From struggling influencer to $8000/month as a UGC creator 😎

I figured the only way that you could make money on social media was to have a following big enough to get brand partnerships and affiliate deals, ad revenue from YouTube, etc…

The problem was… it can be tough to grow a following and I really struggled with that.

In 2021, I went on this Colorado trail trip…

I only had a few thousand followers at that time, and I thought, “I just spent 18 months trying to grow this following, and I don’t really have much to show for it.”

A brand reached out to me; it was called LMNT Electrolytes, and they sent me some free product. They wanted me to try it, so I did and I loved it.

I uploaded a quick story on my Instagram and I tagged them in it. And I did this a couple more times over a few weeks.

To my surprise, they came back to me and said, “hey, we love your videos. We want you to create eight more just like this every month for us for $1,500.”

I didn’t have a huge following at that time, but they weren’t asking me to post on MY account, they wanted me to post on THEIR account. And that was what changed my trajectory.

“oh, this is totally different than being an influencer.” You don’t need an audience. You make quick videos, and send them directly to the brand. Sometimes your face doesn’t even need to be in them.

Once you start building up your portfolio… brands will see that.

They’ll see your content from other brands and they’ll reach out to you directly wanting you to promote their outdoor products.

With UGC, I’ve been making anywhere from $6,000 to $10,000 per month. My best months are $10,000, and average right now is around $6,000 per month (seasonality)...

Anybody can do it. Zero followers required.

The only thing you need to be a good UGC creator is know how to make good videos. And then just developing a relationship with brands by over-delivering so you impress them to hopefully get on “retainer” with them.

Phase One: Building Your Portfolio

Go on Instagram and find brands that have less than 15,000 followers. Those brands are going to be a great starting point for your first pitches…

DM or email the brand. You are going to offer to make them a free UGC video.

Phase Two: Free To Paid Content

Phase two is when you start moving from free product into paid product…

Average price for UGC videos is $150 per video and can go up to about $350+ for someone that’s advanced.

Phase Three: Getting On Retainer With Brands…

Phase Four: Build Your Personal Brand (Optional)

This is where you build your personal brand on the backend if you want to be an influencer. This is great for income diversification.

Once you get on a retainer deal with these brands… depending on your expenses, two to three retainer deals is all you need to quit your job.

You can’t just pitch to 3 brands and expect to seal a deal. That’s a no-brainer.

Keep the expectation that the more brands you pitch, the higher your chances of actually getting a partnership. Every no is closer to a yes.

Get as many eyeballs on you as you can, and make sure your expectations meet reality.

Throughout the course, I had positive feedback on the program as it introduced me to practical and actionable insights, enhancing my knowledge and success on Amazon. The training helped me build a very successful Amazon business, with sales of over $10,000 in 3 months.

There are an estimated 600 dog-walking fields in the UK… with ten being created every week, according to Hannah James, the founder of the listings website British Dog Fields. She says farmers can earn an extra £20,000 to £30,000 a year per field.

We had 1ha of land near the town that was very poor and sat really wet, so we hardly made use of it… 

We couldn’t believe the response. It has transformed the least profitable field on our farm into the most profitable, by far.

– Research-as-a-service – sell monthly reports, leads, or data.

– Community and coaching – sell access to a private community and regular coaching sessions.

– Tools – automate common powerseller processes.

The Ask newsletter helps entrepreneurial professionals to build a profitable one person business around their unique gifts & talent.

After a decade as a startup talent expert, I wanted to provide a destination for entrepreneurial people to make better decisions about their future.

0 - 100 subscribers

Friends and other coaches I knew.

100 - 500 subscribers

Organic growth and word of mouth - literally asking people to sign up!

500 - 1,000 subscribers

This is where I really made a concerted effort to hit the 1k milestone in a short space of time: creating lead magnets, doing cross-promotions, and just really focusing on high-quality, shareable content.

1,000 - 2,500 subscribers

I ran an online summit in 2022 called Talent To Money, where I paid for amazing speakers and ran the event for free, so I added loads more people to the list.

2,500 subscribers - present

The Substack referral network helped to grow my list to 3.5k ish.

The best, most rewarding strategy had to be running the Talent to Money summit and adding 1k people in a couple of months.

Whilst it was a high-lift from an operational perspective, it also created a lot of ‘goodwill’ in the online space.

My newsletter has been the engine of my business growth: it has been how clients either first learn about me or deepen their understanding of what I offer and who I am, so that by the time we meet on a discovery call they are often fully bought into the idea of coaching with me.

I have also monetized the newsletter through the odd sponsor and affiliate.

A lot of the hype around business models these days is to earn ‘passive income’ or create ‘time freedom’ and this can lead to chasing revenue models that aren’t the best fit, either for your skills/experience or what will work best in the long run.

So think deeply about your business path and align choices to what works for you - not your competitor!

12 months [after launch] here we are with 1,200+ users, 105 premium users and $2100 MRR.

I'm a 26 y/o Kiwi based in Wellington NZ. 

For the past 4 years I've worked in Sales & Marketing for a couple of Real Estate companies. I started to get frustrated with the tools we were using and decided to try and build my own using No-Code.

There was no widely used app for doing calculations on a property investment. Most people used spreadsheets which didn't store information well and is terrible on mobile.

Glide is a phenomenal MVP builder… it's simple no-code drag and drop builder makes shipping an idea lighting fast.

Then the first step was to show it to the first few users. Based on their feedback we improved it and started adding more features like helpful resources, an explore page and sharing deals.

We also added AI (with OpenAI) to analyse the expenses, cashflow & yield of a property flip.

I reached out to a prominent influencer who coaches people on how to flip property and asked if he'd like to collaborate…

The reason I approached Tama (co-founder) was because he had a significant audience—over 18k followers on Instagram.

I knew distribution was as important as product so I wanted someone who would give us a negative CAC (customer acquisition cost).