[Transcript starts at 1:04]
Hello, hello, hello, my podcast people and thank you for joining me for yet another episode of my favorite podcast. Today we are talking about how to get sponsorships and affiliate deals, aka how to get people to send you money and free things.
Before that we're gonna make this episode kind of meta. I got a little, an announcement, a little reminder. Depends on how into my ecosystem you are. Um, but I teamed up with Ancore. I've brought them onto the, I bought Isaac on, the founder, uh, onto the podcast before, but I, they de recently launched their two and a half pound plates, which is a huge deal, especially if you're using the Ancore system for any kind of rehab.
Um, but they've launched their two and a half pound plates and they sent me them and I got a little code code for you if you use the code MAESTROSHIP, all caps, I believe you'll get free shipping. So for those of you that don't know, um, Ancore, it's a cable training system that looks to replicate what you would get with a functional trainer, but the unit itself only weighs eight pounds, which is kind of remarkable to me and it's fully portable.
I personally, I attach it to my rig in my garage and to the, it's not really a rig, it's a pull up rig, we'll call it. Um, but there's a wall mount as well that has a sliding track, so you have options. The resistance goes up to 65 pounds, which people tend to use as the reason they don't wanna buy, cuz they're like, oh, it's not enough.
It is absolutely enough resistance for any unilateral work, um, cuz it's a one-to-one ratio. So oftentimes when you go into the gym and using those big functional trainers, it's not one-to-one. And oftentimes the plates are all like, you don't know what actually how much weight it is. 65 pounds is a lot of resistance for this particular, um, unit.
And actually my guy Forrest, he, I hooked them up with, with with Isaac. Hooked him up with Isaac and uh, Forrest has a bunch at the gym now and Forrest is much bigger than me and he's like, yeah, the resistance is fine, especially using for one arm. Um, so I have a full video. They have two models out. They have the Ancore and then they have Ancore Pro Model.
I have the Ancore Pro model. I have two of them actually. Um, I have a full comparison video up on YouTube. We will link that in the show notes. Thank you, Courtney. I fully believe don't even bother with the regular Ancore. I know that it's more expensive to get the Ancore Pro, but it is. Worth it. If you wanna hear from Isaac, that's episode 308.
Why am I talking about this? They're not paying me to talk about this right now, though they did send me a unit, but not in exchange for me talking about it. I'm talking about this on this episode because I love this company. I, I believe in what they're doing. I love the product and y'all know, I just wanna put the best things in front of you.
Um, again, there's no, like, they weren't like, you have to go and talk about it on the podcast or something like that. I choose how I share about them, and we'll get into that in the episode. Um, but wanted to plug that, drop that, remember the code is MAESTROSHIP and then you'll get free shipping on that. Happy to chat with any of you as well if you're like, oh, I got a question about it, whatever.
Um, so just do DM me, shoot me a text, whatever works best for you. Um, but today we're gonna be talking about this, which is how to get sponsorships and how to get affiliate deals and how to get companies to send you free things. Um, I actually spoke about this same topic. Um, I think it was called How to Get Brand Deals, though that was episode 427 of Maestro on the Mic.
Uh, we will link that as well. Thank you, Courtney. Uh, but once is never, and I actually sat down to do a different episode, but I wanted to talk about Ancore, and then as, as I was writing it out, I was like, well, let me actually just make the whole episode about how you can acquire these sponsorships. How can you form these relationships, uh, and get these kind of brand deals or these affiliate deals that you may want.
So the title of the episode is How to Get Sponsorships and Affiliate Deals. Those are different. And so for the sake of this episode, let's kind of define those. Sponsorship is when the company will pay you a fixed amount to promote their stuff. Typically, we see it with like podcasts, um, where the episodes will be sponsored by that company and you'll kind of, you know, talk about it, maybe you have a discount code, something like that, that the people can use. Those codes are important because it allows you to track whether or not people are actually coming from you and buying their thing. So definitely whether you get any kind of sponsorship or you're doing any kind of partnership, you want that ability to track how well you're doing and if your referrals are actually going through, so you're gonna want some sort of code or something like that.
So in this case, for Ancore, it was MAESTROSHIP. I have a discount code for them, but that is different. They can't work together. So MAESTROSHIP, you'll get a free shipping.
Um, and yeah, that's a little promo I'm running with them, but, an affiliate deal is when you get a commission for each thing that you sell. Many brands have this model like already kind of baked in and you can just sign up on their website. Um, Chicken Pound has that. It's a place where I get chicken from.
That's actually what I'm doing with them. They had like a more official brand ambassador program, but I was like, I don't wanna do this, because they had rules around it. Like, you have to post this many times and do something. And I was like, no, it's not worth it. Um, many companies have that affiliate model and you can sign up right on, right on the website.
Um, but today we're gonna talk about more formal relationships and typically larger dollar amounts, you know, received, or a worthwhile amount of product that's received. So this is more formal approach to acquiring those, um, sponsorships and affiliate deals. So I've broken this down into four suggestions on how to get these, these partnerships, these deals, these sponsorships, and we'll go through each one of them.
First, I think this is the most important, is your own personal success, right? Have your own personal success. This, if we take a step back, this ties into have you been able to help your people and get them results? Why? This is all a business play. Getting a sponsorship, getting an affiliate deal is very much a quid pro quo kind of thing.
It's this for that. These brands, these businesses, these companies will give you money or product, but is in exchange for something else, and that something else is customer eyes. So the question becomes, do you have customer eyes? Do you have a captive customer, a captive audience? Do you have an audience that trusts you and listens to you, and if you recommend things, they're going to buy things for you from you. This is all going to start with you getting results for your people. So step one for getting brand deals, for getting affiliate deals, for getting sponsorships is going to be get results for your current people.
This public success where you know people are singing your praises or you're sharing your testimonials and things like that, that is actually how you're going to attract these brands and these companies, and they're going to ask you to represent them because they can see your audience, right? And they're like, oh, look, I see the trust that's there.
I see that they have eyes. And that's the, that's the hardest thing to get is the eyes. So that's when you'll have companies that will actually, or may actually pitch you. That was actually what happened with, uh, Strong Coffee. They approached me and I was super hesitant. I, I really do, um, I really do enjoy Adam.
I think he's a, he's a character. Um, brought him on the podcast. We can link that episode actually. Thank you, Courtney. Um, but he actually approached me and was like, Hey, you know, I'd love to set up a call, would love to chat with you about this. And I was like, but also it's instant coffee, so I don't know. Um, but I'm so glad I gave it a chance and I'm so glad that he reached out. Cause I love it. I love the company. I fully support them. Um, and I love, I love working with them.
That public success is gonna be how you attract the brands, how you attract the businesses that will perhaps pitch you and say, Hey, we'd love to sponsor this, or, you know, we'd love to have you as an ambassador or representative of this company.
The second thing that will help with you acquiring these, uh, sponsorships and affiliate deals is going to be being invested in the company. Very simply support them and use their shit. This is actually really easy to create almost like a paper trail of sorts, by simply tagging them in your Stories. So before you even reach out, before there's any kind of communication, if you use the product, talk about it.
And ideally you've bought the product, you've done something with this product before you're gonna go to them with a hand out. This isn't always the case, and I can think of two instances, you know, off the top of my head. Um actually only one. Um, it's gonna be. I was gonna say NormaTec, but I was using NormaTec products before.
I hadn't personally bought them, but I was using them at the recovery center that was, was, um, nearby, but for Smart Tools, um, their smart cuffs, I had not, you know, promoted them or anything like that before. So that's a, a different example that's gonna tie into point number number three. Um, but point number two is being invested in their shit. Using it, buying it.
This is oftentimes easier with smaller things, single time per-, I, I don't wanna say singular purchases, but things that are actually, um, repeated purchases. Purchases. So, something like Celsius, like I, anytime I drink that, I tag them. Cause I'm like, maybe one day I'm gonna wanna reach out for some sort of sponsorship or reach out for them, for them to, you know, sponsor the live events that Jill and I do, something like that.
And I want them to know like, I really enjoy this and I have supported you and you know, I've been part of this and it's not just me walking up to you with it with a hand out. This concept here of supporting them and, and being invested in their success ties into what I shared in episode 4 66. Thank you, Courtney, which was called, uh, titled Networking for Newbies.
And in that episode, I, uh, stole, borrowed, the definition for network for a network. Um, which was shared originally by or in the book, The Go-Giver. And in that book they define a network as a group of people who are personally invested in seeing you succeed. If we look to create this network and we're personally invested in seeing these companies succeed, we use their stuff, you have a greater chance of when you, if you do go to pitch them, them being more likely to say, say yes, right?
So, buy their stuff, talk about their stuff, know their stuff, right? This is gonna help with the next step, which is asking, right? Being personally invested in seeing them succeed, understanding what the product actually is, how it can be helpful to your audience, how you've been using it, maybe what can be made better.
What is al- already amazing and, you know, super, super useful. Um, but just ultimately becoming a, a super fan of their stuff. And bonus points if you create that paper trail, tag them in Stories and things like that, uh, before you go to.
So that's a great segue for point number three of how to, uh, acquire these affiliate deals and sponsorships, which is to ask.
Yes. I think the more formal language here would be to pitch yourself, but with this, we're thinking about, ultimately we are asking. So there's a few parts within this, and first is asking, uh, for a connection from a, uh, a mutual, a mutual connection, right? Asking for that, that hookup, that link from a mutual connection.
I'm thinking about right now, Ancore, and Brett Bartholemew was actually the connect. Um, I had seen my guy Anthony actually first using it and then I saw the Ancore unit in Brett's Stories and I was like, dude, what exactly is this? Do you like it? How'd you get one? And is there someone that you know that I could speak with?
Cuz I'm definitely interested in, in, in using it. Cuz again, the biggest thing with this Ancore unit is that instead of having a big ass functional trainer, I don't have space for that. I have a, I have a home gym. I go to a garage gym. But I saw these, it's literally this big folks, like if you're watching the YouTube, you can see it.
If you're not, well go watch my stories cuz that's in there as well. Um, but actually we can link the most recent video I did, uh, that's showing the Ancore Pro unit and the two and a half pound plates. Thank you, Courtney. Um, the most recent post they did, I dunno if I, I don't know if I just said Story or post, but it was a post. It was a Reel.
Um, but I was like, Hey, this looks great, and like, I could really use this and, you know, I want, I've been looking at cable systems, but, but a lot of the cable systems they had, like, you know, the free, um, for the plate loaded. And so the plate's like swinging all around and I was like, this seems dangerous and I don't want that.
So the Ancore unit really solves that problem. So I reached out to Brett and asked for the connection and he connected us. The other thing you can do is obviously reach out to the company directly, but when we're gonna do that, this is why you want steps one and two or points number one and two in place first.
Which point, number one was having your own personal suc success, bringing something to the table. And then point number two, being invested in the company.
So as for how you actually do this, DMs have actually always worked the easiest for me. Like that is also, you know, where I have the audience so they can just look at my profile and be like, oh yeah, we see the social proof there, we see what you might be bringing to the table.
Uh, and that actually makes that a lot easier. And we may have that paper trail if you've been tagging them in your Stories. Um, if it's connecting via a friend, like with Brett, then you may, the next step may be email or texting or a, you know, phone call. Whatever works best for the person that's connecting you and the person that you're asking to be connected with.
Two things to focus on when you are asking or you're making this pitch. Number one, transparency and number two, how you can help the company. How you can help, help the company is going to be obviously specific to your niche. But I want both of these things at the forefront when you are going to make this pitch, when you're gonna ask. So for me, the transparency is always, I'm gonna let them know I am pitching you.
I am about to ask for something. I'm about to ask for money, I'm about to ask for product. I'm, I'm gonna ask. And so I'm just gonna read to you the exact pitch that I had when I reached out to, um, the people, cause I didn't know who it was, the people at Smart Tools to ask about getting a smart, a set of a set of smart cuffs, which is BFR cuffs, which I am bringing the owner on.
Um, he's gonna be on in May, I believe, we're doing the interview. Um, so you can hear from him. But, I wrote, and here's the DM: Hey hey! Full transparency, pitch incoming. Craig from the Prehab Guys suggested I reach out to you directly via the DMs. I was planning on buying a set of cuffs to rehab a current knee injury, but I figured I'd inquire about setting up a discussion to get a set in exchange for some social, email, podcast promotion. I've partnered in the past with NormaTec, RIP because they got acquired, uh, by HyperIce and so you can't even tag them anymore. Um, Ancore, and extensively with Rock Tape, former lead instructor, so I'm not new to the game. It's also obviously totally fine if you're like, nah, not interested. Figured I'd shoot my shot. Thanks so much for reading this Maestro Green Heart emoji. So we see a few things there. One is a full, full transparency, and then two, I'm saying what I'm bringing to the table. There's some of that kind of name dropping there. Cause I had reached out to Craig first from the PrehabGuys.
Um, and this ties into that second part about kind of networking and having this network and, you know, I could reach out to Craig and I, and I know a bunch of people in this space. Um, so reaching a- name dropping there, and then also showing like, hey, I have my own personal success, right? I have skin in the game, which was point number, the original, like point number one there, and saying that I've partnered with the other people in the past, these other bigger companies.
Um, and then they can also just see, they can go to my, my page and see what I'm bringing to the table in terms of an audience or captive customers. So that's the transparency part and then the how I can help you part, right? This was not so much in fully discussed in that pitch that I just said, that short little initial DM, we spoke about it later in subsequent DMs.
Um, but this is something that you want to absolutely be thinking about and make sure that you speak about when you have these conversations with the companies that you are pitching. How can you help them? It's not just what are you bringing to the table, right? Because they can see your audience has things like that.
But how do you actually see, you know, you talking about this thing? What's the story that you wanna tell? Like you're really gonna pitch here. So when I had the call with Isaac from Ancore, I actually just told him, one, dude, if you don't send me anything, that's totally fine. Cause I wasn't specifically asking, I was just like, Hey, maybe how can we work, you know, work together.
And I was just like, yo, this thing would be incredibly helpful for any cash-based physical therapists out there. They don't have a lot of space. They oftentimes don't have a, you know, ton of money, to start off with. Although the Ancore unit is not cheap, but it's still cheaper than a functional trainer. Um, I, I laid out talking points that if he was going to pitch, um, or try to get in front of a cash-based audience, what they should be talking about. Things that, that demographic, the cash-based physical therapy demographic would want from this. What the things that they're concerned about, and this is why from the jump I pitched those two and a half pound plates, it's been a few years down, they're coming out now, but I told them, I'm like, hey, this is how you can make more money, essentially.
This is how you can get into this other audience. You're not really in that world yet. He's really in the strength and conditioning side of things. Sports performance. I'm like, there is a whole nother world that will buy this, that will see value in this. And then here's the tie-in, I can help you speak to them.
I have connections within this world. I am from this world. I know how to speak to this world. And then here I, you know, I can start laying out, here's my audience size, here's the email things, here's my vision of how I would share you with the audience. But the whole thing is, I am leading with how I could help Ancore.
And also very much then deal leading into how Ancore could help this demographic. Right. Laying it out for them. Really future pacing with them. I am a big proponent of really pitching the podcast, um, cause I like to bring the owners on. I think it humanizes them. Um, It's a, it's a captive audience, right?
45 minutes an hour, and people are just listening. That's a side of the company that people oftentimes don't get to see, and so I make sure to say that to them and so they can actually see, hear it, and be like, oh, yeah. Especially if you're talking to the owner, they may not like, marketing may not be their main thing, and so if you can really lay it out for them, that can be incredibly, incredibly, incredibly helpful.
In terms of what to ask for when you make this pitch, whatever you want. Like, I'm not gonna say ask for a million dollars, but I don't have strict parameters around this or strict guidelines around this. Um, I personally like to ask for product like, cuz sometimes the things that I'm asking for are expensive. So NormaTec, those are like, you know, $1,200 and they sent me, like, they sent everything for Normatec.
They sent like the hips and the arms and the unit and the backpack and it was like, really expensive. And I was like, that's fine. I don't, I don't need commission on this. That's fine. Like I would love a discount code for my people, but not a code where that's tied into commission. Um, with Strong Coffee, I do get commission, but I told 'em I was, I was actually willing to pass the, the commission on in order to get people more of a discount and I just want product.
I was like, I just want coffee. Like that's totally fine. Um, with Fringe, I do get a commission with them, and that's largely because Alylson forces me to. Um, you get to choose what you want, whether you wanna ask for a product, whether you wanna ask for money, um, from a podcast perspective, oftentimes, if they're gonna sponsor a podcast, they're just gonna be sending you money.
Um, maybe you get, you know, you using that now, using that service, whatever for free. It's up to you, right? You get to have these discussions, and yes, part of it's gonna be based on what they've always done, but don't be afraid to pitch them something new and then explain how this benefits your people, how this benefits them. Like lay it all out for them.
As with anything that is business related, and I talk about this a ton with just like launching and online business; the less trust you have with your audience, the more strategy you're going to need. Same, same with this. The less trust that you have with this company, the less trust that you have with your own audience, the more strategy that you're going to need when, um, speaking to this company.
So even with someone like Isaac, there was some inherent trust there already because he had spoken with Brett. He knew Brett, I was a referral from Brett. Um, I do the same thing when I actually refer other people. Like there's already you kind of short cutting that trust cycle there a little bit cuz it's like, hey, I trust that person and if you trust that person then maybe there's some trust already in there.
This means that you may need a more structured and formal pitch if you don't have some massive audience that trusts you. If you're not coming in with, you know, a connection to a connection, a person who's connecting you with this business. Nothing wrong with this. I just wanna lay that out there, that I do believe that, you know, I go in with a more colloquial, um, approach. And I just also just wanna be a fucking human. Like, I don't need to be like, oh God, business, business Maestro. Like, here's what I'm thinking. Here's what I'm bringing to the table. Here's who I am. We can sit, sit down and have more formal things and write things out and get things in, you know, in writing and things like that. But this is who I am and this is how you're going to, we're gonna be interacting.
You will likely come up with more parameters around the relationship, the more formal this is. So, you know, X number of months of tracking or x number of months, we, you know, commit to sponsoring this thing for X number of months.
Um, I, I think that you're more likely to have more parameters around things when they're sending you money as opposed to product, because depending on the profit margins of things, it can be very easy to send out product. Like the, I I am an affiliate for LMNT or “element”. I actually don't know how that's said. I say LMNT and then I was with Jen this week, DocJenFit, and she was like, you mean element? And I was like, but it's actually LMNT. So I don't know. The electrolyte drinks if you folks don't know what I'm talking about. But they send product. Um, and I think that's easier than if they're sending out money in like the LMNT sponsors this podcast.
Um, I think that with that they're just like, it's easy for them. There's more, you know, they have larger margins and so it's not as big of a deal to just keep sending that out to the people. Um, but I also am thinking about Bryan, Bryan Boorstein, brought him on the podcast as well. Um, he is a, he's an affiliate, I think for Legion, now is the name of the, the protein.
But he has to like sell a certain amount of protein or amount of stuff each month in order to keep getting product. And I was like, that seems like a fucking headache. So, your choice with that. Um, but just I want you to understand that there probably will be more parameters around the relationship when money is involved and not just product.
If you are looking to score a podcast sponsorship, that is not my zone of genius by any means. Um, but you can absolutely get one just by doing the thin, the three things that I talked about already. But if you're looking for more, more guidance with that, my guy, uh, Joe Casabona, he is great. And actually now I'm thinking about this, I need to bring him on the podcast. I went on his and then I had had the guest episodes paused, so I got to make mental note to bring him on. But if you talk to Joe Casabona, he, his website, the one that I wanna send you to is actually podcastliftoff.com. Um, we'll link that. Thank you, Courtney. He does a lot more on there than he does on social.
He does a little bit on Instagram, but not a ton. But this is what, what he literally does for a living is helping people get sponsorships for their podcasts. And, you know, you don't have to even have to have a zillion subscribers. And also the podcast space is the Wild West. Like, yes, we hit a million downloads, but I could be lying.
I'm not lying. I throw it out there. They're like, you don't actually know, it's, it's impossible to actually like, look at this and like, oh, I see their metrics. Um, so this is where having discount codes or having codes that are trackable will be helpful and also ensuring that the relationship is long enough that people will actually use those codes, right?
People gotta hear things a million times. I use that chicken pound code all the time. I put it up in my Stories, but it's been months and months and months and just now people are like, Hey, don't you have like a code for chicken? Right? So that could be seven months later, eight months later. So if you only have a sponsorship for 90 days and they're, then they're gonna try and be like, oh, and then we'll assess how well it's working.
That may not be enough time, but either way you can hash that out and talk about that with Joe cuz he loves that stuff. So that's Joe Casabona, podcastliftoff.com. If you wanna check out the brands that I have partnerships with, you can head on over to themovementmaestro.com/partners. Uh, and you can see everyone there.
If you have any questions, I'm happy to talk about that. If you wanna use any of the links, any of the discount codes, that's awesome as well. All of this of course, will be in the show notes. It's linked in the actual thing. In the the actual notes, but then it's linked on the website show notes, which will be themovementmaestro.com/467.
That's the episode number. You can find the transcript, all the things. I should probably promote those pages more because we work really hard on them. Thank you, Courtney. Appreciate you. Times a million. Lex hops helps out with that as well. Um, appreciate both of you, but you can find all the things there.
So that's, that's all I got for you for today. If you're looking to get sponsorships and affiliate deals, three parts that are coming your way, number one, have your own personal success. Number two, invest in that company. And then number three, ask. That's it. Don't forget folks, free shipping from Ancore if you use the code MAESTROSHIP.
That is all I got for you for today. As always, endlessly, endlessly, endlessly appreciative for every single one of you. Until next time, friends, Maestro out.
Watch this episode on YouTube!
Check out all of my partnerships!
Use code MAESTROSHIP for FREE shipping on your Ancore system!
Check out my comparison video for the Ancore systems
Watch my reel showing off the Ancore Pro and 2.5lb weights
MOTM #308: Making Strength Accessible with Ancore Training’s Isaac Lewis
MOTM #427: How to Actually Get Brand Deals
MOTM #289: S.T.R.O.N.G. Words With Adam von Rothfelder
MOTM #466: Networking for Newbies
Check out Joe Casabona’s Podcast Liftoff
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