Make Money as an Influencer with Less than 10k Followers

Welcome to The Spark Show! In this episode, I’m talking about how to make money as an influencer with less than 10,000 followers.  

So first let’s talk about money - I know you might be starting to get uncomfortable right now because a lot of people get this way when people talk about money. This where you’ll know if you need to work on your money mindset and if you have limiting beliefs on money.

It’s a good way to check if your gut starts tightening up or if you start getting worried or panicky when people say “money” or that they’re gonna talk about money. I don’t blame you, because I have also experienced this and it’s only been in the last few years that I’ve started working on this and really healing my relationship with money so that I can have a healthy money mindset and come from a state of abundance rather than lack. 

If you don’t know what I just said or what I’m talking about, that’s okay too. Awareness is where it all starts. I’ve learned that a lot of us, most of us really, grew up with these beliefs about money - stuff like: money doesn’t grow on trees or that money is the root of all evil. And if we continue to believe those things, even subconsciously, it’s actually blocking our ability to make more money and attract abundance into our lives. And also those feelings (subconscious or conscious) of not knowing if you even deserve money or are worthy of money, those are some of the things that can be blocking you from making more money. 

 If you’re starting to realize that this is you and you wanna work more on this money mindset, I highly recommend the book by Jen Sincero - You are a Badass at Making Money, she wrote the You Are a Badass book which you should also read so put those two down on your reading list. I read them over and over again and I also read books, listen to podcasts, to help with my money mindset.

I’ve also taken courses and joined programs, I tap on my money beliefs (I talked about tapping before in other episodes and I’ll link to some free resources below.

 So back to what we were talking about - when you say make money, do you mean $5? $10? $100? $1000?? You gotta get clear on what that means for you. I just wanna share some real life examples of this. 

For example, one of my students Kalpana, was able to get a paid brand deal with just 700 followers and this was for a razor brand called Joy, that was available at Walmart. She was paid $30 on top of getting the product for free. This is HUGE deal because before this happened, I didn’t know ONE person who was able to make money and get paid (not just get free stuff) with less than 1,000 followers. Or even 2,000 or even 5,000 followers. I didn’t start getting paid brand deals until I had about 10,000 followers so this was a big accomplishment. 

Kalpana is in my program and she has been using my proven method to attract and pitch to brands. She recently got a hotel partnership with Radisson Blu where they offered her a comp stay. So let’s talk about this...her paid brand deal was $30 plus the razor and the collab was for a hotel stay. Let’s just say it was $200 for the hotel room for the night and she was able to get that stay in exchange for promoting the hotel on her channels. In this case, it wasn’t a paid brand deal, it was a collab but it was worth $200. 

It really depends on how you look at it, on if you want paid brand deals or if you’re willing to do collabs where the trade off is worth a certain amount. Either way, she’s doing great and is working with more and more brands and she has over 1,000 followers now and is on her way to keep growing her audience and getting more paid brand deals. 

Let’s talk about one of my other students, Stephanie who was able to get 5 paid brand deals in 3 months with just 4,200 followers! She used my proven method as well and got reached out to by brands like Six Flags and the Texas Rangers. One of her deals was for $200 for a combination of Instagram posts and stories and she’s continuing to get more of these every month. 

Now those are just examples of my students and brand sponsorships. There are other influencers out there who tap into different revenue streams, I talk about this in Episode 23 so if you haven’t listened to that yet, definitely do so. Some of them do affiliate marketing or they sell their own products or services or do events and you can make money on that no matter how many followers you have. 

 I know people who make millions of dollars a year and have less than 10,000 followers because they sell their products and services to their audience. So my question for you is: what can you offer to your audience? Is there a product or service that you can offer to help them with their struggles and challenges? Because they do need your help! And since they already know, like, and trust you, you have the opportunity to help them get there. 

I know you might be listening to this with ideas already brewing in your mind. But maybe you don’t really have a plan in place, a strategy to execute and don’t know how to get it out there. Well, lucky for you, I’ve already done this! 

I started monetizing through brand sponsorships and then I created my own offer: a membership community for influencers, The Spark Society. I got that to $10,000/month in revenue in just over 4 months in addition to my income from brand deals. And what’s great about it is that I was able to help all these influencers who needed my help because they didn’t know how to grow and monetize. 

And also, I was able to create a sustainable business with bringing in consistent, recurring income. Brand deals are great but they are also unpredictable, you don’t really know when they can happen and how much it’s gonna be. So if you’re looking to replace your income at your day job, then you wanna make sure you have a sustainable business model. 

I’ve realized that YOU may be at this very spot where you’re already working with brands here and there but looking to take this to the next level where you can be running your influencer business full-time and not just on the side - maybe you wanna quit your day job because it’s not fulfilling you or making you happy anymore. Or maybe you want to have the freedom of having $5,000-$10,000/month coming in so you can do what you’ve always wanted to do. I wanna help you do that!

If you’re ready to create a six-figure influencer business doing what you’re already doing now and ready to launch an offer to your audience in the next 90 days, then I want you to schedule a free 45-minute breakthrough session with me where I’ll help you get clarity on what you need to do to get that strategy and system in place.

We’ll go over what’s working and not working in your business and the steps you need to take to get to your goal of at least $5,000/month in revenue. I only have a few spots open, so make sure you act fast. I can’t wait to talk to you! 

 So...The ONE takeaway I want you to get from this episode is that it is possible to make money with less than 10,000 followers. It’s not about the followers, it’s about the connection and relationship you have with your audience. 

In the next episode, I’ll be talking about your two customers! Most influencers get this wrong by thinking that their only customers are the brands. 

Listen to this full episode here:  

Listen to Previous Episodes: 

How Much Money You Can Make as an Influencer

What Brands Look For

How to Attract Brands and Get Noticed featuring Amy Tangerine

How to Build and Influencer Portfolio (and why you NEED one)

How to Get a Brand Deal

 Resources Mentioned in This Episode: 

Tapping with Brad Yates

You Are A Bad Ass at Making Money by Jen Sincero

                   Connect with Gwen Lane

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