The REAL Way to Land UGC Brand Deals ($5K) as a Beginner | EP 43

If you're a new UGC creator and you've been wondering what a deal looks like, what a paid project looks like from start to finish. This is the episode for you. My name's Nate Flake. I'm the host of the UGC 101 podcast. Welcome back. Today we are doing a solo episode because I have a ton of questions that I need to get caught up on. We did, we did one a couple months ago. I was able to answer a bunch of questions from the community and once they start piling up, I throw a solo episode together to be able to not get distracted with guests and drill down on the questions that you guys have. So the things we're going to cover in this episode, I'm going to walk you through three different ways that you can start UGC if you have no idea what UGC is. And this is the first time you've heard about user generated content. So that's going to be the first part. The second part we're going to walk you through a deal, like I said, from start to finish. Okay. From getting the brief, how I got the brief, all the way to filming, turning it in, follow up all that stuff. So we're going to walk you through that entire thing. Then I'm going to do, I've had a lot of people request us oddly enough because I don't think it's interesting, but people want to know like, Hey, what's the day in the life of a UGC grader look like? Like what is, you're not working nine to five anymore. This is your nine to five. Like give us, give us a give us a run on what your day looks like. I think it's a lot of people that are working corporate right now or working like a regular job that they are looking to transition into this and they want to know like, Okay, how busy are you actually right? Because there's a lot of stuff on social me. And if you guys have been listening to this podcast for a long time, you know that I try to be transparent, I don't, you know, give you fluff just to like get you to click links. I don't, I don't care about that. So I'm going to tell you what some days look like or some days don't and kind of give you the couple of myth busters when it comes to UGC as a full time job. And then I'm also going to cover something that I posted recently was talking about kids UGC, how I have my kids involved with UGC, how they do their own UGC projects with my a lot of my assistants obviously, but they're the ones in the video for the most part for some projects. A lot of you had had questions about, hey, how does this work? How do you structure pricing? How do you know when to involve your kids? How do you know when to involve your spouse? What if your spouse hates you? Spouse hates UGC. How do you get them to be in a video? And how do you capitalize on that and charge more and all that? So we're going to go into that. And then I'm very last sorry. This is a lot. This is just covering what we're going to go through. And very last, I'm going to give you guys two kind of tricks or tips you can do today if you're a UGC creator, you can implement these today to land more brand deals. We're going to do that towards the end. And so yeah, we're going to start with walking you through those three things that I would do if I were starting UGC today. Granted, this is going to be geared because it's if I was starting today, I'm assuming that I would still be working a nine to five, right? So this is going to be geared towards those that are working corporate and that's that's that's kind of what these answers are for. But if you're not working a nine to five or whatever and you're and you're wanting to do this full time, maybe you're coming off of doing something else, maybe you're another, you know, a different type of content creator, you can also implement these, but these are specific to if you're working a nine to five, a K, a you don't want your employer or co-worker seeing your UGC stuff right away, right? Eventually it's going to happen. But let's say that you're like me and you're scared of death and you don't want people seeing it right off the bat. This is kind of those those first three things. Okay. So you already know my first is things going to be K when starting UGC from scratch, if you're wanting to do it like dipping your toes in and into the waters of UDC, the first and and easiest platform to get on as far as barrier to entry, right? Meaning difficulty to start is going to be fiber. Now a lot of people are probably like, what do you mean? Fiber is really complicated to set up. I'm not talking about the, you know, I'm not talking about the complicated setup of the gig, which is it's not that bad. You're just going to go through it and if you have questions, I literally have a free guide in my bio. But if that's the that's the part that's not hard, the part or that's not the part that I'm talking about. I'm talking about having a one video. You have to have one video to start UDC on fiber. Okay. Every other method of getting UDC deals, whether it be pitching a brand, whether it be posting on social media to build a personal brand about how you're a UDC creator, all great things. By the way, you know, I'm never going to talk bad about a method of doing UDC or getting UDC deals because the only bad way to start UDC is to not start at all. The only bad way to, you know, pursue UDC is to just like not even do anything. So there's no bad way to do UDC. But fiber is the only one where you have to have one single video. You don't have to have a portfolio. Okay. I harp on this all the time. If you're listening to this, you're like, yeah, Nate, we get it. But I'm just want to be clear for those new listeners and those new creators. Fiverr, you only need one single video. Okay. Again, it's not an intro video. It's a mock UDC video. So fiber is my number one as far as three things you can do today to start UDC. Now, after you get your fiber done, then you're, I'm going to make you make a portfolio because to to do these next two things, you do need multiple videos. Okay. So number two, I'm going to say 1.5. I'm going to say 1. That's 1 a 1 b because this isn't really your second thing you should do. But you have to do this portfolio is credit portfolio. Okay. Some of those videos you're not, you're going to use for my, for my actual number two. So just know that like you have to make a portfolio, make a bunch of fake videos. It's unbelievably easy to make a portfolio. You guys, you go to canva.com. You type in website portfolio template into your, they actually have now that you can type in UDC portfolio template and it'll come up a ton of templates for UDC specifically that have video spots, right? Go to canva.com. It's never been more free. Create a free portfolio. Okay. The hardest part about creating portfolio is in the actual setup of the portfolio. What's the doing of the videos? It's the filming the videos, all that stuff. So I started with five videos. You guys literally five, five videos with the ugly portfolio you've ever seen. I just had five, five different products, five different settings. You can do a like a straight up testimonial, like a spokesperson, like I'm sitting in this chair talking about how this, this, whatever, this supplement changed the way I lose weight or whatever. You can do a testimonial talking head. You can do a skit that's like you talking to yourself or you talking to somebody else in different outfit, all that. You can do a straight direct response, which is like a traditional UDC with a with a problem solution format. You can do it unboxing. Don't do a ton of unboxing. So I hate freaking, I feel like I'm boxing takes zero skill, but no shade because there's a lot of brands out there that want like a simple unboxing. And then you can do a voiceover, a voiceover video, which is all voiceover. You not speaking to camera like this. Like I mean, if you're watching the video on YouTube right now, you're not speaking like this. You're just doing the entire thing B roll and then a voiceover. Okay. How do you make those scripts? You go and find a product, right? If you're brand new to making scripts and you want to learn a good way to make scripts, so you actually learn the structure and the bones of making a script, then I suggest you go do some research on UDC scripting. There's a bajillion free videos out there. I've got a bunch on my page. My buddy Sydney has a ton on her. She's got a lot of really good scripting videos on hers. Sydney Money. There's a million free resources out there. Okay. I get so frustrated and people are like, how do I do that? And then you tell them, you're like, well, how do I do that? Then you're just like, dude, go look on the internet. Go ask, go ask Gemini. Go ask you have to be tea. There's there should be no excuse. Okay. So if you want to learn the bones of scripting, I suggest doing some research. If you want to like shortcut it, go to Gemini and say, hey, type in. I'm going to always use this cup. This is my predator coach club cup. Hey, I need to do a 60 second UDC script for this HydroJug sport. Here's the link to the actual product. Can you help me write a 60 second script for a voiceover style UDC video? Right. And it's going to give you something that's going to be about 80% usable. It's going to have some, it's 1 million percent going to have the word game changer in it. If it doesn't, then you're a very lucky person because they always do that when you ask for UDC scripts. So make sure you tweak it. Make sure you put your own voice in it. Make sure you take out the word game changer just because it's so replayed. And then you're going to make those videos. Okay. For your portfolio. So now that you have those videos for the portfolio, you're going to make your portfolio. Okay. And you're going to use our portfolio and step in step three, but step two, the video is before you even put them in your portfolio, you're going to join three other platforms besides fiber. Okay. So that's step two step one is fiber. Step two is three other platforms. Take your pick. There are almost I want to say over 100 platforms now. I'm doing this event in Park City in March 14th. I've got like four or five platforms that I've never heard of coming to this coming to this event that have just like come out of the woodwork that are that seem legit. I've looked at them. I've vetted them. They're cool platforms. But like there's platforms popping up every day. You guys so join them. My favorite ones. I'll tell you in cents, I nsc and sc. I've talked about in cents a bunch of the podcasts that they reject you because it's an influencer app first to say, Hey, I'm here for the UDC. I'm not here for the influencing stuff. They will let you in. Influi is another good one. I nf LUE. No one ever knows how to spell that. Influi UGYOD. Why oh, you DJI? I love how I'm spelling this for you guys because UG know never knows how to spell that either. UG. I just got a postcard from them. Actually, they're a French base. They're based in France, largest UDC platform in France. Now they are in the US. They've been in the US for about a year. I just got a postcard from them literally in the mail handwritten that says basically from their founders, thanks for being a part of them. Our American creator, base or whatever. And my picture was on it. It was everybody's all the US creators profile pictures on UG like it was like probably over 100, but it was tiny, tiny, tiny, but I could see it was cool. UG's great. And there's a bunch of others. Bill O join brands. I'm not a huge fan of Bill O or join brands just because it's like they're they're starting a late way lower pay. I feel like but I have a lot of students have success with them. So three platforms, pick them, pick your boys and, okay? So step number one's fiber, I'm a big recap guy. You guys gonna learn. Step number two is pick three other platforms, and then step number three is that portfolio we just made. You're going to go on X, and you're going to create an account, okay? The reason I say X is because it's not Instagram, it's not TikTok. Again, if you're working corporate and you're trying to keep this on the DL, X is like a pretty safe place to go, because you're not gonna be posting a lot there. You're just gonna be replying to posts. So go create a brand new X account, don't use your X account that you already had, because it probably has a bunch of celebrity or politics or whatever crap on there, and it's your algorithm's messed up, okay? You need to start a fresh account. You can call it whatever you like, something, but have the word UGC or creator, something that's like indicative of a creator, okay? Mate Flake UGC, I think is what I started with now. It's Nate Flake creates, but you could do John Smith UGC. It doesn't matter. Just make sure it's not like just some anonymous, pig, wrangler, 99 or some weird crap, like just to have something normal and professional and your name, like it's, you'd be surprised with the stuff I see. So you're gonna go on X, okay? If you're brand new, if you're listening to this, you're like, "I don't know, what does he mean go on X?" You're gonna go on X and formerly known as Twitter. You're gonna create a free account, and you're going to put the name like I just said, okay? And then you're going to go, and you're going to follow me, I'm not saying this to get followers, but go follow people like me, go follow UGC creators, okay? My name on there is Nate Flake creates without the S, Nate Flake create, 'cause it was too long. Go follow everybody, I follow. Okay, I'm just giving you a shortcut. You can go search UGC and follow those people, or you can just go to my account and follow like the 3,400, 500 people that I follow, and that will basically kickstart your X account into knowing that this person only cares about UGC. They're only here for the UGC stuff, okay? Very easy to go search #UGC creator, #UGC creators wanted, #UGC creators needed. Within a couple days, your algorithm is only going to be spitting out UGC stuff. The other way to kickstart that is to go engage with UGC content. Like I said, it doesn't need to be me. Go follow some other creators, engage with their content, comment, like share, all that stuff, repost, because you don't care what's on your account. People don't, brands don't go to your X account to look at your X account and be like, "Oh, let's see what they're posting." Well, this was a very insightful, like they don't care. The only thing that they're there for is your portfolio link. So portfolio link needs to be in your bio. That's like, fast, fast tax. That's like, basic, basic 101, okay? You have to UGC 101, huh? And the other thing you need to do is then from that point after you get your algorithm pushing, if you're doing it right, after two, three days, you're only going to see a bunch of people posting about. Need a UGC creator, a male that's between 30 and 40 that lives in Texas, drop your portfolio below, okay? So what you're gonna do, again, this is all wrapped up in number three. You have your portfolio, you have your X account, you're gonna get on X for 20 minutes a day. Anybody can do this. You're probably listening to this podcast while you're scrolling TikTok or something, right? Like anybody can do something for 20 minutes a day on your phone with your thumbs. It's the easiest thing up, right? Again, I'm not an excuse guy. I don't wanna hear excuses. 20 minutes a day. Is that a timer if you need to? Gonna go on an X and you're gonna drop your portfolio for 20 straight minutes, okay? Search again, #UGCCridersNeeded, #MellUGC, if you're a male hashtag female, you do see if you're a female, you're gonna see a ton of people posting about, hey, I need a UGC card. There's literally thousands of brands that only source on X, you guys. They only source on X. I'm not gonna get into Reddit. That's a whole nother ballgame, okay? Same thing though, like get on X and drop your portfolio. Two tips before I move off the subject, okay? Number number one, when you respond to the person, let's say John Smith says, hey, we need a UGC creator that is blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, and you fit that perfectly. You're like, hey, this is my shot, right? Don't just reply and drop your portfolio, reply and say, hey, I'd be great at this or something, or like say something that's specific, right? I'd be a perfect fit for this because I've worked with health and fitness companies before. Here's my portfolio, boom, that's step one. Personalize your response, don't just say interested, drop your portfolio, they get literally hundreds. Go look at some of these posts, they have hundreds to thousands of responses, right? So you need to make yourself stand out. The other way, number two, the second thing you're gonna do when you drop your portfolio is you're going to message that person, go follow that person because if they're posting opportunities, they're gonna keep posting opportunities, right? They're gonna keep posting opportunities, so you wanna follow them to be there, to be there to catch them, right? And then you're gonna follow them so then you can message them and say, hey, John Smith, just wanted to let you know, I responded to your last tweet or that'll not be called. I think everyone just calls them tweets, your last post about needing a health and fitness person for UDC, I know you had a ton of responses, so just wanted to make sure my portfolio didn't get lost in the mix here, it is again, boom. It takes an extra 30 seconds to do that. So if you can do that, you know, 20 minutes a day, if you're fast, if you got, again, you're not gonna copy paste, besides your portfolio link, you're gonna make these customized responses. Let's say you can do one every 60 seconds, okay? That's pretty normal. If you're if you're dialed, that's 20 pitches a day, right? And that's, I say pitches, I mean, you're technically responding to your responding to a need for a UDC grader. So it's not, I mean, it is a pitch, but it's it's the easiest type of pitch is a layup, you know what I'm saying? So those are the three things. Last time, fiber set up, three platform set up, portfolio built is like 2.0, 2.5, basically, that's not the whole thing. And then the third thing is get on X for 20 minutes a day and drop your portfolio all day long. Like it's it's it's such an underrated thing. I know a lot of people talk about X like, oh, yeah, you should do it. Like if, if only people that are getting jobs are there, are the ones that are consistent. The other cool thing about that and I'll move on to the next, I'll move on to the next topic is if you, there's a lot of people in my community that will drop their portfolio and then it's like not that day that they get hit up. It's, it's like weeks later, somebody is hiring and they're going through instead of posting that they need critters, they're just going through other posts and just going and picking up all the picking up all the portfolios from where other people have already done the work for them. Right, these are these are marketing people, people that are sourcing critters. So it's pretty cool. Like it's it's just a once your once your portfolios out there, it's just an input output thing, right? Like you're going to get you're going to get people to reach out the more you the more the more exposure you have out there, the more times the more reps you get, the better for you because you never know what's going to happen. So those are my three tips because I get that question 9 million times a day of my DMs is, hey, I'm just starting UDC. What do you think? What are some good advice points you want to give me or what do you think your top three things are? People just mess with me all the time and I hopefully this helps because a lot of times I don't respond because there's too many of them. Sorry, sorry guys, I can't get to everybody. Okay, we're going to go through what a UDC deal is from start to finish. What it looks like a typical deal. So I'm going to do two different platforms. I'm going to do two different ways here, two different pathways because I'm a big fiber guy, right? I'm going to go through the fiber way and then I'm going to go through the end just regularly inbound way. So fiber. And I know I want to clear something up actually. If you're watching the podcast on YouTube, I get so I don't know what it is, but the more people start following you, the more like, hey, comments you get. So I want to just show like I'm still very active on fiber. In fact, this literally, if you're watching the podcast, this says do in the next 48 hours. Okay. And it has what's today's date. Yeah, February 27th is right here today is February 25th. It's 25th. Okay. So I mean, again, I'm not see this right here or says the price. So I just got this deal on fiber, $5,750. So like, fiber is still popping very, very much popping for me and I'm still very much doing UDC. I get a lot of people like this guy does into UDC like, bro. I will let you in my DMs. I'll I'll show you. Uh, but yeah, that was cool. That's a 12 12 podcast ads for the same brand, repeat customer. This is their third project with me. And that's like really good. Like I'm right now I'm trying to stay between 10 and 12 K a month on fiber. And then I've been really shifting to like really try to get more in balance. You probably notice I'm posting way more on social just because I want to like eventually do more in like in balance or better. I don't have to pay the 20%. I'm forever grateful for fiber for sure, but like I don't love paying off of $5,750 deal. Don't make me do the math, but it's not it's not a little bit of money that I'm giving to them, right? So anyways, so I'm going to walk you through the first one. So fiber. When I get a deal on fiber, this is like this is this is the how I'm going to walk you through from starts finish game. So I'm not going to go through how to set a fiber because we already kind of went through that a little bit. But I'm just chilling hanging out my house and I get an I get notification of my phone from fiber, right? Oh, literally. Okay. Again, you guys got to watch you guys watched the video for this. Literally just got this as we've been sitting here. Okay. This guy named Noah, hey Nate would love to work out a partnership with you. Let me know if you're interested. The brand deal is I'm going to read the brand deal to like docs them, but yeah, that starts the start of the and then so they gave me the link. So then my basically first thing is I'm going to respond to them, right? So I'm going to go, hey, sounds good. Thanks for reaching out. Can you tell me more about the project? Okay. In fact, I probably need to do not do the shirt now. It's wild, but I should just do this whole thing alive and see if he responds. Can you tell me more about the project, right? On fiber specifically guys, you have your prices listed, but you're no like 95% of the time they're going to say, what's your rate for this? They just don't look at it because you got to understand they're messaging like 30 people at a time, right? They may say, hey, Nate like that. Like it's pretty rare that they actually say my name. They'll just last to 30 different creators say, hey, here's our project. Let me know what your rate is. So because they don't want to look, they don't want to go that extra click to like look at your rates. They just have filtered a list by price. So like you got to assume that, you know, you're in their ballpark unless they didn't filter and they just like blasted it out to a bunch of people. So first thing I do is say, hey, thanks for reaching out. Happy to help with this, even if it's not going to work out, I always say that. I don't know why it's just a habit. I always say happy to help with this. Maybe it's from my corporate life, right? Happy to help with this. Before I can give you pricing, can you tell me more about the script? You have a brief ready also as far as usage rights, how long do you need to use the video and how long is the video going to be? That's usually when I say if they don't answer any of that in the very first message, I ask all those questions. Like this guy didn't answer any of that stuff. He just said, hey, they would love to work on a partnership with you. Work out a partnership with you. I don't know what that means. It is a brand deal with blank blank. So they're an agency. So from there, they were supply, right? Normally they're going to say, yeah, no problem. Here's the script. We need it for six months and look, you know, it's a 60 second video, what you're raised. And then I'm going to quote them based on the rate, right? So, hey, right now in $475 for a 60 second video, looks like you needed two extra hooks. That's $25 per hook. And then if you need any more usage in the three months, my video comes with, then it's $50 a month. Or if you want to buy the perpetual usage outright, then it's another force, any five. I just charge my same rate. Okay. They're going to come back and say, that sounds good. That's great. Send us the offer. Those five are wrong to five. I want to go through like the end out in the wild deals after this. So then I go into fiber, I go create an offer, I type in the, I usually like it. They send a link to normally it's a good with the awkward. I'll copy the link to the brief. And then I will put it into my offer, right within the app. It's all done right here for my phone. And I'll say, hey, here, basically 60 second UDC, I do a bullet point, 60 second UDC video, six months of usage, boom, and then I'll do the brief is included below and then I'll copy the brief below. Okay. I'll put it in the price. Right now I do, right now I'm five days out on every project. Unless it's like this weekend, I have to take a trip. So I'll do seven days. So and then I'll do seven days. I'll do the price and I hit submit. From that point, depending on how busy I am, if it's what I really, really try to do is get it in early because it makes me look good and they're super pumped and they come back. Right. So I'm a top rated seller on five or I'm a five or better pro. I've worked with over 500 brands just on five or alone and I still do that because I'm still like trying to gain people's business. Okay. You don't get to a level where you're like, I'm top rated. I'm like, I'm going to just give the bare minimum now like that sucks. That's about attitude. So what I do is I try to get it done early. If I have a bunch of other projects, then I literally put it in my calendar and my phone calendar for, let's say it's for Tuesday next week. I'll put in for Monday. Right. Tuesday I put it on for Monday and say project ABC. And the less I go through the brief and it's something like that either needs to have like my kids in it. We'll get into that later or like something that like I can't do on a Monday by myself. Right. If I have to drive 45 minutes and do a hike up the mountains and do a scenic vista or something I can't do that on a Monday. If it's sunny on a Sunday, then I'm going to do that on a Sunday. So that's that's kind of how I do it. I then go and I move the script into my teleprompter like day of. I don't do any like early prep work. It's just how I operate and then I will yes, I use teleprompter. A lot of people are stunned about that. I use teleprompter because I'm really good at using a teleprompter and it takes a long time to get using a teleprompter. I'll say that. So you have to like be able to read right as it gets to the top right. Some people are like not about teleprompters. That's fine. If you want to be a one line person and a one line memorizer or two line memorizer and looking straight at the camera, that's totally cool too. You can do that. I don't have time to do that. But I just like I said, I'm pretty good at reading and teleprompter and you can't really tell that I'm reading. So that's what I do. So I'll go, I'll film the video. I'll move the script into my teleprompter. I'll go shoot it and then I will shoot all the B roll and then this is like my big, big roll. I do not edit until it's dark outside. It's weird. I know somebody but like, when I don't hang out with your family, like, yeah, I hang out with my family. You guys relax. But like, I do it after everyone goes to bed, right? Or like, we'll be watching a show or something and then I usually never tired. Everyone was bad and like usually I don't start editing until like 11. 12. Or like if the kids are out doing something and my wife's busy and it's like the sun's down and I'm or like their dance or something, whatever, I'll do it. But I never, that's like a hard rule I have as I never edit. Well, it's light outside because you should be filming when it's light outside. There's other projects. Now, if I'm completely dried up on deals, which knock on what it's been long time since I've been dried up on deals and been so far ahead that I can just like edit when it's light outside that I will. But otherwise, I leave all the editing for when it's nighttime because especially like in Utah in February, I don't get that much sunlight, right? Like even though I do this full time, I still have other stuff and you know, I'm literally recording this podcast right now and not doing UDC videos and so you just run out of it right out of daylight. So then I'll edit the video. I will usually ask them, that's one thing I'm asked. I usually ask them in the conversation if they want captions or not. If they do, then I'm not giving them a version of both. Sorry, that's like an extra edit. I will then put it into the folder. Sorry, I will put the video after it's completely edited right at it with CapCut. I will export it out of CapCut. I will move it into Google Drive underneath whatever platform they came from. So if it's Fiverr, then I have a folder called Fiverr. So I have basically my off-road, I'll go through my folders for those that care. But I have platforms, direct deals and direct deals is all inbound, all outbound. And then platforms is going to be by Fiverr, incense, influence, and then I go into Fiverr. And then I name the client, not the name of the product because there's so many agencies that have a million work of the different products, right? It's just annoying. So I name it by the username and Fiverr, actually. And then I'll upload it to Google Drive first. Not that I'm going to send it to them through Google Drive unless there's tons of files. But just so I know I backed it up. And then I will go from there and I'll go into Fiverr. I'll go deliver. I have the same message. If you guys want to steal it, here you go. The same message every single time for every single brand that I deliver with. I'll reach out my template right now. This is called the videos are ready. Okay. So this is the name of it. It says, "Hello, your order is completed." Notice I didn't say your video has done or videos are done because I don't want to have to edit that ever. "Hello, your order is completed. Let me know if you have any questions or concerns. It was a pleasure collaborating with you on this project. Thanks, Nate." And I just do that entire thing every single time. And then it works. This is on right because I just want to back up with the same message. And then I deliver it. And then from there, 90% of the time, 95% of the time now, it sounds good. If they do need a revision, then they hit me back. So that's how I do my Fiverr deals. So if it's a direct deal, it works a little bit differently. Because the payment's not going to be automated and any of that stuff. So usually a brand will reach out. Let's talk about in-bounds. Okay. So the golden standard, what I'm really, really loving is and why I'm trying to kind of like pull some of my, you know, I would love my in-bounds to go higher. So then my Fiverr can go lower. I don't like, I'd love to not pay the 20% right? So when I get an inbound, the first thing I do is check to make sure it's on a scam. There's so many scams out there. You want to read and make sure their email is not like, you know, something of Gmail or something like that. That's like a very tell sign. If someone says, "Hello, dear." Like 100% scam, not even opening it, blocking them and deleting it. If they say, "Hey, hello," and then it's @nateflake creates or Nateflake, you just see a creator or a coach, like they're just pulling an automation, right? So if it's like not just Nate, if it's not just your name and it's either an @ your handle or it's, you know, your actual like TikTok name, they pulled, they're running an automation. That like they, you're one of hundreds of people they sent that to, maybe, of thousands. So I don't even reply to those, right? Am I saying they're all scam? No. But I don't have time to like be fighting for attention with houses and creators. I don't like really care. If they don't take the time to like write my name out and not do an automation, I'm not interested. That's just my rule. It was not to be your rule. And then after that, the process is like pretty much the same, right? They'll write and say, "Hey, I want you to do this thing." They'll say, "Cool, sounds good. Here's my price." Or I'll say, "I'll usually ask them, can you let, you know, same thing, questions. Can you tell me what, how long the video is? Do you have a brief? You can send over. Can you tell me what kind of usage rights you need and where you're going to use the video? Or I have to use the various questions I'll ask. You need extra hooks, things like that. Then they'll send the brief. I'll have an idea of what it is. And then I'll just give them my rate, right? In-bounds are way, the pricing strategies are way different than fiber, okay? Because fiber, they already have some parameters to go off of. If I'm 475 for a 62nd video, I can't charge them $900 for like and have no reason for the job, right? If I have hooks and usage, I can get there to 900. Or like you saw, I like literally have a $5,700 order sitting in my fiber right now. But in the wild, you can go, I mean, basically the goal is to get them to show their card first, right? You want them, you want to ask them what their budget, like, you know, after you ask them much questions, then they've shown you, okay, here's the 62nds, I need this, I need this, I need this. So now they've kind of showed you what they need. And then you can then put your price out, right? You can say, hey, here's my rate. I charge this for this, for this, for this, for this, for this, the total is $950, right? Knowing, knowing this is key, guys. Knowing that they're probably going to come back and counter, they're going to counter. So you always want to like, my inbound rates and my pitching rates are way higher than my platform rates because I know that they're going to counter something lower. So my first offer is usually like $2,300 higher than I normally would charge just because I'm accounting for the fact that they're going to counter to me, okay? So then they come back, oh no, we can't do 900, that's crazy. We can do 750, you know? I'm like, all right, cool, sounds good, that works. Let's do it. Here's my address, right? And then, and then from there. you're going to basically just decide how long, you know, let them know how long, how long the products going to take. It's a little bit different than fiber because fiber is like all of that's filled out. And one thing I missed on fiber, I guess, explaining the fiber, if it's like a physical product, I usually send my address to them and then I wait for them to send until I physically receive it to put that offering. That's like the only difference. Obviously out in the wild, an email, like, you don't have to wait to put an offer in anywhere. You're just like, all right, sounds good. Here's my address. Send me the product, right? I'll let you know when I get the product. Then I receive the product. I then write them and say, Hey, just got product ABC. I'll have this done five days from now. Like we agreed on this date, right? Nothing changes from then on. I go through, I do the project. I used to watermark my videos you guys because I was nervous. I was going to pay. I don't do that anymore because it's like it's like one unnecessary step that I don't want to deal with from like having to unwatermark them. I also don't do them mostly because I use Dupet. And I'm like, just wait for somebody to ghost me. I'm waiting to use it. I'm like, dude, I have a freaking guy lawyer. You know what I'm saying? And knock on what it hasn't happened yet. So and then I send it and then and then usually depending on what they're paying in terms, it's like kind of annoying. I was again out in the wild as I call it either in balance or out balance. They're going to be net 30 for the most part, which is fine. And you're done. And then you get paid. So it's great. So that's that that's like from start to finish, walk in you through what a UDC deals look how the UDC deal looks like. If you have questions about it, if you're listening to this, again, I say I don't respond everybody. But if you write and say, hey, I was listening to your podcast. That's usually a good way to get me to answer your question because I appreciate you guys listening. That's that's it. So yeah. So that is kind of walking through a deal, right? I'm going to go through a day in my life really quickly. Okay. So every as you guys know, I put my job back in July. I was working corporate for a brand called a company called Intuit, massive multi billion dollar company, huge quick books, turbo tax, they do all those brands or they own all those brands. So my nine to five then was way different than now, right? Like I was like nine to five, my lunch break at film. And then from five to like whenever I got dark, I'd film and then I'd edit at night. I was working essentially like four, two hour days was rough. But it was fun because I was making a bunch of money and then making UDC money, paying off debt, paying for vacations, all that fun stuff. So now my days are really like, how do I explain this? They're not like super balanced, right? Which is I kind of like it. I like that they're not superstructured. Every day's different. I try to go to the gym at five, 30 in the morning. My kids go to school at seven, 30. And so like I basically don't even I try not to even like look at my phone before day, like get out of the door. And then once they get out, I get ready for the day, right? I've already been to the gym. Kinsor out. So by like eight o'clock, that's when I start looking at my phone, right? And then I usually have like a content calendar scheduled for like what I need to post that day for my personal branding, right? Because again, I'm trying to get in-mounds guys. Just like you are. So if you don't have to do this, if you work corporate, I'd be in a full year without even creating socials because I didn't want anyone to know I was doing this. And that's totally fine too. Totally great way to do it. I was doing over 10 came months without personal branding. Okay. That's you can get there if you use platforms and if you and if you are pitching and you don't have to have socials. So you don't don't feel like crap. I can never get to 10 came months without personal branding. No, it's not true. You can get to him faster with personal branding for sure, but you can do both, right? You can have your KK. I can't hate it too. So I have like I usually try to get post out of the way like early on because if I wait, then it's like four o'clock. And I'm like, I don't even freaking post anything today, right? I've been really trying to batch my content. I went to Colombia with UGC Master Academy, which is awesome. Great, you know, great team. And one of the things that Sydney, who made her talk about is like, she's bashed her content. She was like, dude, you got to start like, you got to start like batching your content. You can't just be like, trying to come up with subday of and posting it. I'm like, oh, that's what I've been doing. So she's been great at helping me and kind of learning how to how to batch that. And it's a lot better now that I'm that I have a little bit of help that way. And so I'll use a post there. My UGC projects, like I said, let's say it's a Tuesday and I have a stop to one Wednesday. I'm only doing my, I'm only doing those UGC projects. And unless I have a crazy amount of extra time, then I'll try to get ahead. But I'm basically filming the day before that or two because I like to turn them in 24 hours in advance, right? And unless I get way more ahead, I'm filming that day. I'll film my UGC videos. If my, if I'll usually try, I'm a big lunch guy. This is like a weird thing. But even when I was working corporate, I'm like a big like I, that's like the only time of a week or time of ever that I like to see friends and stuff like that are like going to spend like an hour with my wife interrupted, you know, uninterrupted. And so why you should try to do lunch like a couple times a week either with friends or old co-workers or something just to like keep those connections good, you know, keep them, keep them there because you never know. Literally had yesterday. A good friend of mine that I grew up with was talking to her about UGC and stuff and I end up doing like a local UGC trade with them, right? And that's something if I would have just like never like shut myself off to connections outside of UGC like that would have never happened. So you never know where things go. That's a little tidbit for you. And so yeah, and then I depending on what it is, like if my kids have to answer something at like four, then I usually try to go with my wife to drop them off because that's one of the biggest reasons I quit my corporate job because I want to be present. I like want my kids to remember me there, right? I've got 13 to 14, or 12 and 14 year olds soon to be 13 14. And I want them to remember me picking them up from school and like, you know, making their lunches and like if they have dance, like I was on driving and asking about their day and stuff. And you know, my wife comes when we make it, it's actually like our friends make fun of us because we go everywhere together. It's like, oh, you can't just like go by yourself. I'm like, no, it's like a little family thing, right? And so, but when I do that, it's don't I don't want you to think that like, oh, that must be nice. You're just like chilling. Like no, when I'm doing that, I'm working till later, right? Like most days, I'll like, I'll do like basically blocks. I'll do like eight to, you know, eight to 11. I'll film, do you see? And then I'll have a podcast out from one to two. And then from three to five, I'm hanging all my family and I'm taking them to dance class or whatever. And then we do dinner. And then from eight to nine or not eight to 10, I'm like, you know, kind of like half work and half watch and Netflix. My wife will catch it up on freakin Bridgetan or whatever. And then from like 10 o'clock to midnight, I'm like catching up on editing. I'm catching up on the admin stuff. So my days do not do not look like they used to. And do I work less? No. No, no, no. I think I work more than I did in corporate. But the biggest difference guys is that I do it on my own terms. If I decide I don't want to freaking edit for two days and I want to just like on a Sunday, just grind out a ton of videos and edit a bunch of videos and be done with work for the next four days, I can do that, right? I'm going to Miami for a UDC event for the weekend. I'm just leaving on a Friday morning. Like I would have had to ask somebody way in advance. I probably would have got like some type of, you know, not like, not like, oh, you can't do that. But like, oh, are you sure you're going to miss that meeting? I'm like, all right, cool. I'm meeting about what? That we just like to gap and don't like nothing gets done, you know? So that's kind of how my day is. Hopefully that is helpful for you guys to like just especially as your workload gets it gets crazier. You're not you're not like alone in the fact that we're on how we're grinding, right? I mean, but the difference is guys were grinding on our own terms, which I freaking love. So hopefully that helps. I want to talk about kids UGC. I posted something a couple of weeks ago about like how people are sleeping on kids. UGC. So I know this is a very heated topic and there's some people that are like, hell, no, I'm not getting my kids on camera. That's crazy. And I think that's valid. If that's how you feel, heck yeah, that's great. Like that's that's great. There's not I'm not going to say that you're wrong or right in any way because everyone's entitled to their own opinion. Here's my opinion. When your kids are old enough to make the decision of whether they want to be in your videos or not, I feel like that's the I then you're in you I know shout out the argument's going to be, but they they're not old enough to know what's good for them. Okay. Granted, but if your kids are going to be on, you know, if your kid has a phone, they're enough to have a phone. I think they're old enough to be in your UGC videos, especially when they're going to be used as ads. Like, these are the most controlled. This is the most controlled form of content you can possibly have, right? You're not just like posting into the abyss and Instagram and with a public profile or something. This is this is like going in ads are very targeted like literally to the to the exact ICP and audience that the the brand has. So it's not going to try to convince you to do it, but I will tell you why I've loved kids you like having my kids in the UGC videos. Number one, you can charge more. Right. Like you can charge if I ever have a video, let's say I charge 475 for 60 seconds on five or and they want my kid in it. They're paying an extra $150 minimum for my kid to be in it. My kid has script. Oh, that's 200, right? And my kid has a line that's $200. Then because it's like, I'm going to pay the kid. I'm going to pay my kids because they're working. Like, I'm not going to pull them from their friends hanging out down the street because they because they have to do this thing for me. I feel like it's good. Good for them to A or money and B, like learn that there's other paths out there besides traditional like. All right. When you're 16, go get a job at in and out and you're going to make $7 now or you know, like actually in and out does pay a lot better for that. But you get I mean, the other thing I want I would say is if you are interested in doing that, if you're working for brands that are family products, pitch your kids in their picture spouse and they're my wife hates being in UGC videos, but she's getting more comfortable and she's getting better at it. She doesn't mind as much anymore. It just took a lot of practice and a lot of kind of exposure to like what it is and knowing that like a no one cares, nobody cares. Okay. So as far as kids UGC again, I had a ton of questions. It was really easy to pitch a brand after you've done a job for them and say, Hey, I actually have a I have a daughter that is the same age as the an ad that I saw from you guys earlier. I would love to involve her if you'd like. You know, I only charge an extra $100 ever in there and she's great on camera or whatever, right? Like it's super easy to to involve them brands love it because then they don't have to go find somebody that has kids in a spouse. They can just go to you. They use the same creators. So I definitely think tickets. a great idea to do it. Okay. If you guys have questions about that, let me know. But like my, so actually one more thing I'll tell you, if you're, you're probably like, well, how do I get kid? You do see if besides the deals you already have, you can pitch like there's no, there's no rule that says you're seven year old son can't be, you know, can't be, can't have a portfolio for himself and can't be pitching gaming brands and Lego type products and toys and stuff, you know, like you could make a portfolio for them and you could pitch his portfolio if you want it to obviously all the communication gets managed through the parent like don't be a psycho and like let your seven year old email people. But so that's what I would say. There's that and then, and then my daughter my 14 year old. So once you turn 13, you can have your own gig on fiber. I've talked about this a lot. So if you don't know that now you know, but as soon as they're 13, they can have their own gig underneath the parents account. So my daughter has a gig my 12 year old's about to turn 13. She's too stoked to get her own gig. And so now like they like we just did a driving permit one for my 14 year old, whereas she had to do a driving permit and it was $200 her rate is $200 for 60 seconds. And she's been hired probably 30 times on that rate like made a lot of money. That's a freaking 14 year old. Like are you kidding? $200 a month would have been freaking killer for me as a 14 year old. I would have been stoked about that. So it's cool, man, like it take advantage of the of 2026 like this is a crazy time we live in. You know, it's Wi-Fi money teacher kids how to be how to be scrappy how to be resourceful how to like have confidence. So there's a bunch of benefits I could spend an entire episode talking about what UDC is done for me. And I think for my kids too. And yeah, I think you should you should do something that makes them stretch. So that's all I say about the kids you do see. Okay. All right guys, I want to wrap up this episode with the little teaser I gave you the start. Okay. Two things that you can do today to land more brandels. These are two kind of methods I use. They've been really good. If you're a new creator, they'll work for you. If you're an existing creator, they'll work for you. Doesn't matter. Okay. So here's your two here's your two tips that you can take. This is tangible stuff you're going to be able to use after this podcast. This is a thank you for you for listening. Okay. For getting this far in the episode number one. So I talk a lot about like DMing brands, right? Like not only with video like I just straight up send videos to them. Like I don't I don't message them with like a loom video. I just send a video within Instagram and I make sure it's like keeping chat so that's just you they can play it as many times as they want and shows the thumbnail. So you can do that. That's one method that's like this like, you know, the first half of this method is like sending DMs to brands. But instead of just DMing a brand on Instagram, like that's not revolutionary. I think I think sending them a straight up video with no text is crazy, but it works for me. It's been unbelievable for me actually. But you can also search for them on LinkedIn and then go find their like whoever. So if you're not a link if you're working corporate, you definitely have LinkedIn. But go search their whoever their like social media marketer is or their UGC sourcing person or the creative strategist or whatever that title is that that brand has. Sometimes it's a smaller brand and they have like one marketing person like that's that's your guy or that's your girl. Okay. And then you're going to go find their email off of either LinkedIn, which normally that's right there or you can use like a different tool. There's a bunch of different free scraping tools. You can literally type their name into Google with their location and company more than likely you can just pull their email. But then what I would do is send a screenshot. This is what's been kind of like a weird way to do it. But it's where I just started doing this a couple weeks ago. It's like hot off the press. You'll send a screenshot of your DM to the brand and you'll say, hey, my name is Nate. Just want to let you know I know you guys get a ton of DMs. But I did DM you guys. I would love to work with you. I worked with 500 brands. Well, like, right. Give the pitch. But send the screenshot to them on their email. So then you've been not only hitting them once, but then you're hitting them twice. And then I would say even if you want to go one step further, messes them on LinkedIn or sorry, not on LinkedIn because you're I mean, especially if you're working corporate, you don't want to like tell them you're you see her. But messes them on TikTok. Let's say you DM them on Instagram a video. Okay. Then you've emailed the person on LinkedIn and sent them to DM on Instagram and say, hey, my name is Nate. I emailed you guys. All right. I had you guys up on Instagram and then have it hit them up on TikTok and do the same thing. Like hit them on multiple socials and email them and you can usually find the actual person, not just support or marketing at blah blah blah.com. You can actually find the real person on their LinkedIn. Okay. So that's step that's that's tip number one. You want to like essentially hit everybody like three, four different ways. That's three, four different touches. Same concept as you do see, right? It usually takes people like seven, eight, nine touches depending on the product for them to buy it. So like what you should you sell yourself the same way you sell your products, right? And then the second one, I've talked about this a little bit, but I haven't really gone deep in it. We just talked about this last night on my community call with my students at UDC Master Academy. And it is local pitching. Okay. So you're like, what do you mean local pitching? I'm talking about walking into the restaurants, walking into the spas, walking into the places that you already attend that you already patron, right? He's a fancy word for you and pitch them UDC services. Okay. That's the reason I get free chiropractic care is because I pitched my chiropractor on you on UDC. I was like, hey, dude, look at these videos. I hear my portfolio. This is what UDC is. The coolest part about pitching in person will two two cool things. Number one, you're educating. So like a lot of times people don't know what UDC is and they're never going to hire UDC creator ever if they don't know UDC is. So you're doing that. You're unlocking that first step for you and also part and also creators behind you, right? Like we're trying to, you know, the rising tide lifts all ships guys. We're trying to like open unlock this industry across across the freaking nation across the world. And it's in it. This is like a grassroots thing. We got to be active in teaching people what it is. So then we can open up doors for more UDC creators and ourselves, selfishly, right? And then number two, it's really hard to say no to people in person. Really hard to say no to someone. That's why door to door cells works so well because people are awkward. They don't want to like ruffle feathers. So a lot of times they don't say no. So like walk in tell them what you do. Tell them your UDC creator, right? Ask for the manager, ask for the owner, ask for whatever. Hey, can I talk to whoever handles marketing? Yeah, sure. Let me talk to him. Hey, hey, you guys know, you guys just wonder if you guys work with UDC creators? Oh, what's UDC? Oh, let me show you my portfolio, right? You go into the whole spill. If they do work, you do see creators, but hey, I come here all the time. I'm local. I'm sure you don't know who I am because I'm a UDC creator. Like, you know, I'm no post here into the U, I don't post like hashtag Utah creator or anything like that. But I would love to work you guys or worth hundreds of brands. I come here all the time. This is going to be way cheaper than what your traditional marketing methods. I want you guys to socialize. I notice you have, you don't have any males doing this for you. I only saw females on there, like, right? Find your angle and then pitch them, right? I'll give you guys a local Utah discount. I'll give you a local Kentucky discount for being a local company and, you know, I'll give you 10% off my normal rate or whatever it is. Like, make them feel special and then keep the relationship going. Like I said, my car practice care, like I'm going on four months now with free, free adjustments and visits. I go once a week and I just do one video a month for them. And it's great. And like, it's just a trade. It's not paid, but it's, you know, $500 that I would normally have to pay out of pocket out of my own wallet to get this care. And so I'm like, for me, that's $500 bucks, $500 bucks a video, essentially. Right? So anyways, that's the second thing. Local pitch. It's the most definitely the most nerve racking, the most the scariest because you're doing it in person. But if you can pitch in person, dude, you can pitch email all day long. You can pitch DM videos all day long on Instagram. Like, master the local pitch, the in person pitch, and you're going to be unstoppable. So, anyways, guys, that's that's all I wanted to cover. I kind of went on for a while there. Hopefully, this was useful for you. I super appreciate you guys listening. As always, please share this podcast with your friends. If you have a spare three minutes, go review this thing in YouTube, go review it and, you know, wherever your podcast, Apple podcast, Spotify, cast box, wherever you get it, a review goes a long way. Super appreciate you guys. And we will catch you in the next episode. Take it easy. All right. That's it. If you got something out of this, hit subscribe, catch another episode, or share it with a creator friend who needs to hear it. And grab my free 10 steps to becoming a UGC creator guide. The link is below. Thanks for hanging out. I'll catch you next week. Keep creating.