This brand deal workflow made me $17,000+ last month

People ask me all the time if I have a manager or someone who helps me secure brand deals and the answer is yes - myself. I have been creating content for more than 10 years and during that time, I have made adjustments and pivots in my content, routines, strategies, and workflows. Toward the end of 2022, I finally found the brand deal workflow that not only helps me manage myself in the most efficient way possible - but also helped me over $17,000 hit my bank in January. So today, I am going to share with you the multi-step process of how I did it (so that you can do it too)!

honestly, brands come to me.

The first step in my workflow is opening my inbox and seeing a brand partnership request. I know it’s frustrating to hear as a new creator, but trust me - this can be you too! If you want an entire episode dedicated to attracting brands, please shoot me a DM and let me know - but just a quick summary:

Focus your time and energy on developing an audience that is similar to the brands you would love to attract and work with in the future. If your main focus is building an engaged community, trust me - the brand deal requests will soon follow.

it’s time to vet the brand and if it’s a yes, send them a media kit.

Once I open an email from a brand - I read through the email and if my interest is peaked, I begin the vetting process. Essentially, I internet stalk them. I look at their website, their products, their reviews, their social media, and the list goes on. Who is this brand, what do they stand for, what is their mission, and how do they present themselves online?

Pretty much you want to check for two things: 1) If you like the brand or service and 2) If you want to be associated with this brand. If you answered yes to both of these questions, it’s time to send them your media kit.

Your media kit should include a little bit about your and your brand, social media stats, audience demographics, rates, and offerings. If you need a little help in this department, I just launched a media kit template - which is literally an exact replica of my personal media kit that I use during this workflow. I will have that linked in the show notes for you to check out!

But once I send my media kit, I add them to my Brand Partnership Notion page. I place the brand, contact name, if they're a new or returning brand, and place them in a “negotiation” status. This helps me keep track of the brands I have had conversations with and helps with doing follow ups if necessary. This brand tracker is included in my Content Creator Notion Bundle if you want to check that out too!

they come back and we begin to negotiate.

Once they have had a chance to review my media kit - they come back with an offer. Now, sometimes it’s a super easy process - they’re good with my quoted rates and we just move right to the contract stage. But other times, they might ask for less. Which normally causes a little back and forth until we reach an agreement that’s fair for both of us. Once we agree, I ask them to send me a contract. If they don’t have a standard one, I’ll send mine. By the way, if you are in the market for contracts for your content creation business or really any business, you should check out The Contract Shop, they have so many fill-in-the-blank contract options for content creators and freelancers.

Once I get their contract, I review it with an eye out for usage rights and exclusivity (I charge extra for that, and brands can sometimes be sneaky trying to put it in their contract without negotiating for it first). If you want to make it easy to spot these hidden inclusions in the contract, just hit CTRL or CMD + F on your keyboard and search for the terms you’re looking for. After reviewing the contract, if there’s something I’m not cool with, I will send back my revisions to the contract. Finally, when we’ve agreed on the terms, we both sign the contract.

it’s finally time to make the content.

Some brands will have some guidelines they provide you to help you with creating your ad snippet in your script. Once you receive those details - the first step, just like for any piece of content, is planning and scripting. I normally will write out my entire script and send it to the brand for review. This allows them the opportunity to make any adjustments or suggestions to the advert before I even hit record.

Once they approve the script, I start filming and editing just like I always would - but when working with a brand, you are no longer working on your normal timeline - you have to keep in mind the deadlines set by the brands for reviewing the content as well. Some brands want a week to review, others just a couple of days. So just keep this in mind when creating your content. Once you have edited the content, in my case, YouTube video - I will upload the video with a thumbnail and send the brand the unlisted link for review. If they have any changes, I would need to make those and reupload them before scheduling. If they approve, I will schedule the video and upon publication, I send them an invoice, and any necessary tax documents (usually a W8-Ben, for American companies).

now we wait around for the payment.

Now, when you signed a contract with the brand - they usually provide you with details on how payment will work. Sometimes it’s within a couple of weeks after the video has been posted - other brands might take 30-45 days (maybe even more) before you will ever see the agreed amount hit your bank. So, yes - over $17k hit my bank in January, but some of those brand deals were finished and posted months prior. So there are really two ways to keep track of your brand deals, 1) how many brand partnerships you have in one month and 2) how much money you made from brand deals in a given month. I decided that going into 2023, at least in terms of goals, I will be focusing on the amount of money I see hitting my bank each month due to brand deals.

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Now you just repeat this cycle over and over again. Here’s the thing, January was a really good month for me when it comes to brand revenue, but it’s not always like this. Brand revenue fluctuates so much, which is why I always recommend having multiple revenue streams. If you want to learn more about this - head over to my youtube channel (youtube.com/katie) and check out my video called Exposing my 6 income streams as a six-figure content creator. In this video, I share the 6 income streams that generate on average $30,000/month for my business!