Justin Moore is a Sponsorship Coach & the founder of Creator Wizard, a school & community that teaches you how to find & negotiate your dream brand deals so that you stop leaving thousands on the table. Along with his wife April, he has been a full-time creator for over 7 years and has personally made over $3M working with brands. He has also run an influencer marketing agency for over 5 years that has helped other creators earn an additional $2M. 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 of how big brands choose which influencers to partner with and why they pass on others. Justin's mission is to enable creators big and small to land 1 million paid brand partnerships by 2032.
Justin Moore is a Sponsorship Coach & the founder of Creator Wizard, a school & community that teaches you how to find & negotiate your dream brand deals so that you stop leaving thousands on the table. Along with his wife April, he has been a full-time creator for over 7 years and has personally made over $3M working with brands. He has also run an influencer marketing agency for over 5 years that has helped other creators earn an additional $2M. 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 of how big brands choose which influencers to partner with and why they pass on others. Justin's mission is to enable creators big and small to land 1 million paid brand partnerships by 2032.
Today we play golf. Let me show you how we do it in the pros. Welcome to Behind the Golf Brand podcast. I never missed with the Seven Iron, a conversation with some of the most interesting innovators and entrepreneurs behind the biggest names in golf. My friends were the golf clubs. I lived on the golf course, I lived on the driving rein from Pro Talk . You should learn something from each and every single round. You play to fun from on and off the green. Why would you play golf if you don't play it for money? Just let me put the ball in a hole. This
Speaker 2:Is Behind the Golf Brand podcast with Paul Libert tore . What's up guys? Welcome to the Behind the Golf Brand podcast. Today I have one of my really good friends, Justin Moore. He actually, he goes by the Creator Wizard and he's helped me out a ton. He works a lots of brands, a lot of creators, and he's been in the world and it's really interesting. Today I wanna talk about kind of his take on what's happening in the golf industry in terms of like the creator industry and why it's the way it is and how this is nothing new we've seen in other industries. 'cause I mean, Justin's been doing himself for a long time and awesome, awesome guy. So I'm really excited to have him on the show.
Speaker 3:What's going on, Paul? Thanks for having me, man. Looking forward to this.
Speaker 2:See you . I know I've met you. I bet you probably even know this. Well, you probably I'm too .
Speaker 3:I dunno .
Speaker 2:So like ,
Speaker 3:Like what , what was it ?
Speaker 2:My , my , uh, the guy who mentored me, like, he's like, somebody was talking about said , brought up your name, and I'm like, who's that? So I like did a bunch of research and I was like, he's like, oh yeah, I'm friends with him. And I'm like, seriously? It's like, you know Kevin Ispi to
Speaker 3:Yeah. Oh , yes , dude. Yes. I remember he mentioned that he had , uh, like, name dropped me when he was talking to you. That is, I forgot about that. That's hilarious.
Speaker 2:Yeah, so that was like in January and I was like, what the heck? Yeah . So that's crazy. I mean, he is blowing up a lot on YouTube. Dude. He
Speaker 3:Is man. He's, he's my idol. I always look at him, I'm like, dude, I need to like, like get one ounce of your creative genius.
Speaker 2:Yeah . I like, I was at his house, like, what was that , 2020? No, 19 right before Covid . Oh , 20. I'm always confused now. And like we were talk like before, before like the big wave hit and I was like, holy
Speaker 3:Smokes dude. But
Speaker 2:So do you play golf? That's
Speaker 3:The first question I do. I I would say, this is kind of embarrassing to say on a golf, I dabble, I'm , I'm gonna say I dabble. Like, is that, is that appropriate? Can I say that here? Yeah. I dab, I play when I can. I play with friends, but , uh, I , uh, I'm gonna go ahead and say I'm not , uh, uh, I'm not too great, but I enjoy it, <laugh> . We're all
Speaker 2:Great peers . So where, where
Speaker 3:Are you located then? I'm based in the , uh, San Francisco Bay area.
Speaker 2:So there's a lot of nice golf courses around there. There is, right ?
Speaker 3:There's some awesome ones. Yeah, there's some really, really nice ones. I live kind of in the suburbs outside the city, about 45 minutes, and we've got some awesome , uh, I kind of live up in the hills, and so we've got some really nice , um, really nice ones. That's
Speaker 2:Cool. I guess my first question to you is like, kind of what is your background? Like, how did you get into the creator world?
Speaker 3:Well, my, my real background is I, I professionally, I'm an engineer by trade, so I went to UCLA for engineering and I outta school, I went into medical devices, actually, of all things <laugh> . Um, so completely opposite from the creator economy and all that stuff. But what happened was my, my wife or girlfriend at the time , uh, April, she started making YouTube videos for fun on the side. And this is me again. I was like in the corporate world climbing the, like , what year this corporate career ladder and all that stuff. Uh , this was 2009 when she started her first YouTube channel. Um, and so this was to date myself a little bit. This was way before they even had a partner program. You could not make money on AdSense back when we started, basically. Whoa . Um, and so it very much was like a hobby for a long time for her. Um, and then, so her first channel was all around kind of beauty cosmetics , uh, you know , uh, like makeup, that type of stuff. 'cause she really liked that, didn't have any other friends in her real life that wanted to talk about that with her. And so she started making YouTube videos. Then what started to happen was first brands started reaching out, offering to send free stuff, right? And so initially it reminds you we were like, at our early twenties at this point, and we were like, she was like , yes, free stuff, right? You know, it's like, you know, don't have to spend money on beauty products, which were expensive, right? Um, and so she just started getting boxes and boxes of like free hair curlers and, you know, curling irons and all this stuff. And she was stoked about it, right? But it really was when the first brand reached out, offering to compensate her to pay her, that was like a big eye-opening moment for us because we were just like always used to looking at this as like, just for fun. Like we were doing , you know? It was, it was never something like, oh, actually we could make money doing this. It's crazy. And so I remember the very first deal, dude, it was a , uh, Korean skincare company, paid her $700 a month for six months to make two YouTube video, two inclusions in a YouTube video permit . And like for us, dude, that was so much money. Like, it's still kind of a lot of money, like, you know, for our very first deal, right? And so that was the big inflection point for our mindset was like, wow, what if what we thought immediately, what if we could find 10 brands, you know, to like do this sa same type of thing. Um, and so that was what led us down the , the path of, you know, we started other channels, started a cooking channel, started a vlogging channel , um, you know, different social platforms. Um, and, you know, fast forward , you know, to to to now we've done over 500 sponsorships personally over the last decade as creators. Um, you know, about around the 2015 timeframe. Um, I started , uh, you know, my, my business brain by that time I was in , uh, business school at night, and I was thinking, man, things are going really great on social media for us right now, but like, what if everything crashes and burns? Like, that's always like, I'm always thinking worst case scenario, right? And so , um, I was like, let me actually leverage all the knowledge that we've gained as creators, but also kinda my professional background, which is like project management, product management, et cetera. So like, what if I got deals for other creators? That was what I thought, okay, let me, let me start an agency here where I can bring brand partnerships to other creators. And so ran that for about seven years, you know, paid out millions of dollars to other creators. Um, and so those are, that, those are kind of two, the two yin and yang of my personality of being in the trenches for many years doing deals, but also having been on the other side of it in the big boardrooms with these big brands and big advertisers, helping them decide how to spend millions of dollars , uh, across hundreds of creators. You know, it's like a very different conversation. So , um, we could , we could dig into that a little bit more, but those two things are kinda what led me to, to doing creator education, which is what I do now. When
Speaker 2:You guys are making money, you're probably like, holy crap, right? Like, this is one , one of the thing that Justin has this course is called Gifted to be paid , gifted to paid, right? Or something like that. How's
Speaker 3:That go ? Yeah, so I have one course called Gifted to Paid, and then another one called Brand Deal Wizard .
Speaker 2:Mm-Hmm . <affirmative> . Yeah. So with gifted to paid, right? And then I think that's like a big disconnect with a lot of creators, right? Now's like, everyone thinks it's so cool in the beginning, they get free stuff. You're like, oh, that's cool. Mm-Hmm , <affirmative> . And then you realize the huge, like, you know, part of that deal. It's like, okay, you can do all that work. And it's like, by the time you do all the math, it's like, you could have bought 20 of those things, you know? So I mean, what, what do you recommend to people like, I mean, that would like to get into content creating? Like what's the, what's, what's the best way of like doing that?
Speaker 3:That's a good question. And , and to your point around , um, you know, getting the free stuff and how cool that feels like it, that was definitely for , for us early on, it felt like validation, Paul, like, it , it was like we were doing all this work, putting in all this energy, and then we finally, a brand finally noticed us like that . That's how it felt, right? It was like, wow. And like, and also it felt cool, like relative to our peers, like, oh, we are being acknowledged, right? And all our other friends are like, seeing that we're doing cool stuff like that. That feels good early on. It feels like validation, especially if you have people in your real life who are looking down on what you're doing. Friends, family, oh, you're,
Speaker 2:Everybody does that. They're like, that's
Speaker 3:Stupid. You're a, a podcaster. You know , like all this type of thing. It's like, and so it's like it for , for someone to acknowledge you and oh , here's free stuff. It feels good. And so you're, you're that the tendency is to wanna give away the farm. It's like, okay, sure, yeah, you , you , they say jump, you say how high? It's like, oh yeah, 10 posts , sure, for this $20, you know, golf accessory like, sounds great. Send it over. Um, and so I think that's ,
Speaker 2:I I did that for years. Yeah . <laugh> , you guys understand , like, like Justin like changed my life. Like, for real. It's like, there's very few people that have changed my life. Justin's one of those people because like going from that mindset to a completely different mindset is like a huge jump, right? Yeah. And especially when you think those first couple of years, you think you're cool, right? Like , oh, I'm so cool, I have the newest ex , you know, and it's like, but when you have like a hundred new exes and it doesn't even, like, you gotta pay your bills, right? Mm-Hmm. <affirmative>, I mean ,
Speaker 3:Mm-Hmm. <affirmative> . Yeah. Free product doesn't pay the bills, that's for sure. And, and to kind of go back to your initial question of like, people who, you know, may want to start creating content , um, the first thing that I need to everyone to hear is that , um, the , the pervasive attitude that I think everyone has is like, oh, it's so saturated, right? All , there's all these people talking about what I want to talk about. There's no room for me. Like, I , how am I gonna break through? There's so many people , uh, trying to do this, et cetera. Um, and I'm here to say that that's complete and utter bss because there is always going to be a lane for you to share your own perspective, your own voice, your own personal life experiences. Um, and it obviously helps if you have some spiky points of view, <laugh> , you know, things that are somewhat polarizing or not for polarizing's sake, but like that you actually take a stance on something that , uh, there's this person, I , I follow, her name is West Cow . She has this article called Spiky Spiky Points of View. It's like you have a spiky point of view, not just for the sake of it, but be you really truly believe this. For example, one of my spiky points of view is that I believe 99% of creators should not have managers, talent managers, right? You should actually, this is your own business. You should, why run it yourself as ACEO? Um, a lot of different reasons. But , um, number one is you're building their Rolodex, not yours. And in the age of , um, infinite , uh, ability for you to, like, the , the beauty of being a creator is there's no longer gatekeepers, right? Like any brand, any company can slide in your inbox or your dms and say, Hey, let's collaborate. Contrast that to the , the traditional media of yesteryear where everything had to go through the talent agent. Everything was routed through that person. Um, and , um, in the world of talent management, when it's digital natives like creators, they are oftentimes there's all sorts of other , um, incentives that I believe are actually, can sometimes be misaligned. Um, so to kind of go rewind the clock , um, I have, part of this is colored by the fact that I have kind of like P-P-T-S-D from our first forays into management. Um, early on with our YouTube channels, there was these things called multi-channel networks, MCNs , um, that proliferated right after YouTube kind of blew up in the early years. And what these MCNs did is they forged all of these really kind of predatory agreements with early YouTubers, where they were taking a huge amount of their AdSense earnings each month with the promise of, oh, we're gonna bring you opportunities, we're gonna get you brand deals, we're gonna do all these things. Um, and a lot of it did not turn out to be the case. A lot of it was snake oil and was preying on the fact that no one had any idea what we were doing. Like we had no idea, right? And so it was like, sure, oh, you're gonna, man , you're gonna help me figure this space out? Sure. Here , let me sign, sign this away . And so we had varying levels of like, terrible experiences, a few awesome experiences, but , um, I have so many friends in this industry who have been screwed over the years because they didn't advocate for themselves . They just said, okay, I, I just wanna focus on the creative stuff. I'm just gonna highlight , I just wanna find someone to like, handle, handle the, the business stuff for me. I'll, I'll do the creative stuff, right? And, and my drum that I've been beating over the last few years is like that. If you have that attitude, it's going to be very, very hard for you to have a sustainable and long-term career as a, as a , uh, a creator in this, in this industry . Um, and so like that , that , that I could go in , I could talk for like three hours about why I think this is ,
Speaker 2:This is awesome , because
Speaker 3:It's very
Speaker 2:True. I mean,
Speaker 3:Yeah ,
Speaker 2:The industry in the world of golf, like the industry's really changed a lot in the last couple years. Like, I, I mean, I mostly started my channel two years ago, but my YouTube channel up everything else. But what I was selling Justin talking before this show is like in the last, you know, nine months, we've seen a lot of very, very, very big brand deals with like Callaway and Good, good . And, you know, no laying up has a big brand deal. All these have these huge brand deals. And it's almost like what I'm seeing, because I've worked with a lot of brands, is the big boys are gobbling up the influencers, is the big influencers, and like tying 'em up right away. And then there's no, like, it's like, you are only gonna use our product. You're like, and it's, it wasn't like that before. It was like everyone was kinda like the wild west and was kind of doing as much as they possibly could, but I, I just find like, that's so interesting because it was never like that till this year. And it's like, and then it's like they all start fighting for control, right? And we're not talking like, some have millions of subscribers, but some don't, you know, that'd been a hundred thousand. Like, and then the other thing is too on this is I've seen in the last, I would say a year and a half, the mid-size brands or the mid-size, third party retailers are going after the up and comers because they know that they need to grab those guys for gals before the big guys do. But is that common, like, in other industries? Because I mean, I know you've worked in a lot of different worlds, right? Yeah . I don't know . I mean, it's all interesting to me.
Speaker 3:I have, and, and, and it's, it's funny because , um, I actually just released a, a new YouTube video today around this topic of like, why it's difficult to get brands in tra quote unquote traditional industries to , um, con like find the value in working with creators, not just traditional celebrities or athletes or this type of thing. Like what is the value in working with, with someone who has a presence on social media? Um, and , uh, you're absolutely right. Like I, I have seen this, it's happen over and over and over. In fact, one of my , um, longest , uh, running clients, his name's also Paul , um, he's in the , uh, long , he, he, okay, so he has a podcast where he teaches lawn care professionals how to grow their businesses, and he's getting hundreds of thousands of downloads a month on his podcast. And so , um, super niche, but he also was running into a , that very similar problem where talking with the likes of, you know, some of the largest tractor companies and hedge trimmers and mowers, and like, all these stuff, and they're always just like, now we're running TV ads, we're doing magazine ads, we're doing the traditional, you know, kind of direct to home , you know, type mailers to , you know, contractors, et cetera, et cetera , et cetera. It was just like banging against the wall for years and years and years. And then the floodgates opened. What happened was all it took was like one domino to fall where one of the largest, you know, kind of biggest companies in this space , um, decided to kind of start dabbling with influencer marketing, working with creators. And then what happens? Everyone's looking like this, right? If you , for those of you listening and can't see this, it's like you're looking side to side , right? It's like, oh, what is my competitor doing over here? Oh, oh, if they're doing influencer marketing, then that, there must be something to that, right? And so this is oftentimes the advice that I can give to , um, creators who are in traditional niches and industries is like, it, it takes a while to chisel away. And if you have this mindset of just like sewing the scenes, doing the education and, and understanding that it , it will take a little while for the , for you to be able to reap that. Um, those are the types of people who ultimately break through . Because what happens when you position yourself as the, as the educator, the thought leader, the , uh, you know, the authority on this type of space, yeah, it may take a while, but when they ultimately do decide to write those checks, you're gonna be the first name at the top of the list because you were kind of putting in the work, providing value the whole time.
Speaker 2:I, I just, I was amazed, honestly. I was like, holy, the , the deals that are being made are like, not like a normal, you know, oh, it's a 50 grand or 20 grand, you're talking like millions of dollars. Mm-Hmm. <affirmative> . Like , and the other thing I'm seeing too is you're seeing a lot of , um, what's the word? Consolidation, I guess a better way of saying where it's like, you know, we'll get a bunch of creators together and we'll call it X, you know, and then X will be then sponsored by ginormous company, right? Right . And it's almost like, is that, is that something you've seen a lot too in other industries? Like, you know, that you've been in
Speaker 3:For sure. I mean, I think that the all betts are off. I think when traditional brands start through splashing around some of these large marketing dollars, it look, you know , it's in their best interest to gobble up market share and share of voice. You know, it's like, they just wanna , if they're able to, if they decide, look , okay , we've got, you know , I , do you actually know this statistic? Like, how much does Callaway spend , uh, a year on like advertising? Do you know?
Speaker 2:Probably a bazillion dollars. I don't know .
Speaker 3:Yeah . Yeah . I
Speaker 2:Mean , they own top now too, right?
Speaker 3:Billion that , yeah . Let's just say, let's just say they spend $50 million a year on advertising. I don't know, I'm making it up, right? Um , yeah . Like, and of those 50 million a certain, you know, let's say 20 million is broadcast, 20 million is, you know, out of home print, you know, you know, whatever, putting aside sponsorship dollars for athletes and stuff. Um, and then previously maybe like digital partnerships with like creators and influencers and stuff like that, maybe represented 1% <laugh> of those, of that overall budget, right? But if you move into, let's say for 2024, they're planning for their budget for their calendar year, and they decide, okay, we're gonna up it from one to 10%. Like, that's a huge , that's a huge amount of , of dollars. And the thing I always like, because I ran this agency for many years, like, one thing I always like to talk about is like, it's like really hard to deploy lots of marketing capital. Like, it , it's difficult, really.
Speaker 2:Uh ,
Speaker 3:And so like you, yeah, you think like, oh, man, like it would be hard to spend money, but no, you can't just like walk into, you know, an ad agency and be like, Hey, I wanna spend $10 million, like in the next, like , it's hard. Like , it's hard to figure out like places to , to , to park that money. And so one phenomenon that I actually have seen to your point, was when these lar really large advertisers, advertisers decide that a very specific marketing tactic is worthwhile, they'll go big. They'll be like, okay, yeah. Like we , we we're normally spending a hundred million or 50 million or whatever. Like, we're gonna spend millions of dollars doing this now because we, we believe in this, in this moving forward. And so , um, that's why you sometimes you'll see it go from like zero to like a hundred <laugh> or zero to 60 real quickly , uh, in some of the dollars that they're splashing around. Because when they do ultimately decide to , um, have this be a meaningful part of their strategy , um, to kind of go big or go home,
Speaker 2:I mean, for somebody who's starting out as a creator, and let's say , I mean , we use golfers, you know, do that for example. Like, would you say, if you're beginning out, is it good to be gifted or you just start charging people? Or like, what would you say if someone was brand new at being a creator?
Speaker 3:You know, I , I would say , um, two things. Number one, we came up in the very early years where it was always content first. It was always audience first. Like, how can, how can we make great content? How can we serve them? Um, but the generation that's coming up on social media right now, or folks who want to start dabbling with it right now, there's not the same stigma of monetizing as there was when we started, right? It's, it's so much more accepted now to do brand partnerships, to have paid communities and courses and coaching and all these stuff that you can do. And so what I always like to say is like , um, you don't have to go through the , um, <laugh>, you know, the like walk on glass for five years without getting paid a dime. Like, I , like, we, like a lot of us early creators did. And that's a beautiful thing. Like, you can come into this being like, okay, if , if I can figure out a, like a, let's, like maybe it's a sub niche within golf, like I'm gonna help players who have had injuries , um, figure out how to improve their game, or something like that's gonna be my niche or something. Um, then there's a lot of ways in which you can serve that particular segment, right? Whether it's courses or coaching or whatever to like cater to them. Um, and I think that that's actually a really, really positive thing. And it just comes down to like serving your audience, serving your customer. And so , um, I actually think that creators who start now have a leg up where you could sit and think, okay, like, okay, yes, this is gonna be my content strategy. These are the types of things that I'm going to post about, but also I can see in six months or in 12 months, these are the types of income streams that I can envision. Yeah, maybe it's sponsorships or maybe it's courses or whatever. And like sitting and thinking about that is actually useful because it po potentially could inform the types of people that you wanna serve with your content , uh, at the beginning. I mean,
Speaker 2:I think now too, there's, there's so many more streams of , of revenue sources, right? Because like back then it was just like YouTube only , right? Or a website. Mm-Hmm. <affirmative> . And then it's kind of evolved into, I mean, Instagram and TikTok . And, you know, I mean, one thing that's really surprised me is just while, even though in the last couple years there's been a lot of people have come up very quickly just because Mm-Hmm . <affirmative> , you know, they , they can platform jump, right? Let's call it. Is that, is that something you recommend to people? Or do you , like , you think you should start out your, you know, I'm , I'm on X platform, and then you dabble on the other two? Or what would you recommend to people that are wanting ,
Speaker 3:I would say the quickest way to get burnt out is to try to attack all platforms at once when you're starting out, because it's gonna feel really unsustainable. The one , the one caveat I will say though is that , um, we are now in a time, which is unlike any other time in the history of social media, where you can create a single piece of short form content and publish it across a bevy of platforms without basically changing anything. Instagram reels, TikTok , uh, you know, YouTube shorts, you could post stuff on Pinterest idea pins now on Reddit on X, you can get paid to post on Twitter slash x now . So like the same asset, you can basically cross post it in a bunch of different places. So if I was giving any advice to any person coming up today, it would be short form content. That would be where I would start. Um, that's the path of least resistance. It's the easiest , uh, to, you know, go from idea to finished piece of content. Um, what I will say though is that , um, there is value in, in doubling down and focusing on one platform to begin with. Because as you know, like every platform kind of has their subtleties, right? Like a , AAP you could cross post the same video, the same short form piece of content across a bunch of different platforms, and you could get a hundred thousand views on YouTube shorts and like a thousand on TikTok and
Speaker 2:Sometimes Yeah , two on TikTok .
Speaker 3:Yeah . Yeah. It's like very like mystifying, like why would that, how could that possibly be? Right? But then you start to double click and be like, okay, well actually people on TikTok prefer it looking a little bit like less professional. They don't like the super glossy look . It looks like some you're just sitting in your bedroom and you fired it up your form . People prefer that type of format. Oh . Or content quality there. So, so there is like subtleties to it. And so what I always say is like, don't just necessarily pick the platform that you love. You have to pick the platform where the audience that you wanna serve loves that. That's what you should be focusing on. Um, and so , uh, going back to how do you know , I think it is a little bit difficult early on when you don't have any sort of audience, but like, like here's, here's a good example of like my friend Paul, right? Uh, who runs the, the Green Industry podcast. He, his audience of who he wanted to serve is like, these are guys who were on lawnmowers all day long, <laugh>. And so for him, they're
Speaker 2:Listening to stuff Yeah. They're like, already Yeah. Wanna grow their business. Yeah .
Speaker 3:So like, perfect ,
Speaker 2:I
Speaker 3:Got a , I in the, I should start a podcast. That that was his, the, the , the , the genesis of that idea. But because he thought of of , of it was him, it was like, I , I , I'm listening to podcasts all day long 'cause I'm on the mower. Like I , I , I gotta serve them in that way. Contrast that with being like, you know, they're not gonna be opening up their phone and looking, watching YouTube videos probably , um, when they're, when they're doing their job, right? And so it's like, I think that can be a , a , a helpful question to think of, of like, okay, well, let me think about my audience and kind of what they're , what's going on in their life and how they consume content. And, and an easy way to do it is just like, if you have five or six people in your life, actual real life, who you think would find value in the types of stuff you wanna post about, ask 'em . <laugh> be like, Hey, I'm thinking about doing this. Like , um, tell me about your content consumption behavior. Like, like when do you watch social media? What platforms are you on? What types of content are you watching? Um, if I were to cr start creating content about this type of thing, what would be your preferred way to consume that content? Is it a video? Is it a short form? Is it a podcast? You know, if you wanna read it, you know, like that , that's been another really interesting , um, uh, eye-opening thing for me, Paul. Is it like , um, I've really doubled down on my written blog, really , because like really? Yeah, dude, because like, I, I've , I've realized like, you know, if I was looking, analyzing search traffic on Google, like if you go, I am the number one result for how much to charge for a brand deal because people are searching for this stuff, right? It's like I , they're not necessarily thinking, oh , lemme go to YouTube, bro . Lemme go to TikTok ,
Speaker 2:Watch a video about some dumb. Like talk about ,
Speaker 3:Yeah, let me let Google this and see what articles I can do . So
Speaker 2:Right now,
Speaker 3:Yeah. And so, and so part of it, my content strategy over the last few years, and again, this was like version two, 3.0 of my strategy is like, okay, how can I repurpose my content that I've already created , um, in written form?
Speaker 2:How do you do that?
Speaker 3:Uh, I mean, download the transcript now, now , like, if , if I was doing it now, the playbook would be download the trans transcript from YouTube, use chat GPT and or some freelancers to help me repackage this into a blog post. Embed the video on the blog post. Call it in , clean it
Speaker 2:Up. Yeah. Up . Upload it . Yep .
Speaker 3:Clean it up.
Speaker 2:I knew you were gonna say that.
Speaker 3:Yeah, <laugh> ,
Speaker 2:You understand , like , Justin is one of the smartest guys I know. Like, I guess tell the audience what , I mean, tell the audience how much you and your wife has made since you started, like your stuff. Yeah . Like, this is no joke you guys.
Speaker 3:So actually I was just , uh, interviewed by , uh, insider , uh, for , uh, thing, and they, they actually made me send them proof <laugh> of the income really to to fact check it. Yeah. Because I , you know , I talk about this a lot, but , um, we made, yeah , four , 4.5 million working with brands since, since 2013, since I started keeping QuickBooks. So it's probably more than that. 'cause I wasn't , wasn't good at like, keeping books back then. But yeah, it's been 4.5 million and, and again, paid out millions to other creators , uh, over the years , uh, as well. So it's been , um, yeah, man, it's been, it's been a huge part of our, our revenue streams, our family income. Um,
Speaker 2:You guys are doing lots of things, right? Because I mean, like, I took Justin's Creator Woods course , which we'll talk about in a minute, minute earlier this year. But I mean, you guys are on Amazon, you have your YouTube channel, you have a really big, I mean, you and your wife had that channel together, that's really big too. I mean, you have a lot of different stuff. You do live streaming, and it's like all kinds of like, I'm just golf, right? Pretty much. So it's like they're doing like really cool stuff. Like, what was it , what was that thing you guys doing ? Went to this resort or something? Was that with Nickelodeon or who was that?
Speaker 3:You guys going ?
Speaker 2:Yeah ,
Speaker 3:I mean we've, we've had just some awesome, amazing opportunities over the , over the, the years, dude. Like , um, yeah, like we went to , um, a , uh, a , it was called , uh, Azo Beach Resort in Cancun recently to kind of showcase what they've , uh, you know, all the amenities that they have there. So, you know, part, part of the , part of the , um, cool thing about our journey is that we've shared so much of our life. You know, we shared , um, you know, our relationship, we've shared our, our marriage, we've shared kind of our pregnancy journey and raising our kids. So it's like, we haven't been in like, just a specific niche the whole time, like you are. Um, and so there's, there's pros and cons to that, right? Because if you're, if you're talking about everything, oftentimes you're talking about nothing like that , that is a danger of like, just being a, oh , general, like lifestyle influence . I'm gonna talk about everything, you know, this type of thing that is a da that is dangerous for sure. Um, but , uh, it has afforded us the ability to enter into a lot of different , um, verticals, right? In terms of family and travel , hospitality,
Speaker 4:Food .
Speaker 3:Yeah. So, so, so a lot of, you know, the , the , the advantage is , is that we've built up all these amazing relationships over the years with brands and, and especially advertising agencies who represent a lot of brands. And so if we do good work for one of their clients, then they're gonna immediately put us in the deck for their other clients because , oh, we just worked with April and Justin, they are so amazing. We should definitely work with them again on this other new project. So, yeah, I mean, it's been, I I I will say though, I, I wanna be like totally like vulnerable here for a minute, is that like, we've had some big successes, but we've also had some really big failures, dude, really ? Like we have, yeah. Oh, for sure, dude. Like we, we tried to launch a paid membership in 20 14, 20 13. Um, so, so what happened was, like back in the day, one of the pieces of content, or the formats of content that we were getting, hundreds of thousands of views per video, dude, was we would do these relationship advice videos. 'cause people, a lot of people came to us and like, we have a , I think my , you know, my wife and I, we've been together 17 years now, so we must be doing something right. But like back in the day, like we , um, talked a lot about what we view as like some of the, the pillars of like a successful relationship in marriage. And people came to us for that. And so what happened was we had a company approach us and they were like, Hey, everyone is coming to you for relationship advice. Let's make a relationship membership, right? Like where there's trainings and all this stuff. And we were like, yeah, that sounds awesome. Like, honestly, it came from a place of like, we were excited about this, of like helping improve people's relationships. And what the biggest mistake that we made was that we went into a vacuum, a cave, we told no one about the fact that we were doing this. And six months later we move emerged and we were like, ta-da , here's our $20 a month membership. Like, join. And everyone's like, it was just like the worst who reaction you can possibly New phone. Yeah . Worst . Yeah . New , new phone. Who dis It was like worst possible reaction. Yeah .
Speaker 4:Um ,
Speaker 3:And we got flamed, we got absolutely roasted sell out . Like, how dare you? This, this whole, it's been a long con, you're trying to like money grab all this stuff. And it was really, really humbling for us, dude . And it was really, really demoralizing. And we were, were, and so we, you know, kind of tried try , you know, tried to limp along. Uh, you know, we did it for a while and , and we actually had some amazing transformations in there, but ultimately decided to, to wind it down. 'cause it, you know, didn't have the I impact that we hoped it would. And so we kind of licked our wounds for a couple years. Um, and you know, we, we , we , but, but it's like, I just, it's important to like, tell the story that it hasn't been this like rocketship you
Speaker 2:Yeah . Straight up hockey , like stick to success .
Speaker 3:No , like we've had, and , and , and I think that's part of the, you know, like , like sobriety that you need to have around being a creator is that your income streams could be, can change. <laugh> varies significantly. Like, like, man, we were in the height of our YouTube when we were like killing it. We were making 25 KA month on our YouTube channels.
Speaker 2:Holy.
Speaker 3:Like , and that was like, you know , represented 90 plus percent of our income at that time. And now our YouTube , uh, AdSense income represents less than 1% of our income. So it's like, like, like talk about such a massive swing and , and , and you have to be kind of,
Speaker 2:Yeah. If you just , if you just focus just on that forever, you'd be like, broke. You know what I mean? Like ,
Speaker 3:You'd be screwed. Yeah. And so it's like, and, and so what I'm saying is like, it's not for everyone. It's not for the faint of heart. Like I, I, I , I get it. If you have a nine to five and you can punch the time card and kind of check out when you come home at night, like, that's fine. Like, I'm never gonna like complain or I'm never gonna like put that down. 'cause there's, there's value <laugh> to like having that mental , uh, relief , uh, of where your income's gonna come from. But at the same time , um, there , it's, it's so beautiful. Like the, the, the, if , if you really look at it, there's no ceiling for your income potential and your impact potential when you work for yourself, in my opinion.
Speaker 2:So, I mean, and if you are new and you have a channel right now, or let's say you have a , you know , a couple thousand subscriber or not even that let's , there's even just enough to be monetized, let's put it that way. Okay . And you have a small Instagram account, whatever, a couple thousand followers would you recommend for that person to continue? Like, I mean, would you say like, I guess one idea is you make a YouTube video, right? You chop it , you could chop it up, turn into some shorts, or maybe one good short out of that five minute YouTube video and try to repurpose that in other places and just try to, I don't know . I'm trying to think of ways somebody could like further their , uh, content creation without having to like go crazy.
Speaker 3:Yeah. So , um, I'll be totally honest here, man, I'm still figuring this out. Like for a long time, that's what I've been doing, is I do this, like you said, I do this livestream every Friday , um, and I download the replay of that and I chop it up and use it for shorts. Um, and that's not ideal <laugh>, you know, for a piece of content that feels native to the platform. Like there's a difference for like filming something specifically for like, let's say short form content. Um, but to your , to your point, like there's, my , my approach has been volume where I'm like, okay, I just wanna be everywhere. I want to be on Twitter, I wanna be on TikTok, I wanna be on YouTube, I wanna be everywhere. And so by definition, that means that I'm not gonna be able to excel everywhere. But I , that's just the path, the bed that I've made. If I was giving advice to someone who's just starting out, it probably wouldn't be that, because I also, just to clarify, I have a team. I have virtual assistants, I have, you know, people , editor, video editors, all that stuff. And so if it's just you and you don't have that , uh, ability to invest in other people to help you out with this stuff, I would concentrate on just one or two platforms in the beginning. And like you said, trying to, probably what I would do is I would, I would have a long form strategy and I would have a native short form strategy where I'm gonna sit down and I'm gonna like film short form pieces of content that I'm not repurposing from anywhere else. Um, because I think that that'll have the better , uh, the best , um, probably the best results.
Speaker 2:So how many podcasts do you have then ? You have a live stream on Friday, what else you've created ?
Speaker 3:I have, I do. I have a , um, a , a podcast called Creator Debates where every episode pits to high profile creators against each other to debate a hotly contested topic in the creator economy. So , um, it , it's actually kind of come full circle. 'cause we were talking just earlier about niches and whether or not you should pick a niche or, you know, or you should kind of be a general creator, whatever. And this was my big struggle for a long time, is like, you know, people know me as the sponsorship coach. Like I'm, that's, that's my kind of lane, right? Um, but I didn't want to just make a podcast about sponsorships. 'cause I love talking about all this other types of stuff too, right? Digital products and courses and merch and affiliate marketing and all this stuff. Um, and so once I, ultimately, basically what's happened over the last couple years is I spent the first two years basically developing my, the know , like, and trust factor, like they call it , um, in this particular lane. And people started trusting me for, for this topic. And so once I ultimately decided to launch a podcast that wasn't about my niche, which was sponsorships , um, they followed me over there. They were like, okay, well Justin has some good stuff to say about sponsorships, so he probably has some good stuff to say about these other topics too. And so it's allowed me , uh, I call it kind of the , the Trojan horse effect <laugh> , right? It's like you go in with this one thing, and then once you , you know, once you kind of penetrate there, then you can kind of jump out and be like, ta-da, I've got all these other things I wanna say too. Um, and so, so yeah, man , it's been, it's been a blast. I've got the live stream , I've got the podcasts. Um, yeah, it's, it's, it's a lot. I will say it's a lot. I feel,
Speaker 2:So you guys, Justin knows the stuff, right ? Right . <laugh> , like legit, like he's the only person I know that a is willing to talk about the things he talks about, because usually it's behind closed doors. Or you have, like, one thing, you know, he talks about or you know, is he says, you know, creators will go ask another creator. Like, Hey, what do you charge? Right? And he's like, that's the worst thing you can do. Because like, and I think it's the hardest part too , if you're trying to charge money for content creation, like you have no idea what to charge, you have no idea what to offer, you don't even know what you're worth, right? Because you might think you're worth a lot less than what you're really worth in the market, but, and then people will roll right over you and be like , oh yeah, sure. Yeah . I mean, you're pretty much tuned for free
Speaker 3:To , to your point. I mean, there's like, you could be wrong to the tune of hundreds of thousands of dollars in the <laugh> in in these examples that you're sharing now with some of these brands splashing around massive amounts of cash. Like, if you don't educate yourself around how to value your work and value what you're bringing to the table as a creator, remember, like, brands do not have all this stuff figured out. E everyone thinks Oh yeah. Brands like ,
Speaker 2:Yeah , you really do think , I mean, I , yeah , like you , you realize that you're the one that has the authority. They don't, I mean, they have the money, but they have a clue,
Speaker 3:Right? Right. And so it's like your job is to educate them. That's your job, <laugh> . You shouldn't just be like, oh, this brand's in , they're so stupid. They don't, they're paying $20,000 for these magazine spots like that. What , what's their clueless, right? It's like, and this is the tendency when you come in and talk with brands in some of these traditional categories, sometimes it's just like you have to unlearn that. You have to be like, okay, look, this is what they've done to date, but now it's my job to come in there and help them understand how they can supplement their current strategy. I'm not coming in and saying that you're an idiot brand. Um, I'm saying, Hey, this is, yeah, this took you up to where you, you are today. I'm gonna help you take you into the next chapter. Um, and so it's like having the humility to understand that that's your job as a creator to do that. Um, it's gonna be a game changer.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I mean, I think it's, so I guess what's Creator Wizard ?
Speaker 3:So Creator Wizard is my , uh, my moniker, my brand name. So if you go to creator wizard.com , that's like kind of where that's the umbrella of everything that I talk about. All the sponsorship stuff and podcasts and courses and all that stuff too. So yeah, people, people call me the Creator Wizard . And so that's, that's kind of my, my, my social handle.
Speaker 2:And what, what is, what are the, what are the courses you offer? So you've gifted a paid, and what's the second one? So people understand the difference?
Speaker 3:Yeah, so, so , um, my primary course is called Brand Deal Wizard . Um, and so the reason i I created this program is that first of all, like if you're interested at all in , in any of this stuff, I have like 99% of my stuff is free. I have like hundreds of YouTube videos. I have so many like, stuff on my blog, like my newsletter creator wizard.com/join . By the way, shameless plug. Um, you know, I literally just send you lots of stuff for free. But , um, like I decided to create a program that if for anyone that's even interested in like earning money by working with partners and brands and companies and things like this , um, I wanted to make the best like course , uh, on the planet for that. Um, because I didn't like, number one, I wanted people to avoid the mistakes that my wife and I made grow , you know, like coming up, right? Signing away rights, the broadcast TV rights for nothing. And, you know, signing exclusivity, like, oh, it can't work with any brands, you know, that are competitors for a year. Like, we made every mistake under the book. You can imagine. So I wanted to help provide , uh, people a , a venue to learn those things. Secondly , um, like a very, very large mistake that creators make is they have this transactional mindset. It's like a one , I'm gonna do this one-off deal with this one brand, and then I'm literally gonna never talk to them again. And that is like firing yourself from your nine to five job every single month. It's like you're back out there being like, okay, hire me, hire me. Like I, I work with me, right? And so it's like I wanted to teach people that it's so much easier to convince a brand that you just worked with to hire you. Again, <laugh>, it's so much easier to convince them to do that 'cause they just had a great experience. And so this is a foreign concept for a lot of, a lot of people , uh, especially creators who maybe never had a professional job before they were doing this, right? Um, and so, and I just, I have so many frameworks and methodologies, and I have what I call my sponsorship wheel, which is my eight step , uh, framework that I teach people about what brand partnerships look like. I just wanted to have a forum for, for people who are frankly making a, oftentimes a lot of money. Um, and so if you can understand how do you go from like charging a thousand dollars to $10,000 without 10 times the amount of work like that , that's really what I specialize in. Um , and that's what the , uh, the course is for.
Speaker 2:I think it's brilliant. I mean, there's not , there's not a lot of people, like, I honestly, like Justin's the only guy I know talks about this to be quite honest. I mean, I've worked with a lot of brands and I've talked with a lot of creators and I even like the things I've learned from Justin, I've had to like tell our creators, like just the other day, a creator friend of mine who I'm not gonna name was did some content and I was like, Hey, did they pay you right? And he is like, no. And I'm like, and then I said , well , this brand had come out to me and they wanted to pay me to do the same same thing. And I was like, but I read their contract. And I was like, oh hell to the no. And I'm like, I'm just making sure you didn't sign that contract, because like, it was pretty, like in terms of there was, it was exclusivity in there, there , well , it wasn't so much the price or any of that is when you start really reading it, it's like they would own the entire rights of your video for very, or however many videos they wanted you to do for a very long time. And I was like, there's no way. But like, if you're new, you know, if you're a new person, like you probably like, oh cool, I'm gonna make a couple, couple dollars here. And then not even realize that the true value of what you're giving away just 'cause you don't understand what that, what that even means, you know, like as a, as a creator and the , the value of a brand running ads with your content, right? Mm-Hmm . <affirmative> or all that. It's like, that's your, that's you man. That's your persona. That's like that're using you. You understand that. It's like, so, I mean
Speaker 3:It's, it's, I mean it's , it's , it can be a really frustrating thing for creators what you just described, because a lot of people will, <laugh> brands will come and they'll have a conversation with a creator and you'll be like, Hey, you gotta pay me money for that. And they'll like, Hey, well this creator over here, they, they were fine doing it for free. So like, well , how come you're not fine doing it for free? And they'll try and kind of gaslight you, <laugh> ,
Speaker 2:You know , to some degree really.
Speaker 3:Um, yeah, for sure. And so, and creators get frustrated 'cause they're like, how can I advocate for myself? How can I get paid if everyone else is doing it for free? It's so frustrating. Like, I can't, you know, like that , that's like a , a really common refrain that I hear a lot. And what I tell creators is like, look, you have absolutely no control over what someone else decides to do, whether they decide to do it for free or very little money, you have no control over that. What you do have control over is helping illustrate to the brand or the partner why you are so much different than those other people. One, a quick example, your friend who just did a bunch of content for free, oftentimes what brands do not get when they are giving away free, free stuff is , uh, the rights to repurpose the content, to run paid advertising with it, the rights to preview the content before it goes live. What, what happens when they send something free, the creator talks about it and then the brand's like, wait , whoa , whoa , whoa , whoa. You actually said something that's not true or not accurate. That's a problem. And there's no incentive for the creator to like, say, give the brand a preview of it before it goes live when there's no compensation involved , right? Sure . And so it's your job to like bring this stuff up when you're talking with a partner and be like, Hey, is that important to you being able to preview it and make sure that everything I said and depicted make
Speaker 2:The before it goes live Yeah . Make
Speaker 3:You know like that if that's valuable to you. Well, that's why I specialize in this and that's why you have to pay me, right? Because there's, this is a, this is a relationship here. Um ,
Speaker 2:Yeah. We're we're working together on this. This isn't just
Speaker 3:Yeah.
Speaker 2:You know? Yeah. 'cause a complete roll the dice, I mean, I have , I have a couple brands I own myself and I'll send out product and it's a roll the dice. You don't know the person's gonna do it or not like Mm-Hmm . If you wanna follow up a thousand times, and then maybe if you do get the content back, it might not necessarily be what you wanted, but now what are you gonna do? You gave away for free, you know? Right . It's like, so I can see from the other perspective, like a brand, they really have that in place to know those objectives will be met. Right. Whatever that might be. And,
Speaker 3:And the other important thing, note , knowing that you have a brand, like you also know like there is value for each of these tactics. There, there is value in what I call product seeding. You just send stuff out, you have no, you just kiss it and let you have no expectation. There's gonna be like a bunch of posts made of it . You just, that's just like part of it, right? That's one strategy. Then you've got the affiliate strategy where you've got people like out there, a little army on your behalf selling stuff. You give 'em 20% commission, whatever, that's one strategy. Then you've got the, you know, flat compensation content creation budget too. That, that , like these are all strategies and any brand worth their salt should be doing all of these things. Right? And so are
Speaker 2:You all three of them , right? You send stuff out.
Speaker 3:Yeah . You should be doing everything right. And so, and so it's
Speaker 2:Important and you do affiliate with the guy, so he like wants to keep on pushing it after the period's over and
Speaker 3:Exactly. And, and so it's like your goal, your , your re it's your responsibility to teach the brand this. If they don't understand this, you say like, Hey, like here's all these different ways in which you work with creators. Like it's all fine. Good. And well, if you're used to doing it for free or whatever, and do this over here, but oh, by the way, over here, this is what I specialize in. And if that's what you need, gimme a ring. But if not, Ciara , basically. Right? And so you just have to have that, that confidence. And , and it comes with, with educating yourself.
Speaker 2:What do you think brands look at when they wanna partner with somebody?
Speaker 3:So I think it really comes down to the goal of the campaign. In , in , in my view, this is what I teach creators and , and also teach brands who don't, who don't really understand this. What a lot of times happens is that , um, brands have very unrealistic expectations about what is going to happen on the other side of this partnership. So let's say they reach out, let's say they do compensate the creator, Hey, we're gonna pay you five grand, two grand, 500 bucks, whatever it is , right? And they're expecting, they're , they're , they're , they're expecting that this is going to be like a Facebook ad <laugh> , right? They're gonna be like, okay, we're , we're gonna put $500 in and we're gonna get two or three X row ads , sales , sales , turn on ads . We're gonna these sales on, we're gonna get conversions on the other side of that
Speaker 2:Part . The one to PR do .
Speaker 3:Yeah. And, and , um, and yet that was never communicated to the partner. They never said like, that , this is what our expectation is. And so the, the creators over here kind of oblivious to this, like , uh, you know, kind of in their , they've got a big smile, you know, na naive smile on their face. They're doing the content and they say, this episode of, you know, golfers authority is, is brought to you by, you know, Titleist or whatever, right? And it's like more of a brand awareness play, right? That that's a brand awareness play. And yet, on the other side of this, they do the deal. You do a couple videos and oh, it didn't translate into sales like we were hoping. And then you're, as the creator sitting over here thinking, well, hold on a second. You never told me that that was what you were
Speaker 2:Trying to
Speaker 3:Accomplish. Yeah. Because, because if you would've told me that brand, I would've said, Hey, click the link below. You use Golf Authority 20 for 20% off your first purchase. That is a conversion, that is a conversion focused piece of content, right? And so it's like you have to be asking , uh, these types of questions. And so when you're a brand, the to , to your question , um, you have to understand what is your goal? <laugh> ? Is it conversion? There's three types that I always teach. It's conversions, right? Where it's sales, you know, app downloads, software trials, whatever it is. Then there's repurposing where the reason that they wanna hire Paul is because they want to get, they wanna leverage your name and likeness to run ads or to put it on their website , uh, or to regroup, repost it on their social media channels like that. That's a goal, right? And so you probably don't care at all how many sales are generated there, because that's not the goal. And then you have awareness, right? Where it's like , you know, products that were previously only sold in Europe or Australia, and now they're coming to the us . This is a brand awareness campaign. We wanna get this splashy. We want , uh, you know, we want the , um, behind the golf brand podcast powered by , uh, you know, Callaway
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 3:Whatever, with the badge. That's awareness. So, so there's, there's different tactics that you need to employ based on the goal of the campaign. See
Speaker 2:What it is like, it's like, it's like you can't go to school for this. I mean, honestly, I mean, the only way you learn is by doing it. Mm-Hmm . <affirmative> , or you take Justin's course. Yeah .
Speaker 3:<laugh> , I need set you up as an affiliate . Like click the click for , for Paul's affiliate link in the description box . I'm even looking for an affiliate. I need to give you one. I need to give you one.
Speaker 2:I mean , yeah , jerk kidding , <laugh> . Um , you know, but honestly, like, until I met Justin, like, I didn't understand any of these things. Like, you , you , you don't know. You just don't know . And then, you know, unless you know somebody who's like , uh, professional in this world or who's very successful, like they know their stuff, but it's like they don't know everything either. It's like whatever you learn on your way up, right? But once you get to a certain level, it's like you're not really learning that no more because you don't need to, you know? Mm-Hmm . <affirmative> . And I think like, what's so key about people like Justin is that you're able to learn from somebody that knows what they're talking about, especially when you're a new creator, you know? You know, and for this example in the golf industry, it's like, lots of guys always reach out to me and say, Hey, I got a new, what do you recommend? What do you recommend to do? You know? And I'm like, oh , I should have Justin on the show <laugh> . So like, he could at least like explain like, what do you do if you're just new? And how do you try to make money at this? Or, you know, maybe you do some free stuff and then you make it paid later on. You know, you never know. It's like, one thing I , I think when ju gathered through Justin's course is like , about the , it's a lot about relationship too. It's about relationship with that company or that brand, or that PR agency, or whoever it is. 'cause like that's 90% of it right there, you know, and it's the execution at the second half. But I mean, what do you, what do you think in terms of that?
Speaker 3:A hundred percent, man. I mean, I think, you know, it , it's funny because when I started doing this, like, I very much was like, oh, I'm gonna help like social media creators, that that's what I'm gonna help. 'cause that's what I know, right? It's like YouTubers, TikTok or Instagramers, right ? But like, so many people have , have come to me from all different , uh, industries and like people who run conferences, people who have podcasts, like bloggers, all sorts of stuff from all these different , um, you know, angles. Because sponsorships has become a really, really , uh, meaningful part of their, of their revenue streams. And , and, and now it's so funny because I'm sure a lot of folks in your audience, like when you, when they think of the word sponsorship, the extent of it is like, oh , someone's gonna sponsor me as a golfer, maybe, right? Like, I , maybe you're listening to this, you're like, oh, I'm a I'm an aspiring golfer and I wanna get sponsored by one of the, the big brands or whatever. And so I'm gonna get swag . I'm gonna wear the hat, I'm gonna get the bag, I'm gonna do all this. Right? Um, and like that is how it's been done up to date , like a traditional, like athlete sponsorship. But to your point, like things are changing very quickly. If, like, if you look at some of the top athletes who have, who have forged like very significant sponsorship deals, a huge component of it was their social footprint. It wasn't just about them wearing it. And the brand awareness piece, like, which is what we just talked about. It's like there's all these other ways in which they're, they're serving the brand. So maybe there's conferences and the person goes there and is doing a keynote on behalf of the brand, or they're going and they're doing this a , you know, interview circuit or, you know, for the new products that the brand is releasing, or maybe this person has a podcast like, like you do Paul, right? They come on the behind the golf brand podcast, but they're also a golfer, right? So they're supplementing their professional aspirations with a social footprint. And I think that, that , this is, to me, this is kind of the next chapter of , um, of the creator economy or the new media, what have you, is you're not just like, you're not just leveraging your name and likeness, which is what the celebrities or the athletes of yesteryear would've done. There's all these other ways in which you can , um, you know, basically upsell these partnerships for a lot more money based on other properties that you own, where you can amplify the brand's message.
Speaker 2:Where can people find you right now if they're like interested in like, learning more about you and about what you do and your courses?
Speaker 3:Yeah, I'd , I'd say the best way is just to my free newsletter, creator wizard.com/join . Um, I share everything, you know, all my videos and my courses and coaching and all that stuff , uh, on there. And I send it out three times a week. Um, I actually send you paid sponsorship opportunities every week if you're on that list as well. So you can start getting familiarity with like, oh, this is a brand that's like trying to pay creators right now to like , talk about them, right? The , these types of opportunities exist. But then more, more generally, I send out, you know , videos and I actually have started sharing some of my, like, coaching calls live, like publicly. Um, if that's your thing too. So , uh, yeah, I just, I got a lot, a lot of stuff out there, but probably the newsletter's the best way.
Speaker 2:How many times do you do brain deal wizard a year?
Speaker 3:I do it three times a year. Um, and in fact, cohort number 10 is , uh, starting enrollment in about two weeks now. So , um, crazy. I can , it's been 10 times. Um, but , uh, yeah, we , uh, it's a four week sprint and uh, this upcoming one is the kind of the October November timeframe. The reason I do it , uh, right now is because Q four , uh, kind of the holidays is like when a lot of brands back load their marketing budget, oftentimes up to 50, 60% of their marketing budget for the entire year is spent in Q four , which is October, November, December.
Speaker 2:Really ? I , yeah .
Speaker 3:Yeah . So , um, I'm getting told like
Speaker 2:Stuff like , uh, you know, people are doing their budgets for next year, like right now. I was
Speaker 3:Like , yes . Well, that's true as well. That is true as well.
Speaker 2:December , I'm like, really
Speaker 3:Pitch .
Speaker 2:I was like, okay. I'm like, I have a big one .
Speaker 3:Oh yeah, no, I mean, this is, this is a lot of stuff. What I talk about. In fact, my live stream , uh, last week on Friday was called Q four holiday pitching strategy . So it was like, okay, like we need to be pitching, you know, these, and then I'm gonna do the Q one, you know, January, February , uh, stream soon too as well. 'cause like they're , you know, the larger the brand, the further in advance they plan on this stuff.
Speaker 2:So it , what do you think about , um, people, would you, if you're just doing content, would you also do content with like an affiliate? Or would you do like, you know, would you do paid with affiliate or would you do paid with like your own product? Like I know it's like, it's what costs more money, right? Essentially for yourself. Affiliate's pretty easy 'cause you don't spend any money. But like, you know, I guess what ways do you recommend people to monetize themself outside of the sponsorship?
Speaker 3:Where I always come from as a creator is it has to be audience first. Everything that I do, whether it's sponsorships, whether it's affiliate marketing, whether it's talking about my own services and coaching and courses and stuff like that, it's what is going to be the most additive to my audience slash customer, right? Um, and so that's where I come from with everything. Um, and so , uh, a lot of people get fixated on this whole topic of like, well, I don't wanna do too many spon . Like, you have a brand, right? You're thinking, oh , like what if I just like talk about my own brand every single show instead of like sponsors, right? Because then I can maximize the amount of money. A lot of people think of this like, oh, I , I'm, I'm only gonna talk about my stuff, right? And so what I lack to talk about is like, okay, well that is number one, a very selfish perspective. Number two, it's not audience first . You're thinking about just yourself. Number three. Um, if you were to get into the psyche of your brand , of your followers, of your audience's head, what is keeping them up at night? What are, what are their challenges? Yeah . Specifically related to their golf game. There's probably lots of other products, services, education courses, et cetera, that you're never gonna offer as a creator, right? And yet you have other friends who are offering those things. Well, it probably makes sense to do some sort of jv, you know, j some joint venture affiliate type deal where you talk about their program and to your audience. 'cause you're never gonna do that, right? And so it's like if you , if you have this audience first mindset, it makes it a lot easier to be like, okay, oh, okay. Yeah. Taking a sponsorship from that brand makes a lot of sense. 'cause I'm never gonna make that product or I'm never gonna do that. Um, and so I think it just, it, it really helps people. Um, and , and the other thing too, you ask like generally like how should people monetize? Um, listen, listen to your audience. What are they asking you for? Are they asking you for help? For me, when I started coaching creators on sponsorships , uh, there was no way you could pay me. I, I literally didn't have a course. I didn't have coaching. I didn't ever have had it have anything. And it took someone reaching out in my dms and be like, Hey, can you coach me <laugh>? And I was like, coach you, what , what are you talking about? And so it was like, I never thought of that. Like, oh, people would actually want to pay me. Like, for this. It was more just kind of scratch a creative itch. And so you , you should be listening. What are people constantly asking questions about in the comments in the dms? What are people emailing your newsletter about? Uh, and just don't ignore that stuff. 'cause that could potentially be a way , uh, for you to serve them with some sort , something paid.
Speaker 2:Well , that's one thing I love too, is about your sponsorship wheel. 'cause like if you take that, it's like, you know what your problem is, right? Like you're like, I'm really good at this, but I'm not good at those. And that's when you focus on, and that's probably why I'm not where I want to be or whatever it might be. Is that for free or are they only through the course? I can't remember.
Speaker 3:That's for free. Yeah, you can take, it's the sponsor , the sponsorship wheel snapshot. Um, and in fact, if you join my newsletter@creatorwizard.com slash join, one of the first emails you'll get , uh, after the first couple days is , uh, invitation to take that assessment. It's free assessment, basically .
Speaker 2:I have it like I , I downloaded it on my computer. Like I always look at it and I'm like, yeah, that's like, it's still true and that's what I still need to work on. And it's like, it's like people don't wanna work on the things that are hard, right? Mm-Hmm . So they like go , I'm really good at this, but I wanna do these. It's like, like, well , you, you know , work on those, not that, 'cause you already know how to do that, but , Mm-Hmm. <affirmative> . Mm-Hmm. <affirmative> , I dunno . Justin gives a lot of value. Like a lot of, it's free. I would say majority of his stuff is free, you know, so I mean, I would highly, highly , highly, highly recommend going to his website. Um, just read the articles and like he is , I mean , has his YouTube channel too. You can watch the videos, but it's like, there's so much content right there and information that can actually help you figure out what to do if you're wanting to be, if you wanna work with golf brands or any brand really, I mean, me golf brands, but , um, so again, where where can people, where can people find you so they can look you up?
Speaker 3:Yeah. Creator wizard.com/join is the newsletter. And then I'm pretty much at Creator Wizard everywhere on social.
Speaker 2:He's everywhere. He's everywhere. <laugh>. Well, thank you so much for , uh, teaching me and everyone else. I can't think more highly of you guys and I love what you're doing. I'll see you guys in the next episode. Thanks
Speaker 3:Again, man. It was a blast.
Speaker 5:Thanks for listening to another episode of Behind the Golf Brand podcast. You're gonna beat me and golf stay connected on and off the show by visiting golfers authority.com. Don't forget to like, subscribe and leave a comment. Golf is always more fun when you win. Stay out of the beach and see you on the green.