666: $300/hr as a Content Creator w/ No Audience Required

25:50So that's what I tell people, you know, if you if you are totally drawing a blank on what to do, feed in some information using AI and kind of utilize that tool that we have now to kind of get get those ideas flowing, because those that can be a really, really great resource, especially for people who are just starting out and who are super intimidated by the whole process. Yeah. I mean, if you're the person who's super intimidated, maybe not the side hustle for you, but we got lots of other options for you. But if you're like, I like making videos. I like watching videos. I like brand, you know, I'm a consumer.

26:19I could go to town with this. So you get the first deal and you make this effort to go, well, I made you, I made you a couple extra. Would you like to buy those too? And they say, yes. What happens next? Like you're like, okay, I got, I got a bite. I'm 10 days into this. I got a, I got a deal. There's obviously something to this and talk about this scaling up and doing it as on the side from the day job? Yeah. So I was elated when I got that deal and I was on cloud nine, which I think most UGC creators can feel that way, whether it's a hundred bucks, whether it's 800 bucks. It's just a really good feeling because that kind of instilled this confidence in me that, okay, I reached out to this brand, even though I sent a ton of emails, one said yes to me, they paid me, they liked what I did.

27:02It kind of was like, okay, I can do this again and again and again. So that's what I did. I just continued doing that. I continued studying other content. Every time I saw an ad for a product that was probably a UGC creator, I was studying those ads, seeing what I liked, what drew me in, what made me possibly even buy a product. And that helped a lot in knowing what kind of content brands wanted and needed for their own purposes. So it was just a continual process. Reaching out to brands, I started landing more UGC deals and other different industries, you know, working with agencies, I got better at communicating with companies, I would raise my rates every now and then when I was feeling a little confident.

27:44So it kind of just snowballed. And it was great. You know, I was obviously working a full time job. And I got a new job a few months into my UGC journey. And it was a more demanding job. And so I had to find pockets of time to do UGC. Does that ever come up where a coworker or a boss was like, hey, I saw you on my feed for some random company. Like, does that ever happen? I'm sure it has happened to other people. I haven't had that happen where while I was working a full time job, I had anybody like say, what the heck are you doing besides random people? Like I, the first video I did for that app company, I remember I got like two different people that I went to college with like a decade ago that I haven't spoken to in years, DM me on Instagram and be like, Hey, just saw your ad for that app.

28:34I don't, I don't really know what you're doing. Are you an influencer now? And as I had explained, it was kind of, it's kind of funny. And that's kind of what happens when people, when you start doing UGC and start landing deals is you're going to have like random people reach out and be like, what the heck are you doing? so um yeah i mean it was you know i i didn't and that that is a thing that people do because some people don't want their co-workers to know what they're doing right they kind of want to be anonymous i mean it kind of depends on the person but you can also do faceless ugc i have done a lot of ugc where i literally don't show my face so home products like brands or nail care companies where you literally only just show your hands.

29:14That is an option for people, which I think is important to know because a lot of people do want to remain anonymous online, especially if they're working a job where they don't feel comfortable. So yeah, faceless UGC is for sure an option too. Okay, we had, I mean, that's similar. Like all my, or most of my Amazon influencer videos are just me pointing the camera at the thing and talking about it. And maybe you see my hands. It's like, it's not necessarily face on camera, but I mean, it could be, but it doesn't have to be. and then we had another this guy has been in the side hustle nation community forever his side hustle was maybe similar or like or at least at least related maybe a cousin of this where he was like uh on fiverr i will be your video spokesperson he kind of had like a you know corporate looking i'll put on the suit and tie and i'll you know talk about your thing and that was kind of the the interesting part is like well it's got to be a brand that i'm comfortable representing because it's going to be my name and my face you know pitching this thing and it's it's similar here.

30:11It's like, you're kind of in control. You're doing the manual outreach, in this case, to say, this is a brand I already like or could see myself partnering with versus some random inbound where it's like, do I really want to be shilling this thing? Yeah, exactly. Yeah. And that's the great thing about UGC is like, obviously, you are a freelancer, you're a contractor. So it is up to you who you work with. And the longer you do it, the more pickier you can be, obviously. The thing about Fiverr is, yes, that's exactly UGC. So many UGC creators are on Fiverr landing UGC deals. And the great thing about that, which you probably now after talking to that person is they come to you, right?

30:51So you're not doing all this outreach and spending all this like time and energy, you know, sending emails, sending DMs. It's great, even though it's not like a really quick thing on Fiverr. It usually takes a little while. But that is one of the benefits of going on freelance platforms like Fiverr as a UGC creator, because then brands are actively looking. They can find your gig and hire you. And it's super interesting because it's not going on your feeds. It's like, you know, my friends might see it if it happens upon the algorithm, sprinkles it down into them. But it's like it's not, you know, something necessarily posting.

31:26I don't need to have a ton of followers to even get these gigs because it's It's for freelance content creation. It's going on somebody else's feed, going on somebody else's site. Do you have a sense of the take rate for this cold outreach? I know I'm going to have to send 10 pitches before I get a yes. I know I'm going to have to send 50 pitches before I get a yes. What kind of numbers game should people expect? Oh, gosh. I think I probably sent like 30-ish emails before one said yes to me. Possibly a little bit more, between 30 to 50. And, you know, I've had people that I've taught that, you know, they send out their first Instagram DM and it just, oh my gosh, it's like amazing timing and it works.

32:07And they are landing their first UGC deal like day two into their journey, which happens more often than you think. But yeah, you know, it's going to be a game. That's why I always tell people, you know, do cold outreach for sure. I'm a big proponent of that. But also don't put all your eggs in one basket, especially people who are busy, right? Like there's a lot of, you know, full-time working professionals that are doing UGC on the side. They don't have two extra hours to just send emails or, you know, they're stay-at-home moms who are just like chasing kids around that just can't do that. So going on these platforms like Brands Meet Creators, for example, is just a really good start just because you're already able to see who's looking for UGC creators actively and connect with them with like almost a click of a button.

32:54That's helpful to hear. The name of the game in any sales relationship. It's going to take a lot of no's before you get to a yes, or a lot of not even getting any responses. In my case, I had to knock on a lot of doors before I ever sold a paint job. Exactly. There's some filtering that has to happen. More with Megan in just a moment, including when she felt comfortable calling it quits at the day job to take her UGC side hustle full-time, negotiation, best practices, and the surprising age group that's most in demand for brands. Are you still overpaying for wireless? It's time to say yes to saying no.

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35:23Just go to Indeed.com slash Side Hustle Show right now and support our show by saying you heard about Indeed on this podcast. Indeed.com slash Side Hustle Show. Terms and conditions apply. Hiring, Indeed, is all you need. at what point do you feel comfortable saying i i could do this full-time like was there a specific revenue target you were trying to hit like what's what's going through your head to be like and maybe there's some recurring contracts as part of this but it's kind of like every month i got to book another five to ten deals so i could pay the bills yeah for sure it was a slower process i would say and i think that when i started landing more ugc deals it was kind of like oh my my gosh, could I actually do this full-time?

36:06Like, is this tangible? And you know what? The real turning point in my UGC business was getting monthly retainer clients. I mean, that changed everything for me. So I was obviously, you know, working full-time. Our son was like probably one and a half, two at this point. And I was super afraid of taking on monthly retainer clients, even though I had a couple opportunities come my way. I just thought it was going to be way too much work on top of a full-time job. And then I had a company offer me like$3 ,000 to do some Instagram reels for them every month. And I thought,$3 ,000 extra every month sounds pretty good.

36:44So I'm just going to make it work. So I said yes to them. And they were like almost a year-long contract. And so every month I was making three grand and it got easier and easier. That's the great thing about monthly retainer clients. You're not having to relearn about a new brand every single month. And so it did get easier. I was able to batch content in between working or mornings or whenever. And I already worked from home, which was obviously a bonus because I could do some things in between work. And so that really kind of made this switch like, okay, so I'm like making three grand from this, a couple extra grand from random UGC deals that would come in.

37:25And then I I got my next like bigger monthly retainer client that was paying me$4 ,000 a month. And with that client, I was also offering some social media management, which a lot of UGC creators do. And so that's an option for people if they want to, you don't have to do that. But I was like, okay, that's kind of what they're looking for. I'm willing to do it. And so I took on another pretty big contract. And so I had this consistent money coming in and eventually about about a year into it, a year into my whole UGC journey. And I had these two clients, plus I was doing other UGC deals, plus I was working full-time.

38:06I kind of, I was like, whoa, this is a lot. I'm basically working two full-time jobs. Yeah. Basically two full-time jobs. Yeah, exactly. So I kind of had to let one thing go and I knew I was going to keep these clients. And then that second client was now paying me$5 ,500 a month because I was doing a little more stuff for them. So it was good chunks of money coming in that I could not 100 % rely on, but basically rely on every month. So I was able to quit my job, you know, when I was making consistent, reliable$10 ,000 to$13 ,000 months with UGC deals. And it would almost be impossible to continue working full time and doing that much UGC.

38:48So something had to be gone and that was my full time job. But that's incredible to build it to the point, you know, 120 plus grand a year, 10 grand a month plus on the side and then say, well, it's not sustainable to keep doing it on the side. So something's got to give. So the first one, three grand a month, make us some Instagram reels. Like, can you give a sense of like the volume of work that was? So the great thing about that contract is I had total creative freedom, which helps with the whole process. Like it would probably be a whole different beast if I had to make the videos, send the videos to the company, they approve them and go back and forth.

39:29So that was a really good thing where I had creative freedom. They sent me all the products. It was like luxury home products, like, you know,$300 candles,$200 blankets, that kind of stuff. So I didn't have to show my face in any of it, which was nice. So it was all just product focused. and the thing about Instagram reels is they're not as involved as like say the supplement company that hired me you know I have to create a script I have to show several different shots of the product it's not as involved it's it's a little more quick it's a little more like hey I could make my bed and show the blanket on my bed and that's an Instagram reel and I'm done for the day for that one so it was like between 15 to 20 videos per month but I could batch most of them like on the weekends or maybe over the span of a couple weekends.

40:17Do you run out of like ideas, like different ways to show a blanket? It's like... I thought I would. And what helps with that is obviously just stalking what other companies are doing, right? Getting inspired, like what's working for people? Like what do people actually respond to on Instagram when it comes to home products? There's so, I mean, that's the great thing about being in the content creation field is not obviously stealing people's ideas, but having so much content that you're literally just exposed to every day that can really get those creative juices flowing. And yeah, and some some reels flopped like they didn't like you got a couple hundred views.

40:52Some like went viral and sold a bunch of their products organically, which made the brand really happy. But you know, that's that's just part of the game. They need to be posting Instagram reels. And if I'm the one that can fulfill that need, they're going to pay me money for it. Is that kind of where the ROI is for the brands where it's like, you know, the video that gets a couple hundred views, is it going to do anything? Maybe it sells a couple, who knows? But it's almost like we're going to sprinkle our budget around in the hopes that one or two of these take off, pay for all of the losses, and then hopefully still make us a profit from our social feed.

41:24I think that it's, I don't think it's a question. So the way I look at it and what it likely is, is that brands really have no choice. So like when I create, you know, I had another client paying me$1 ,500 a month for five Instagram reels that were like 10 seconds long. I don't think really those videos that I made for them were bringing in a bunch of sales, right? But they have no other option. If they're a clothing brand, which they were, and they're competing against all these other clothing brands, they have no option than to be consistent on social media and build a following, build an engaged community of people that's interested in following them, right?

42:06So for them, I think that it's the overall picture with every brand is like, okay, we have to post organically on social media, but we're also going to hire people that can create content that's going to sell directly our products via ads. So I think it's a mix. I think it's totally a mix of like, brands need both organic and they need paid media. That's interesting. It's like, it's a cost to play in the game at this point. And to be on the receiving end of that, that's good for the creators. You've mentioned a lot of different tools and apps, which I think is awesome. We'll link those up. Loom, Canva, Incense, Billow, like some of these are totally new to me.

42:46We'll dig those up, link those up in the show notes. Anything else on the tools tech side that you're using to help run your business? So I'll kind of go through the process of exactly what I use and what I think bare minimum should be for every UGC creator. So I use my iPhone to film. That's another great thing about UGC. You don't need a fancy DSLR camera. You're not a massive production studio, right? That's kind of the point. So you can use your phone to film if it's a decent camera. And then I use CapCut to edit. And that's what most people use, I think. There's a couple different editing apps out there, but CapCut seems to be the most straightforward.

43:25And I pay for CapCut Pro, but you do not have to. And then yeah, Canva for your portfolio. You know, if you want to create a new Gmail account to stay very organized, which is very easy to get very disorganized when it comes to UGC because you're going to be reaching out to so many brands, you know, create a new Gmail account. It doesn't have to be a business account where it's at url.com. It can just be a Gmail account if that's all you can do right now. And then in terms of like payment, that's another question that gets brought up a lot. Like how am I going to get paid? You will, it's across the board.

44:02So I've had brands pay me via PayPal. So setting up a PayPal account, if you don't have one already, would be a good option or good, probably just a good idea. And then I've also had brands pay through Stripe or bill.com is a kind of a popular one for brands to use third-party payment software. Also direct deposit. At one point I was on a company's payroll so it kind of just depends on the brand but it's it's typically not something that's the payment part tends to be a big question but I don't think it's something that you actually have to figure out before you start because the brand's going to tell you exactly what their preferred payment method is but yeah that those are kind of the main things and then in terms of like filming what you need like gadgets tools and everything really basic in my opinion is going to be a tripod.

44:52I got a$25 tripod off of Amazon. I got a selfie light, which is like$12,$15. You're going to want to use as much natural light as possible for every video you do, but I started my UGC journey in a very, very dark dated apartment, and it was just not super pretty. The lighting was horrible, so I really utilized artificial light, which selfie light, whatever, ring light, whatever you want. And I actually don't even use a microphone for my UGC videos because my iPhone does a pretty good job. So depending on if your audio is terrible or not, get a microphone off of Amazon or just see how it goes. Yeah, I can picture like, you know, some people holding up like a little baby lab mic or something like that.

45:38Yeah. So that's helpful. Like low tech, don't stress about the payment. Exactly. That's a good problem to have. You'll figure that out if somebody is like, how do I give you money? Like, I could solve that. Anything you would do differently if you had to start over to either accelerate the journey or land bigger deals faster or anything that comes to mind there? Yeah, I think I would not be so afraid of taking on monthly retainer clients. And I wish somebody had kind of told me that or I kind of had figured that out sooner, just because it really it just makes such a big difference. So yeah, number one, like focus on building relationships with brands and being a good person to work with.

46:16Like, don't be difficult to work with. Be responsive, be polite, just be a good person to work with, and brands will want to continue working with you. And then that will lead probably to monthly retainer clients, which can significantly increase your income as a UGC creator. So for sure the monthly retainer clients. And I think just not being afraid to reach out to bigger brands as well. Like brands of all sizes need content and it's not always going to be, you know, it's always going to be a yes. But that's something that I realized in the beginning just from different side hustles I've done in the past.

46:54Like it's going to be a little slow, but eventually you'll get yeses and increase your confidence. Is there pricing tiers? Like if I'm racing out to Aloe, like on your hat or Nike, and I come back with$200 and they're like, that's a red flag. That's too cheap. We're used to paying billions of dollars to LeBron James or somebody. You know, what is this? Is there anything like that when you mentioned going after bigger brands? I don't think that brands are super turned off by that. It's best if the brand can kind of give you a budget or even like a range. So I've had brands reach out to me and UGC creators will tell you different things.

47:33Like, don't do this, do this. Like, it's a mix. But my opinion is if you can get the brand to tell you what their budget is before you ever state any number. Yeah, don't be the first to throw out a number. Yeah, yeah. You're putting the ball in their court. So it's kind of best. So I've had brands reach out to me and I'm like, so what is your budget for three videos? Can you give me a range of what your budget is? And sometimes, you know, it'll be like$100 per video. And I'm like, okay, great. So I know I'm not going to continue this conversation. right? Come back to me if you do have an increased budget in the future.

48:08But then other times it's more than what I would have just thrown out, right? So you can make more money that way. And this is a little tip too, that this is related, but on your portfolio, like on my portfolio, anytime I tell people like, Hey, create a portfolio, I don't ever tell them to put their rates in their portfolio just because you are going to miss out on that. Like if a brand is searching for a UGC creator and they've got a thousand dollar for two UGC videos budget in your portfolio states that you only charge 250 for one for one video and they're going to save money you're going to lose money so you don't have to put your rates on your portfolio you can create a rate card if that makes you feel better and you're able to send that because every now and then brands do ask for rate cards you know you can do that but at the end of the day you know it's really just about communicating with the brand.

49:00Like, is it going to work? Is it going to make sense for you? Are you going to feel good about spending an hour or two creating a video for a hundred dollars? Maybe you do, maybe you won't feel good about that, but knowing what you feel good about and like what's worth your personal time right now, based on your financial situation and your goals, it's so important to know that. Otherwise, you know, I've seen UGC creator after a UGC creator, start UGC and only be okay and feel worthy of getting these 50 or a hundred dollar UGC deals where they just start spending so much time barely making any money and they end up quitting because it gets frustrating.

49:42But knowing what your worth is and like focusing your energy and efforts on brands that are willing to pay you, at least your bare minimum rate is going to be a game changer. Yeah. Okay. I was just, I was just helpful because it's like, you know, yeah, you can go out and buy, you know, web design, like we talked about Fiverr for next to nothing, or you could, you know, hire some professional design agency millions of dollars if you're Nike or somebody with the budget for that, where it's like, there's, in some case, prices could be a signal of the potential quality or reach it's going to have, who knows.

50:13But that was just something that popped into my head. I was going to ask, any big surprises from your own journey or from your students or what's, you know, what's going out there in the UGC universe these days? Yeah. I mean, the biggest thing that comes to my mind is I have, I've actually helped and taught, most of my students happen to be Gen Xers and baby boomers. So the way that got started was about a little over a year ago. I was on a brand call where I sent a video pitch to a brand that I really wanted to work with. They loved it. And they had me hop on a Zoom call with like four of their marketing team.

50:51So I was on a call with them trying to convince them to hire me as a UGC creator. It was going pretty well. And I had mentioned that my mom, who is 63, I mentioned that she is actually like, she told me about their products. It was a footwear company. And so I was like, yeah, my mom loves you guys, like loyal customer as am I. And so they were like, their ears kind of perked up and they were like, oh my gosh, that would be amazing if your mom could be in one of the three UGC videos that you could do for us. They're like, time out, time out. We don't watch you, but we watch your mom. I know. And so I was like, of course, my mom's going to be down for it.

51:29She loves me. She's going to support me. She's going to be down to do this. And so they said, that's perfect because your mom, as a baby boomer, like a 60-something year old, I can't remember exactly what they said. They said that she is more part of our target demographic. Like we sell most of our shoes to people more toward her age, even opposed to like me as a, you know, 33 year old at the time. So I was like, okay, like fantastic. That's great. I heard that. I didn't really think much of it besides just kind of coordinating with my mom. We did the video together and it was great, super fun.

52:00And then I realized that if they were looking for older creators, there's probably a ton of brands that are looking for older creators. And I never like rarely ever saw anybody over the age of 50, like nobody in their 60s doing UGC. And so I started posting about it, telling people like, hey, if you're a Gen Xer, if you're a boomer, I bet you anything there are brands looking for you and you could get paid to create content for them. And it kind of took off, it blew up. And so there was, I've had dozens of brands reach out to me personally and be like, hey, thank you so much for posting this because we've been looking for people that are Gen Xer or baby boomers to be like in our in our videos to to do UGC for us.

52:46And we just can't find that many of them. Well, there was some data that was like this was probably a couple of years old, but like that's the fastest growing demographic on TikTok is like these older generations. It's like we need people to come and speak to them. A hundred percent. So is that the next now we can stack side hustles like so are you going to build the Gen X boomer UGC creator agency? Now you can play matchmaker and start leveling up here? I could. I've been asked that several times. I'm not about the agency life, I don't think, but it has truly been... It's just been so amazing.

53:20It's been so incredible to see so many people who are in those two generations, the Gen Xers, the Boomers, find out about UGC because they blab about it all day on TikTok. and they're like, what in the world? They literally had no idea. And they start UGC and they're like, oh my gosh, I'm actually like getting UGC deals. Brands want to work with me. They're sending me free products. I'm making money with this. Whereas like a few months ago, they had no clue this was even a thing. And it's just been really, really cool to see. That's super fun. So you got Megan at callyourugc.com. She is at Megan underscore UGC on Instagram, TikTok and stan.store.

54:02You find some of the portfolio links and other content creation over there geared towards the people trying to do what she's doing and build up your own UGC side hustle. What's next for you? What's on the horizon for this year? My goal is to do more UGC deals with my mom. We've done three so far, and she's doing her own UGC deals, which has been really fun. And yeah, my goal is just to continue creating good content for companies that they keep coming back for more and just keep spreading the word about UGC to all people of all backgrounds, all ages to just, you know, get started and just dive into it because you never know what could happen.

54:42Very good. What a fun, creative side hustle. We'll link up all of the resources mentioned in the show notes for this episode. This was like when Megan, when you reached out, I was like, obviously, this has been on my radar for a couple years, but never really had connected with somebody making a serious run at it. And it's super interesting, especially from the standpoint of I don't need to be a super influencer. I don't need to have a built-in following here. So it checks that box of something fun, creative, if you like filming, if you are a consumer of goods anyways, as I bet you are. And, you know, here's maybe you can learn some new video editing tips and tricks along the way.

55:20I like the call to build recurring contracts, build long-term relationships, makes life easier for the brand. They don't have to hire somebody new every month. You don't have to learn a new brand, a new brand language every month. Plus it adds some stability, kind of like baseline revenue. You're still free to go out and pitch other deals, but like at least you're stable. And maybe that's you get to the goal of like, I could pay my rent. I could pay my mortgage with like this recurring contract. Like my day job is called the gravy time. Like, you know, I don't need it anymore. It's just like it's bonus, especially with those recurring contracts, but otherwise too, like the workflow, the process improvements as you just get a few more reps under your belt, the hourly rate really starts to improve.

56:00So super inspiring episode. If you're new to the show, welcome. We've got hundreds of actionable episodes in the archives to help you make more money. If UGC isn't your thing, we'd love to have you binge on any of those. It's kind of a choose your own adventure type of deal. if you're not sure where to start i want to invite you to build your own personalized side hustle show playlist uh how it works is you go to hustle.show you answer a few short multiple choice questions takes probably 60 seconds you do it on your phone questions are about your side hustle interests your side hustle goals and it'll recommend you eight to ten uh side hustle show episodes to start with as a potential jumping off point what to listen to next that's at hustle.show big thanks to Megan for sharing her insight big thanks to our sponsors for helping make this content free for everyone you can hit up side hustle nation.com slash deals for all the latest offers from our advertisers in one place thank you for supporting the sponsors that support the show that's it for me thank you so much for tuning in if you're finding value in the show the greatest compliment is to share it with a friend so fire off that text message maybe you know that gen x or boomer person in your life who could make a little extra money with UGC and and help spread the word that way.

57:10But until next time, let's go out there and make something happen. And I'll catch you in the next edition of the Side Hustle Show. Hustle on.