Ready to monetize your content but not sure where to start? This episode with sponsorship coach Justin Moore gives you a clear, step-by-step approach to landing brand deals no matter how big or small your audience is right now.

Listen to the episode here:

You don’t need 10,000 followers to land a brand deal. You don’t need to be verified. You don’t need a massive email list or a viral moment. What you need is the right strategy, and that’s exactly what this episode is all about.

In this episode of The Bloggy Friends Show, Ashley Grant sits down with Justin Moore, sponsorship coach, founder of Creator Wizard, and author of the book Sponsor Magnet. Justin has personally closed over 600 brand deals, made more than $5 million working with sponsors, and ran an influencer marketing agency for over 7 years. He knows what brands are looking for because he has been on both sides of the table.

Whether you are brand new to content creation or trying to restart your monetization efforts, this episode is packed with practical, no-fluff advice you can use right now.

Why Most Sponsorship Pitches Fail Before They Even Start

Justin is direct about this. Most creators pitch brands by talking about themselves. They say things like “I love your product, I’ve used it for three years, I think we’d be a great fit.” And then they hear nothing back.

The problem is that brands don’t have random piles of money sitting around waiting for creators to ask for it. They have budgets already set aside for specific goals. Your job is to figure out what those goals are and show them how you can help them hit those targets.

That shift in thinking changes everything.

The Sponsorship Continuum: A Framework for Every Stage

Justin created something he calls the Sponsorship Continuum, and it is one of the most useful frameworks in this episode.

Here is the basic idea. Where you are in your content creation right now determines what you should be pitching, not whether you should be pitching at all.

If you are just starting out with a small audience, pitch brands on creating content for them directly. This is called UGC or user-generated content. You are making videos, photos, or written content that the brand can use on their own platforms. Your content is the product. Your audience size is not the point yet.

As your audience grows, you can start combining content creation with promoting that content on your own channels. You become more valuable because now the brand gets both the asset and the exposure.

When your audience is large and engaged, the pitch becomes about reach. Now brands want you talking about them to your people because that moves the needle for their sales.

The big takeaway here is simple. There is no magic number you have to hit before you can start. The approach just changes depending on where you are right now.

How to Figure Out Which Brands to Pitch

Justin has a clear answer for this, and it starts with your audience, not your own preferences.

Most creators make a list of brands they personally use and love. That feels logical, but it is only half of the picture. Brands want to know that your audience is interested in what they sell. So the smartest thing you can do is survey your audience first.

Ask your listeners, readers, or followers what problems they are dealing with. Ask what products they are already using. Ask about their daily lives. The answers will point you toward brands you never would have thought to pitch on your own.

Justin shares a great example in the episode. If your fitness podcast audience turns out to include a lot of stay-at-home parents, suddenly a kids’ learning app becomes a surprisingly natural fit. You would never have guessed that without the data.

That survey data also makes your pitch much stronger. Instead of saying “I think my audience would love your product,” you can say “35% of my audience told me they struggle with the exact problem your product solves.” That is a very different conversation.

Turning an Affiliate Deal Into a Paid Sponsorship

Ashley shares in the episode that after her first pitch attempt, the brand came back with an affiliate deal instead of a paid partnership. Justin explains why that happens and exactly how to move forward from there.

Affiliate deals are great for brands. They pay nothing until you generate a sale. For you, though, it costs time, effort, and your credibility with your audience.

The way to shift the conversation is to highlight what an affiliate deal does not give the brand. They do not get to control the messaging. They cannot repurpose your content for ads. They have no guarantee you will mention them prominently.

A paid deal solves all of that. You can offer them a concept for approval, a draft to review, and full rights to repurpose the content for paid advertising. That is a completely different value proposition, and it opens the door to a real budget conversation.

Key Takeaways From This Episode

Here are the action items worth writing down after you listen.

Stop pitching yourself and start pitching outcomes. Research the brand’s current campaigns and lead with how you can help them hit a specific goal.

Survey your audience before you build your pitch list. Let their answers guide you toward the right brands, not just the ones you personally like.

Start where you are. If your audience is small, pitch UGC work. Build your portfolio, collect testimonials, and grow from there.

Reframe affiliate deals as a starting point. Use them to get on a brand’s radar, then show them what a paid partnership can do that an affiliate deal cannot.

Think beyond social media. Sponsorships work for podcasts, newsletters, in-person events, private communities, and more. If you have an audience, you have something worth sponsoring.

Check Out Justin’s Offers!

Links from the episode:

– Get Justin’s book Sponsor Magnet: https://creatorwizard.spiffy.co/a/VZ5uWgzy7a/5944

– Grab your ticket to Sponsor Games: https://creatorwizard.spiffy.co/a/KEZH5l4B75/5944

– Join Justin’s next $10K Brand Deal Challenge https://creatorwizard.spiffy.co/a/5J3i2oGowa/5944

– Join Wizard’s Guild (Weekly Sponsorship Coaching) https://creatorwizard.spiffy.co/a/LmPIxbv2aV/5944

The links above are affiliate links. This means my podcast will receive a small commission if you order through any of them at no additional cost to you. Affiliate commissions are one of the ways my podcast makes money so that I can create episodes free of charge. If you do purchase anything from my links, I sincerely would like to thank you for your support!

Transcript of How to Land Brand Sponsorships at Any Follower Count with Justin Moore

Ashley Grant [00:00:10]:
What’s up, my bloggy friends? Famous Ashley Grant here, and I’m so excited about today’s guests because if you have ever wanted to land brand sponsorships for your content but had no idea where to start, this episode is for you. Joining me today is Justin Moore, sponsorship coach and founder of Creator Wizard, and he’s also the author of the book Sponsor Magnet. Justin has been a full-time creator for over 8 years alongside his wife, April, and has personally made over $5 million. Yeah, you heard that right. $5 million working with brands. He also ran an influencer marketing agency for more than 7 years. So that means he has a rare inside look at exactly how brands decide who to partner with and why they pass on everyone else. His mission is to help creators big and small land 1 million paid brand partnerships by 2032.

Ashley Grant [00:00:56]:
I hope you guys enjoy this episode as much as I enjoyed it. I had a blast recording this. He is such an awesome guy. Let’s get into it. So welcome to the show, Justin. I’m crazy stoked you’re here, if you can’t tell already. I just did your, uh, it was the December cohort of All the Things. So how is it that you got into this face.

Ashley Grant [00:01:21]:
I mean, I know I’ve heard the story before, but for people who don’t know, how on earth did you become a sponsorship coach?

Justin Moore [00:01:26]:
My goodness. So I owe all credit to my wife actually. So my wife, my wife April started, uh, a YouTube channel in 2009 and I was in medical devices at this time, completely unrelated to, you know, social media, creator economy. Um, and she just started making, uh, videos around beauty and skincare and she had a personal interest in that. Didn’t know anyone in her real life that was into that kind of thing. And so, just started making videos for fun. Remember, you gotta remember back in 2009, uh, you really couldn’t make money on YouTube in particular. Like they, the partner program was just starting, but it was application only.

Justin Moore [00:02:02]:
Like it wasn’t like it is now, um, where you could meet just a certain threshold and then you’d get in. Um, and she, in fact, she, in fact, she got rejected 3 times for the partner program before she got in. So it, it very much was like a, a bumpy start. Um, but what happened was brands started reaching out. Pretty quickly, but not offering to pay her. It was, hey, we’ll give you free stuff. Right? And we were in our early 20s at the time. We had no money.

Justin Moore [00:02:25]:
We were living in a studio apartment and free stuff to us was like, let’s go, you know, like, well, to her, because I was like, I mean, makeup is expensive. So like she was getting a bunch of free makeup. That’s awesome. Let’s go. Right. And so, um, and that was the way it was for years, actually. It wasn’t like we wised up after like a, uh, you know, 1 or 2 free products. It was like, For years, yeah, send over the free stuff, make a video about it, this type of thing.

Justin Moore [00:02:47]:
And so what happened was I decided to go back to school to get my MBA at night after work. And I started taking all these classes around, uh, advertising and negotiation and, um, and marketing and kind of the gears started turning. I would see hundreds of comments on all of April’s posts saying, oh, April, thanks so much for telling me about this product. I just went to the store and got it, or I went to their website and picked it up. Thank you. And I came home and I told April one time, I was like, honey, I think you’re getting the short end of the stick here. Like a free $30 hair curler is not adequate compensation for the value you’re providing to these brands. And so I said, the next time a brand wants to work with you, ask them if they have a budget to collaborate.

Justin Moore [00:03:27]:
And she’s like, there’s no way anyone’s going to pay me money for this. And I was like, just give it a shot. So sure enough, next brand said, you know, asked to collaborate. Hey, do you have a budget? They said, oh yeah, if you could include us in 2 YouTube videos a month, we will pay you $700 monthly., and we were like, mind blown, explosion. ‘Cause like $700 was like a massive chunk of our rent at the time. And we were thinking to ourselves, how can we find 10 more brands just like this? Right? And so fast forward over the, you know, the next 15+ years, we’ve done close to 600 sponsorships personally now, made over $5 million doing it. Um, and so brand partnerships was always like a really big part of our revenue stream. Um, but In 2015, I was like, you know what, I think I might be able to get these deals for other creators, not just for ourselves.

Justin Moore [00:04:13]:
And so that led me to, I launched an influencer marketing agency, paid out millions of dollars to other creators. And so I had this kind of perspective of both sides where I’ve been in the trenches for many years doing deals, ran the agency, been in the boardrooms with these big brands now where they’re spending millions of dollars now. And so about 6 years ago, I decided to just start making some YouTube videos about this. How do you like behave on a phone call with a brand? How do you, how do you know how much to charge a brand? How do you pitch a brand? What do you say when you try to get on their radar? And so this ultimately led me down the road of coaching other creators and for a very, very interesting model. And we could talk about it, but this, this very surprising business where I’m doing the sponsorship coaching was born.

Ashley Grant [00:04:57]:
That’s so insane because it’s like You created something from nothing and that’s obviously my favorite part about it because I am a content creator myself. I, I started dabbling in 2007, went, I guess you’d call it pro in 2011 in the sense that I was finally getting paid. And then in 2014, ghostwriting actually landed in my lap. And then I was like, oh, wait a minute. Now I’m doing it full time, but I’m not getting any credit, but I’ll take their cash. And so the reason I was excited to learn more about this sponsorships is now that I’m trying to step back into the spotlight and put my own name on things, I’m like, okay, how do I get that? How do I get what you got? So the person who’s listening to this, who’s like, okay, wait, I’m a small brand, Justin. Like, you’re okay, $5 million, good for you. How the hell do I get started?

Justin Moore [00:05:40]:
What would you say to them? It’s a great question. And I think one of the biggest learnings having started coaching over the, you know, over the last number of years is sometimes you have the trap of expertise, right? You’ve been doing something for so long that it’s like, it’s kind of hard to remember what it was like in the very beginning. Thing, but I’ve been living in this, working with creators day in and day out who are at that place that you’re mentioning, kind of in the early stages, let’s say less than 1,000, you know, subscribers, followers, audience size, whatever. And so I developed this framework that I call the sponsorship continuum that I think would be helpful to kind of chat through right here because I think a lot of people look at sponsorships as very simplistic. It’s like, okay, A brand deal is when a brand pays me to talk about them on my platform, on my newsletter, on my podcast, on my social media, whatever. Um, and that’s the only way in which I could ever get sponsored. Um, and then they don’t even get out the front door because they think, well, I don’t have enough followers to justify a brand wanting to invest in me to talk about them. Right.

Justin Moore [00:06:43]:
And so they just say, okay, well, I guess sponsorships are for people who are larger, or I need to get to 10,000 followers, or maybe some brand told you one time, oh, we, you have to have a certain audience size to, for us to collaborate with you. And so you felt like, well, I guess I guess that’s what everyone brand thinks. And so I guess I’ll just have to wait. And that is absolute BS. That’s not true at all. But you have to look at it from the brand’s perspective. Yeah. If you reached out now with, you know, a couple hundred followers or a couple hundred views or downloads on average for your posts on your, you know, videos or podcasts, think about it from the brand’s perspective.

Justin Moore [00:07:17]:
Like, it’s probably not going to move the needle for them if you were to talk about them on your posts, right? And so that’s not what you should pitch them. Right. And so, um, in the early stages, it’s a much more productive, uh, approach to do an analysis of the brand’s social presence. So I’m going to see, okay, are they, do they have a podcast? Are they on social media? How often are they posting? Does the content suck? Right. Um, are they running ads or did they have a blog? Did they have a newsletter? So you’re kind of doing this analysis to see. How are they thinking about content generally to attract customers? And so when you reach out to them, you say, hey, love your brand, but I just did this comprehensive audit of like kind of how you’re appearing and showing up on social media. I think you could be telling your brand story in a more compelling way. I would actually love to create some content for you that you can use on autopilot and repurpose on your platform, what’s called owned and operated platforms on your social media for your paid advertising., to help you, uh, stand out.

Justin Moore [00:08:20]:
And oh, by the way, go take a look at my website or my podcast or my YouTube channel. That’s my portfolio. So what you’re pitching is different. And so this is sometimes called UGC or user-generated content. Well, you’re actually creating content for the brand to repurpose. So that’s at the very beginning of the continuum, right? Where you’re, where you’re small and you’re just starting out, you’re building up this kind of portfolio to show that you can do good work for brands, right? You can get some testimonials, you can get some case studies under your belt. Then let’s say you grow a little bit, Ashley, right? You’re now getting thousands, uh, you have a couple thousand people in your audience or views on your videos or whatever. Um, what you’re pitching to the brand is probably a combination now of content for them to use.

Justin Moore [00:09:03]:
Maybe you’re doing, uh, you’re repurposing that or syndicating that on your platforms now because that starts becoming meaningful. Maybe you’re doing even a little bit of consulting for them now where you’re advising them on what their strategy should be. Um, and then now let’s say you really grow significantly. You’re on the far end of the continuum where you’re crushing it. You’re getting tens of thousands, hundreds of thousands of views. Yeah. The thrust of what you can propose or pitch to a brand is now I’m going to talk about you on my platforms because that’s going to be really move the needle for you. And so, um, the reason that I share this continuum idea is it’s very liberating, I hope, to anyone listening or watching, which is that like there’s no arbitrary threshold here.

Justin Moore [00:09:40]:
Of like, I need to reach this certain milestone before I can have the permission to reach out to a brand. And the other really beautiful thing is that the more narrow your niche is, the less, you know, audience size you need to have because there’s just less people out there to, you know, for these brands in these niche industries to collaborate. And I can share some stories on that front. But like generally, I just think it’s this, it’s this idea that like there is no arbitrary of following that you need to hit.

Ashley Grant [00:10:07]:
I think that’s definitely going to make a lot of people feel better. I know it makes me feel better. I remember a brand very early on, they’re like, no, we won’t even talk to you unless you have 10,000 followers. And I remember I bought this course to try to learn how to get a bunch of followers. And I actually built my Facebook page to 12,000 followers, but it still wasn’t aligned with who I wanted to pitch. And so it was like, well, what good did that do me? I just kind of wasted my time and energy. But it sounds like what you’re, what you’re saying is you’re not just pitching someone like, hey, give me money because I love you. You’re pitching a media partnership.

Justin Moore [00:10:40]:
Does that sound about right? Yes, and really what you’re pitching is to help them accomplish a business outcome. That at the end of the day is the, is really the only reason that a brand would want to hire you. And I’m glad we’ve arrived at this because there’s a very important concept that I think we should discuss, uh, that will help you finally get these brands to open their wallets, which is the phrasing of a lot of outreach that people, you know, creators, entrepreneurs try to do when they reach out to a brand or an enterprise is they say, uh, hey, look at me, I’m awesome. I’ve got all these, I’ve got this cool web series or I’ve got this podcast or I’ve got this following. Um, will you, I think your brand would be a great fit. I’ve used it for 3 years. Uh, let’s collaborate, you know, this type of idea. Um, and that is an absolutely awful pitch.

Justin Moore [00:11:30]:
And you want, you know how I know that that’s an awful pitch? It’s because that’s what we did. That’s exactly what we did starting out. Right. And we heard crickets until again, I started taking these classes and we got some reps and we understood that brands don’t have random piles of money laying around to sponsor people that reach out to them. They just simply don’t, but they do have big piles of money laying around that have been already allocated for something called their internal initiatives, their budgets that they’ve allocated to accomplish those business objectives. And so your job when you do this type of research that I teach is to try to infer what’s important to them. You can do this in a lot of ways. You see what campaigns they’re running.

Justin Moore [00:12:11]:
You look at the ads they’re running. You see what types of campaigns they were running last year. You know, if we’re trying to lock down a summer campaign right now, what were they running last summer? They’re probably going to run that campaign. Another 4th of July campaign, probably going to run that again. And so, Um, if you lead with what’s important to them, um, then all of a sudden they say, oh, okay. Yeah. Ashley seems like she’s going to help us drive more sales for our 4th of July campaign. Let’s push, let’s slide $10K of that $100K summer budget over to Ashley because she’s going to help us, you know, drive the needle, move the needle on that, on that campaign.

Justin Moore [00:12:47]:
And so this is a really, really important concept to understand is that you have to lead with what’s important to them, what’s in it for them.

Ashley Grant [00:12:53]:
It’s not about you. Yeah, it’s funny you say that because I was actually working for a client and they said that every single thing they do whenever they’re talking to their customers is they have the WIIFM technique, what’s in it for me? And so that they push that down our throats like the whole time. And I get that now and it makes complete sense, but I have to tell you, and I haven’t told anybody this, it’s our little secret, you know, between us and everybody listening. I, um, I, after I did your cohort, I actually went and thought, you know what, I’m ballsy. I got some followers. I think I could do this. And I pitched a brand and Lord have mercy, it was awful. I will not say what the brand was, but they literally were like, we see no return on investment of any value to, to do this.

Ashley Grant [00:13:34]:
Like, what, what, what would you do for us that would actually move the needle? And so it’s interesting you saying that, cause I was just like, yeah, I, I, I need to go back and reread the book and go through all the videos.

Justin Moore [00:13:47]:
Well, first of all. I want to compliment you though, because you did a lot more than what a lot of people do. A lot of people go through the 10K Brand Deal Challenge, this live workshop that I do, and they don’t do anything. They don’t do what you did. And so just the fact that you got, that you sent it and they responded is way more than most people get. So I just want to give you your props here.

Ashley Grant [00:14:04]:
Well, and we had a video call too. And so it was, it was good feedback. Like I recorded it and I was like really listening to it. What’s funny is I did get an affiliate partnership with them. So I think that’s a win. Because now I can possibly show them, no, really, I know what I’m doing. Right. Right.

Ashley Grant [00:14:20]:
So, and in fact, let’s, let’s actually jam on that if you’re okay with it. Let’s say you do land an affiliate partnership. How can you translate that into something where they’re like, okay, not only will we pay you if you get us, you know, income, but we’ll also pay you to go get said income.

Justin Moore [00:14:35]:
Yeah. So, so this is a very common, um, complaint that I hear from people, which is like you, they, they did what you just did. They pitched the brand and the brand says, yeah, sounds great. Drive us sales and we’ll send you 20% every time you commission, every time you generate a sale. Um, and like, again, think about it from the brand’s perspective. I do this a lot. Let’s put our hat on, pretend we’re the brand. This is the ideal scenario for them.

Justin Moore [00:14:57]:
They have this like army of evangelists loudly championing them for free. They have to expend no money until you generate a sale. Meanwhile, you are expending social capital to make this recommendation, generate content containing a promotion for the affiliate. And so it’s a non-trivial exercise for you. So I just want I want to like acknowledge that piece of it. And so like, yeah, of course the brand is going to be like, you know, want that type of setup. But there’s a lot of things that the brand is not afforded in an affiliate relationship. Largely, they are not privy to how you are ultimately going to discuss their brand.

Justin Moore [00:15:33]:
So you may not be hitting the key messaging of a particular seasonal promotion that they’re running. They’re not able to probably get that content to repurpose, put on their blog, put on their social media, use for paid advertising. And so that would be the line of a conversation that I would have in that scenario. I would say, oh yeah, sure. I’d love to check out your affiliate program. Out of curiosity, do your affiliates also grant you the rights to repurpose their content for paid advertising? Because that’s something that I specialize in. Let me know if you’d like me to send over a few investment options for what that might look like. Now, all of a sudden they’re thinking, yeah, actually, no, we don’t get the rights to that content.

Justin Moore [00:16:08]:
And actually, most of the time that our affiliates talk about us, the content is really not that good, or it’s not that prominent. Because they’re not really that incentivized to really do a dedicated email blast about it or whatever. Right. Um, and so you say, and you say when there is a, a flat compensation component to this deal, you get more creative, um, participation in this. Like, I’m gonna give you a concept for you to approve before I produce this. I’ll give you a draft of the content to review before it goes live to ensure that everything’s accurate. Because again, we wanna maximize the repurposability of this asset so you can get soundbites if it’s a video or audiogram if it’s podcast, whatever. And so again, this is the conversation that you have with, with this advertiser when they try to hit you with that.

Justin Moore [00:16:51]:
One other anecdote I want to share. So I did an interview on my podcast called the Sponsor Magnet Podcast with an affiliate marketing manager at a brand. And, um, she, uh, shared a story about a campaign that they ran. They were allotted a $10,000 budget, flat budget for, uh, a, a promotion, a specific promotion that they were running one month. And the very first place that they turned to recruit partners for this flat campaign was their affiliate pool. Because they, they thought like, why wouldn’t we just go to our top affiliates? They’re already users. They’re already bought in. They know everything about the tool.

Justin Moore [00:17:27]:
We don’t have to educate someone cold coming in off the street about the value of the tool who’s never used it on all that. Let’s just go and like, you know, hire our, uh, our people that are already doing great work for us. And so. All this to say, like, I do think that in your situation that you shared, for example, or just generally, like, it is a good practice to, like, get on the radar of these brands by starting to, you know, talk about them, especially if you’re already recommending their tool organically. That can be a good tactic to start, you know, getting in front of them and helping them understand why they would want to hire you on, on, on larger campaigns.

Ashley Grant [00:18:00]:
Well, then it sounds like if you actually are starting to drive some numbers to them, you can use that as leverage to be like, no, this is why we need to sit down and have a meeting.

Justin Moore [00:18:08]:
Well, the trick though is that you have to convince them that you’re going to be doing something new or different for them on the, on the subsequent campaign, because otherwise they’re just gonna be like, no, let’s just keep the same setup. Like we have, we should, right? Like this is, this gravy train is great for us. Like just keep recommending us. And so this is the critical thing is that to get yourself out of that precedent of them only looking at you as an affiliate, you have to suggest other things.

Ashley Grant [00:18:34]:
Okay. Oh, I like that. That sounds so good. I mean, and you make it sound so simple, but I’m, but obviously it’s not. So, okay. I’m gonna put you, I’m gonna put you on the spot here and kind of use this, if, if it’s all right with you, as, as a coach for a moment.

Justin Moore [00:18:49]:
Ooh, free consulting. Let’s go. Let’s do it. Let’s just say it. Now I get it. Now I get why you asked me.

Ashley Grant [00:18:54]:
All right. All right.

Justin Moore [00:18:56]:
Yeah.

Ashley Grant [00:18:56]:
I mean, come on. Isn’t that why everybody starts a podcast? Okay. Reader’s Digest version. I had told you that one of the things I started was a fitness podcast. And the gist of it is I was doing it initially as a, like a journal of what I was going through trying to get in shape for the first time as a woman in my forties. It has since turned into more of a movement. So it’s not got that many downloads, but I see potential. I see, I see big things.

Ashley Grant [00:19:23]:
So what would you say to me if I said to you, Justin, I really want to get like a title sponsor or something. To get this out there more, what was, what would be the very first thing you would say for this fitness podcast to get people to give a damn?

Justin Moore [00:19:38]:
Okay. So, uh, let’s, let’s, let’s hone in on our success metrics first. Your success metrics. When you say get the podcast out there more, what does that mean?

Ashley Grant [00:19:47]:
Okay. So I don’t have that many downloads, but what I am having happen is because people are listening to it, I am getting people sending me DMs and talking to me and saying, because of you, I came to the gym today. Because of you, I downloaded a fitness app because of you, I’m finally working out. So that’s kind of what feels successful to me is it feels like people are like finally moving their bodies, which is the whole point of why I started telling people my story. And so that’s, that’s kind of the, the gist of it.

Justin Moore [00:20:15]:
Okay. So, and what would a title sponsor do to help you get it out there more?

Ashley Grant [00:20:20]:
Basically, I need the revenue to, get it like advertised to people. Cause I mean, I did a Facebook ad campaign and let’s be honest, whenever you’re advertising a podcast on Facebook, no one gives a damn because they’re not listening to podcasts on Facebook. They, you know, you got to get out and do more, I guess, podcast interviews to get out in front of people that are already listening to podcasts. So it’s, it’s kind of one of those things where I’m looking for the revenue to justify taking time away from the paid work that I’m doing for clients. To go and spend that time to get on other podcasts.

Justin Moore [00:20:53]:
Does that make sense?

Ashley Grant [00:20:54]:
No, it does. It does. Yeah. So it’s like I’m trying to find a way of, okay, if I can, if I can get the, the money coming in for the fitness podcast, then I can afford the time to go out and keep spreading the message of why people need to be moving their bodies.

Justin Moore [00:21:07]:
Got it. So this is an important, uh, conversation, I think, because, um, money or like sponsorship, uh, the, the, the utility of those dollars is gonna be different for everyone, right? So like I might have a conversation with someone else and they say, oh, well the reason I want a sponsorship is ’cause I really wanna get in front of that brand’s audience. I want them to send the podcast to their user base, or I want them to, and maybe that’s a, maybe that’s a distribution channel for you that could be cool, right? Yeah. But like, sometimes people don’t even care about the money. It’s like, I wanna get in front of that brand’s audience because, or customers, because they’re like the perfect listener, you know, persona of like who I want to, you know, so it’s more of an impact thing. And so I just, I always like clarifying this point because like the reason, like the way in which we would devise a sponsor strategy is going to change depending on what your goals are for your project.

Ashley Grant [00:21:58]:
Right.

Justin Moore [00:21:58]:
And so, um, so that’s, that’s important to realize. The, the, the second conversation we need to have is rather than thinking about, let’s just check our goals at the door for a second here. Like we have impact goals and that and money goals and that’s all, all great and well. But if we approach a sponsor with those two things, they don’t give a crap. They don’t care about you. They don’t know who you are. They don’t care about your podcast. They don’t care about your impact goals.

Justin Moore [00:22:23]:
And so they’re not gonna respond to your pitch. And so I know that that is hard to hear, but like, I’m, a lot of people call me their like tough love mentor, but this is the reality is that they are very busy and it’s like, what’s the whiff in, right? It’s what’s in it for me, what’s in it for them. Um, and if you cannot succinctly articulate that in an outreach email or video,, then you’re gonna just feel very, um, demoralized, you know, trying to, trying to land a sponsor. And so it’s a more productive exercise at this point, Ashley, to try to reverse engineer, okay, what, what are brands, uh, what are the brands that I could potentially help them accomplish a business outcome by, uh, either being featured on my show or potentially where my mind is going. Creating a turnkey podcast that is kind of like something they own, or they are— it’s the podcast powered by the brand. So going to a, some sort of fitness lifestyle, you know, uh, brand, women over 40, some brand that’s targeting that customer and saying, hey brand, I see that you don’t have a podcast that you own. I see that you’re advertising on some podcasts maybe, but wouldn’t it be cool if you could be having more regular conversations with your target demographic, prospective customers, people on your team, you know, and get, you know, about why it’s important to serve this, you know, clientele. I will be the host.

Justin Moore [00:23:54]:
I will lead the entire nuts and bolts of the podcast production. You will basically be kind of the podcast powered by brand. We create, we enter into some sort of licensing agreement for a duration and you foot the bill basically. And we, and we kind of have the, you know, a monthly quarterly meeting where we talk about your goals and, and you’ll be the exclusive sponsor. So I’ll do ad reads for the promotion that’s happening for the summer campaign or whatever. And so it’s basically a way for you guys to have a podcast without starting a podcast yourself. That’s where my mind goes with this idea because it checks the impact box for you. It checks the revenue box for you and potentially opens you up to getting in front of their customers as well.

Ashley Grant [00:24:39]:
So how does this idea sound? I mean, that sounds perfect. It makes complete sense. But of course, the first thing that comes to mind, and I’m sure if anybody’s listening to this, they’re probably thinking it too. You just said licensing and made it sound like they would own it. So does that mean I can’t put it on my channels? Does that mean I don’t own the rights?

Justin Moore [00:24:54]:
Tell me a little bit about that. I would say that you would want to, I mean, it would depend on what brand, like the conversation with the brand. For the right brand, they might want to buy it from you potentially. But more in a more likely scenario, the setup I’m talking about is you do some sort of kind of like non-exclusive license for them for a duration. So you are the exclusive sponsor, you own it, but you are the exclusive sponsor for 12 months, you get the, the rights to repurpose the content on your platforms if you want. So the, the, it would still go out on your platforms, the podcast, but there’d be like a little on the COVID art, it would be like, you know, your podcast part, you know, powered by whatever brand. ABC Fitness, we’ll call it. Yeah, ABC Fitness.

Justin Moore [00:25:38]:
Sure. Um, and, and they would get the rights to do that for 12 months or so. Okay. And then you, once that term is about to expire, you go and have another conversation. Like, hey, do we want to keep this? You want to kick it down the road for another 12 months? Or we can say, hey, that was a cool experiment and we’ll mutually part ways. And that’s really what I mean, that it’s like a turnkey thing where they’re getting to kind of put their stamp, their logo stamped on your stuff and, and, um, they’re the exclusive sponsor and all that. But again, like these deals can take a lot of different forms depending on what the goals of the sponsor are. Uh, but if you want to own the rights, you own the rights and just license it to them.

Ashley Grant [00:26:13]:
Okay. So, okay. Please don’t make fun of this. I just wanna make sure I’m understanding. Yeah. So it could live on like my YouTube channel, but they get to play with it however they choose to for 12 months.

Justin Moore [00:26:21]:
Yeah. And you can, and you can slice and dice the rights that they get. So it goes on your YouTube channel. Um, you could say, uh, you can’t publish this organically anywhere, meaning like on your YouTube, the brand’s YouTube channels or their Instagram or whatever, but you get the rights to run paid advertising with it. So I’ll give you the raw YouTube video and then when I do the ad read for you, You can take that footage and run like Instagram ads with it or something for the, the term, like 12 months or something like that. And so, or you could say no paid advertising, can’t do paid advertising, but you can repurpose this footage organically. So if you wanna embed the videos on your website or put it out in your email newsletter or whatever, like, um, yeah, just kind of, again, part of these discovery conversations, if you were to pitch this to a sponsor, is like asking them these questions. What’s important to you? Is that something that’d be important to you? Is that, uh, and if they say no, like, like I actually, my wife and I literally right before this call just, um, got off a call with a prospective sponsor and, uh, asked them a lot of these similar questions.

Justin Moore [00:27:17]:
And I, you know, I laid out the kind of 3 ways in which we usually work with brands. The first being an awareness-focused campaign where you’re looking for maximizing, you know, uh, views and impressions and engagement and just trying to spread the word about the brand name. Is it a repurposing campaign where, you know, you want to get all the assets to like do other things with it, paid ads, et cetera, or is it conversion-focused? So they want to drive sales or leads or trial signups or whatever. And this brand in particular said, we don’t care about awareness at all. We’ve been around 15 years. A lot of people know about us, but repurposing and conversion, those two sound really good. And you know, you know, the interesting thing about this conversation, uh, Ashley, is that, um, they had never, no one had ever broken it down for them in that way. That those were the 3 potential goals of working with creators.

Justin Moore [00:28:02]:
They’ve been around 15 years. They’ve done a little bit with creator partnerships, but like we were the first people to ever lay that out. And now they were so jazzed with this framework because they were like, oh man, this gives us such a firm way to understand how we can collaborate with creators. And it took like, the reason I say this is that a lot of people think that every brand has this stuff figured out. Like, oh, they got the marketing teams, the agencies, like, of course they understand how this stuff works. No, a lot of them either have never worked with creators or not done very, very often. And so you might be the very first person who comes to them with this type of, these type, this line of questioning.

Ashley Grant [00:28:41]:
Well, how in the heck did you figure it all out?

Justin Moore [00:28:46]:
Doing 600 deals myself and thousands through my agency. And I just honestly, when I sat down to start educating people, I, I just, I mean, I just had this very, this, this corpus of experience where I was like, you know, What are the common themes amongst the deals that I’ve done that have gone well? What are the common things amongst the deals that really went bad, badly? And started over time honing these frameworks. And frankly, when I wrote my book, Sponsor Magnet, that really also made me, forced me to kind of codify a lot of these things. And the brilliant part about it actually was that I now have hundreds of success stories. So through the, you know, course that I, that I’ve taught for many years and, um, just doing coaching, uh, I’ve been able to test these frameworks out on so many different types of different creators, different niches, different platforms. Like it, it very much is universal. Um, and, and so I feel very confident that this is like a, a framework that anyone can use.

Ashley Grant [00:29:45]:
I love that. And a fun fact, after reading your book, Sponsor Magnet, I actually went back and looked at my own systems and processes in my business. And it was the first time, even though I’ve been doing, you know, the ghostwriting since 2014, it was the first time I actually sat down and wrote my onboarding documentation. Like, I, I was, I was very lucky. I’ve been very lucky. I’ve gotten all my clients through like, you know, uh, referrals and things like that. But I was like, okay, he wrote it down because now he has something he can go back to. And I, it’s, it seems so silly to, to, to be like, well, duh, that makes sense.

Ashley Grant [00:30:18]:
But. If you never write it down, you never know you need to write it down. Yeah, 100%. Yeah. And I just, I find it fascinating.

Justin Moore [00:30:24]:
So, okay.

Ashley Grant [00:30:25]:
Another thing I’m gonna ask you, there’s 11 billion companies out there.

Justin Moore [00:30:28]:
How the heck do you figure out who to even add to a potential sponsor pitch list?

Ashley Grant [00:30:33]:
Yeah.

Justin Moore [00:30:33]:
So I’ll tell you what to not do. Sit in a room all by yourself, um, probably playing depressing music and thinking, What brand would ever want to work with me? I don’t even know. Like, I, I’m so small. I don’t have a large following. Like, I’m, I’ve got imposter syndrome. How do I know this? Because this is what we did, right? All of my examples are stuff we did. Um, do the raining water on the, on the window. Yeah.

Justin Moore [00:31:01]:
The tiny, I needed the, like, I need a tiny, tiny violin sound effect. I don’t have that one, but like that, this, um, the, the other reason is that. Again, think about it from the brand’s perspective. If I’m reaching out to them and my only filter of trying to decide a good brand for me is if I have used them, because this is the filter most people use. Ah, I use this tool or I use this product. I’ve used it for 3 years. I’m going to say that when I reach out to them. Again, from the brand’s perspective, they don’t care that you use it.

Justin Moore [00:31:33]:
That is table stakes. You know what they care about? Illustrating to them that you, your audience has existing affinity for their tool or their product because their, your audience is, represents a pool of prospective customers for them. Like you loving it and using it is again, like, of course that’s the case, but it’s like you have to illustrate to them that your audience has high intent for potentially being interested in their tool. And so the missing component from this discovery process, is actually involving your audience in this conversation. So doing a survey and saying in your top of your show notes or in your newsletter or whatever and saying, hey, um, I’m planning out my next 6 months of content and, uh, I would love to learn more about you so I can ensure that it serves you. Would you mind asking a series of, you know, answering a series of 6 or 7 questions so I can learn more about you? I, I, you know, I can see everything on the podcast. You know, demographics, male-female split, geography, ages. Like, yeah, okay, I guess that’s helpful.

Justin Moore [00:32:33]:
But like, you know what’s more helpful? Psychographic information. What type of job do you have? Do you have kids? Are you married? What’s keeping you up at night? What problems do you have? What brands and products and services are you using and loving right now to help you solve those problems? Right. Imagine if for your fitness, uh, podcast, Ashley, you do a survey like that. And 35% of respondents say that they are stay-at-home moms. I don’t know, I’m making that up, but imagine how much differently you would approach not only content for the, for that type of listener about how to stay fit when you have all these, you know, you’re homeschooling or whatever, and, and, you know, you have little kids running around or whatever. Um, but also brands, you think, oh. I’ve got a big cohort of like homeschooling, you know, families in my audience. Maybe I should go out there and pitch ABCmouse or something, which is like a reading tool.

Justin Moore [00:33:33]:
Now, is that a tool that you would ever think to pitch for your fitness podcast if you didn’t have that data from your audience? No, not at all. And yet I bet you could think of a pretty creative way to integrate that. Like, hey, I know you’re juggling, you know, you’re trying to be healthy while you’re juggling, you know, your kids and trying to keep them Well, guess what? Great. I’ve got this solution for you here so you can get in a quick 15-minute workout while your kid learns to read. Like, that’s a great ad read. Really cool ad read, but only one that you would know to do if you involve your audience in this, in this conversation. And by the way, think about how much better of a pitch it is when you approach ABCmouse. You say, instead of being like, oh, I love your tool, I think my audience would be into it.

Justin Moore [00:34:13]:
You’re saying 35% of my audience, I have a survey, saying that they’re having challenges with the thing that your product solves.

Ashley Grant [00:34:20]:
It, I mean, it’s like a slam dunk. Yeah. And I, it’s interesting you say that cuz I’ve actually started asking for like voice notes and, and people to reach out to me like with questions and, and all these things because I, I wanna get to know my audience more. And it’s fascinating some of the questions and responses I’ve been getting just from that simple tip, like things I never would’ve even thought of. Like, okay, first of all, I can’t stand when people try to cram protein powder down your throat. But I do like that some people are like, okay, I have children and I can’t get to the gym, so how the heck can I work out at home? And so it, I actually did an episode about that because I didn’t even think about it cuz I don’t have kids. I, I go to the gym. So it, it’s, it’s interesting when you start thinking of it more as a community of audience members rather than just people you’re speaking at.

Justin Moore [00:35:05]:
One of, one of my favorite uses of AI I would say is taking those voice notes training like a Claude project or on ChatGPT or something and taking the transcripts and dumping, you know, 5 or 6 of them in there and being like, give me 5 themes that are coming through in these, in these notes, um, that, you know, I could, you know, that, that are like pain points or challenges that my audiences are experiencing. And that could, you could use those, those themes to design your surveys.

Ashley Grant [00:35:31]:
Not me over here taking notes, just trying to do all that. That is fantastic. Well, okay, I’m going to ask you something. What is something that no one has asked you about sponsorships that you really wanna make sure we get out in this episode?

Justin Moore [00:35:47]:
Wow, that’s a great question. Um, you know, I, I think one thing that is a common misconception is that my work is only for influencers, right? It’s only, it’s only for people who are like on the social media platforms, you know, like TikTok, Instagram, YouTube, or whatever, cuz that’s where most people think of as like, oh, I’ll do a brand deal on those, like on social media or whatever. But, um, the thing that I wish I could take anyone by the shoulders and just kind of shake them and be like, no, it’s not just for influencers. Like this is for people who have in-person events. This is if you have a newsletter, a podcast, uh, a, uh, you know, a, a course, a private community. Anywhere where you have built up influence over a body of people, you could do sponsorships by allowing brands the privilege of getting in front of those people. And so I think that that, that really is— it’s actually probably kind of the next chapter of my education is like, how do I get through to those people? Because there’s a lot of people who I go— I’ll go to a conference or something and it’s kind of like a nontraditional, not like a creator conference and, you know, someone will ask me, oh, what do you do? And I’d be like, oh, I’m a sponsorship coach. And they just make a snap judgment like, oh, that’s not for me.

Justin Moore [00:37:06]:
Like authors, like this is a great example, authors. Like I went to an author event and within 5 minutes of talking with an author, they are completely sold. They’re like, I need to do sponsorships. Like I’ve never even thought about before, but like they have a 30,000 person email list and the only thing they’ve ever use the email list for is selling their books. And I said to myself, I said to them, like, there’s so many other ways in which you can serve your audience with brands and products that are other than your books with challenges that they’re experiencing. Right. And so it’s a big unlock for a lot of people. So I think that’s really, that’s how I’d answer that.

Ashley Grant [00:37:43]:
I think two things that you said to me just really struck a chord. First, you said a mindset shift that I didn’t even think about. You said you’re giving the brand the privilege of getting in front of your audience. That, that is a wild shift that I, like, even though you’ve probably said it before, just hearing you saying it now, it’s like, oh yeah, I’m doing this for you.

Justin Moore [00:38:02]:
You know why? Can we, let me agitate this. Yes. When a brand wants to get in front of a customer right now, what are their only two options? Their only two options are emailing their existing customer lists if they have those, that contact info, or. Paying Facebook, Instagram, YouTube to run ads. They have to pay those platforms to put their message in front of their prospective customers. And so in what realm of reality is it fair for them to offer free stuff or affiliate, even affiliate deals to do the same, to get in front of your audience when they have to do, when they have to pay Facebook and Instagram and YouTube to do the same.

Ashley Grant [00:38:41]:
So I just, I wanted to make that point. That’s so good. And the other thing that you said, and it, it, It kind of just brought this out of me is not only are you giving the brand the privilege to be in front of your audience, you’re showing your audience something that they may never have even thought of or heard of before. So by not getting a brand in front of them, you’re kind of doing them a disservice.

Justin Moore [00:39:05]:
It feels like. 100% because, um, I talk, I got a lot of frameworks. I’m just warning you here. This, I think my mind thinks in frameworks. I love that though. Let’s go. Um, I call it your PSA. It’s called your audience-first offer framework, which is that a lot of people, uh, let’s look at you, for example, like you, your products.

Justin Moore [00:39:26]:
So is the things that you’re directly selling to your clients, ghostwriting services, for example, is like your product, right? Um, and there’s actually two other legs to this stool of ways in which you can serve your audience or customers. That a lot of people don’t think about. The second is your sponsors, like we were talking about on most of this episode, which is like, there’s probably things, challenges that your ghostwriting clients are experiencing that you’re never gonna really be able to solve, or, or people on your fitness podcast or something that you’re never really gonna solve with a fitness bootcamp that you ultimately run or something like that. Like home gym equipment, like that’s not gonna be something you’re not gonna get into manufacturing to make equipment like that, right? So it would make sense for you to partner with a brand like that. The third bucket though is one that a lot of people don’t think about, which is alliances. Meaning, uh, you do a survey for your audience and a lot of people come back to you and say, um, I don’t know, uh, I’m having, uh, relationship issues or marital issues because I’ve had health challenges and I’m having conflict with my partner because of that or whatever. Um, that’s probably not going to be something you delve into because you’re not a therapist or a marriage family counselor or something like that. But maybe you have a friend who’s a, uh, a coach.

Justin Moore [00:40:39]:
That can help couples with that or something like that. If you know that that’s a big significant challenge for your audience based on the survey, it might make sense to do an episode with your friend and maybe there’s some sort of joint venture or affiliate type arrangement where you get their offer, their coaching program, their bootcamp or something in front of your people. But again, you’ll never know that until you involve them. And so I, this, this PSA, your products that you sell, sponsors other brands and products, and then alliances. Like you said, you’re doing a disservice to your audience if you’re not thinking through a comprehensive way to serve your audience.

Ashley Grant [00:41:10]:
Okay. Were you in my voice notes or something? Because I literally, I’m not even kidding you. I literally just got a voice note of someone saying, my partner’s not supportive of my fitness journey. How do I work through that? That is, this is weird. This is very weird.

Justin Moore [00:41:25]:
You sure you weren’t listening? I promise.

Ashley Grant [00:41:26]:
I just, I’ve been doing this long enough. That is just wild. Like, I mean, You, you, you tickled my brain just then. All right. So one of the things that you said that I, I have to bring up because it’s one of the reasons I was so excited to talk to you is you said getting sponsorships for in-person events and you are about to have a big in-person event.

Justin Moore [00:41:46]:
How the heck are you sponsoring your thing? My goodness. So I’ve actually been cataloging the entire process publicly. Um, so, which I love, by the way. Yeah. Yeah. My, uh, yeah, my event is called Sponsor Games. Uh, it’s happening March 15th to the 18th in San Antonio, Texas. Um, and let me, can I just do a quick plug for the event? ‘Cause I think it’s like a really fun and unique event that, uh, I’ve just, I’m so proud of it.

Justin Moore [00:42:12]:
So, you know, I’ve been going to kind of creator-focused events for over a decade and there was always only like maybe one or two talks about brand partnerships. And that never made sense to me ’cause I was like, This is the number one way in which my wife and I are making money. And a lot, and like virtually everyone I know, this is their number one revenue stream. Why is there not an entire event focused on sponsorships? Um, and so for a decade, I, I was hoping someone would like make an event for this. And so finally I was like, I guess it’s me. I guess I’m the person who has to make this event. And so I basically made a list of everything that I hate about events. Uh, and I decided to do the opposite.

Justin Moore [00:42:49]:
So for example, uh, food, food always sucks at every event I’ve ever been to. We’re going to, yeah, we’re going to ball out on catering. We’re going to spend most of the money on catering. One. Second, I hate panels. I hate workshops, keynotes. I’m falling asleep. I’m looking at my emails.

Justin Moore [00:43:06]:
Like, uh, what I want to do is I want to get into the hallway, right? And I want to like talk with people and network. How can I make an event where the entire event feels like that? Um, number 3, how can I make this feel outcome focused? So it’s not just like I’m spending a bunch of time away from my family, a bunch of money, hotels, airfare, all this. And like some nebulous takeaways at the end. No, like I wanna feel like I got some big transformation at the end of the event. And so basically what I did is I took my 8-step sponsorship wheel framework and I turned it into 8 games that you play to learn and master these concepts. So the pitch game, the negotiate game, right? You’re getting up on stage, you’re practicing your pitch, you’re doing role play as if I was a brand and overcoming objections. And so it’s like you very much roll up your sleeves, um, and, uh, practice this stuff. And so to your point, like, I wanted to kind of show how the sausage was made, so to speak.

Justin Moore [00:43:55]:
And so this whole journey of talking about the event, I have asked the sponsors who I am pitching if they would allow me to record my pitch to them live. And so I’ve done this 3 times now, 2 have aired on my podcast, 1 is about to air. But I basically, like, I literally went through the whole process. I said, you know, here’s what I’m proposing. You know, they gave me objections. I also interspersed the podcast with my own commentary, like, okay, I said, okay, pause.

Ashley Grant [00:44:26]:
Here’s what they said.

Justin Moore [00:44:27]:
Here’s what I thought they were thinking at this time. Almost like a reality show kind of thing, you know? And, and yeah, it’s just been such a fun journey to try to pull back the curtain on a lot of this stuff because I think at the end of the day, that’s what it feels like. It feels so mysterious, enigmatic. Like, how do you, how do you figure out how much to charge? Like, What are the comps? Like, what do other people charge? And so, um, I think it’s been a really fun journey for that sake. And I’m happy to say that, you know, we have, uh, locked in 4 sponsors for the event and one maybe still, still might, might close.

Ashley Grant [00:44:59]:
Um, but, uh, it’s been a fun ride. What I love about the fact that you’ve been like basically documenting this in public is you’re showing, you’re putting the proof in the pudding, right? You’re showing everybody. I’m not just telling you how to do it. I’m not just a teacher. I’m doing it. And everything that you’re teaching is in your awesome book, Sponsor Magnet. Everybody needs to read it if you’re considering sponsorship. I’ve actually sent your book to so many people because it’s like, they’ll complain to me like, oh, I’m a creator and I need to make money and da da da da da.

Ashley Grant [00:45:27]:
And it’s like, then read the damn book.

Justin Moore [00:45:32]:
Just saying.

Ashley Grant [00:45:32]:
Oh, and we’ll leave a link in the show notes so that people can check out the event as well because they. I want to go to it, but I can’t this year. So, but people need to go and I can live vicariously through them and everybody needs to document it. I appreciate it so much. Yes. And then while I’ve still got you here, I actually reached out to you before we sat down and I said, I wanted to ask you, um, from like a, through a pop culture perspective about your business and what it is you do. And you actually said to me that you wanted to talk about The War of Art. And so you’re the first person that has brought this up.

Ashley Grant [00:46:03]:
And so I want to know what it was about The War of Art that made you, made it resonate with you.

Justin Moore [00:46:09]:
So first of all, anyone who has not read this book, it’s like one of my favorites by Steven Pressfield. Um, it’s all about, um, the, the overarching theme is about this concept of what he calls resistance. And I think that we experience this as creatives, as entrepreneurs in so many different aspects of both our personal and professional life. It’s this embodiment of friction of a, for an opposing force that is preventing us from accomplishing these big ambitious goals that we have, whether they’re creative projects or otherwise. And this really, really resonates with me because in so many, I have these big ambitious goals like you do in terms of impact and people I’m hoping to touch. But for whatever reason, there always seems like there’s these big obstacles in the way for that. And so his, one of his whole points throughout the book Uh, is that, uh, the only way to beat resistance is to just sit down and do the work. Yeah, that’s it.

Justin Moore [00:47:07]:
You have to, it’s, it’s like, he also talks about this analogy of like, kind of like going pro, uh, like amateurs and pros, uh, they will just sit down even if they’re not feeling like it, even if they’re feeling crummy, even if their head is not in the right place, even if they’re just sitting there staring at a blinking cursor for 2 hours, you sit down and you, and you push through it. He, he believes that writer’s block is like not a real thing. Like you literally just have to sit down until, uh, even if it is not sounding good or we can go back later and edit it. And so that, that I wanted to talk about this because I feel like, um, there are, uh, once you take control of this narrative, feeling this instead of feeling like you’re a victim, like, oh, the world is acting against me to prevent me conspiring against me to accomplish my things. I just feel like it’s such a more productive frame to say like, okay, yes, I’ve been dealt this not ideal hand of cards. Um, but the only way to overcome that is to just sit down and methodically, uh, figure out how I’m gonna get outta this situation or, or get to the, the goal that I want to.

Ashley Grant [00:48:09]:
And so I just think it’s a master, masterclass and it’s really helped guide my business. I, I think it’s fascinating cuz I mean, it is really that internal resistance that it, it stops us from creating and, and pursuing that meaningful work. And isn’t it funny how when you start actually putting in the work, regardless of what you feel, you actually start accomplishing your goals?

Justin Moore [00:48:30]:
Who knew?

Ashley Grant [00:48:31]:
Who knew? Exactly. Who knew? Yeah. And so it seems like, like a lot of the key themes were like professional mindset beats talent alone. And I love, um, John Lee Dumas. He always talks about, you know, putting in the reps. And, and, and I just— it’s become a thing for me. It’s kind of why fitness has become such an addiction because I mean, 6 months ago I couldn’t get through a single class without like just being completely like out of breath. I couldn’t do jumping jacks, I couldn’t hold a plank and all that, all that stuff.

Ashley Grant [00:48:58]:
And now because I just kept putting in the reps, even though I didn’t think I was a fitness person, I sort of became a fitness person.

Justin Moore [00:49:05]:
Who knew that if you just did the work, you could actually do the work? That’s really inspirational. And I think, um, there’s so many, man, there’s so many stories I could tell here, but like One of the most common questions that I get is, um, I do a lot of public speaking and people are always like, how, how did you get to be such a good public speaker? You’re so poised. You like don’t say, um, a lot. Like, and there’s two things that I, that I share. The first is that I have livestreamed pretty much every week for almost 5 years. Uh, and putting in the reps of being able to be dynamic and read the chat and talk about random stuff as things come up is the number one reason why I’m a better speaker is just putting in the reps of like practicing that skill of being able to articulate, uh, pretty much or expound on any topic that people throw at me with respect to sponsorships. That’s number one. And then the other reason is I hired a coach.

Justin Moore [00:49:59]:
I hired a speaking coach to help me learn, help me learn how to improve my diction and the, my analogies and the way I move on stage, you know, is like, it’s, it’s all part of like practicing. And this is what pros do. They hire coaches. They hire people who are ahead of them, who are experts at this. Um, you know, you look at any professional athlete, people in the Olympics, like, they all have coaches. And so I think that there’s this weird stigma sometimes, I think, from like taking courses or hiring coaches or things like that, especially on the internet. Um, a weird stigma against that. And yet there’s no stigma, on paying $100,000 to go to get a 4-year education.

Justin Moore [00:50:42]:
And are you gonna use that degree? I don’t know, maybe not. But like somehow that’s okay. But like hiring a co— so I just feel like there’s, there has to be this re— this shifting of a mindset when it comes to getting to where you want. My shortcut is always like, who can I hire? Who can I hire that’s already done this? I’ll just pay them to gimme the shortcut. And, and, and so I, I feel like there’s this combination of like really sitting and doing the work and figuring out who you can surround yourself with to, to succeed.

Ashley Grant [00:51:09]:
Whenever you are still pitching a brand or still going live, I gotta know, do you still get scared?

Justin Moore [00:51:17]:
Um, you know, I don’t think I do really. Okay. I don’t, I don’t. There are certain things that I get really nervous about when they’re very high stakes, for sure. Uh, some of the pitches that I did when I did was pitching for my event felt pretty high stakes. Um, But generally, so the reason that I don’t get that nervous anymore is ’cause I’ve adopted this mindset, um, which is that it’s not no. If they say no to me, it’s not no, it’s not yet. It’s just not the right time for them.

Justin Moore [00:51:48]:
They don’t have the budget, it’s not a priority. Um, but eventually they’ll come back and I’ll partner with them. ‘Cause I just, I don’t give up. And if it’s, if not, it’s, it’s, it wasn’t meant to be. Yeah. And so, um, I just, I’ve done this. Part of it again is like putting in the reps. I’ve done this enough to know, uh, that even if I say no to a brand for a reason, they’ll probably come back around 2 years later.

Justin Moore [00:52:14]:
Yeah. That either it’s now the right time or they’re working at another company now and they always remembered that great interaction that they had with, you know, my wife and I, for example. Uh, and so there is the privilege a bit, I think, of, of reps and volume, um, factors in.

Ashley Grant [00:52:30]:
Now, going back to The War of Art, if you could take just one lesson from that book and give it to baby Justin, what would you say was the most important thing that they need to pull from it?

Justin Moore [00:52:42]:
Oh my goodness. It’s that everyone experiences resistance. I, I, yeah, I, I very much thought I was unique. Like I have this imposter syndrome, like, can I really do that? Especially, man, the book. Wow. That was the, that was the pinnacle. Of resistance for me because there were so many times where, because I had a writing block 2 hours a day, Monday through Friday, I bought a 2-hour hourglass, this massive hourglass. And I would just go like, chomp, and I would like turn it over.

Justin Moore [00:53:09]:
I would turn on D&D on my, all my devices. Uh, and I would just sit in front of the screen for 2 hours a day. And man, when you have, when you don’t know what you’re going to say that day, or you don’t know where to go from this section. Man, that resistance just eats into you. Is this, is this gonna be a good book? Are people gonna wanna re-read this? Am I gonna lose money? Like, am I gonna, you know, like all this stuff just goes on in your head. Um, and the more I have talked about this feeling, uh, and articulated it, the more it’s so clear to me that like everyone goes through a version of this. And so it, I think that that was the most comforting part. And if I could go back and tell Justin from many years ago, even before writing the book, um, You know, like there’s comfort in knowing that this is a common thing.

Ashley Grant [00:53:51]:
Yeah. I think, I think one of my favorite phrases I’ve ever heard is don’t believe everything you think. Mm-hmm. I love that. And that just like, that’s just kind of what was resonating with me just now as you were talking. Well, Justin, where can people find all of your good stuff online? I’m gonna leave show notes and, and all the good things, but if you had one place that they had to go, where would you send them?

Justin Moore [00:54:10]:
I would definitely send, send it to, uh, to the book sponsor magnet.com. Um, you know, that we’ve, we’ve literally just scratched the surface of, everything that I talk about, uh, in the book. And, um, you know, if you’re interested in, you know, coming to the event, that’s sponsor games.com. But, um, really the, the book will, you can tumble down the rabbit hole if you’re interested in getting our, our support with anything else.

Ashley Grant [00:54:31]:
Yeah. And what I love about the book is that you didn’t hold anything back. It wasn’t like, oh, you just read just a little bit and then you have to pay more if you wanna know more. But what’s cool is you also have the coaching stuff so that you can get the hands-on and the, I will hold your hand and walk you through this. But just the fact that you give all your secrets away, I mean, it’s a steal.

Justin Moore [00:54:49]:
You’re an idiot if you don’t buy it. Let me, let me say one parting note to anyone listening to this about that. Okay. Um, I believe open sourcing what everything you know is the way to build your moat in the age of AI. Because education or just knowledge wants to be free. And it’ll be, be basically virtually free with, with, uh, any LLM. And so what people will need your support with though is execution, holding their hand, coaching them through it, uh, in-person experiences. And so I really would encourage anyone who’s listening to this, who’s, who’s wrestling with some of these same fears and uncertainties that I was.

Justin Moore [00:55:31]:
This is why I open sourced the book. Cause I said, these are not. State secrets. These are things that everyone should know, and a very small percentage of these people will probably wanna hire me for other things.

Ashley Grant [00:55:41]:
And, and I’m really glad I made that bet. I love that so much. Well, and I’m gonna leave you with one last question that I ask everyone. What is one question you’ve never been asked that you really wish you had?

Justin Moore [00:55:56]:
Well, I was in a metal— I, I was in a metal band in high school, Ashley. No, you were not. This is metal there. And, uh, I don’t think anyone’s ever asked me, uh, if I had long hair when I was in the metal band.

Ashley Grant [00:56:11]:
Did you have long hair when you were in the metal band?

Justin Moore [00:56:15]:
I didn’t have long hair. Everyone always thinks that I did because there was definitely guys in my band that had, you know, they had the long hair, but I was the— I was like the clean-cut, like, lead singer. We also had a separate screamer. We had a I was a singer and we did screamer.

Ashley Grant [00:56:31]:
So, uh, this was, this was, it was pretty intense. That is fantastic.

Justin Moore [00:56:34]:
Do you still riff on the mic occasionally? You know, like, uh, speaking of like creative acts and like flow, when I’m writing, when I wrote this whole book, all I listened to was metal the entire, like that, that is the, what I listen to when I’m in flow is I listen to metal. And so, uh, yeah, I, uh, that’s definitely my, uh, my genre of choice.

Ashley Grant [00:56:54]:
That’s awesome. My thing is actually when I’m trying to write, I listen to binaural beats and I just, I can’t have any lyrics because then I start singing along. Yeah. So I just have to like have the beats. That is wild. Oh my goodness, Justin, this was such a fun conversation. I appreciate your time so much. Thank you for being here and this was just great.

Ashley Grant [00:57:14]:
Anything else you want to share before we wrap it up?

Justin Moore [00:57:16]:
No, this was so great.

Ashley Grant [00:57:19]:
Really appreciate you inviting me on. All right, you guys, that’s a wrap on today’s episode. I hope you enjoyed all the golden nuggets that Justin had to share with you because honestly, there were so many good ones, right? I mean, it was just so much fun talking to him. If you’re ready to stop leaving money on the table and start landing the brand deals that you deserve, be sure to head over to famousashleygrant.com/sponsor-magnet to get the show notes for this episode and learn more about Justin. As always, thank you so much for tuning in, my bloggy friends. And until next time, may your page views be high and your bounce rate be low.