[00:02] What's up, beautiful people? I'm in London&nbsp; and I am so excited because we are talking&nbsp;&nbsp; all things brand deals. I'm going to spill&nbsp; some real tea on what actually matters when&nbsp;&nbsp; it comes to working with brands successfully,&nbsp; which is actually funny because I'm partnering&nbsp;&nbsp;
[00:16] with YouTube on this series right now. And&nbsp; trust me, what I want you to know is that&nbsp;&nbsp; you are not alone. Every creator has been&nbsp; through wondering, 'Wait, how do I do this?'&nbsp;&nbsp; Am I doing this right?' You don't have to&nbsp; navigate this by yourself. Let's get it.
[00:32] I'm Erin White and I'm a business YouTuber. I'm&nbsp;&nbsp; Max Fosh and I'm a YouTuber and comedian. I'm&nbsp; Grace Andrews and I'm a creator entrepreneur.
[00:46] I'm here with my co-hosts Grace and Max.&nbsp; Grace, who's the world's best creator,&nbsp;&nbsp; and Max, who shredded a yellow&nbsp; card in front of 90,000 people.
[01:00] Okay. So, do you remember your first&nbsp; brand deal? I was creating content for&nbsp;&nbsp; ages before I did a brand deal. Two years after&nbsp; I started making content, a dating app said,&nbsp;&nbsp; 'Hey, do you want to do a mini tour?' And&nbsp; I was like, 'This is unbelievable.' Like,&nbsp;&nbsp;
[01:14] this is the life. I'm a big shot now. Yeah. I&nbsp; want to ask how brand deals have changed since you&nbsp;&nbsp; started. Yeah, I think initially it was very&nbsp; much here's the brief, execute, deliver, done,&nbsp;&nbsp;
[01:26] transactions. And what I'm seeing a lot more now&nbsp; of is the brand wants to get you in early. They&nbsp;&nbsp; want to be part of this much bigger collaboration&nbsp; and it feels much more like a partnership. Okay,&nbsp;&nbsp; Why are we here? Let's get to step one. Yes, I&nbsp; think step one is probably the brand universe. I&nbsp;&nbsp;
[01:40] think I can take the explainer on this one, guys.&nbsp; Um, because I do like to get crafty. Over to you,&nbsp;&nbsp; Max. Take it away. So, you are a creator and you&nbsp; want to make a little bit of money. Welcome to&nbsp;&nbsp;
[01:52] the brand deal universe. This is how it works.&nbsp; There's you, the creator, and the brand. So,&nbsp;&nbsp; let's start with the creator side. You have talent&nbsp; agencies. You might have heard of talent agencies.&nbsp;&nbsp;
[02:04] by a talent agency. There is also management&nbsp; companies. An agent is very much more let's work&nbsp;&nbsp; out the contract. Whereas management companies&nbsp; look at you broader scope. What's the plan in&nbsp;&nbsp;
[02:18] 5 years time? Some creators have both talent&nbsp; agencies and management companies. Some just&nbsp;&nbsp; have one or the other. And then the third part&nbsp; on the creator side are MCN's, multi-channel&nbsp;&nbsp; networks. They're essentially big networks that&nbsp; support YouTube channels. Now, the brand side.&nbsp;&nbsp;
[02:35] First is influencer marketing agencies. They are&nbsp; companies that go to a brand and say, 'Hey, you&nbsp;&nbsp; want to work with a creator? We know all of their&nbsp; numbers.' You've also got influencer platforms.&nbsp;&nbsp;
[02:48] These are more software. I'll go onto these&nbsp; platforms as a creator and go who is in the&nbsp;&nbsp; market for a brand deal and that's when you can&nbsp; connect. And then the third one in-house brand&nbsp;&nbsp; teams. These will be individuals who are hired by&nbsp; the brand themselves to just work on influencer&nbsp;&nbsp;
[03:04] we have a new player which is very exciting&nbsp; which is YouTube Creator Partnerships. Now,&nbsp;&nbsp; this is a native tool that sits within YouTube&nbsp; Studio. It allows brands to discover and then&nbsp;&nbsp;
[03:20] connect with the creator because it's got all&nbsp; of the good analytics that they need to decide which&nbsp;&nbsp; creator is best for the brand. So, YouTube&nbsp; Creator Partnerships, big thumbs up from me.
[03:33] I'm just on my way to go and grab Talia Mar.&nbsp; She is so qualified to talk about brand creator&nbsp;&nbsp; partnerships. So, we're going to go grab her and&nbsp; chat all things creator. We are so excited to be&nbsp;&nbsp; sitting here with you, Talia. Okay. How well do&nbsp; you feel like you need to know yourself in order&nbsp;&nbsp;
[03:48] to make partnerships that just feel right?&nbsp; I feel like it's the most important part of&nbsp;&nbsp; picking a brand to work with because if you don't&nbsp; know yourself, you're just going to say yes to&nbsp;&nbsp; one trusts you. First and foremost, know what you&nbsp; like outside of creating. What are your morals as&nbsp;&nbsp;
[04:05] a person? I've heard on the grapevine that you&nbsp; actually manage yourself, which is quite rare.&nbsp;&nbsp; Is that right? Yeah, I've had managements before&nbsp; that have tried to push me into brands that have&nbsp;&nbsp; been not for me, but right now I have an assistant&nbsp; and then I also work with agencies. It just means&nbsp;&nbsp;
[04:20] that I have a little bit more control over like&nbsp; my brand identity, I guess. How are you getting&nbsp;&nbsp; to know your audience better and what they want?&nbsp; Are you in the analytics? I love data. I could&nbsp;&nbsp; spend hours in there, but I think sometimes the&nbsp; videos that do lower views actually do better for&nbsp;&nbsp;
[04:36] a brand because it's reach the right audience.&nbsp; If all the comments are like, 'Oh my god,&nbsp;&nbsp; the mark. I think that goes to show how deeply&nbsp; you care about your audience and how you always&nbsp;&nbsp;
[04:50] kind of have to keep them top of mind. Talking to&nbsp; a creator who's just getting started, what advice&nbsp;&nbsp; are you going to give them? Have an idea and try&nbsp; and stand by it as much as possible. Because I&nbsp;&nbsp; think when you're new, you forget the reason&nbsp; you've been approached. And it's like you've&nbsp;&nbsp;
[05:04] been approached because you're clearly doing&nbsp; something right. Amen. That was it right there. Okay, Grace, what's your take on landing&nbsp; the perfect deal? You've got to lure them&nbsp;&nbsp;
[05:18] in. You've got to breadcrumb way before that&nbsp; conversation ever happens. It's not a case of&nbsp;&nbsp; just like pitching the brand, like tag them in&nbsp; stuff. Use the product. Not only you getting&nbsp;&nbsp; your audience on side for when the brand partner&nbsp; does deliver, but the brand starts to get you in&nbsp;&nbsp;
[05:32] their zeitgeist. I know the brands that I want to&nbsp; work with next year and I am seeding them now.&nbsp;&nbsp; Yes, I am luring them in. I 100% agree.&nbsp; And people are so smart now. They can&nbsp;&nbsp; sniff a brand deal. They can sniff a planted&nbsp; mention. So the more creative and like less&nbsp;&nbsp;
[05:48] curated you can be with it, the better.&nbsp; Literally that, integrate it. Integrate it. Jordan, for people who don't know you, who are you&nbsp; and why are you so well versed to talk about this&nbsp;&nbsp;
[06:02] topic? I'm Jordan, CEO and co-founder of Arcade.&nbsp; So we've been working as the management company&nbsp;&nbsp; behind the sidemen. We've got six businesses.&nbsp; A VC fund upside which is a $30 million fund&nbsp;&nbsp; fried chicken restaurant chain sides, through&nbsp; to XX Vodka, a vodka brand, cereal brand, trading&nbsp;&nbsp;
[06:15] cards, production company, obviously inside done&nbsp; four charity matches together for one recently&nbsp;&nbsp; whole world being built around you. How would&nbsp; you advise creators who want to work with brands&nbsp;&nbsp;
[06:27] start working with brands? Brands are busy. They&nbsp; like intermediaries that help them. So the key&nbsp;&nbsp; as a creator is how do I then get in touch really&nbsp; with the intermediaries to help me get more brand&nbsp;&nbsp; deals. Can you in like its simplest terms break&nbsp; down the sort of main things that a brand wants to&nbsp;&nbsp;
[06:41] reach. The value that you provide as a creator is&nbsp; in your audience. It's in the reach that you&nbsp;&nbsp; have and the consistency that you are able to&nbsp; engage that audience on a regular basis. You&nbsp;&nbsp;
[06:53] need specificity in your audience in relation&nbsp; to the audience that brands want in order&nbsp;&nbsp; to be valuable to them. Thank you so much for&nbsp; your insight. Thank you so much for having me. Now, let's rewind and break down how you'll get&nbsp; the ball rolling on YouTube. Aka, it's strategy&nbsp;&nbsp;
[07:09] time. Once you're in the YouTube Partner Programme, what&nbsp; do you actually need to do next? First of all,&nbsp;&nbsp; congratulations. You're in the YouTube Partner&nbsp; Programme, which makes it official. You can&nbsp;&nbsp;
[07:21] start early on YouTube and unlock extra tools&nbsp; like creator partnerships. Think of creator&nbsp;&nbsp; partnerships as basically your brand deal toolbox.&nbsp; A space where brands can find you and reach out&nbsp;&nbsp; if they want to work together and also a space&nbsp; where you can find the tools to pitch yourself&nbsp;&nbsp;
[07:35] to brands too. Through YouTube Creator Partnerships&nbsp; on their side via Google Ad and then reaching out&nbsp;&nbsp; to the ones that feel like the right fit for what&nbsp; they're trying to do. Get the boring but beautiful&nbsp;&nbsp;
[07:47] admin sorted. Add your business email. Pop in&nbsp; your rates for long-form and Shorts. Remember,&nbsp;&nbsp; those should be two different rates. It saves&nbsp; you time. It makes you look organised and also&nbsp;&nbsp; means that brands can find you and then reach you.&nbsp; Share your channel insights and performance such as&nbsp;&nbsp;
[08:01] as average views. That's how brands can see who&nbsp; your audience is and work out if you're a good fit&nbsp;&nbsp; for them. And the last thing, be selective. Every&nbsp; opportunity is not your opportunity. Just because&nbsp;&nbsp;
[08:13] a brand reaches out, that doesn't automatically&nbsp; mean that it's a fit. The best partnerships make&nbsp;&nbsp; sense for you and feel natural to your audience.&nbsp; That said, even if the enquiry doesn't meet your&nbsp;&nbsp; expectations, it is worth responding just to see&nbsp; whether the brand is flexible. Well, guys, thank&nbsp;&nbsp;
[08:28] you very much for your input. This would have&nbsp; been very, very useful to know when I got started.&nbsp;&nbsp; It would have saved me a lot of time. Me, too.&nbsp; And I think we kind of made admin fun. Did we?
[08:40] Coming up, we get into the pitch&nbsp; from both sides of the desk.