either going to win Or learn. Either they're gonna say it went awesome, totally surpassed our expectations, and then that's your opening to be like, okay.

Justin Moore [00:29:38]:
Let me pitch an ongoing deal with you. Right? That's number 1. Or they're gonna say that. They're gonna say, it was like it was kinda like this. It was like you didn't know you you were worried you were worried that they weren't gonna come out. Right? The sound the the sound effect. You you were worried it wasn't yeah. You know, in that scenario, you say, oh, that's so interesting.

Justin Moore [00:29:55]:
Right? I know you. You're objective. You won't take that personally. You'll be like, okay. Yeah. I understand that. Thank you for sharing that with me. Let me go back and give some thought as to why I believe that it didn't go so well.

Justin Moore [00:30:06]:
You go and you look at the comments on the you know, or listener feedback and DMs you may have gotten. You say, you know, after I've analyzed this, here's a couple. I got these emails, these objections about the tool or about the product from these people. This seemed to be a common theme. You know what? I actually think that should be the next content, Piece of content that we create together to kinda overcome that objection. I really think this fear that you have around sponsorships being not Align and, like, the potential for the relationship to sour if it doesn't go well. This is business, dude, and it's a matter of, like, setting proper expectations with the partner and and just Continuing to illustrate to them that, like, regardless of what happens, you are invested for the long run. And if it doesn't go so well, I'm gonna figure it out.

Justin Moore [00:30:46]:
I'm gonna make it right. A lot of what I talk about in my Brand Deal Wizard program is like, yeah. If it doesn't go so well, like, let's figure out what we can do to make people feel good about this whole thing. Maybe it's an extra Al, you know, added value posts that you make in your community or on your newsletter or something. Maybe it's like a webinar you do in partnership with them. Whatever. What can you do? You're because you have integrity. Right? You want wanna ensure that that that happens.

Justin Moore [00:31:07]:
And so I bet you anything, if that ever were to transpire and you there ever was a brand that sponsored you that came to you with a piece of not so hot feedback, You would find a way to make it make it, you know, you know, work out. Right? And so I think that that's not a good enough excuse to not do it.

Jay Clouse [00:31:23]:
Yeah. Yeah. No. You're you're talking a lot of sense. I like I like the hybrid model a lot. That feels good to me. Justin and I will finish laying out my new sponsorship strategy right after this. I mean, like like you identified earlier, it kills me that sometimes the experience of working with me because of the structure is not good.

Jay Clouse [00:31:41]:
Like, I have always prided myself on being the easiest and best partner to work with. Like, makes me so happy to just Be easy to work with. And the fact that, like, this aspect is just kind of not, this sucks. And it's not even, like it's not that my partners aren't doing a great job. It's the fact that I cannot be holistic and tie these things together because like I I have a great holistic platform and opportunity I have the email I have video I have audio. There's there's a lot I could do with that. How much do you do with, your social platforms as part of your holistic social or sponsor strategy.

Justin Moore [00:32:28]:
Yeah. I mean, I include them. Like, they're always in, you know, Different packages and all that stuff too. What I found is that you and I are in a kind of a very unique position because we're kind of like meta creators. Right? We're, like, Serving other creators, our audiences are creators, right, is that oftentimes the types of partners, types of companies that wanna work with me or work with you, they also need content. Right? They also need, like, stuff to repurpose and run advertising with and stuff. And so a lot of times, what I'm digging into on some of these, you know, discovery calls is, like, what's your current Content strategy brand, creator economy start up x. Are you using content? Are you running paid advertising? Because, like, there's lots of ways in which I could just sit out, boom, knock out, you know, 10 short form assets send those over.

Justin Moore [00:33:09]:
I don't even post them, and they send those, you know, send those over to the brand, and they run paid advertising with that from their handle. And when people see that in their feed, they're like, oh, that's Justin from Creator Wizard. Right? So there's there's so much value in being able to sell my name and likeness and my influence similar for you. There's these Finite assets, like like, fixed project assets that you can offer as part of these holistic sponsorship proposals That do not require an ongoing lift from you.

Jay Clouse [00:33:35]:
Here's another objection for you to overcome. If I were to take this in house and, handle all my sponsorship. What am I laying out in terms of legal costs to do good paperwork?

Justin Moore [00:33:48]:
The first, tip that I always give to people bringing this in house is to hire a good lawyer and have them make a boilerplate sponsorship contract template for you, where the only thing that you edit is the appendix, which includes the deliverables, the usage rights, the exclusivity, the statement of work, basically. And so every other thing is kinda boilerplate to some degree. In fact, they actually have some templates out there that you can purchase on the Internet and stuff, but I always make the recommendation, like, hire someone. It's fine. It'll be in a $1,000, $2,000, whatever it's worth it to just, like, have a contract template. And then so that those are the in the scenarios where the brand doesn't have a contract to send you, and they just wanna do a handshake agreement. Right? There's also, you know, maybe 50, 60% of the time, it's gonna be the the contract that they want you to sign. Right? And so you have Go through it and, like, all this stuff too.

Justin Moore [00:34:32]:
And so, yeah, like, it's gonna be you know, you're gonna pay a lawyer a couple $100, you know, an hour. But, dude, for the deal sizes that you're gonna be working on, this is trivial money. Like, even worry about the legal costs the or the administrative costs related to the paperwork.

Jay Clouse [00:34:43]:
Do you trust yourself to run through the contracts that you get from brands?

Justin Moore [00:34:46]:
So I do now because I've I've done it Over a 1000 times. Personally, I've done 550. I just invoice number 5.50 sponsorship for my own business, and I've done 1,000 through the agencies. So I do it myself now, But, if you don't feel comfortable like, the one thing I I have, like, this, checklist in my course. Again, I always say I'm not a lawyer. Like, don't, you know, treat this as legal advice. But I have this, like, Template where there's, like there's basically, like, 12 things that you need to look for in a contract. Right? It's very simple.

Justin Moore [00:35:13]:
It's like the deliverables, like I mentioned, the usage rights, the exclusivity. Is there going to be, you know, limitation of liability, you know, reps and warranties? Like, it's like a it's it's it's not complicated. Like, pretty much every contract you're gonna see, There's, like, kind of gotchas or, like, things you know, control f for the word perpetuity or perpetual. Make sure that they don't own anything forever. You know? These types of, like, Things that you learn a lot along the way that you need to be careful of. But, again, the deal sizes that you're gonna do, dude, stop worrying about this. Like, just hire a lawyer. It's not it's gonna pay for itself.

Jay Clouse [00:35:42]:
And which course are you talking about that's inside of?

Justin Moore [00:35:45]:
Well, that's the Brand Deal Wizard course, Jay. And if you're curious, you can click the link in the description box. Yes. You're welcome.

Jay Clouse [00:35:53]:
Okay. Yeah. That's exactly what I was wondering now. I was like, what are the sneaky, risky things that people put into contracts, which maybe isn't even, like, malicious, but just, like, part of what Legal says it should be in there that you that flag something in your mind. You you mentioned a couple things there, like, look for perpetual, agreements. That's the type of thing where I if I don't know of them, that's what scares me about trusting myself with a contract where it's like, hold on. You signed this, and this is what this says. Mhmm.

Jay Clouse [00:36:21]:
Alright. Brand new wizard. Up towards that.

Justin Moore [00:36:24]:
You know you know why I really like this conversation so much? Because I I live in this world of sponsor. I talk about sponsorships all the time. I'm making kind of tweets and Comments and all this stuff. And I I have this, like, assumption that, like, yeah. Everyone wants sponsorships. Like, that this is a great great thing. Right? But it's so useful and interesting to me, to talk with you because this is act I think you're actually the majority of people. The majority of people are just like, nah.

Justin Moore [00:36:51]:
Like, like, very special. Yeah. You just okay. Sorry. Sorry. Yeah. No one is like you, Jay. No one at all.

Justin Moore [00:36:57]:
No. But for real, dude, like, I think that especially so I look at this. We've talked about this before, but, like, the difference between social media creators and owned platform creators. Like, the owned platform creators Have a natural gravitation to, like, digital products, courses, coaching, etcetera. And then, like, social platforms, like, the primary way in which, you know, entertainment based, a lot of those types of creators is, like, Sponsorships, AdSense, like that type of idea. Right? And so a lot of the folks that I, I just have this assumption that, like, most people, like, oh, Sponsorships. I wanna make more money on sponsorships, but you here you are. It's and it makes sense.

Justin Moore [00:37:29]:
Right? You're looking at all the ways in which various ways in which you're making money, and you're like, you know what? If I, like, spent, you know, 5 hours, like, optimizing my email sequence, I could probably make more money off of, like, my digital products That seems like a more obvious investment to, like, drive top line revenue. And so it's just really fascinating to just kinda hear some of the objections you're talking about, all that stuff too.

Jay Clouse [00:37:50]:
A call to action to check out a sponsor is a call to action that is there's an opportunity cost for a call to action to something else that is within my ecosystem system. That's just for me that I get even full data on how did that call to action perform. And yeah. So I I have just been thinking, like, if I am telling sponsors that this placement is valuable and you can expect this type of value from it. I should be able to tell myself the same thing And if that is true also, which one is more valuable to me? And I don't have the answer to that, but, it does feel like there's an opportunity at least within The things that have, like, very explicit, very programmed, this is where a sponsor thing is going, but there's there's a 3rd door. There's a lot of 3rd doors you've introduced me to here, but there's a 3rd door where even if I did start using more of my, quote, unquote, sponsored Inventory for my own products, that doesn't mean that I can't do holistic sponsorship campaigns outside of that, which may not be detracting from my own revenue sources. Mhmm.

Justin Moore [00:38:51]:
100%. And I wanna challenge you on something too, which was, like, if someone's clicking on someone's, you know, a sponsor's link, that's that's a A click that I took away from myself and my own business, and that is a scarcity mindset, bro. Like, there is Unlimited amounts of money in this world. And just because they go and buy something from a sponsor, doesn't mean they're not also gonna buy sign up for your membership. And, yes, you're right. There is it's more opaque in terms of the performance. Like, you're not all always going to get data back from the the advertiser or the sponsor of, like, oh, how'd that perform, how many sales I drive, all this stuff too. But one of the other things you'll learn from me in my brand new wizard program is that You you, this is just becoming a shell fest, and I'm totally cool with it.

Justin Moore [00:39:35]:
Is, the, the the other really important thing is that you have to force This. You have to ask them. You have to say, hey. I need to look. To be able to make sure that I'm adequately performing properly to your expectations, please share data with me. If you were not gonna share it with me, I'm gonna share a bunch with you. I've got qualitative comments. I've got objections here.

Justin Moore [00:39:54]:
I've got, yes, I've got some limited click data. I've got Stuff. And I want you please, let's make this kind of a mutual sharing experience. And, yeah, you may not have been accustomed to doing that with past partners, but I'm not your I'm a unique snowflake. Remember? That's what you are, Jake, Jay. So, yeah. I mean I mean, you have to force the issue. I need the data to be able to make this Ensure this partnership goes well.

Jay Clouse [00:40:15]:
Alright. I have 1 last question for you, Justin. When you look at me and my platform because I feel like, probably, You have a better sense for my whole business here than you might have with a typical coaching client that comes in. Where do you look at my business and, like, just See opportunity that I'm leaving on the table, if we haven't covered it already.

Justin Moore [00:40:36]:
Yeah. The first and obvious one to me is The holistic thing. Right? Like, that's the that's the low hanging fruit. Being being able to do your own sales or at least clawing back certain portions of it to run your own sales with, that's number 1. The biggest opportunity for me, if I look at your business, is to stop looking at what you the areas for sponsors to insert themselves as inventory. That's never been the way in which I've looked at my business, and I really believe that it's challenging to build a robust sponsorship Business, if you look at it as inventory. You should just get just as excited about a sponsor coming to you. And, Yeah.

Justin Moore [00:41:12]:
You may have all your slots filled or whatever, but you get really creative about, okay. I'm just gonna, like, do a dedicated email blast as part of this partnership, because it makes sense, and I can do like, I'll I'll I'll I can say it. I Had okay. I don't even though I don't look at it as inventory, I had all my I have all my inventory filled through through, like, end of September, or end of October, whatever now, And Circle came to me, and they were like, we wanna partner. This is amazing. We want you to speak at our summit. We want to do all these different things. Right? And I was like, you know, I didn't say this to them, and they don't care, obviously, but, like, decided that I was gonna be doing some dedicated email blast talking about my community.

Justin Moore [00:41:51]:
And I in fact, it just went went out yesterday. So, yeah. And so I, you know, could have been like, sorry. I don't have any inventory or, in your scenario, that your partner would have told them that. And I said, you know what? I'm going to invent something. Here here's another example. I was on, a partnership call with Fiverr, Okay. Which is you know, they you know, the fiber.

Justin Moore [00:42:12]:
You can hire freelancers and graphic artists and all that stuff. And, they kept saying Over and over about how, yeah, you know, we've been working with newsletters, creator newsletters recently, and it's been going okay. But, you know, the one thing about newsletters is that once they go out, they just Kinda feel like they disappear into the ether. It's just like they're gone. Right? They kept saying this over and over, and I just kept mhmm. Mhmm. I just kept I wrote it down. Interesting.

Justin Moore [00:42:34]:
They keep they seemed fixated on this on this point. So then I said at the end of the call, this is super interesting. I'm gonna get back to you with the proposal. Right? And so, as I'm, like, working on the proposal, I'm like, you know what I think they would get really stoked about is Having a a permanent featured place or at least permanent during the partnership place on my website Announcing and talking about this partnership that I have with Fiverr. And so you know what I did? I literally created a new section of my website called partners, And I I mocked up the page. I put their logo. I put the, you know, talking points from the program that they wanted to to highlight, and I password protected it. And I sent it to him in the proposal, and I said, Hey.

Justin Moore [00:43:12]:
I heard that this was, like, a thing for you, that this permanency issue. Guess what? I now have this new area of my brand where I'm featuring you and your program, and they said, where do we sign? And so I think it's less of, like, tactically, like, oh, you should be on this platform, or, oh, you should be on overdoing this over here. It's more about a mindset flexibility to invent things that can move the needle for both your audience as well as the brand. Does that make sense?

Jay Clouse [00:43:37]:
Makes a lot of sense. Makes a lot of sense. Dude, thank you. Yeah. Opening my eyes for

Justin Moore [00:43:42]:
your work too. Man. Dude, I mean, I wish I had some, like, I need explosion sound effect. That's the one I don't have, like a mind blown. Yeah. Just like although it's I don't know. I don't know if that would work out so well, but let's how about we just, You know, let's just do some round of applause. Let's round it out round it out with a nice round of applause.

Jay Clouse [00:43:59]:
We did it.

Justin Moore [00:44:00]:
No. But this this was great, man. Really, really appreciate it. I think we should both do some calls to action maybe. Like, give us give us a a little bit like, where where can people find you if they wanna learn more about, the j?

Jay Clouse [00:44:14]:
Well, if you like audio, check out the Creator Science Podcast. If you like email, check out the Creator Science newsletter. You can find all of that at creatorscience.com.

Justin Moore [00:44:23]:
Boom. And, if you're not on my newsletter yet, what the heck is wrong with you? I send you paid sponsorship opportunities every single week for free. Just go to creatorwizard.com/join.