the bossbabe podcast - 21. How to Secure Brand Partnerships From Gifted Products to 5 Figure a Month Brand Deals Consistently As A Small Influencer With Julie Solomon

Episode Date: July 10, 2019

In this week’s episode, BossBabe Co-founder Natalie Ellis is chatting to Julie Solomon: Creator of chart-topping podcast The Influencer Podcast, Founder of Pitch It Perfect and The Influencer Academy, New York Times best-selling publicist, and awarded Top 100 influential people in influencer marketing. Julie and Natalie dive deep to share everything you need to know about securing brand deals and partnerships and gaining press for yourself or your business. Together they cover the power of building authentic and genuine relationships, providing value to cultivate an engaged community who trust you, how to be intentional in building powerful relationships, and owning your unique zone of genius. Julie shares her journey on how she went from having low confidence and moving to a brand new city without knowing anyone to creating a successful business. She expands on how to pitch yourself in the right way, niching down on your audience, and being strategic in how you are showing up online.  This week’s episode is brought to you by HUM Nutrition. HUM Nutrition is the vitamin company disrupting the beauty industry and is all about making you look and feel your best. Each supplement has a very specific use-case, like clearer skin or boosted energy, and if you’re unsure of which supplements would be best for you, you can even take a quick quiz to get completely personalized recommendations at humnutrition.com/get_started. Plus, use the code BossBabe for 20% off your order!  Discover how to grow your audience on Instagram by 10,000 ideal clients in 30 days: bossbabe.com/ig-growth.

If your intention is to really make a connection and add value to somebody, well then that is going to have to start with you actually talking to someone. I am not a proponent of ever giving a rate out in the beginning because you lose all your negotiation power. I used to just take gifted products from brands and now the same brand that I was taking gifted products to, I have 10,000 deals a month and brand deals with them. Welcome to the Boss Babe podcast, a place where we share with you the real behind the scenes of building successful businesses, achieving peak performance and learning how to balance it all. I'm Natalie Ellis, co-founder and co-CEO of Boss Babe and your podcast host for this episode.

This week, I am so excited because I am interviewing Julie Solomon and we are diving into the world of partnerships and press. So many of you DM me and say, hey, I'm an influencer, I'm a blogger. How do I secure those paid brand partnerships? Maybe you're brand new and you don't have hundreds of thousands of followers or hits to your website, but you have a really small, engaged community who really trust your opinion. And so that's exactly what we're going to dive into and get to understand in this episode. Julie was named as one of the top 100 most influential people in influencer marketing. Julie's mission is to empower her community to create, perform, and share their brilliance with the world. She's the creator of the chart-topping podcast, The Influencer Podcast, founder of Pitch It Perfect, and the

Influencer Academy, and has been featured in Forbes, Huffington Post, and People Magazine. As a New York Times best-selling publicist and in-demand speaker, Julie proudly serves bloggers, entrepreneurs, and authors, and in this episode, she is sharing with you everything you need to know about securing brand deals and partnerships and gaining press for yourself or your business. Julie's story is so inspiring and I know you're going to love this episode. I don't know about you, but I'm just obsessed with hearing stories of people who move to new cities with no big plan and end up creating so much success really from scratch and so in this episode you'll notice I was getting all the specifics of how she did each thing so as always screenshot your biggest takeaways and tag us

at bosswave.inc or me at I am Natalie on Instagram we would love to see what really resonates with you and of course we'd share you with our audience. This episode is brought to you by Home Nutrition. So basically think of Home Nutrition as your beauty routine for the inside. I've been using their hair growth supplement with biotin in for the past six months or so. I've told you before, but my hormone imbalances have thinned my hair out. They've been playing havoc with my skin. And biotin is really proven to help you grow better hair, skin, and nails. Home is is super convenient i always have the tub just sitting on my desk and then whenever i feel like reaching for something sweet i actually just grab one of those it's clinically proven it's made with natural ingredients and they're also sustainably sourced so no gmo no soy no gluten no artificial

colors all the things and each supplement has a really specific use case so whether it's clearer skin or more energy if you're unsure of which products will be best for you you can actually just take a quick quiz to get completely personalized supplement recommendations which i really recommend doing before you take any supplements because it's good to know what's going to work best for you and what you should actually avoid so the link for this quiz is actually in the show notes below and then then if you decide to purchase anything, just use the code BOSSBABE for 20% off everything. And with that, let's dive in. A boss babe is unapologetically ambitious and paves the way for herself and other women to rise, keep going and fighting on. She is on a mission to

be her best self in all areas. It's just believing in yourself. Confidently stepping outside her comfort zone to create her own vision of success. Julie, welcome to the Boss Babe podcast. We are so excited to have you here. I already have tons and tons of questions from our society girls ready to ask you. So welcome. Amazing. Thank you so much for having me. It is an honor and a privilege to be here and to be able to serve your incredible powerhouse community today. Oh, thank you so much. I've been doing so much diving into your story and your brand, and I'm so blown away by it, especially you moving to LA, not knowing anyone, being pregnant,

diving in to start your own business. So I would love to start there in the middle of what might have been chaos. Can you tell me what that was like for you? Yeah. So about 2012, so almost six or seven years ago at this point, I moved to Los Angeles to be with my now husband. My husband is an actor and he has lived in LA since 1990. And so we randomly met in Nashville, Tennessee, which is where I'm originally from. And after kind of doing the long distance thing, when we knew that we wanted to grow a family, I obviously had to move here. So a total cliche, but I moved to LA for a guy, but it ended up working out. But as you mentioned, I did kind of find myself just here in this new big city, not really knowing a lot of people. My background is in publicity.

I did music PR in New York City when I worked there for a little while. And then I did book PR. I worked in-house at HarperCollins and did book publicity. So I had since left that and started my own book PR firm with my partner at the time. So we co-owned the company together. And it was great because I was able to really kind of do that from anywhere as long as I had a laptop, which allowed me to be able to move to LA and still obviously have a business and a job and a paycheck. But I was kind of here not really knowing a lot of people. And my husband and I got pregnant pretty quickly after I moved here. And since he was on set, as I mentioned, he's an actor. So he was constantly

traveling to Louisiana and to Vancouver for work. And I was kind of here by myself a lot in and out. And so I figured out that I needed to somewhat quickly meet people and make friends if I was going to be in this big city for a while. And it was a little chaotic. I mean, there was a lot of fear there of, am I enough for this city? Am I going to be accepted? Are people going to open me with welcome arms? Or are they already kind of solidified within their various groups? And so a way to kind of ease that fear, if you will, was trying to do it a little bit strategically, which I think that even though that may sound odd, I think that a lot of

people can relate to that, that a lot of times as a way to kind of buffer the feeling of not being enough or that feeling of fear will stay busy and try to do other things. So that's what I did. I had a strategy to say, well, why don't I try to meet people through networking? Because that is what I knew to do throughout my years of PR. So when I moved here, I kind of started looking around and at the time, the landscape was very new in terms of blogging, but Los Angeles was very much so the Mecca for that new wave of fashion, lifestyle, and beauty blogging. So I said, well, I'll do that. I will start a blog. And the niche at the time was

motherhood since I was pregnant, lifestyle, that sort of thing. And by doing that, I was able to go out and to network and to meet people. And it gave me an excuse, if you will, to email people and to reach out to them to say, you know, hi, this is who I am. This is what I do. I would love to come to your event or I would love to meet for coffee or I would love to meet for whatever. And at the time, I used that angle just because I wasn't really confident enough in just saying, hey, let's meet.

I would love to get to know who you are. I wasn't confident enough in that. And so I kind of felt like I had to have the crutch of I'm this publicist and let's connect. And I'm starting this blog as a way for me to dive in and meet people. And it ended up working. I was able to have that crutch to kind of lean back on. But looking back on it, I don't really think that I needed it. It was just something that made me feel safe at the time. I love that. And I think being strategic about it actually is such a good way to go about it. We did an episode all about loneliness and I talked about moving to a new city and I literally

wrote a list of people I wanted to be friends with, which probably sounds so odd, but I'm like, okay, no, I want to be really intentional about this. So I totally, totally get it. So you started this blog and then you started reaching out and networking in LA. And how did that turn into the business that you've got now? Yeah. So I started blogging and what I started noticing at the time was that a lot of these other women who were blogging, they were amassing a lot of followers on Instagram, but they weren't really monetizing it. And I don't know a lot of followers on Instagram, but they weren't

really monetizing it. And I don't know if they weren't monetizing it because they weren't really looking at it as a business, or maybe they didn't realize they could monetize it, or maybe they didn't really care about monetizing it. It was more just for the vanity metrics of wanting to look and feel a certain way or to be perceived a certain way. But for me, I was like, vanity metrics are fine, I guess. But after five minutes, that stuff's going to get really old really fast. And I'm not going to spend all of this time and energy doing something just for a popularity contest. And it was kind of part of my makeup to always go into something with more of a business mindset, just because that's the way that I think. So I started monetizing my blog fairly quickly.

And the way that I did that was that I pitched myself to brands. So whether that was via email or through social media or when I would be out networking, it was so interesting because I would see a group of, I guess at the time, what I would have deemed as the popular bloggers in the club, right? Like the ones that had all the followers and they were so curated and perfect and beautiful and they had the best clothes and all of that. But they were literally sitting in the corner at this networking event on their phone, not talking to anyone. And I found that to be so interesting because I'm like, you have the head of this beauty brand standing right beside you and you haven't even spoken to her. Or you have the head of this media

outlet sitting right here wanting to make a connection. And a lot of these women weren't really using those opportunities. So I saw that as kind of a way of which I could step into where I shined, which was communication and which was just talking to someone. And I would walk up to these people and I would just be a human being with them. And I would ask them questions. I would let them know that I was new to the city. I would ask them their favorite restaurants and not really talk about business or blogging at all, just really trying to get to know them. I would always ask brands, do you want to go meet for coffee? Do you have time? Can I stop by the office? And I would really try to get to know them as people first. And then, of course, that would lead into more of a professional relationship because we would build the know, like, and trust.

And they would see that I was really coming from an intentional place and an authentic place. I really liked the products or the services that they offered. And I would just simply say to them, look, I'm still building my blog. I may not have as many followers as some of the other options out there,

but this is what I do have. And this is where I shine. And this is really what my audience is looking for. Would this be helpful for you? And just coming from that perspective, even though I was kind of scared and a little bit fearful and a little bit introverted and feeling confident around those groups of people, I didn't allow that fear to keep me from actually building the relationship with the person in the room that actually mattered for me and for my goals. And so that's what I did. And because of that, I was able to monetize my blog fairly

quickly. And the other bloggers around me kind of started to catch on and they would come to me and they would say, you know, Julie, how is it that you have 10,000 followers, or I don't even think I had that many followers at the time and you're monetizing consistently and I have a hundred thousand followers and I'm not getting those brand deals. And so when I started to see that this was a challenge, if you will, for some of the other women in this community, and it was a challenge that they were looking for resources and education pieces to overcome, that's where kind of my PR brain went off. And I said, well, perhaps they would be interested in these resources for me. And at first I fought that idea because I didn't think that it was sexy and I didn't think that it was cool. And, you know,

I was like, well, talking about PR strategy is not going to get me front row at fashion week, you know, and talking about this is not going to allow me to be perceived as this amazing lifestyle or fashion blogger. But when I really started to get honest with myself, that's not really what I wanted anyway. And if that was what I had wanted, then I knew that that wasn't coming from an authentic or an intentional place that was coming from that void that I was trying to fill or from that lack of confidence or for that need or that desire to be seen and to be accepted and to be loved. And so when I was able to get honest with myself about that, I was like, you know, I'm passionate about blogging

because I love to write, but I'm not passionate about fashion to the point that I want to live and breathe it every day. I love to wear cute clothes and I love skincare and beauty and makeup, but not enough to do a YouTube video about it or not enough to literally talk about it every day for the rest of my life.

And so when I was able to get really honest with myself about that, I got back to the root of what I was passionate about, which was connection and education and really helping people and seeing whether it was a brand or a person, seeing their goals come to light and seeing them reach those goals. And if I could be a conduit to that in any way, then that is what really lit me up and set my soul on fire. So I started testing it out with some free blog posts. And I mean, I think the first blog post that I ever did was like the seven PR tips that every blogger needs to know or something.

And that blog post got, I want to say, four times the amount of views than any of my other lifestyle motherhood blog posts had gotten combined for like the entire year that I had been blogging. And to me, just seeing those numbers was a true testament to say, okay, this is clearly what they're wanting. This is clearly where you shine and this is what you need to be doing more of. And so I created free content through blog posting and through social media posts for about six or seven months and really just building up that know, like, and trust to the community of bloggers. The bloggers that I used to think that I wasn't enough for are the other bloggers in the community that I thought would never kind of see me as a peer were now coming to me to mentor them. And I was able to really find a niche within that community.

And so it's so interesting looking back on it now, because I think a lot of us step into things with this idea of exactly how it's supposed to go. And sometimes we can kind of get to that end goal or that end result if we don't try to control it so much and take our hand off the wheel, because we can get ourselves so far, but then at some point you just have to release it over to the universe to say, hey, I would like to hit that next stage. And if you want that for me, then great, let's do it. If not, please remove it. But I'm here and I'm ready to be led and I'm ready to trust. And so when I really kind of stepped into that and gave free content away, gave my best stuff away for like six months, I got to a place that I had built a community of people that were consistently and actively coming to me for those resources. And so behind the

scenes for those six months, I started creating an online program called Pitch It Perfect, which became my first paid program that people could invest in and enroll in for education. And so I launched that about six months after the free content. And this was, I think, over three years ago at this time. And now that Pitch It Perfect has been a seven-figure program. We have thousands of students enrolled in it, and it has helped bloggers go full-time on their blog, learning the pitch strategies that I share with them in that program. Let's take a quick pause to talk about my new favorite all-in-one platform, Kajabi. You know I've been singing their praises lately because they have helped our business run so much smoother and with way less complexity, which I love. Not to mention our team

couldn't be happier because now everything is in one place, so it makes collecting data, creating pages, collecting payment, all the things so much simpler. One of our mottos at Boss Babe is simplify to amplify and Kajabi has really helped us do that this year. So of course I needed to share it here with you. It's the perfect time of year to do a bit of spring cleaning in your business, you know, get rid of the complexity and instead really focus on getting organized and making things as smooth as possible. I definitely recommend Kajabi to all of my clients and students so if you're listening and haven't checked out Kajabi yet now is the perfect time to do so because they are offering Boss Babe listeners a 30-day free trial go to kajabi.com

slash boss babe to claim your 30-day free trial that's kajabi.com slash boss babe this is incredible and what you shared had so much value. I love when you talked about, you'd go to these events and there were people sitting in the corner and they weren't networking. And I feel like a lot of people listening to this podcast can really relate because they've probably been at these events and they've talked themselves out to going up to someone. They're like, what do I say? But I don't know my elevator pitch and what am I going to ask for? And they get so stressed, but you just just said go up to them and be a human ask normal questions ask how their day was ask if they have kids ask all of these questions that actually have nothing

to do with business and before you know it you might find you're working together and I think that's the best place to start a lot of people can't really go to networking event with I'm going to get 10 leads today. And it really comes across. Whereas when you can build these relationships, it's so incredibly powerful. You mentioned another couple of things, which I just love. And I've been writing so many notes. You kept saying, this is where I shine. You really kind of nailed where your value was. And I would love for you to elaborate a little bit on how our audience can really begin to find where they shine. Like, where is it that they can step into their zone of genius? Is it

important to have a niche beforehand or is there a way they can go on that journey and find it like you did? Yeah, sure. So, and I think a great example of this would be what we were just talking about with the networking that I feel like a lot of times if people don't think that their zone of genius is being an extrovert, right? Or being someone who is super social, that they can't essentially network or that they can't learn how to quote unquote work a room. But really to me, that's just more of an excuse. Power is not only for extroverted people. You can be an introvert. And even for me, I tend to be more of an extrovert. But when I get into settings like that, and especially when I first started out

and when I was not so confident in my abilities and who I am as a human being, I would get totally shy in those rooms and start to feel like I wasn't enough. But you have to remember, what is your intention of being there? And I think that that is a great point to remember that if your intention is to sit on your phone in the corner,

well, then you can do that at home. If your intention is to really make a connection and add value to somebody, well, then that is gonna have to start with you actually talking to someone. So I think that that's a great example of that. But when it comes to really understanding your zone of genius, it's getting clear in three tiers, if you will. You've got what I call your Zog, Zox, and Zoys, right? So you have

your zone of genius, your zone of competence, and your zone of incompetence. And I actually like and encourage people to make a list. So your zone of genius would basically be a list of everything that not only are you really, really good at, but you actually wake up every day with passion and joy wanting to do. So for example, for me, that would be communicating with people, right? So I do that through podcasting. I do that through interviews. I do that through more intimate events and settings.

Maybe another zone of genius for me would be writing. That's something that not only do I think I'm pretty good at, but I really do like to do. Every single morning I wake up and I do what's called morning pages. And it just allows me to kind of get my thoughts out of my brain and just out in the space. And it really clears my day. So making a list of things that not only are you good at, that other people would probably say, she's really good at that, but that really lights you up. And then you want to make a list of your zone of competence. And to me, those are the things that you may be good at, but they don't really light you up. Like for example, going through my email inbox. Can I do that pretty effectively and efficiently? Sure.

But is it really the best use of my time? Probably not. So really thinking about some of those things, research maybe for people, or maybe it's design or photography or coding or what have you. And then you make a list of your zone of incompetence. And those are the things that it's like, you should absolutely not be doing under no circumstance. All you're gonna do is burn yourself out,

feel bad about it. You're not gonna see the success that you want and to do is burn yourself out, feel bad about it. You're not going to see the success that you want and your confidence is going to go down. So for me, that would be like accounting, right? Or doing my tax returns or coding or design for me. I am not a design person. I'm not great at that. It makes me feel really crappy about myself when I try to design a graphic and it takes up way too much time. So it's about really getting clear on those three key areas for you. And then once you do start going back to that zone of genius list and out of all of the things that you see, what I really think is important to do is to pick one,

because I'm a huge believer that you can have multi passions, right? You could want to do a lot of things in life, but you can't do it all at once. So if you can pick one thing that you know you're pretty freaking good at, and even more so than that, you know that you want to be the absolute best at, and you're willing to work at that, and you're willing to challenge yourself for that. And you know that with that, you also have to be the highest version of yourself. So you're ready to bring the passion and the curiosity and the joy that it's going to take to see that through. Pick that one thing and allow yourself to really drive through that one thing so you can break the quote unquote wall of social consciousness or of social media or whatever that is for you. And once you break through that wall and you're known for one thing, then you can spur off and do other things. But I'm a strong

believer that you have to be able to be known for one thing really, really well. So for me, I spent a good six to nine months getting really, really well known for one thing, and that was pitching. That if you were an influencer who wanted to know how to get brand deals and you wanted to be able to pitch yourself, or when you were pitched a brand deal by a brand, say a brand sent you an email and you wanted to be able to negotiate that deal for a higher offer or you wanted to be able to turn a gifted offer

into a paid offer, you're gonna go to Julie Solomon and you're gonna listen to everything she says because she is the go-to person for that. So I spent a lot of time really curating that and crafting that and putting my heart and soul into that, A, because I really, really loved doing it, B, because I knew that I was really good at it,

and C, it's because I was able to cultivate and attract an audience who wanted that from me. And when I became known for that, and then I created Pitch It Perfect, which is the online course, and we started to see results, and we started getting testimon known for that, and then I created Pitch It Perfect, which is the online course, and we started to see results and we started getting testimonials from that. Then I was able to go off to do other things like podcasting, like live events, you know, like keynote speaking, writing a book, launching the other program that I launched last year

called the Influencer Academy. But I had to really spend time and attention getting known for that one thing first. I love that so much. What is Pitch It Perfect? I love the name of it, by the way. Can you tell us a bit about what it is? Yeah. So Pitch It Perfect is the only online program for bloggers and influencers that really dives in to teach you that one specific skill set, which is pitching. So if you are a blogger or an influencer or even just an entrepreneur, and you're wanting to be able to pitch yourself for brand deals, you're wanting to be able to pitch yourself for media, for speaking events,

for networking, it will help you with that. It really dives into the psychology and a lot of the mindset stuff that goes behind really putting yourself out there and some of the confidence pieces when it comes to pitching. And then it really dives into a lot of the tactical and strategy-based concepts that comes with not only pitching, but then actually getting the response back and seeing the results. And then after that, it goes into an array of strategies as well with negotiating. So once you have an offer, how do you negotiate the best offer for both parties? How do you make sure that you're coming from a place that it's not just a one-off deal, that the brand actually comes back to you time and time again to continue to work with you?

And we launched that. I say we, it's me, but we, because I have an amazing team of people at this point that helped me. But when I launched it, it was just me. And I launched it about three years ago. And as I mentioned before, we have thousands of bloggers, influencers, entrepreneurs, writers, even people that are on the brand side

that want to learn how to work with bloggers and influencers more effectively that have taken the program. And so many of them have gone full time. They'll say, I used to just take gifted products from brands. And now the same brand that I was taking gifted products to, I have 10,000 deals a month and brand deals with them. And so it really hones in on that specific skill set that is pitching, the confidence that you need from that. And then it gives you a ton of templates, email examples,

email threads. You get to see examples from how students went from A to Z of pitching something to actually landing the deal and negotiating the deal and seeing it through. I love that so much. And there's a few things in what you said. I think firstly, this is such an amazing example of owning your zone of genius and sticking with that one thing. And I think probably for a lot of people listening, that alone is such a good example of what you can create if you just put your focus in. Because you might see a lot of influencers online, and we can talk about this, monetizing your platform, but you might see a lot of people online trying to monetize, and they do a million different programs, and they're always testing and trying different things.

But when you really nail your zone of genius, and you know you've created a good product, it can live on. And three years later, it's living on and it's killing it. So I think that's just absolutely epic. I also love that you touched on the confidence side because I feel like what holds a lot of people back from putting themselves forward and even negotiating is confidence. So I really love that. And then templates. So do people get actual word for word templates that they can then go and use for different reach outs? Oh yes. We have about 35 templates in there that is done for you. You can literally copy and paste. Now, again, I encourage people to use it as a skeleton and we do have people that literally

copy and paste it and get brand deals, but I'm always about, again, your zone of genius. So take this template, but then tweak it a little bit. Put a little bit of your magic into this so you can really build that long-term relationship. And then what I really, really love about the program is that we have about 50 pages of email threads that students have been gracious enough to share with us of literally from the beginning to the end, how they pitched a brand, the back and forth of what was said, how they landed the deal, how they negotiated the deal, how they closed the deal. And so you get to read verbatim from the

first email the students sent out to the very last email when they're getting their paycheck. And I just think that for new people coming into the space to be able to see that and to read how other people have done it have been phenomenal. And then of course, we have a template for your press kits, a template for contracts, for invoicing, like with the confidence piece that you were talking about. We take the students through this game plan, if you will, to really build in and step into their brilliance. And that's one of the biggest feedbacks that we get is results. I was able to 10X my income because of this program. But most importantly, it's given me the confidence that I never thought I could have to really believe in myself as an entrepreneur and to really take my gifts and my talents and use it for the service of others.

I love that so much. I think templating is so important, especially when you're teaching people something that they may have never done before. And if any of you are listening and you are course creators or you are thinking of doing a program, this is such an incredible way that you can give more value

when you tell someone it's a done for you thing. It really, really lights them up because they know it's instantly taking the weight off them of something that's probably really overwhelming. And I also love that you've put those email threads in there. That is absolutely incredible and so much value. And again, I think when you create a program online, if you can constantly update it as you go on with all of these different value pieces, it can just live on forever. I think that's amazing. When you're talking about being able to help people pitch themselves and get their brand in line, I get a lot of people asking me,

okay, so I'm really good at this thing and this is my zone of genius online. But when it comes to my personal brand, how can I show more elements of my personality? I might be multi-passionate and I might want to show my dog or my husband and all of these different things, but then my zone of genius might be Instagram. And I'm using myself for an example there. How would you say to go about branding yourself online when you want to stand in your zone of genius, but you want to bring in all of these different elements of your personality? For sure. I mean, I think that it's kind of a twofold of you want to bring in a little bit about who you are and what you do and your personality, because in some ways, if you yourself are the brand, right? If your customers are buying you and what you share and what you give, then you want to be able to

show that 360 view of your life. But you have to be strategic about in what lens do you do that in? So for example, for myself, I get very open and candid with my audience and my community about all things when it comes to my business and to branding. So I will talk about the struggles that I have with growing a team. I'll talk about the struggles that I have with writing content, staying consistent, staying passionate about the things that I do, the challenges that I have with my schedule, the work and life balance, if you will. I'll talk a lot about the behind the scenes of podcasting and the joys there and the struggles there, but I keep it in the lens of marketing, business, and strategy. You're never going to

see me really talk a whole lot about food. Even though I am passionate about baking, that's more of a hobby and it doesn't really have to do with my online brand and my online persona. You're also not going to see a ton about my family. I pepper in things about my husband or my son here and there. But again, my brand is not a brand that is about that personal connection with my family. My brand is really about that personal connection with me as a businesswoman and as an entrepreneur. So it's about really showing them a 360 view of your life, but also making sure that you're niching down on the lens in which you're showing them. Therefore, you're not just giving them everything. And then therefore your audience has no idea which way to turn. Does that make sense? Yeah, that makes total sense. So you mentioned you share a lot of marketing business or strategy. Now, did you think intentionally about, okay, I want to pick three pillars and

just work on those or did that just come very naturally to you? The pillars were really chosen by what my customers and audiences really needed. Because again, it's the connection that people are looking for, those human pieces, right? You can be vulnerable about something, but not necessarily show every aspect of your life that is vulnerable. Or you can have challenges about something, but not showing every aspect of your life that is a challenge. So it kind of honed in a little bit of testing. What is it that my audience wants to see? In the past, I did test things like maybe I would share food recipes, or maybe I would share fashion, or maybe I would share beauty things. And it just didn't really resonate to them. And so it allowed me to kind of really niche down on

where can I be vulnerable when I'm talking about business? Or where can I really showcase challenges that I'm having in my schedule today with trying to get all of my work done? And then from there, having that one focus, if you will, then allowed me to figure out, well, then what's next? So for example, when I was able to dive into pitching and create the program and then start sharing some of the vulnerabilities and the challenges and the ups and downs that come with creating a program and updating programs and keeping customers happy and all of that stuff, I started to really listen to what the feedback that I was getting from the audience and the more things that they were needing. And what I started to do was simply just ask them. I would ask them on social media, on Instagram stories. I mean,

now that we have the polls, it's so easy to survey and pull your audience, but I'm a huge believer in surveys because I really want to know how these people are, how they are feeling, what their challenges are, and how I can be a solution provider for that. So I never go into it with this idea of I'm going to create X, Y, and Z because I'm not creating it for myself. Now, I need to make sure that what I do, again, is in my zone of genius and lights me up. But it's really about what is it that the audience needs? And that's why, for example, I decided to do a podcast instead of a YouTube channel. I knew that they were wanting content and strategy, and I knew that I could give them that either in a podcast or YouTube platform. However, I knew that my zone of genius was not YouTube. I don't like editing. I don't like video. I don't like lighting. I don't

like the production elements of that. I knew that that would be very overwhelming for me, very stressful for me, and I would have gotten very burnt out really easy. Whereas for my zone of genius, what was a lower barrier of entry for me was podcasting. I knew that I could understand the equipment enough to set it up in the guest room of my house where I do my podcasting. I knew that I could write the content and I could ask enough curious questions to hopefully have really thoughtful and provoking conversations. So to me, I knew that that was the medium that I needed to go, but still giving the audience what they were looking for. I love that. And it really does take the

guesswork out of it as well. It's something we do a ton at Boss Babe. We're constantly asking, what do you like? What do you want to see more of? What do you not like? And they will be really vocal and tell you. And I love that idea of pairing what they want with what you know you can stay consistent at. Because I'm the same. I think I did the YouTube thing and it started growing and working really well for me. And then I just noticed it was becoming harder and harder because I didn't enjoy it. Whereas podcasting has just been so easy for me and I could talk all day to anyone. So it's been totally perfect. So I absolutely love that. I want to ask, so for a blogger out there or an

influencer who would love to lock in a brand deal, but has absolutely no idea of how to begin. Is there some kind of structure you would suggest for their initial reach out email? Yes. And I would love to dive into this. I love all things pitching. So it's great. I kind of look at it in a threefold. So the first thing that you want to do is remember to make it short, but sweet and personal. You don't want to send them a novel. I never recommend attaching anything. So for example, a press kit or a media deck or photos or whatever, if they want that stuff on down the road, you can supply it to them later. Don't attach anything in that initial email. You want to keep it very to the point. You want to keep it very personable and you want to keep

it very humanizing. So something as simple as, hi, my name is so-and-so. I have been really loving your products for the last six months. These are the specific products that I've been using, and this is why I've been using, and these are the results that I've been getting from these products. I've actually shared these products a couple of times on my Instagram stories. This is what my audience has said about them. And I just wanted to connect with you to a let you know that I really love this stuff and I want you to know that you have a fan over here and is there any way that I can help you in this moment do you have a current launch coming out that you are excited about is there a

new product coming out that you're wanting to get into the hands and hearts of people online because I would love to be helpful in that. So let me know if this works for you. And I would love to get on a call to chat through ideas. I love that so, so much. The specifics of what it was, why you liked it and what the results are is incredible. Yep. And so people reach out and they get on a call and would you say, be prepared, know your rates, all of those things before you get on a call, or should you let them lead it and guide the conversation? The question that I always like to give myself is how curious can I be during this conversation? And it's really about you putting your interview hat on, if you will, and getting on the call and asking the brands,

what is this product about? What are you most excited about? What do you think the challenges are? Another big question that I think is super helpful is straight up asking them, what challenges have you seen in the past when working with influencers? What campaigns did you think were really successful? What campaigns weren't successful and why weren't they successful? Another great question is, if I could wave a magic wand for you and get you the results that you're looking for, What would that be? So really coming from a curious place of asking questions and then just listening to what they're saying, really listening to their responses, not really taking the lead. Because again, you don't want to sound like a robot or a walking billboard. You don't want to get on a call and be

like, well, hello, my name is X and I have X followers and this is my rate and this is what I'm willing to do and not willing to do. I mean, that to me is going to shit down anybody. I mean, it's kind of like a first date, right? If you went on a first date with someone and they were like, my name is Jim and I will only live in Dallas, Texas, and I need to have four kids. And I mean, if they started creating all of these boundaries and these restrictions around how you were going to live your life, you probably would not want to go on a second date with them. So you have to think of it in that way of just really being curious about the person and about the brand and about their mission and their products and their services and what has really worked for them in the past in terms of brand deals and influencer marketing,

if that is your goal. And then at the end of that conversation, I would just say, I would love to pull together some ideas for you to see if this works. I've gotten this information. I have some really good foundations to go from. So let me put my creative cap on and think of some ideas and I will get back to you.

I would leave it at that. Yep. And then that's when you can go back into the email to say, here are some options of what I could do based off of what you told me you're looking for. Let me know what this sounds like and what your budget would be for this. I am not a proponent of ever giving a rate out in the beginning because you lose all your negotiation power.

I am all about trying to get the brand to give you a budget. Now, if they resist or refuse, you can always go back with giving them some sort of range. Well, if you want X, Y, and Z, then I can do that between this and this. But I would never give them like a direct number because then you're going to be limiting yourself to doing all of that scope of work, which by the way may change, but you've still limited yourself to that number. That's genius. And what you just talked about as well, I think is the basis of the best sales conversation. The best sales conversations happen when you say so little. You need to get on there. You need to listen. You need to hear what the challenges are and the resistance and be able to turn that into your power so you can sell from place of power. And I love this idea of

being able to take their pain points and instead of selling their pain back to them, you take it and you're like, I hear you, but here's what I can do for you. I'm painting that bigger picture and the vision. I think that's amazing. And I also love when you said, how curious can I be during this conversation? And for any of you who are listening, who might be scheduling sales calls or pitching calls, and you're a bit nervous or anxious, I would really encourage you to sit with that question before you go on so that you go into it with this element of really caring about their business and what they're talking about so you can challenge them and ask those questions. And you mentioned a few minutes ago about Influence Academy. Can you explain what that is and how it differs to Pitch It Perfect? Yes. So as I mentioned earlier,

Pitch It Perfect teaches you the one as I mentioned earlier, Pitch It Perfect teaches you the one skill set of pitching, right? And the templates and all of that stuff that we talked about. We also have the questions that we were just talking about. When you get on a phone with a brand, what do you ask them? We have questions in there in Pitch It Perfect to let you know. These are a ton of great key prompts that you can ask them and it's super tactical. It's super consumable. You can get through it in a matter of two days. I mean, it really goes right into the line of it's a content-driven, strategy-driven program. The Influencer Academy was something that came about,

we launched it last year, and it was after about two and a half years of data mining, research, surveying my audience, even doing the podcast for a year and really kind of honing in on what was that next step? What is it that's still missing that entrepreneurs and influencers and bloggers in my community need? Some of them may need pitching and it's great, but some of them and a lot of them need something a little bit more encompassing than just that one thing. And that's where the Influencer Academy comes in. So the Influencer Academy is a much more intensive brand building roadmap and strategy. So not only growing an online influence, but actually creating your own products and services to sell. So whether that is a monthly membership or a course or a webinar or an ebook or a live event, we give you the roadmap to making those things happen.

And we really go through a lot of the foundational elements of figuring out your purpose and your mission and why it is that you do what you do. Really honing in on those Zog, Zock, and Zoys that I was talking about earlier. Strategy is a huge component of it. Communication and marketing is another proponent. And one of the biggest, biggest things that I think that really makes this program different

than a lot of other programs that may teach online marketing or strategy is the list building proponent. So a huge, huge reason for the success of my online business is because I started focusing on my newsletter a few years ago instead of putting all of my eggs in the Instagram and social media basket. Just to kind of give you some numbers, on average, we get what, like anywhere from a 2% to 5% engagement rate on Instagram, right?

Which means that 2% to 5% of our followers actually see the content that we share. Whereas on my newsletter, I get a 35% to 45% conversion rate, meaning 35% to 45% of the people open the emails and then probably about 5% of them click the content that's in the emails. And then we usually have about a three to 5% conversion rate

of sales from our newsletter, as opposed to probably like a 0.03% conversion rate on Instagram. So it really shows you how much warmer that audience is. And it really makes sense, right? I mean, these are people that are raising their hand and saying, hi, I want you to email me. I want to see your content in my inbox weekly. I want you to show up and share with me information and results via email. And so it's a much more warmer audience that you can cultivate, not only conversions,

but more importantly, you can cultivate that relationship with, and you can really build that know, like, and trust. And those are going to be the people that are supporting you and getting behind you and getting really honest with you and sharing their thoughts and their feedback about the services that you're selling and that you're putting out there. So that is a huge, huge module in the Influencer Academy and really teaches people not only the importance of a newsletter, but really how, from a technical standpoint, to actually set up and grow a successful newsletter. And we have email sequences and launch campaigns and all sorts of swipe files and templates that you can get out

of there. And then we go into creating your own products and services. You have an idea of something that you can create. Well, how does that align with your audience and what they need? And how do we build it out to extend the lifetime value of one customer? And how do we also build that out in a product letter that actually works for you instead of against you for long-term success? I love that. And I love that you talked about that. I'm a big believer in taking your audience off of Instagram. We've had the Instagram crash. We know what happens when social media goes offline. And hopefully that was a big reminder to people that they need to have this contingency plan. And I love that you touched on list building. And just one thing I'll mention, I was just having a conversation with one of my clients

and she was saying, well, should I put some ads out there to get followers on Instagram? And to me, I was like, no, you want to put ads out there to grow your mailing list and then have on the first email for people to follow you and you can grow both at the same time. But once you've got their email, like you say, they're engaged, they're wanting what you have and they're going to communicate with you. How many times would you recommend people email their list per week? You know, it depends. It depends on how consistent you can be and how much your audience wants to see you. I mean, there's industry standards that say that nowadays, just because we're so saturated with content, you can actually email someone five days a week and you're going to see way more open rates. Sometimes people email once a week. You

really have to kind of find the flow that works for you. I try to email at least three times a week. And I really try to give as much information as I can and really showing up in a supportive way, answering questions, that sort of thing, really providing resources. And then I will trickle in any new offers or anything that we may have that may be of value to the audience in our newsletter community. But it's not really meant to constantly be trying to sell someone, but really cultivating that community and being a resource provider and a solution provider for them. I love that. Just giving value so that when you do sell something, it's unique and they're excited about it. Exactly. So for anyone listening, I would love if you enjoy this episode for you to

screenshot it and actually tag us in your zone of genius. Let us know what yours is so we can share this with our audiences so that you can get exposed to millions of people who might be looking for your specific zone of genius. So please get on that, get screenshotting. And Julie, thank you so, so much for being on here this episode. I've got tons of notes. I'm like ready to go and start pitching. It's amazing. I would love for you to let people know where they can find you so they can tag you, but

also where they can find out more about Pitch It Perfect and the Influencer Academy. And also, sorry to keep blowing you up, but your podcast, which is absolutely epic. Oh, thank you. Thank you. Yeah. So for Pitch It Perfect, you can go to pitchitperfect.net. And again, you can enroll in that program anytime it is available and you can just dive on in immediately when you get it. That's just a great part about that program and you can get through it pretty quickly. The Influencer Academy, we open once a year. And

the reason for that is not only do you get the program, but you actually get about eight weeks of onboarding with me. So with that is live and in real time office hours. I'm in the private Facebook group, really diving down and being there for the students and handholding them through a lot of the program because it's so transformational. And I want to be able to really give my undivided attention and be there for that time. So we block off one time a year that we launch the Academy program and then we do a live onboarding after that. So that is going to be August of this year, but you can go ahead and go to theinfluenceracademy.org to learn more about the Academy and sign up for the waitlist. And I would highly encourage you to do that because you may or may not get some exclusive

stuff that no one else gets by signing up for the waitlist. And that will be coming out in June and July. And then for the podcast, it's the Influencer Podcast. You can find it on iTunes, Stitcher, Spotify, where podcasts are listened to. And that's where I tend to hang out the most as well as Instagram. And you can find me on Instagram and Facebook and Pinterest and all those places at Jules, J-U-L-S, Solomon, S-O-L-O-M-O-N. I love it. Thank you so much for being here. Thank you. If you loved this episode, please subscribe and be sure to leave us a review. We want to hear what you enjoyed, what your main takeaways were,

and also really want to know who you want to see on the show. And speaking of reviews I've also got a little something on my sleeve for you so I want to send you a copy of the Boss Babe 25 this is a brand new resource that we've created and trust me you are going to love it so the Boss Babe 25 is the 25 essential resources you need for personal and professional growth seriously this little resource is like a little Boss Babe holy grail. You are going to love it. It covers everything from must-have products, our favorite books, rituals that we do daily,

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