Lessons - How Content Creators Can Maximize Their Value | Gigi Robinson - Full-Time Content Creator

What's what's some advice when people are like negotiating with some of these big brands? Are there any things that you have to watch out for that that could have screwed you over when you first started? Yeah, I mean, negotiation is always a little awkward, but I think if you handle it with this attitude of like, hey guys, I don't want to, you know, take up any of your time. Let's just cut to the chase. What's your budget? Yeah. Like, obviously after you built a rapport with them and after you've gone through the deliverables, they want to work with you. Like, I think beating around the bush is the biggest detriment to creators because it teaches you that the brand has like the upper hand because they're paying you. But really, you're the upper hand because you're the original content. They don't want to do a fully produced ad anymore. They want your original content. So a lot of the times they're willing to pay, you have to know what to ask. That's the biggest thing that people are speculating now is, okay, well, what's my rate? How should I know what to charge? Throw my number out there. When somebody agrees to it, upcharge. The next time they agree to that higher number, okay, upcharge, right? And as you grow the brands that you work with, you're also going to grow your portfolio. You're going to grow your business. And I think they go hand in hand, but making sure that you don't meet around the bush. Like, if a brand is like, this is an example that happened last week. A brand came to me and was like, oh, you know, they're a really big tech brand. They're like, we really want to work with you. We think it's great. You know, it's probably going to be about 12 Instagram stories and two Instagram posts per month for five months. And here's our budget. And it was so low, I mean, less than $100 per item, which is just out of control, considering my rate is well over $2,000 per item. And it's like a moment where I had to say, I really would love to work with you and find a way to make this, you know, happen for both of us because the brand's incredible. I'm a huge fan. However, that budget is not going to work. And transparently, it would not be worth my time. And I really again appreciate it. Please let me know, you know, keep me posted. And that's a moment where like, you have to be willing to lose it all. I'm okay with it because I'm not okay with producing those deliverables. So knowing that, knowing also usage rights and exclusivity and exclusivity, meaning if you're doing an ad with Starbucks, you probably can't do an ad with peets or Dunkin' Donuts or Tim Hortons, et cetera. And then usage rights, meaning you will post the content and the brand can use it in their own paid advertisements at their discretion. So they may pay you $5,000, but run $50,000 in ad spend behind it, right? So you deserve to be getting paid for that per month, like a residual, essentially. And then on top of that, there's something called white listing, which is where the influencer will post the content and then the brand will put also ad spend behind it and make it look like an organic post, but really it's a sponsored ad. You also deserve to be paid extra for that because your content's being showed to other people kind of like in a new audience and you deserve again to be compensated. So knowing about those things, reading up on the industry, something I did when I was in my internship at Paramount was called doing the daily trades. And essentially what I did was I read three articles a day, kind of did a very high level one sentence summary on what's going on in that industry, just so I could be in the know, definitely doing that when starting out too, so that you can use that to leverage with brands saying, oh, well, other creators in the industry are charting this or, you know, oh, I saw this ad by them, I want to emulate that so on and so forth. And as you're growing your own personal brand, you're putting out content, the one thing that we didn't touch on, which thought you've done exceptionally well is PR. Like you have publications, people have written incredible articles about you. And I feel like even for me, like I know content, but the PR is like a missing piece in the puzzle that I feel like content creators, they've never had exposure to that world. They have no idea where to even start with PR. So where do people start with PR to start getting some third part, because that's really what validates, right? Like you can put your own content out there, you could work with big brands, but when like a Forbes or a Vogue or anything, they speak about you, they're like, whoa, okay. So, you know, this person's on to something, they're figuring something out or they're creating something exceptional. So how do you, how do you get that? Yeah, that's a great question. I mean, I think also my, the biggest thing that I say to people around me is why do you want PR? And what do you think you're going to get out of it, right? Is it that you simply want more eyes on your content? Are you looking to generate sales? Are you looking to get like verified to be honest, like what is your intention behind it? And why do you think it's going to help you? And until you're clear on that, you're not ready for PR. Like that's what you need to do first and foremost. Second of all, once you start reading the trades value industry, you're going to start to get real familiar with the journalist, like reporting on it. So guess what? You can get active on Twitter. You can DM them. Hi, I'm a creator in this industry. I absolutely love your article on blah, blah, blah. Um, you know, let me know if you ever need a source in this industry, like I do blah, blah, blah. And that's how it relates, right? It's a very easy way to kind of get your foot in the door. Um, there's also things I know is going viral on TikTok a while ago called helperreporterout.com, which is where you can basically, there's like open calls for, uh, uh, like sources needed kind of situation and, uh, a lot of the times you can submit them and like they won't come through. Sometimes you'll submit them and it'll be like a cool article like you really never know what can come out of it. So if you have free time to kind of waste, like submit yourself for, like you can definitely do that as well. Um, and last but not least is, um, going in and paying for it and like you absolutely can pay for PR and once you get to a certain level, you'll get a certain amount like I started paying for PR because I was having too many inbound requests coming at me and I couldn't manage it. So I needed somebody to help me kind of weave through what was like good, what was bad. Also like even like as an influencer specifically attending these events that are put on by brands or movie premieres getting out there is really important and a lot of the times you, you can also naturally get invited to those. I just don't even have like the capacity to like, uh, what sort of like manage those, those inbound. So I have. You have to like fill this through them and see what's good and what's bad. Yeah. Exactly. And like that's a cool level to be at and I think that that's the point where like you're literally paying somebody to do a job for you. So that's, um, that's again kind of like my journey with PR and I think it's been extremely beneficial for me because not only does it validate like where I'm at in my career, uh, it, it validates me as like an industry leader and professional and like disruptor in the industry and, um, I think it's, it's just really cool. But it's, it doesn't mean that I'm successful, right? Like just because somebody has PR doesn't mean that that's their end all be all that they're successful. It's like the work that they're actually doing that measures up to it is the success. Um, that's, that's what it's really about. And it's about like how happy it makes me like just because I have like a cool feature. Like doesn't mean that I am like this like on this other, it's not like another, another point of happiness. It's just, it's just a, it's just a verified doesn't mean that it's a new point of like a new benchmark, right? Like I guess in some ways it's like, yes, like you can be trustworthy, but there's a bunch of trustworthy like people out there that aren't verified. Like you, there's no secret club. It's not like Soho House, like we don't need to gatekeep here. Um, so I think that yeah, that's just some things to, to think about. Um, and, and I guess, you know, I want to, I want to, I guess we, we've gone through a ton of stuff with content creation. Um, I guess any advice for, you know, we got through a lot of advice too, but like, like the most important advice in your mind for somebody who's just starting out into creating content, trying to build their own personal brand, what advice would you, you teach over to them? Yeah, I would go back to what I mentioned before, if finding your, your, your why and asking yourself why you do what you do or why you, if you have an idea of writing that down and really digging deep and saying, why is this important to me? Maybe the answer is because you want to make your mom and dad proud. Why do you want to make your mom and dad proud? Okay, because, you know, they, you want to have a better life for your future family. Okay, why is future family important to you because you care about, you know, family and building relationships and you want to be available to your kids, maybe in a way that your parents weren't okay, why is being available important to you? So on and so forth, like, and you can do that, I, I know that was like a more family-focused example, but that's like how you kind of can go down that rabbit hole and, um, just not giving up on yourself and knowing that it takes a process. As I mentioned, I came home in 2020 as a very different person than the person that's sitting on this call of you right now and I'm extremely proud of that growth and knowing that if you make it through like a month or a year, like even, even in January, like I was really like, I was like, getting like doubts like in January, I was like, what is going on? Like, am I doing this right? My health started acting up like I started getting really like the New York City winter blues kind of vibe. Like I was not doing well. So I started a breathwork challenge with my breathwork teacher. So that was something that I focused on for my health, for my mind, my body. And then I started looking and like reading a lot more motivational things around money. So like a lot of self-improvement in your moments of doubt and then I just kind of was like putting it out there. I was like, there's no reason why I don't deserve to be paid for the work that I do because it's really fucking amazing. And that's when like out of the blue, the last week of January, I like entered what mean my breath teacher call like the vortex, which is just like this kind of like portal, like it's an energy portal. It's a state of like being and you're just, I know this sounds kind of witchy and crazy, but just go with me. But like literally it's like the last week of January opens like I get this article up in Forbes. I was, like I think I had another article come out that I was interviewed for Fox for a second time. Then I like submitted my sports illustrated video. I got that news. I landed three brand deals that were like pretty big. I got invited to New York Fashion Week. I then got COVID, which was definitely a sidebar, but that's fine. It was not not bad at all. And then I go to Miami, I land like sports illustrated officially. Then I like land another brand deal. Then like I come home and I'm going to all these events and then my health stuff starts up again, which was like super shitty, but whatever. And then just like things keep coming. And I think it's really about rewiring yourself and you can't really work on your business until you're okay in your mind. My hierarchy is always like health and mindset and then business or health mindset, school, business, personal life and relationships and then like self care. So I need to like put self care higher up. I probably need to also like get, you know, once school is done, I'll just bump business up. But yeah, just having a hierarchy and figuring out what works for you and until you figure that out, you're going to be a little bit lost. So yeah.