Justin Moore [00:00:00]:

It's the marriage of both. It's the email and the social media that can really have a transformative impact on your course sales. So

Bryan McAnulty [00:00:07]:

Welcome to the Creators of Venture where we interview creators from around the world hearing their stories about growing a business. Today, we're gonna talk about how to manage and get sponsorships as a creator. Hey, everyone. I'm Brian McAnulty, the founder of Heights Platform. Let's get into it. Hey, everyone. We're here today with Justin Moore. He 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 so that you can stop leaving 1,000 on the table.

Bryan McAnulty [00:00:42]:

Along with his wife, April, he has been a full time creator for over 7 years and has personally made over 3,000,000 working with brands. Justin's mission is to enable creators, big and small, to land a 1000000 prey paid brand partnerships by 2032. Justin, welcome to the show.

Justin Moore [00:01:00]:

What's going on, Brian? Thanks for having me,

Bryan McAnulty [00:01:02]:

man. Yeah. Of course. I'm excited to talk with you. I'm glad I got to, Talk with you on your show a bit on, creator debates. Yeah. Encourage everyone to check that out. It's a really awesome concept for a show.

Bryan McAnulty [00:01:13]:

I like that.

Justin Moore [00:01:14]:

Thank you. I appreciate it. It was a blast.

Bryan McAnulty [00:01:16]:

Yeah. So my first question for you today is, what would you say is the biggest thing either that you did We are doing that has helped you to achieve the freedom to do things you enjoy.

Justin Moore [00:01:28]:

I think probably bet on my bet on myself, bet on ourselves, my wife and I. You know, for a long time, I you know, we were doing the side hustle thing. Right? You know, I we were both in Our corporate job, my wife was a preschool teacher. I was in medical devices, and so we very much in the early days when we first got together, that that's what we thought our life was gonna be. But when my wife started making YouTube videos and it started to become this kind of really cool, and unique, you know, hobby that we were doing, you know, on the side after work, basically, and especially when we started seeing, Like, actual income when my wife eventually got into the AdSense, program and then when brands started come knocking, like, that was a a a mindset shift for us. That was a mindset shift for us because, you know, we we had never thought that that that was that would ever be a possible, like, way to have a career or a way to drive income or something like that. And so, for us, we started There was this kind of imperceptible change and shift where we started looking at our 5 to 9 as the main thing where it was like, you know, all these things that we're doing on YouTube, like, what if we could turn this, like, 5 to 9 into the 9 to 5? 5 because that's what we really wanna do. Right? And so I think that there was this moment where we All the kind of lines were going up, you know, like our AdSense revenue and sponsorship revenue and affiliates and, like, all this stuff where we just made this decision that, like, okay.

Justin Moore [00:03:00]:

Let's make a plan to actually make this happen, to, like, quit our jobs. Like, you know, dude, give this, like, social media thing of, you know, a shot, basically. And so, eventually, what happened was my wife quit first in 2012, and then we had to plan for several more years because, you know, critically, we still kept my my salary, health benefits, all that stuff. Right? But then it was like, okay. Well, we both need to, like, jump into this, you know, both feet, you know, first, so we're all all our eggs are in 1 basket now. And so it took, several more years, so I quit in, June of 2014 when my first 6 week death for my first son was born. And so it took a long time for that shift to happen, but, like, that was really the moment, I think, where we bet on ourself and we were like, I don't know. We don't know what's gonna happen here, but, like, we're gonna kick ourselves if we don't give it the old college try.

Justin Moore [00:03:48]:

And so I think that If I could, that's really what I think of to that the the answer to that question.

Bryan McAnulty [00:03:53]:

Cool. Yeah. I think that's that's great, and that's really important that, Like, really making the choice to say, I'm going all in on this. And things Things can happen and things will happen when you do that versus keeping it something that's on the side.

Justin Moore [00:04:11]:

I will say, though, that, like, we've had failures. We've had a lot of failures because along that journey, we've tried a lot of different things too. You know, we tried to launch a product line at at one point. We tried to launch a paid membership at one point, And all of those things, you know, they were, you know, marginal successes, but not something that was worthwhile doing for the long haul, and we ultimately Folded those down. And so betting on yourself also means having the humility to lick your wounds when it doesn't work out. So I'll say that as well.

Bryan McAnulty [00:04:42]:

Yeah. True. So what what was it that you first started, like, when when you were creator then? Like, is it similar to what you're doing now? And were you Were you and your wife doing the same kind of thing, or were you both doing something different?

Justin Moore [00:04:55]:

No. It was totally different. So my wife, her 1st YouTube channel was a beauty channel, actually. So makeup, cosmetics, and then I was initially kind of behind the scenes, not in front of the camera. And then I think the very first video that I was in was like a boyfriend tag. We we weren't married at that time or engaged even. It was like the boyfriend tag, and then I think I did the boyfriend does your makeup, my makeup tag. You know? It's unnerving.

Justin Moore [00:05:19]:

And then people started getting really interested in our relationship, and so we started a cooking channel, actually. So my wife really loves to cook and bake, and so we We started doing cooking videos together, then we started a vlog channel. And that was that was really when everything took off as we started kind of vlogging. We we There was a point where we we daily vlog, Brian, for 3 years over 3 years without missing an upload. So a thousand over a 1000 uploads. And these are, like, 15, 20 minute videos. We were editing them ourselves. We were not, like, outsourcing the editing.

Bryan McAnulty [00:05:49]:

That's consistency. Wow.

Justin Moore [00:05:51]:

It was a grind, man. And so, like, that very much that was our come up, you know, where we we cut our teeth on, being true creators for a really long time, you know, making all sorts of different types of content. And that was really where I I learned Everything that I did and I did, you know, you know, ultimately launch an influencer marketing agency, which is a whole other story that I ran for 7 years. But, like, in the beginning, it was really, like, us as creators and, do doing that whole thing.

Bryan McAnulty [00:06:21]:

Cool. Yeah. That's really neat. Yeah. So, my wife was a creator as well. She more so had a Facebook page, and Then she eventually published a book with that as well. And, for me, I was, Like, I helped her negotiate a couple of, like, early sponsorship deals and things like that. And I think it was interesting because, like, now, Myself, like, personally, I'm more of, like, the product guy.

Bryan McAnulty [00:06:50]:

Like, I love building software and things like this. And so I don't personally have as much a drive to say, like, I wanna be on YouTube. But, the the thing that's made me realize that I want to do that and and doing that more now is that I care more about making that impact on customers and everything than my my lack of maybe excitement to say I need to show my face on YouTube. So so now now I I do enjoy it, and I do have this this strong reason behind it. But, but especially back then when my wife was doing it, I I was not really Creating any content at that time. And, she got to, like, 60,000, Facebook fans, but They were, like, super, super engaged. Like, every single post, she would have over a 1000 comments on the thing. And so for brands, like, It was perfect because not only it wasn't just about the fans, but the fact that, like, it would get this crazy engagement.

Bryan McAnulty [00:07:46]:

And so she would actually make these, like, custom posts for the brand That would still relate to her style so the audience would enjoy it and not feel like it's an ad, and then it would actually get everybody talking about it. And when she first told me, like, what she wanted to charge, I was like, you gotta you gotta charge so much more than that because, It's, it's just such a value. And, like, even at that time, like, I described to her, like, if I could buy this, like, As if I'm the brand and I found any opportunity like this for this price, like, I would just never stop advertising. I would say, like, I have to can I give you more? Can you do more? Like, what what can I do for this? So it really

Justin Moore [00:08:24]:

Let me let me inter let me interject real quick. Or the brand will get scared Because they'll be like, something's wrong here. Like, if they're only charging this much, like, something that doesn't seem right. Like, is the quality gonna be good? Like, you can Actually scare people with too low prices.

Bryan McAnulty [00:08:38]:

Is there actually is there it's either that maybe the creator doesn't know how valuable they are, or Is there a chance that I'm missing something and there's gonna be a reason this could be bad for us? Mhmm. Yeah. So that that's interesting, I think. And Let's let's get into that, I guess, a bit because I think there's a lot of creators who start more on not building a product, but building an audience on YouTube, on social media somewhere. And then they don't have a product yet, so they don't really realize how much their audience is actually worth. So how how can a creator kind of decide that, and and what should they do if a potential sponsor approaches them?

Justin Moore [00:09:17]:

So I have this concept. So this is this is a a challenging question, I think, for a lot of creators is, like, how do I how do I value myself? What is my worth? And to back up for a second, I think most of us don't get into this thinking, like, I wanna go out and pitch sponsors. Like, that's not the fur you get into this, like, Whether it's creating a course or being on social media or whatever it is, you get into it for either you wanna help people, you wanna teach, or you want to, like, connect with people. Right? And so The 1st interaction that most people have with sponsorships is a brand knocks on your door. Right? They slide into your DMs or they slide into your email, and they say, hey. We would love to collaborate with you. And so most people have a freak out moment where they're like, I don't know what to do. I don't know how much to charge.

Justin Moore [00:09:58]:

I don't know. Like, I well, what the heck? And so, you know, what most people do is they DM They're friends, right, who are also creators oftentimes and say, hey. Have you ever done this before? How much do you think I should charge? You know, this type of idea. And, it's a very unscientific approach to, like, quantifying your worth, of course. And so one One of the things I talk about in a lot of my videos and content and stuff is, like, let's take a step back here. Let's not try and, like, value yourself in a vacuum, because there's 2 very critical pieces of information that you need to ascertain and understand before you can ever quote a brand. The first one is you have to really have an intimate understanding of your audience and how you can serve them. Right? So most people think like, oh, the brands that I should work with are like the ones that I already love and use.

Justin Moore [00:10:44]:

Like, that those those are gonna be a good fit for me. Right? But there's actually, like, a missing component there, which is like, you need to understand, is this going to have utility for your audience. Is this gonna solve a problem that they have? Is it going to you know, maybe it's something keeping them up at night and, like, this brand or this product or this service is gonna be the solution that they need to, like, save their lives, basically. And the only way that you're gonna know that is if you ask them. And so I have this exercise that I encourage people to do, which I call audience first offers. And so, basically, you ask them the following questions. You send out a survey to them on your email list or on your YouTube community tab or your Instagram stories or whatever it is, and you ask questions like, what types of jobs do you have? Are you married? Do you have kids? How do you interact with my content? Are you watching it, You know, in line at Starbucks for 2 minutes or, like, are you sitting down every Sunday and catching up on the last 3 hours of my stuff? Like, you know, how how's that happening? Are is there any products or services that you're, that I don't offer that you wish I did? Right? The services are you using and loving right now? Are there any other creators or peers that you wish I I would collaborate with, and why? And so there there's a very specific reason that you're Asking these questions is that it's actually way more interesting to get this psychographic information from your audience than it is the demographics that you're seeing on the platforms. Right? Yeah.

Justin Moore [00:12:07]:

Some brands will wanna know, you know, the ages and the geographies and the genders and all that stuff, of course, but but that's table stakes. But if you can go to them and say, hey. Look. I surveyed my audience, and there's this cohort of people who say that they're already using and loving your product or interested, have some affinity for your brand, it's It's gonna be so much of an easier sell when you're talking with the brand and being like, hey. It's not just me. It's like I've got this pool of really engaged prospective customers of yours in my audience. Right? And so that's why you're gonna pay me this, like, gigantic amount, this type of idea. So so that's the first thing.

Justin Moore [00:12:38]:

It's like, you have to understand your audience. But then the other really important, factor about understanding how to value yourself and and price your yourself is what is the brand trying to accomplish? This is a big mistake that a lot of creators have is they they do is that they have a media kit, Brian, and they have a pricing page in there. They say, hey hey, brand. Here's my media kit. Here's the last page has 5 packages just like a la carte, pick and choose, you know, 5,000 you know, 1 500, 1000, 2,000, whatever. That's like the max or whatever. And the brand, like, well, much like we just discussed, maybe this brand came inbound. It was, like, ready to spend 50 k or a 100 k with you To be your title sponsor on your podcast or your YouTube channel for the whole year or newsletter, whatever it is.

Justin Moore [00:13:21]:

And you just told them that the that like, the highest package you have is 2 k. Right? And they're being like, well or or worse, the things that you described in your packages are not really what they want or or not really aligned with the objectives that they have. And so the exercise that I really encourage is you actually have to ask them. You say, what would success look like for you? What are your objectives for this partnership? And they're gonna say 1 of 3 things, Brian. They're gonna say awareness, repurposing, or conversion. So awareness means, like, a new product launch or, you know, maybe they're launching in a new territory that were in the US. Now they're launching in the UK. A repurposing campaign is where the main reason that they wanna collaborate with you is to take your content and use it in other ways.

Justin Moore [00:14:02]:

You know, embed it on their website, Put it on an ecommerce partner. Use it for paid advertising. And then the final one is conversion. Right? They want you to drive sales or app downloads or trial sign ups or something very measurable. Right? And the reason that you need to know which one it is is that your pricing should change based on what they're trying to accomplish.

Bryan McAnulty [00:14:20]:

Yeah. Yeah. That's important advice. So I guess, so let's go back again then. So, like, you, are a sponsorship coach as well. So can you tell us, Like, what does a sponsorship coach actually do, when it comes to helping creators?

Justin Moore [00:14:36]:

So you'll probably appreciate this because I'm sure that you talk a lot with your, you know, customers and, you know, people who are creating courses and stuff is like, what what is the unique selling proposition or the think value proposition. Like, how can you find kind of a blue ocean, idea where you are not Fending off all of these other competitors. Right? And I think this is really this this territory that I've landed in, which is that I'm not an age agent. I'm not a manager. I'm very clear about that. You can't retain me. I'm not I'm not gonna broker deals for you. I lived a life, as I mentioned, for 7 years running an influencer marketing agency, and so seen the underbelly of and behind the kind of behind the scenes of, like, what happens in these boardrooms when you're talking with these big advertisers, these big agencies.

Justin Moore [00:15:22]:

And so I I really intimately started understanding, like, why certain brands are saying no to certain creators but yes to others. And it was this really nonintuitive thing where it was like they would they would oftentimes move forward with the creator who had less of a reach, less of a following, subscribers, etcetera, over someone that was more even if they were more money just because they fit Exactly what the brand like, the types of creator that they were trying to partner with on that campaign. And so I took a lot of these insights that I learned running the agency as well as being a creator myself for many years, and decided, like, I wanna educate people. And so I ultimately decided that I just really wanted to make some, like, YouTube videos talking about the mistakes that I was seeing Creators making, whether it was negotiating with brands or, you know, the the email adequate etiquette, you know, responsiveness, You know, being communicative when you're, like, in the middle of these, these, you know, high stakes, partnerships. And that that was really the early, The early signals that I that I saw when people started commenting on those videos, like, oh, this was great, but can you make another video about this or about this and about this? And so I started going down all these rabbit holes that Kind of came second nature to my wife and I because we've done it. Like, you know, we've done over 500 sponsorships personally over the last decade. So we've done we have a lot of experience working with So many different types of brands and agencies and all that stuff. And so I just was you know, it's like that whole thing.

Justin Moore [00:16:44]:

It's like you you can't it's it's hard. Once you've gotten to a place, it's hard to remember what it was like in the early days. Right? And so it's been this exercise of, like, kind of, an education, kind of Talking with creators who are at the very early stages and seeing some of the challenges and problems that they're experiencing that, oh, yeah. I remember when that happened to us, you know, back back in the day. And so it's, like, Starting to make content around that. And and so then people started asking like, hey. Do you have a course? Or, hey. Can you coach me 1 on 1? And I was like, What is happening here? I was not expecting that at all.

Justin Moore [00:17:16]:

Because, remember, like, I was a YouTuber. I consider myself a YouTuber. And so but it it really kinda came. It was like I was being pulled almost by the market saying, like, this this signal, like, hey. There's, like, we need help. There's people who need help with this. And so that's what I did. I started coaching 1 on 1 first, and then Kind of honed by methodology of, like, you know, kind of the scalable repeatable process that, that kind of take people through to to develop a A robust sponsorship strategy, and then I ultimately created the course.

Justin Moore [00:17:44]:

And so, yeah, this this whole sponsorship coach thing is, you know, over the last 2 or 3 years has totally came out of left field, dude. Not something I expected at all.

Bryan McAnulty [00:17:53]:

Cool. Well so now you have this mission set For creator wizard to help creators land a 1000000 paid brand sponsorships by 2032. So Mhmm. What then inspired this goal, and What what's your plan to, help empower creators to achieve that?

Justin Moore [00:18:10]:

So I went through a mastermind. I paid $10,000 for this mastermind, Brian. It was the most amount of money I've ever spent. It's like in one sitting on my credit card. I was like, and then I put it down. You know? But it was a hugely it was an inflection point for for me in the business, and it was a mastermind to help course creators, basically, optimize, double down on what they're doing, see more success, and all that stuff too. It was a year long program, and one of the exercises that we did in the program was What they call this visioning exercise. And it was kind of an expert who who, specializes in this, and he came in.

Justin Moore [00:18:44]:

And it was a multi week process, but it was like it really forced us to Stretch out and think, okay. We're not just talking about 1 year, 2 year, but, like, let's move let's let's move it the the time horizon way out to, let's say, 10 years. Like, what what what is the North Star? What is the big, you know, hairy, audacious goal that you wanna set for yourself in 10 years? And so This is where this this number kind of instantly popped into my mind where it was like, I don't just wanna help a 1000000 creators. I wanna help creators big and small land a 1,000,000 sponsorships in 10 years because it's way more citing and fulfilling to me to help 1 creator get a 100 than it is a 100 creators to get 1. You know? Because that that's the whole that my kind of my whole ethos is, like, you know, People really struggle to get consistent kind of recurring partnerships. It's like this one off thing. It's like they deal with the deal with the brand, and then they literally never talk to them again. They're back Out there hustling for their next it's fair change, you know, new brand, you know, the type of idea.

Justin Moore [00:19:42]:

Right? And it's like it's exhausting. No wonder it feels like sponsorships are not a sustainable revenue stream. And so I sit people down and say, no. It actually can be, but you have to look at it like a business. You have to create a sales pipeline. You have to nurture These customers and, you know, as someone from a sales background, you'll appreciate you have to reduce churn. You have to increase LTV. Right? It's like, this is the idea.

Justin Moore [00:20:03]:

Like, you know, you're running a business as a creator, and you have to you have to start looking at it like that. And so it's a very foreign concept for a lot of creators, but this is this is really what I do.

Bryan McAnulty [00:20:11]:

Cool. Yeah. That's awesome. That's a and that's a awesome goal, and I think it's really important for people to to think far out like that Because if if the if you haven't heard of somebody saying that you should have this vision and come up with something like that, if it sounds to you like, Oh, well, this is just, like, a nice vision to have. The important reason behind it, at least the way I I see it, is that when you come up with this goal that This far away and this big, it's going to make you think about, well, what do I have to do if that's actually gonna become real? And there's going to be these different steps that you take that can create these bigger outcomes for you that you wouldn't maybe think right now if If you just focus on, like, what am I doing this year? And so when you realize, like, oh, if this is really what I wanna eventually accomplish, Then you get to work backwards from that, and you start to think of things that can help you grow in a way that you might have not previously.

Justin Moore [00:21:10]:

100%, man. It it and it it has informed short term business decisions, like, already. Like, you know so for example, if I wanted to help a 1000000 creators, I would make my course $50. Right? The most scale. Like, how can I reach the most amount of people? So that that would be a decision. Right? But my course is not $50. Right? Because it's like, I wanna help, like, a1000000, you know, help people land a1000000 sponsorships. Right? So the number is is smaller than that.

Justin Moore [00:21:37]:

Actually, can we do a quick thought exercise? I wanna use your brain here. Okay. Sure. This subject on this subject, This is something I've actually really struggled with, Brian, is how do I track this this goal? Because I had for the longest time I had where that light was in the background, I had A ticker, like a LED ticker, and my mind was like, I want there to be it to be like my McDonald's hamburger counter. Like, a number on there where it was like, I we're at 33,467 sponsorships or whatever. So it's like tracking. Right? And people get asked, oh, what's that number? And I'd be like, Oh, let me tell you about my goal, you know, this type of idea. And so I was trying to reverse engineer.

Justin Moore [00:22:14]:

Like, how do I get that number up there? Like, not technically, but, like, how do I how do I create a tracking mechanism, so that people actually wanna feed this into the system. So I created a MVP, you know, of this. Like, I had a software dashboard and people could log in and, like, kind of self, You know, reports and, like, all this stuff, but it really became obvious very quickly that, like, this is not something that people are gonna, like, remember to do. And so I was like, okay. Well, let me build some tooling where We we people can maybe OAuth, you know, like, let let us give us access to their, you know, Instagram, Facebook, whatever. And anytime that they post a sponsored post with hashtag ad Or hashtag sponsored or hashtag, you know you know, partner or whatever Yep. That it would, like, tally it to the to the total. So, like, I thought of, like, technical solutions, like, how how this could be accomplished, but all I just Running into dead ends.

Justin Moore [00:22:58]:

And so it's like, I'm I feel still kind of in the mud of, like, you know, I've I've thought of, okay, giving away my sponsorship pricing calculator for Free. And, like, if you wanna continue using it, you have to, like, you know, self report if you, like, got the deal, if you used our calculator and then, You know, report back or maybe it's give you access to some of our Notion templates where you're tracking your deals And, you know, give us, you know, this type of thing. And if the deal goes to completion, then we tally it. So I I swear, dude, I've, like, thought of so many different, like, ways. Like, how How do I incentivize people to, like, continue to feed data back into the system? But I'm I feel like I'm kind of at a dead end. So, yeah, got any ideas for me?

Bryan McAnulty [00:23:37]:

Not too many. It is hard. I'll tell you that, for this kind of thing. So I don't think I'm the best Person who's figured that out either. Like, for us, one of the things I wish we could track better was, like, sales that creators make through our platform Because they're like, if a creator sells something and they use, like, Stripe or PayPal connected to their Heights account, inside Heights and they use our checkout, we know. So we can tell that data. But then if they are selling something and they use an external checkout and then they enroll the student or they get, like, A wire transfer or something from the student, and then they enrolled the student, then we have no idea. And so there's a lot of our creators where they have thousands of students, And, like, we could go and look at their accounts.

Bryan McAnulty [00:24:21]:

Like, oh, they made $0. But then they talk to us and they say, yeah. I made $1,000,000 this year. It's like, what? And so I wish we could be able to track some of that better. I wonder if, in your case, I don't have a solution for the people who, like, you you interact with or provide something that they get a deal from you, like, More indirectly, but for the people who are working with you more closely, maybe it's something you could do where I could see how they could forget if they have to, like, report it every single time. But maybe there's something like an annual report or something where there's some value for them to to fill this out for you, that you can Yeah. Provide them some kind of feedback or something on it. And then the annual report gives them also the time that they look back and say, like, Alright.

Bryan McAnulty [00:25:05]:

Here's the number of deals that I did, and then you can tally all those up, like, at the end of each year.

Justin Moore [00:25:12]:

I've thought of yeah. So I thought of something like that. I actually thought of doing, like, almost like a pricing benchmarking report, like white paper type thing that they'd get access to. So, like, Anonymized, you know, across all the people that are using, let's say, the calculator. Yep.

Bryan McAnulty [00:25:26]:

Yep. I mean,

Justin Moore [00:25:26]:

like, hey. If you feed data back into the system, you'll get the monthly or quarterly, like, Pricing benchmark reporter. I don't know. Something like that.

Bryan McAnulty [00:25:33]:

Yeah. I think I think that's a good idea. Yeah. Because then there's an incentive for everybody to to take the time to to fill all that in. I don't know. Personally, that's what I would do that. I would wanna I would wanna see that data and and fill that out.

Justin Moore [00:25:46]:

Yeah. Yeah. But, I mean, to to your to your, initial point, I mean, it's like these are the things that you start thinking about when you make a goal like that. You know? Whereas if you're kind of just drifting along and it's like and the other thing I think too is that, like, people are attracted to audacious, like, goals and missions like this. It feels larger than me. You know, it feels larger than anyone in our community. It's like this movement. Right? And I I love that idea of, like, you know, we can band together to, like, you know, Accomplish these really large objectives.

Bryan McAnulty [00:26:17]:

Yeah. Well, what I would say to that too is my my kind of mindset around that is Just, like, be better and be bigger. And so if it's hard to track it, like, then do so much that you still reach the goal even though there is maybe a few Few 100,000 that you couldn't even track. And so, like, you're without a doubt certain that, like, you've passed that goal.

Justin Moore [00:26:40]:

Dude, I I people have all have been like, just, like, use your, you know, your social media footprint. You're following your viewership as, like, a proxy For, like because I do. I get people in my comments all the time. Like, oh, you helped me get a brand deal. Like, all this stuff. And I'm just like, I need to try this. Right? But it's like that's like I it feels like cheating to me. It's like, I want to.

Justin Moore [00:26:57]:

I'm like an engineer by my background, and so I'm like, like, they're always wanting, like, how can I track this? I wanna track this, like numbers, you

Bryan McAnulty [00:27:03]:

know, data. Yeah. No. I I understand the same way. And, like, yeah, I I I feel the same way about some of our data. Like, like, I know I know certain things are higher than, like, it may look in 1 spot, but I don't even I don't care. I don't wanna guess even at what that is. I wanna see the real real one and, and know for certain how it's growing.

Bryan McAnulty [00:27:22]:

So That's interesting. Right. Alright. Well, what are some tools and, like, things available to creators? There's all these tools that creators can use. What's something that maybe, like, Is it underweighted underrated way that a creator can kind of diversify their income?

Justin Moore [00:27:42]:

So, I mean, it it seems boring, but my email list has become the absolute economic engine financial engine of my business. It's like what'll what's old is new again almost, and it's it's honestly hard to, really describe how valuable it is to have that direct connection with the people in your universe who have raised their hand and said that they wanna Follow you or listen to you and not be reliant upon the social media algorithms candidly. Right? There's so regardless of what platform it is, we've all experienced it probably. If you have some presence on social media, you know that, like, man, I used to I feel like I used to get, you know, Two x or three x the amount of organic reach on my Facebook or Instagram or whatever it is, and now it's like a small fraction of that. I feel like a lot of us have gone through that at some point, right, if you've been on social media long enough. And so the, you know, it's so underrated to be able to just, like, if I wanna send an email to, You know, the 33,000 creators on my email on my email list, I can do it. Like, I don't I don't have and I know that it's like yeah. They they I know that it's gonna go in their inbox.

Justin Moore [00:28:48]:

Whether they click on it or not, that's another question, you know, that I I have to do some work to, like, make some good, you know, subject lines and stuff, of course, but, like, it's gonna be in their inbox. Right? And so I think that's just like a it's really, really hard. If if you are a person who at some point, you know, may want to launch a course or have coaching or something or even do sponsorships on on your newsletter. I have sponsorships on my newsletter now, and so, I just think it's a really and so, you know, over those 3 years that I've been doing the sponsorship coaching stuff that like, that has been my number one goal, Brian. In almost every single you know, you'll see at the end of this podcast, but every single podcast appearance, Every single YouTube video, every single, you know, social media post, it's always, hey. Join my newsletter. Join my newsletter. Join my newsletter.

Justin Moore [00:29:29]:

I don't say my social handles. I don't say anything. I say go to creatorwizard.com/join. That's the that's the best way to, you know, hang out with me. And so that that, you know, just being having that mindset of, like, just Knowing how valuable that newsletter or that email is gonna be, I think is a really a really important thing.

Bryan McAnulty [00:29:46]:

Yeah. Yeah. I'm glad you brought that up because I feel the same way about that as well. I don't I I don't care about social followers at all. The email, that's the important thing. And, like, unless you are directly monetizing, like, A following, like, a YouTube channel that, like, you know that if you get this many more views or subscribers, you're gonna get ads, or you have this sponsorship and you know if you get this many more. You can charge this much more than, like, the followers, like, on social. Like, it's just a vanity metric In most cases, where the email subscribers that you have, like, that is the metric that will have this direct impact on your business.

Bryan McAnulty [00:30:21]:

Because As you said, like, this is one of the only kind of platforms that you can own that audience. Like, truly own them and know that, as you said, you send them the email, You know it's gonna land in their inbox as opposed to, like, oh, I hope the algorithm shows them this. Even though they're following me, they may not see it and, like, that kind of thing. So, yeah, email's super important. And when you have something to offer, when you have a product to offer, then email is the way that they're going to actually convert and Going to go and buy that. So

Justin Moore [00:30:49]:

Yeah. So, really, interestingly, what I found is that it's the marriage of both. It's the email and The social media that can really have a transformative impact on your course sales. So, you know, I recently had a live launch cohort number 10 of my Brand Deal Wizard program, And so I was doing the, you know, the emails of kind of the open enrollment period every day for 10 days or whatever it was, but I was also running retargeting ads on social media. And so It was so fascinating to see the impact that, you know, that had, those 2 things together. And so, yeah, I I'm a big fan of both now. I didn't quite Realize how powerful they can be, but, yeah, pretty cool.

Bryan McAnulty [00:31:26]:

Yeah. Well, I think it's more like the the email gets them to buy and then The retargeting, though, can be really powerful because for the people where it didn't get them to buy yet, now they're they're seeing that again and being reminded when they they I thought, oh, man. I gotta get Justin Singh. That seems really cool. They completely forget about it, then they're they're scrolling Twitter, scrolling Facebook, whatever it is. And then they're like, oh, yeah. Justin Singh. Wow.

Bryan McAnulty [00:31:50]:

Everybody's talking about this. Wow. This there's these great testimonials. Wow. I gotta go buy it. And so that's a a great way to retarget them and, Convert them there. And for anybody who's not familiar with ads, that's a whole another thing we could get into. But, essentially, like, you're not trying to run this ad and, like, spending money to find new people.

Bryan McAnulty [00:32:07]:

You're telling, like, whatever ad platform, hey. These are all, like, the people that I want to show this to, and then it's gonna show it specifically to them. So it's super hyper targeted, and it's also going to be a lot cheaper to show it to them that way.

Justin Moore [00:32:22]:

So I'm doing both, actually. I am actually running cold doing cold traffic. I'm experimenting with that. So that that's, also probably a whole another podcast episode. Lots of learning there. So but it's it's been fun.

Bryan McAnulty [00:32:34]:

Awesome. Alright. So I'm curious. Looking ahead, what do you feel are going to be the most significant trends and opportunities for creators in the next few years? And is there anything, like, creators can do now to kind of better position themselves to take advantage of this? I guess something else I can add to that is, like, recently, what was it? Like, a week or so ago, I went to, ConvertKit, did their, $1,000,000,000 creator podcast. They're doing, like, a podcast tour, and, they came through Austin. So I I went to that. And, yeah, this idea that, like, a creator could potentially make $1,000,000,000 in the future from their brand as a creator. I think that's really interesting.

Bryan McAnulty [00:33:14]:

And, yeah, I'm just curious what you think of, like, what are the what are the trends and how is it changing to have this creator business?

Justin Moore [00:33:20]:

Yeah. It's funny. I I was I went to they were on the podcast where they went to FinCon in New Orleans a few weeks back, and I was there. So I got to hear Nice. Rachel Rachel and Nathan talk on that subject as well. Yeah. So first on that note, I mean, it's it's an obvious no brainer to me. I mean, if even if you look at, like, Some really large outcomes from, like, celebrities, like, let's say, Ryan Reynolds or something.

Justin Moore [00:33:45]:

Like, a lot of that playbook that he ran was Kind of a creator playbook. It was very much, you know, pop culture, utilizing social media. Like, I feel like a lot of why those brands have succeeded was because of The way in which that he approached, you know, kind of the the using his, celebrity status, or his influence to, really blow up the value of certain aspects. So I I think that there's so much to that. Like, whether it's the creators developing it from the ground up or partnering Much like, you know, Ryan Reynolds said with with Aviation Gin and Mint Mobile and stuff like that, I think there are absolutely gonna be outcomes like that for for creators. So so that's that. And then in terms of, like, opportunities for creators in the next, like, you know, for years to come, one thing I've been thinking about a lot is, like, You know, I I feel as though the last decade was the goal was, like, grow the largest following. You know? Grow the largest audiences, vanity metrics, etcetera.

Justin Moore [00:34:44]:

But I really do think that there's gonna be a movement over the next decade to grow deeper Connections. Grow like a more an engaged community, maybe even something in private. Because at least for me, what I've been what has been interesting is, like, I have a private community on Circle, and these are all people who are in my Brand Deal Wizard program. There's section of it too, but, like, you know, mainly people that join my program. And I just I find myself That being the 1st place I wanna go to each day. Like, I wanna go into there and, like, talk with those. Like, those are my tribe. Those are the people who, like, love talking about this, Like, niche thing that I love talking about all day long.

Justin Moore [00:35:26]:

And so I'm in there. I'm in the forums. I'm answering questions. Just like I love being there. And I I, you know, I like being on social media, of course, too, but, like, I find myself Drawn to these smaller communities of people who, you know, really want to they they have to go out of their way to go to, You know, because it's so easy to be on social media and scroll the feed and all that stuff too. But if you wanna go to, like, a private community, like, it's just like a you have to, like, Do it. You know? Yeah. And so I I don't know.

Justin Moore [00:35:52]:

I'm I'm bullish on the opportunities for for creators to maybe not get so worried about the I like, don't get me wrong. Social media is great for discovery. You know, new customers, lead gen, top of funnel, it's great. You should do that.

Bryan McAnulty [00:36:05]:

Find your community that way.

Justin Moore [00:36:06]:

They can yeah. But then that's how they find your community. And so, like, I I think developing this this, model where, you know, you use social media kind this lead generation, to, like, really find your tribe and and and create a way that you can all kind of, you know, be together in one place that's more intimate. I'm very bullish on that.

Bryan McAnulty [00:36:24]:

Yeah. Yeah. Me me as well. I think that it's, it's really going to be even bigger in the next few years, especially with AI Because AI can make content and things like that, but the thing that AI can never replace is, like, the connection with like minded people. And so being able to have that's going to become even more valuable in in something that people look for. And like you said, like, as a creator, it's such a such an enjoyable thing to create because imagine that instead of going to your your YouTube channel or whatever it is on social media And you have that 1 fan, and you're like, wow. I I love this guy. I love, like, commenting or interacting with him.

Bryan McAnulty [00:37:01]:

And then you have somebody else who's like, oh, this is the the hater that, like, always wants to say something. And so your community is only the best fans and only the people that you love talking with instead of all the ones that don't really care about you, the the haters that randomly pop up. It it's all the people that that enjoy everything the most, and you can create a place not only for you to interact with them, but for them to interact with each other. So Totally. A whole lot of value in that. Definitely.

Justin Moore [00:37:27]:

Yeah.

Bryan McAnulty [00:37:29]:

Alright. Well, I got 1 more question for you, and that is that on On the show, I'd like to have every guest ask a question to the audience. So if you could ask our audience anything, whether it's something you wanna get everybody thinking about or something you're curious about, what would that be?

Justin Moore [00:37:42]:

Alright. Well well, can I can I have it be like kinda like a totally selfish, question?

Bryan McAnulty [00:37:47]:

Yeah. Yeah. That's

Justin Moore [00:37:48]:

The thing the thing that Brian and I were talking about earlier about how to Track this 1,000,000 sponsorship school. If anyone listening or watching has some ideas of how to actually make this happen, whether it's a dashboard or reporting or, like, Templates. I don't know. I I I am, like, totally open to hearing. If anyone has any ideas, drop a comment because, I'm like, I I feel as though I I wanna make it happen, but I I still feel like I'm in thick mud, trying to trying to, you know, work myself through it. So, totally would of if anyone has any ideas, to hit me with it.

Bryan McAnulty [00:38:21]:

Yeah. Yeah. That's great. I agree. It's it's good to work on that because The more clear you can find some way for yourself to track it, it's gonna be even more motivational for you to actually get there. Totally. Awesome. Alright.

Bryan McAnulty [00:38:33]:

Well, Justin, thanks so much for coming on the show. Before we get going, where else can people find you online?

Justin Moore [00:38:39]:

Alright. Well, you know it. You know what's about to happen, Brian. Creatorwizard.com/join. It's my weekly newsletter, sent out 4 times a week, actually. The reason that you wanna be on this newsletter, is that I send you Paid sponsorship opportunities for free. They just come on a silver platter right into your inbox. So I also send out, you know, tips and tricks and stuff about, You know, videos and articles about how to make more money with sponsors and pitch brands and stuff like that.

Justin Moore [00:39:04]:

So if that sounds, exciting to you, creative.com/join.

Bryan McAnulty [00:39:08]:

Alright. Awesome. Thanks so much.

Justin Moore [00:39:10]:

Thanks again, man.

Bryan McAnulty [00:39:12]:

I'd like to take a moment to invite you to join our free community of over 5,000 creators at creatorclimbdot Tom. If you enjoyed this episode and wanna hear more, check out the Heights platform YouTube channel every Tuesday at 9 AM US Central. To get notified when new episodes release, join our newsletter at the creator's adventure.com. Until then, keep learning, and I'll see you in the next episode.