0 (2s):
Boom, shake the room, Fire Nation JLD here and welcome to Entrepreneurs On Fire brought to you by the HubSpot Podcast Network with great shows like the shakeup today, we'll be focusing on how to avoid making a gigantic mistake when buying or selling sponsorships to drop these volleyballs. I brought David Tintner into EOFire studios. David is a co-founder and CEO of thought leaders, the sponsorship intelligent platform. And today for our nation, we'll be talking about how we can use data to sell our podcast. Sponsorships. What are brands actually looking for when they buy sponsorships? And what is their definition of success? We'll talk about the trends in the creator economy, why sponsorships are what we should all be rooting for.

0 (45s):
And so much more. When we get back from thinking our sponsors, are you looking for a proven business coach who has helped thousands of entrepreneurs, just like you to increase their profitability by an average of 104% per year, all for less money than it would cost to hire a full-time minimum wage employee schedule your free consultation today with Clay Clark, a former small business administration entrepreneur of the year@thrivetimeshow.com slash fire. David say what's up to Fire Nation and share something that you believe about becoming successful. That most people disagree.

1 (1m 21s):
Hello, Fire Nation. Thanks for having me and something I believe about being successful. That definitely a lot of people may be misconceived or disagree with. Is that it's all about surviving. I used to think that you've got to have a brilliant idea and just execute it quickly right off the bat, but what I've seen over the past 10 years or so in my career is that sometimes it's just about surviving getting to the next level. If you will, if this is like a kind of a video game of career path and entrepreneurship and survive, get to the next level and you know, fight to see another day.

1 (2m 5s):
And then if you keep doing that and keep pushing on good things do happen. You know, I

0 (2m 10s):
Saw that in my career as well. I mean, it was three or four years of just pushing, pushing, keeping my head barely above water. And then it's like, oh, I can touch the ground now. Oh, I can walk out. And now I can stand on shore, look back and watch the sunset. So Fire Nation stick with it because it will be worth it. And as I mentioned in the intro, David is the co-founder and CEO of thought leaders, which is a sponsorship intelligence platform. We worked with them in the past and I really do admire and think highly of his overall sponsorship intelligence. So let's talk about that. David, let's talk about sponsorship intelligence. How can we as creators use data to sell our podcast sponsorships?

1 (2m 56s):
Well, I think something that's really important is to understand what's your customer as a creator customers, your brand, or the sponsor is really looking for. And then when you're going to go pitch them, you need to use data to show them why you are the right fit for them. So for example, if you can see that a product or a brand that you really like, and you wish was sponsoring your show, or your contents was sponsoring a, an another podcast, and you could see that they're repeating their and use data to see that they're repeating and they're coming back, that's a sign of success. So then you can say how your similar to that podcast that they actually had success with.

1 (3m 37s):
And that can be an indication to them that they would likely have sex success with you. Whereas if you imagine you go the opposite route, you pitch them and you say, oh, look, I saw that. I heard you once on that podcast I listened to and they never came back. You didn't use data to see that they're actually renewing their, and they're repeating those that could actually be, have the almost opposite effect for you. They can say, oh crap. He's his podcast is similar to that one. That didn't work for us. So, you know, it's not gonna work for us either.

0 (4m 3s):
And this is really key, especially for someone like me, who for nine years now have been having sponsors on my podcast. And one of the biggest things that I like to tell my sponsors when we're kind of finalizing the deal is like, listen, this is only going to be a win for me if it's a win for you. So my number one focus is your ROI. I want this investment you're making to be high. I want you to have a great return on investment because I want this to be a fruitful relationship. We're hopefully we're going to be having a longterm relationship on this. And like I just signed a two year deal with HubSpot. There was in the seven figure range, and then I've done multiple year annual deals with companies like ZipRecruiter, Thinkific, Klaviyo.

0 (4m 43s):
And like that just makes it so much better of a business when you have these longterm deals and aren't just scrabbling week to week, month to month for that next sponsor. So let's get down to the nitty-gritty. What are brands really looking for when they purchase sponsorships?

1 (5m 1s):
Well, I think you're actually an excellent example of what brands are looking for and that that's something that feels natural, where the audience actually cares about that product. And you've managed to endorse that brand or that product to your audience and show them how you're using it yourself or why it's such a great product and they should get behind it. If it doesn't feel natural, if it doesn't feel like the creator is genuinely behind the brand, it's going to be a disaster. And it's really difficult to fake it. I do

0 (5m 30s):
Love that Warren buffet quote, that it takes 20 years to build trust in five minutes to destroy it. So Fire Nation, when you're running your business, you want to make sure that, you know, you like, and you trust the product, the service, whatever the company is behind those that you are promoting to your audience because your audience gets a bad taste in their mouth. Like literally if it's a food product or if it's like a software or a service, they may never trust you again, no matter how much value you've given them over the years, it can sometimes just take once. So be very cognizant of that. So let's get into like the specific details of what their definition of success means.

0 (6m 14s):
Like what keeps these brands coming back for more? What are they looking for for quote unquote success?

1 (6m 21s):
Well, look, 99% of the brands that are buying sponsorships today have some sort of performance metric that they care about. They're looking for conversions, whether that's sales of their product, signups to their website, downloads of their app registrations leads that have some sort of conversion that they're looking for and they have a price that they're willing to pay for that conversion to happen. And I think that a lot of times I felt this a lot in myself as a creator as sometimes we get kind of, we, we think that our content is the most special thing in the world. There's nothing like it. And that a brand has to pay top dollar no matter what to be inside of my content.

1 (7m 1s):
And it's definitely true that, that you bring something really special to your audience and you've built up an audience that is loyal to you and trust you. But I think we also have to realize that at the end of the day, that brand is going to have some kind of ceiling of what they can pay you, which is going to be calculated down to some sort of performance metric. So the best thing a creator can do is have that conversation with the brand beforehand and, and really set expectations of what the brand is looking for. And what's, they believe they can achieve, especially as you mentioned, it, it's all about getting renewals and longterm deals, right? So as a creator, you're going to have a lot more success. If you can have these conversations beforehand with your brand sponsors and you can fit the expectations to what you can deliver, set prices accordingly, and then do long-term deals where you're consistently delivering that performance metric, the brand wants to get.

1 (7m 51s):
Now, let's

0 (7m 52s):
Talk about building a business specifically. I mean, I want to know how you were able to bootstrap an R and D heavy SAS company. And now you are speaking to me with over 30 employees and you did this by the way, by earning revenue from day one and there's companies that are out there in the world, that by the way that we all know like, and trust Fire Nation that has still not earned real revenue that have still not brought any profit. There may be doing great things in the world, but they are operating at massive losses. Like I'm picturing even like the Uber's, the, Lyft's all the meal deliveries of the world. And there's a countless examples of that. I mean, Amazon for decades, that's just the reality, but you know, not everybody wants to live in that world of perpetual debt and having to raise funds and all these different things.

0 (8m 39s):
So talk us through that.

1 (8m 41s):
So something really, really important to me when founded thought leaders was that we would deliver value to real customers from day one, that we would be a business that actually grows organically from our customers, paying us money for us, delivering them value. That's worth more than what they're paying us right now. There was always a vision and thought leaders that we would build out a sponsorship intelligence platform and actually a content intelligence platform is what we're really building and what we're getting at. And that takes a huge RD investment. We're collecting millions and millions of pieces of data on a daily basis.

1 (9m 21s):
We have a giant big data operation. We have NLP and machine learning processes that are running night and day, and that kind of stuff was not able to start up from day one. So what we needed to do was to find a way that we can actually get revenue in and get sales from not just any money, but from the type of people that for brands or clients that would be able to continue to give us feedback and help us go down the path of what we really wanted to build. So what we did was from the beginning is we operated an agency, immediate agency, where we were using our technology as we continue to develop it and piece by piece, it got better and better, but rather than from day one, sell it as a subscription or SAS to a client.

1 (10m 7s):
And then not really hold that client's hand or, or do a touch sale. We always did from day one was touch sale, where we essentially sold the service at the beginning and gave our technology away as part of that service offering. And as the technology got better and better and better, and we got the feedback from our clients that we were dealing with on a day-to-day basis from a service offering, then we were able to finally start selling it directly as a SAS. And, and without any service component at all, so

0 (10m 37s):
Far an issue you might be asking yourself like, what exactly is SAS? I mean, you know, the details are software as a service, but of course, like let's get into a little bit deeper than that. I mean, share with us what the quote unquote agency SAS business model is, and then maybe continue going forward from there and share with us, you know, why don't more companies do

1 (10m 58s):
This? Well, I think something that's really special about starting a, a company as an agency and then building out a technology product and, and selling it as a SAS later on, is that from day one, you get enterprise customers, right? The type of customers that joined our agency are the customers that we're spending the most money that would later on become the SAS customers that were spending the most money. And rather than build out a SAS product from day one, where at the beginning, when the technology is not that good, or it's not that complete, you kind of have to sell to the bottom end of the market. The people are willing to pay the least amount of money per month for it. So rather than do that, we never opened our product up to let's say like the, really the cheap end of the market.

1 (11m 43s):
We started at the high end, from the beginning, got the feedback to continue building out from the high-end to, towards the high end of the market from beginning. And as we transitioned into SAS business model, what was really cool is that the agency product that we were selling actually became kind of a consulting service that fits perfectly in line with our SAS. What I was actually pretty shocked about as I started going down this path is how many SAS companies actually do have a service component to them, whether it's an agency offering or some sort of white glove service or consulting. I didn't realize that that was such a huge element of most SAS companies, business plans, and such a huge driver of revenue.

1 (12m 29s):
So if that's where you're going to go anyway, only after your assess has built up, why not do that from day one and then get feedback from enterprise customers from the beginning instead of the low end of the market.

0 (12m 38s):
I hope you're taking this in and really realizing the different opportunities that you have out there. I mean, you can go a lot of different ways as far as bootstrapping getting capital, you know, all this different jazz, and then also everything that David just explained as well with this agency, SAS business model. And you can really kind of see, you know, what kind of business do I want to create? Which one feels right? What kind of lifestyle do I want to be living or to be talking about the future of the internet and digital content in general, we'll be talking about why David believes sponsorships specifically are so valuable and you know, really why we should be rooting for content monetization methods and so much more. When we get back from thinking our sponsors, are you ready to take control of your business's branding, but don't have a design backgrounds, great news Fire Nation brand crowd can help brands.

0 (13m 28s):
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0 (14m 14s):
That's BrandCrowd, BrandCrowd.com/fire. Looking for a business coach who has helped thousands of entrepreneurs, just like you to increase their profitability by an average of 104% per year, all for less money than it would cost to hire a full-time minimum wage employee, Fire Nation meet Clay Clark clay has been coaching businesses just like yours since 2006. Yup. Even through the great recession and he does it for less money than it would cost to hire a full-time minimum wage employee at a time when Inc magazine reports that by default 96% of businesses will fail. Within 10 years, clay is helping businesses like yours to on average, by 104% annually. How's this even possible clay only takes on 160 clients.

0 (14m 58s):
So he personally designs your business plans. Plus Clay's team helps you execute that plan with access to graphic designers, Google certified search engine, optimizers, web developers, online ad managers, videographers workflow, mappers and accounting coaches visit thrive time show.com/fire, to see thousands of video testimonials from real people, just like you, who clay has helped over the years. That's right. Do your research and view thousands, not hundreds of proven, documented and archived video testimonials from real people, just like you at thrive time, show.com/fire, then schedule your free consultation with clay himself to see how he and his team can help you thrive. So David we're back. And like I mentioned before, the break, I want to talk about the future of the internet and digital content in general.

0 (15m 42s):
So what are some of the major trends that you specifically are seeing in the creator economy?

1 (15m 48s):
Well, there's one trend that's coming in really hot right now. And I'm actually, I'm really curious to hear your thoughts on that, but that's, that's live streaming audio and clubhouse. I don't know if you, if you caught it, but Facebook is launching something. Spotify just bought a company and actually launched that as well. I mean, this is coming in as hot as any trend I've ever seen before. What do you think about that? Let me talk

0 (16m 15s):
About that for a second, because I will say I came in really hot. It came in smoke and huts specifically a clubhouse. And I know a lot of people in my audience have gone on the app and checked it out and all that jazz. And it really does seem like it's lost a little bit of a steam here. And, you know, I was always the person saying, Hey, whatever is great for audio is great for audio. Whatever is great for, you know, clubhouse is great for podcasting. So I was always in support of it. I was on the app a lot. I think it was literally on fire for a while. I think it was cooled off a little bit, you know, it was probably just kind of lost that initial early buzz. And like, I think it still has the real core people that are getting on there and using it and stuff like that. But you mentioned there's been a lot of competitors that have come up because they've seen what's happening.

0 (16m 58s):
You know, that's one reason why HubSpot launched the, their HubSpot podcast network, where they asked six business podcasts to join because they see what's happening in the audio space. And, you know, I was one of those six podcasts, you know, the signed a two year seven figure deal with them. And that was fantastic. I'm actually having a call with mark Cuban and then the other co-founder of fireside next week, which will have already happened by the way, by the time you're hearing this Fire Nation. So that'll be cool. It'll be able to give you some more details there. And then I'm actually meeting up with them at podcast movement where mark Cuban and the co-founder, I'm just kind of forgetting her name right now are giving a presentation like mark Cuban and the other, and his co-founder of fireside are giving a presentation from the keynote stage at podcast movement, which is happening in August, which is super cool.

0 (17m 45s):
Cause Kate's actually also a keynote at that conference, which will be fun. You're going to go right David to podcast moment.

1 (17m 51s):
I think so. That's, that's definitely on our list.

2 (17m 54s):
I would be shocked if

0 (17m 56s):
The CEO of thought leaders was not a podcast movement. I'm just putting it out there in the world challenge accepted.

2 (18m 3s):
It's just a no brainer man, no

0 (18m 5s):
Brainer. But so, I mean, I'm kind of just kind of building a little story around live audio. I love it. I think that interaction's amazing whenever you feel like you're sharing a space time continuum with somebody, it just feels different. Like being live in, in like, you know, conversing with like myself or like a mark Cuban or somebody else just feels different than like listening to a podcast that may have been recorded a month or two months prior or in some cases years ago. I still think there's massive value. Of course, in that content you're listening to. I mean, I listen to audio books and podcasts every single day because I love them, but there is a special component to live. And so I think I came in on fire, had the early buzz.

0 (18m 46s):
I think it was cooled off a little bit. I think things are kind of, kind of shake out a little bit. And then I'll be curious to see like where we're at in a year on that, like, are people actually going to be, you know, spending their time consuming that live content enough to make it worthwhile for the creators. So that'd be really interesting to see where that goes, but I'll hand the mic back to you now, David,

1 (19m 4s):
You made a lot of really good points about it and I'm super excited to see what you do down that path. And also how you mesh that with your recorded content. I think one of the major challenges that creators have, and that audience has, is figuring out what exactly fits for live and what exactly fits for, for recorded and planned and thought out content because at the end of the day, it was definitely the other cool thing about being live and being able to talk with people that maybe you didn't have access to before. But if I'm, if I'm, you know, just, I dunno on my way to work or something, and I want to consume some content, I actually prefer to hear an episode of yours where you've thought it out, you researched beforehand, you know, your guest has been thinking about it and you come almost as kind of like this audio guide for me that I can pull lessons from immediately instead of just a loose conversation that people are kind of, you know, shooting and, and it's a bit tougher to pull away actionable insights from.

1 (20m 3s):
So I'm really interested to see what happens there at thought leaders. We're watching this really closely, especially as we go down the content intelligence path, we are constantly adding new sources of content to our platform that we are analyzing and clubhouse is, is right at the top of our Trello board for like next source to add really

0 (20m 22s):
Interesting things. Like I said, I think it's worthwhile checking out fireside. I think that they're going to be doing some really cool things. That's clubhouse didn't maybe get right the first time, because of course, you know, when you're the pioneer you're gonna, you're gonna miss some things. And, and you know, sometimes it's the pioneers that get the arrows in their back. And it's the people that kind of come afterwards that are successful. Sometimes it is those first movers that always have the advantage. So let's talk about why you believe sponsorships are so valuable. Talk to us about that.

1 (20m 50s):
Sponsorships are the best way to monetize high quality content. And that's what we're all about to thought leaders is encouraging the people who are creating high quality long form content to give them the power, to continue doing that. As you know, and as all the other creators who are producing podcasts, YouTube channels, no it's not cheap. It's not easy to produce a really good content. And I think sponsorships are the best way to reward those people that are doing it. Because when you build up a loyal audience that really cares about what you have to say and listens to your opinion, then you can also use that to push a brand or product or an offering forward and actually have it be successful in that sponsorship much more so than performance advertising, where the creator is not actually getting behind the product or brands.

1 (21m 42s):
It's kind of something that stands in the way, right? If I go on YouTube and there's like this annoying ad, that isn't really what I care about and I have to wait five seconds and I can't skip it. That's, that's really different than if I'm listening to a podcast or YouTube video where the creator that I come back to every week for their latest content tells me, this is why you should buy this product. This is how I use it myself. And I've been a client of theirs for the past five years. It's really different. It is

0 (22m 13s):
Different Fire Nation. And again, think you need to think about both sides of the equation when you're going forward to saying, what type of business am I looking to build? What type of lifestyle do I want around that? So that's why I want to ask you, why do you believe that sponsorships are the content monetization method that we should all actually be rooting

1 (22m 34s):
For two main reasons. One, they give creators a chance to actually show off the products and stuff and services that care about rather than let's say like performance advertising or display advertising, where it's all based around following the, the internet user around and checking what sites they've been on. And the context of what they're currently viewing is not really taken into account. It's all about like, oh, I checked out some shoes yesterday. So today when I'm at work and I'm going through my, my Salesforce, you know, I, I'm gonna listen to a podcast in the background. If there's, if there's a display out a performance advertising, it's like for those shoes again, but actually I'm at work.

1 (23m 16s):
The context matters. I, you know, give me an ad for a Salesforce plugin cause I'm in the middle of Salesforce or I'm thinking about work. And I think that's what sponsorships can really push forward. They are about the context that you're currently in and the stuff that you've consciously chose to consume that content you consciously chose to consume right now is what you're going to be advertised. Second thing is that there's another method of monetization that could work really well and does have a place which is, is subscriptions, but, and nothing against subscriptions. I do think there is a place for it, but I think we should all be rooting for the people who are creating awesome content, educational content, high quality content, to keep that open and to give everyone access to it rather than closing themselves off with paywall paywalls.

1 (24m 7s):
And I'm only allowing the people who can afford it in. Cause I don't think that's really a terribly great future for us. If the best content is hidden behind paywalls and only people with, with more money and who can pay for it are the ones who get to consume the best stuff. Yeah.

0 (24m 25s):
I think there's two ways to look at it. I mean the one way to look at it is, you know, of course we pay for Netflix, but it's a very low dollar amount, but that allows them to create billion dollar epic entertainment for us in another companies as well. But at the same time, you know, I, I really agree with you. Like we love the fact that we can keep entrepreneurs on fire free because of the sponsorship and the revenue that comes in through that. Like when people come to me and say, John, like, I love your podcast, but man, like, yeah, you know, you have two sponsors per show. Those, those sometimes get a little annoying and I'm like, okay, listen, I love you for listening to my podcast, but do you really, really think that I could do this show without making money somehow some way shape some shape, some form like an, the majority of the revenue that I make is through these sponsorships.

0 (25m 15s):
So like if you're able and willing to sit through, you know, literally like the two to three minutes of total sponsorship time that I have over a 30 minute show, like you do realize that that's why you're getting this podcast for free. So just like David mentioned, there's definitely problems with subscriptions and paywalls and just overall programmatic advertising because, you know, we want, we want to keep this content free. Like we want there to be libraries in the world where you can go and read the books you want and get the information you want. And like when you do a Google search, it shouldn't cost like 25 cents per time. You do it because we want people to have as much information as possible because information is power. So I agree with all of that. And David, why don't we sum it up here?

0 (25m 55s):
Like, what's the one key takeaway you want to make sure Fire Nation guests from everything that we talked about here today, anything you want to add that maybe didn't get you throughout our chats and then, you know, give us any call to action that you have for us to connect with you and your company and to learn more about you, whatever you want to use there. And then we'll say goodbye.

1 (26m 12s):
Well, I was thinking more as we've been talking, I've been, I was thinking more about your original questions, me about what I think it takes to succeed. And my, and my answer to you, something I wanted to add on to that is, is something that I thought a lot about. I think that this was in one of Jeff Bezos's investor letters. Don't quote me on that. But I think that's where I heard that. And he said something along the lines of like disagree, but commit. And I think this really ties into being successful as an entrepreneur. And especially as a leader in a company, I find myself a lot of times trying not to, to understand the importance of a decision and then not make every decision in the most important thing in the entire world, understand the importance level of it and just keep pushing forward.

1 (27m 2s):
So you asked what it takes to be successful. I think you need to, to survive, to get to the next level. But a lot of times it's just about making decisions moving forward. And almost any decision is going to be better than making no decision. I see a lot of my friends or, or other startups or companies that are, that I've helped before. Sometimes just having decision paralysis and getting kind of stuck and they're afraid to, should I go left? Should I go? Right? And I'm looking at it. I'm like, you know what? Both of those could be okay. Maybe one is marginally better than the other. But the worst thing you've done is not choose either one of them.

1 (27m 42s):
If you go left and it doesn't work out for you, cool, then you'll go right. If you go right, it doesn't work out cool. Then you'll find another way, but I keep moving forward and make those decisions at a fast pace. That's what the one caveat that assuming they're not a game over decision is something. If you've determined. And this is a pretty rare case, I think in most businesses, if it's a game over decision, and this is something that like, there's an existential threat to your company, if you don't pick the right way here then, okay. That kind of decision takes a little more time. But in my entire entrepreneurial journey, I've come across a handful of those decisions. Most of them are decisions where it go left, go right by doing it faster.

1 (28m 22s):
It's better than then. That's the best thing. Just do, do it faster rather than stalling and

0 (28m 27s):
What call to action and way we connect with you and your company. And then we'll say goodbye.

1 (28m 33s):
Yeah. You can find us that thought leaders that I, oh, something really cool is that we just launched a free version of our product. First time. I'm really excited about that. It gives you access to our trends report. So you can dive into content intelligence yourself. It has some limits on how far back you can go on in a date history of contents. But those limits for 99% of use cases should be more than enough. So check it out at thoughtleaders.io. And if you want to connect with me personally, you can get me on Twitter and DM center or on LinkedIn. Thanks a lot for having me

0 (29m 7s):
Varnish near the average of the five people you spend the most time with. You've been hanging out with DT and JLD today. So please keep up the heat and head over to EOFire.com type David in the search bar in his show notes page will pop right up. And David, thank you for sharing your truth, knowledge, and value with Fire Nation today. For that we salute you and we'll catch you on the flip side. Hey, Fire Nation today's value bomb concert was brought to you by David ans Fire Nation, successful entrepreneurs. They accomplish big goals, which is why I created the Freedom Journals to guide you in accomplishing your number one goal in a hundred days. And we're step by step. So visit the freedom journal.com use promo code podcast for a $15 discounts.

0 (29m 47s):
And thank you for listening to my podcast and I will catch you there, or I'll catch you on the flip side. Are you looking for a proven business coach who has helped thousands of entrepreneurs, just like you to increase their profitability by an average of 104% per year, all for less money than it would cost to hire a full-time minimum wage employee schedule your free consultation today with Clay Clark, a former small business administration entrepreneur of the year at ThrivetimeShow.com/fire.