Welcome to The Spark Show! In this episode, I’ll be talking about the questions that you should be asking before partnering with brands. Because you don’t want to just partner with any and every brand out there. You gotta think about your own brand and the companies that you associate with. Not every brand will be a good fit. You don’t want to say YES to every brand. By the end of this episode, you’ll have a guide to help you decide which brands to work with and get clarity on which brands will make a good partner for you.

Question #1: Does this brand align with your values? 

That’s the first question I would ask. If you’re familiar with the brand and already a customer or fan, then you may already know what the brand stands for and believes in. If you’re not familiar with the brand, you’re going to want to do your research first. You can do this by going on their website, using Google to see any features or articles on the brand, and also look at their content on their social channels to see if it aligns with what you believe in. You’ll be able to get a feel for the brand and make a decision based on the content that they’re putting out there, the audience they serve and the problems that they solve.

Question #2: How would your audience benefit from knowing about this brand and their products?

Because your number one responsibility is to your audience and how you can help them and how you can provide value. Ask yourself: would you be helping your audience by introducing them to this brand? By partnering with this brand, you could be saving your audience time, money, and energy instead of trying other products. They may not have known about it before and you’re saving them the time to sort through other stuff. By partnering with this brand, your audience will benefit from the information, education and awareness that you provide.  

Question #3: Would you recommend this brand to your friends and family? 

Partnering with a brand means you are personally endorsing this brand and putting your mark of approval on it. That’s what it means when you partner with a brand, you’re extending your trust to the brand and since your audience trusts you, they’re more likely to try it out and buy the product because you recommended it. So only work with brands that you’ve tried out yourself and that you would recommend to your friends and family, the people that mean the most to you. You only want to partner with brands that you trust yourself so that you don’t lose the trust that you’ve built with your audience. 

Question #4: What are the expectations of the brand? 

You want to be very clear from the beginning on what the expectations are of the brand. How do they envision working with you? What are the deliverables - how many posts, stories, do they want you to put a link in your bio? Do they want a blog post, tweet, a mention on the podcast or your newsletter? Do they want additional photos? When you’re communicating with the brand, you want to get as detailed as possible including deliverables, timeline, if there’s an approval process, etc. This happens before the brand deal is even signed so that both parties are clear on what the partnership looks like.  

Question #5: What does the partnership look like? 

When you’re considering working with a brand, you have to discuss if it’s a collaboration or a paid sponsorship. A collaboration usually means you’re getting free product or an experience, but you’re not getting paid money on top of that. A paid sponsorship means you’re getting paid on top of receiving free product or experience. Depending on the deliverables, you get to decide if that’s worth your time. Because content creation, production, filming or shooting, editing and growing your audience takes time and effort. 

This is what I teach my students: how to get paid brand deals without a huge following. I see so many influencers not getting paid for their work. In the beginning, when you’re first starting out, you might take collaborations to get experience and build relationships. But if you want to have a profitable and sustainable business, you want to be able to get paid brand sponsorships. 

If you want to learn how to do this, make sure you watch my free online on-demand workshop on how to get paid brand deals without a huge following here. I walk you through my exact system that I’ve used to get paid brand deals with brands like Disney, Facebook, Target, Starbucks, American Airlines and more and it’s the same strategy that my students are using to get paid brand deals with less than 10,000, 5,000 and even 1,000 followers. 

Click here to request access to an advanced training where you'll learn the monetization strategy my clients and I are using to secure four and five-figure brand deals even without a huge following.

I hope this episode helps you get clarity on the questions you need answers to before deciding on partnering with brands. Thanks for listening to The Spark Show and I’ll see you in the next one!

Listen to the full episode here: 

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Listen to Previous Episodes: 

5 Ways to Get Unstuck

Money Mindset for Influencers

Impact With Podcasts Featuring Jeremy Ryan Slate

Get Yourself a Mentor with Kelsey Chapman

Wellness is a Priority with Katja Lillian

Connect with Gwen Lane

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