The Ultimate Blog Podcast - 80. Tips for Working with Brands with Courtney Paige

Episode Date: June 27, 2023

How do bloggers make money?  Today, we are talking about money and working with brands with Courtney Paige, the friendly face behind the food blog A Paige of Positivity. Courtney wears multiple hats but her favorites are recipe development, food photography, and taste testing. After 3 years of working in Corporate America, Courtney quit her commercial interior design job to pursue food blogging full-time. If you are looking to find ways to make money as a blogger, this episode is for you! Thanks for listening! Connect with us on Instagram: @sparkmediaconceptsCheck out BigScoots plans using our affiliate link to see what plan is best for you for your blog!Check out the show notes for more information including links and resources mentioned in today's episode!SHOW NOTES: www.sparkmediaconcepts.com/episode80

Welcome to the Ultimate Blog Podcast with Amy Reinecke and Jennifer Draper. We're on a mission to empower women who want to start or grow their own blog. This podcast is for women who want to learn blogging basics and who crave inspiration and encouragement. Whether you're just getting started or have been a blogger for years, we're excited to welcome you into this space where we are passionate about creating community over competition. We are bloggers who want to encourage you to believe in your potential, step outside the norm and step into a life where you create your own schedule, your own success and your own story. Join us for weekly episodes as we navigate blogging

and work from home life all while raising a family and having some serious fun along the way. all while raising a family and having some serious fun along the way. Welcome back to the Ultimate Blog Podcast. Today, we get to talk about money. And money is something that we love to talk about, don't we? It's like a taboo topic that we all are asking ourselves, how do bloggers make money? And how much can you charge a brand? And so we brought on Courtney Page, who's going to be really transparent. And this is going to be a really great conversation that we are excited about. So Courtney Page is the friendly face behind a page of positivity. On her blog, she wears multiple hats, but her favorites are recipe development, food photography, and taste testing. After three years of working in corporate

America, Courtney quit her commercial interior design job to pursue food blogging full time. And now she's here with us today to teach you all the things about working with brands. So welcome, Courtney. Hello, I'm so happy to be here. I can't wait to have chats. It's one of my favorite things to do. And we're going to get into it. we're going to get into it. We are. I like to talk too. So that's a great thing. I'm glad that we put a time limit on ourselves because otherwise it would be two hours and we'd still be talking about all the things. So let's hear first and foremost, a little bit about your story and how you got started blogging. Okay. We're going to give the SparkNotes version. So I started my Instagram, a page of positivity with my middle name page, which now I'm paying for in every email I ever receive, but it's my alter ego. And I actually, it stemmed from an eating disorder in college. So I found a community there. And as I grew and evolved out of that, I realized there

was some potential to make it into a side hustle, if you will. So we'll talk about my first ever sponsored post that I charged $25 for and I thought it was too much. And then how we've grown it to be my full-time job today. So I graduated college with an interior design degree. I went into commercial architecture, dabbled with that a little bit. And after three years, I realized I wanted, like most millennials, to work for myself. So I popped into full-time food blogging in July of 2022. And about eight months later, we're still cooking. Literally. Was that a scary transition for you to say, Okay, I'm going to go out on the leap, take a leap of faith,

quit my quote-unquote safe job that I have a guaranteed income that's coming in and then take this other route that the income is variable. How did that feel for you to make that jump? Well, I felt like because I had three and a half years under my belt, I saw the numbers. I felt like I knew I wasn't going to fail. And I knew that I had a really good foundation of how my blog was built. Oh, yeah. I forgot to mention that. So in 2020, I almost threw my Instagram in the towel. And I was like, I just don't know if I want to share just pretty pictures of food. Instead, I bought a domain, a page of positivity.com, and then built a blog. And that's

a really key part of that story. Yeah. and then built a blog. And that's a really key part of that story. Yeah. And so once I saw that my goal in 2022 was just to get on an ad network, preferably Mediavine, I was essentially counting on that to be a completed goal of 2022. And it happened three weeks after I quit my full-time job officially. That was enough to be like, okay, we've got this. This is just the beginning of what incredible is to come. That's awesome. Yeah. You obviously had some confidence behind you in knowing that you were going to be able to make this happen. How did you know that what food bloggers were doing, that they could make money and what different things were you

looking at in terms of projecting for yourself that you could actually make money with this gig? Yeah. Well, I think one of my favorite things that I started to read about food bloggers just when I bought a website were their income reports. 2020, it was huge. Midwest Foodie is one of my favorites I read. She went from monthly to quarterly. And I just was like, you see in the numbers? I was like, okay, you can't fail almost. So I had that confidence. I also... We'll get into it. But I keep a spreadsheet of every year's revenue in addition to my QuickBooks just so I can make my own fun pie charts and see where the money is coming in. But I had three and a half years of data to show, okay, yeah, let's do it. And I know this seems

grim, but the worst that happens is I just go back to corporate or I get a different job. And that didn't scare me a ton because I knew what I wouldn't be missing in corporate. I was like, all right, we got to get out of here. And then I, I don't want to say I haven't looked, I really haven't looked back. I truthfully, I wish I would have done it sooner. I think you hear that a lot when people finally take that leap and say,

okay, I'm going to like, I'm going to bet on myself. I'm going to bet on what I think I'm capable of. And we're just going to see what happens here. There is some like scary, but you had the data to back you up. So I think that that's something really, really important that I hope people listening

are taking in is that statistics and tracking what you're doing is really important. I realized that coming out of my mouth that that is very different than coming out of Jennifer's, who is like our local stat queen here. But she has really helped me realize how important that is. If you don't have the data, if you can't look at the numbers, you don't know how you're doing. I mean, it's really important to have a good idea. I mean, how much time you're spending doing this?

Is it worth it? Is it not? Can you make it better? All the things. And also, this job is really fluid. So we go into... We'll get into it. But based off what quarter it is, your revenue is going to look a lot different. And honestly, what I charge per quarter actually looks different because I know that quarter one, people have zero budget.

They're still finalizing 1099s from last year, if they even send one. And then we're getting into holidays, Kentucky Derby, Cinco de Mayo, Memorial Day. People are like, Oh, it's middle of quarter two. We've established the baseline for what our budget is for the whole year. Now it's time to spend. And so that definitely factors into what type of work I'm taking. I would take a smaller gig and a smaller budget in Q1 than I would in Q4 simply because it's actually coming through. So there's a lot of variation that happens in this industry. Also, different revenue buckets. That's important. And all things.

Yeah. You've said so many good things already that you're teaching. I mean, seriously. So, so good. So let's start kind of at the beginning. And when you first started, I doubt that you sat down and were like, Okay, I'm going to create my website today. And then I'm going to pitch my first brand. Like this is how this is going to go.

I certainly did not. I remember I was in my college room senior year. And I had sent a few affiliate... That was right when affiliate marketing was just... It was all over. It was in your DMs. Everyone wanted you to sign up for their... Here's a code. We'll give you money or whatever. I still remember sitting in my college room senior year. And I had signed up for a few of those. And they were like, we'll send you product. And I was a college student. Of course, I wanted free products.

Why would I not? Just to try it. So I remember submitting 4 or 5 emails, actually with my personal junk email at the time. And then I was like, that's not very professional of me. Maybe I should pivot. Pivot, Ross Guller. And so then I made a Gmail account with my handle. And then I started directing everything through there. And the first one to come through

my email, you put in your Instagram bio. I'm like, all right, this is legit. And the first one to come in my email was Panera Bread. And they wanted me to... Yeah, talk about a heavy hitter. Let's just serve that up really quickly. They were like, what are your rates for an Instagram post with stories? They wanted to promote their mac and cheese at a local retailer. And me being the perfectionist wanting to please person was like, I mean, $25, that would be like... That would be all right, right? They would accept that. It cost me more to make the dang thing than it did to show their mac and cheese in a beautiful way. So I charged them that. And she probably, on the other end, laughed. She was like, we're getting this girl for $25. Sure. Then I saw the PayPal come through, net $45 after.

And I'm like, okay, I can make money. So that was February of 2019. So then my fiscal... Or for 2019, I made about $4,000 at the blog. And I mean... So had you started your blog or were you just on Instagram at that point? Those were just on Instagram. Those were just on Instagram. Sorry. That was all just sponsored stuff. And I think after... I never charged $25 again. Thank goodness. Anyone listening is like, please do not do that. I think it was like $125 to $200. I mean, somehow I made $4,000. So it was a decent amount. And it wasn't like sponsored post after sponsored post.

And this was still when I had less than 10,000 followers. It was a time where Instagram was booming and you grow really quickly. And then the next year, I was around 16,000 total for 2020. And that's when I was like, okay, this is fun money. This is good. And also, I was still under the tax bracket that I didn't have to claim it. And then the next year, I most definitely... My mom was like, Oh, red flag, red flag. You need an LLC, girly. You need to pull in those big, big things. So 2021 or end of 2020, I registered my business, which I would recommend anyone if you're going to make literally more than $6,000. Don't quote me. I'm not a tax accountant, but anything that's going to put you where you need to claim it, you need an LLC.

It's way easier to make than you think. And then a separate bank account for your business. I did... Actually, my college is one because it had a $0 fee. So Michigan State Federal Credit Union, plug. And from there, I was like, okay, now let's really do it. And then with all the uncertainty of 2020, I also had some family tragedy. And so that really pivoted my life of, I actually don't want to work corporate anymore. Life is too short. However, they had me staying in there because they had a 401k match that I had to stay at least two years for. And me being the really smart 22-year-old,

I was like, fine, I'll stay. So I stayed and then I put all of the money that... Or not all of it, but a lot of money that I was making into building a blog, building WordPress, getting tech help on the back end, because that is not my thing. And then the third year, And then the third year, I was around $42,000. So then it was, okay, we're scaling nicely. $4,000, $16,000, $42,000. Last year, $86,000. Then you can see the numbers. And to me, I was like, okay, we got this. And that also is without website revenue. So I did not have anything from Mediavine up until 2023 when I got that first paycheck. And oh, glory me, that was wonderful. So that's where I want to pivot a lot of my goals. But looking back at it, I was... Most people came to me in my Instagram DMs. I do not find that's the case anymore.

I think a lot of it comes through people that have worked with you in the past and or have worked with other marketing agencies and they're getting your contact from them. That's not to say that you can't pitch people on Instagram or try to get a contact. It's just the landscape has changed significantly since 2018 when I stepped into this lovely, lovely wild, wild west. when I stepped into this lovely, lovely wild, wild west. Yeah. Yeah. It has changed. But like you said, I think something that's important here is that with the income reports that you just shared, that is without ad revenue. And I think that that's important to state here because a lot of people are like, well, how long is it going to

take me to get on an ad network? But you can make money without being on an ad network. Or some people don't even want ads on their site. And I just want to say now, that's okay. If you don't like ads on your site, you don't want passive income, you don't want free money, then that's fine. You don't have to, truly. But there are other ways. And you just proved that. From 4 to 16 to 42 to 86 in a 4-year time span working with brands, essentially. Right. And just to clarify, that doesn't include my corporate income. That's all... I call it APOP. A page of positivity. Real mouthful. APOP is way better.

And I think, honestly, my goal was to make as much as I could sponsored. So then when I got the website revenue, it was just an extra bump. And my goal in the next... My short-term goal is to actually switch. Have it all come from my website and less come from sponsored. Not to say that I'll remove it completely, but because right now it keeps my business afloat. But it's just a personal preference. Passive income, I don't have to work as much side me up. Yeah. Right. Yeah. And I think the beauty of what you're showing is, there are so many opportunities, there are so many options. And what you've done is just been super intentional about the choices that you're making. And looking at those stats, looking at the numbers,

knowing what you need, knowing what you're going to go after, and you have made it happen. And I think that that should be inspiring to any of the new bloggers out there because they think they feel so far away from being able to make an income. And yeah, it does take time, but you were able to do this fairly quickly. And I think that anybody else who's struggling with can I make money, whether they want to work with brands or they want to do something else, you do not have to be on an ad network to make good money from your blog and to be able to make it your full-time job if that's what you dream about. Right. And I think that's key in the sense of if you look at the whole scope of blogging, pick your favorite thing.

This could be VA writing. It could be recipe development for bloggers. It could be any of those things. Photography personally was my favorite and also nodded to my design degree in a sense. Writing, not my jam. So I hired it out. There are things that... Anyway, pick the one, pick your niche and your specialty and then market yourself as that to other people. And while you wait for brands, or if you're just still in that infancy stage of trying to get a contact list under your belt, reach out to other bloggers. You follow people on Instagram and social and you would be amazed at how much you can absorb by watching their stories and what their day-to-day is like. And if you have the tired mom who's always on there, I just need help. Pitch yourself to those people. I get pitches a lot in my inbox now.

And I'm like, hang on, I'm still 25 years old. I can't hire everyone. Other times I give them a lot of credit because I'm like, that was me. Like you just want, don't take no as an answer or it's a no for now and start refining your skills to make you really good at that one thing. I think that's really important. That's where I, you know, I went from iPhone eight photography on the Instagram to when I got the blog and 2021, January of 2021 was like my my full hard launch of like, okay, now let's build a recipe index. We're going to have process shots. It's not just like pretty picture on Instagram and then share the recipe and the captions. And while you can do that, truthfully, blogging is like... Though it's a beast,

it makes your life so much easier when you're sharing on social. You now are using your blog as your engine and social is just the avenue to share those things, which I wish I would have learned before, but that's okay. Yeah. I think a lot of people learn that later on when they start to feel burned out from all of the constant work of creating fresh content to share on social. Whereas when you have it on your blog, you're creating that foundation to use it. Like you said, those are avenues to share that content versus the base that you're building to share the content. And so I think when people learn that it's just such a game changer. Such a game changer. And I, again, going to like... I really think that there's this bucket of veteran bloggers who have been in it since

the internet launched. And then the new content creators who maybe started as influencers and then went to blogging. And then there's this middle of people who are truly bloggers that use social to share their stuff, but they also don't rely on social. And yes, you could look at my sponsored posts and say, okay, well, a lot of her income does. And I do use different Facebook, Pinterest, Instagram, TikTok, Lemonade, you name it. We are on there. And it is a decent amount of time. But I'm like, I have to spend time on it if that's what makes me money. Yeah. And that's exactly what you're doing.

You're just being intentional about your time that you're spending on those platforms instead of just... I mean, I think a lot of people just try to grow to grow versus having a purpose behind it. And so when you have a purpose behind it, and it's serving you, I think that's a whole other story. Definitely. And also my biggest advice for that is set time limits on your social apps. Instagram is by far my most used app. And probably when I went full time,

I set it to two hours a day, which some people are like, Oh my God, two hours. And now it's in an hour because I'm like, I physically am better off mentally if I'm not absorbed in it so much. And it allows me more time to work on literally blog-related stuff that's not on social. All the backend things that no one sees. Lots of backend things that nobody sees. I know. I think too, something that you're saying that's important is that, or at least I'm gathering, that you enjoy the social networking part of it. And so that works for you in your business.

Now, if you're somebody who doesn't enjoy social networking and being on Instagram, know that you can still pitch to brands and have it just be on your blog. You don't have to just use social. There's a lot of different ways that you can serve brands that... Growing an email list and being able to email them,

there's a lot of different ways that you can do that. Yeah. Or pitch the brand and say, I'll create this for your social. You don't have to have any strings attached. That's more freelance because you're not sure how they're going to use it. But that was a huge part of my business last year. I had probably about 15% of my revenue came from one ad agency. And that just does a lot of work for different food clients and then transparently this year i haven't had a single gig come in from them yet so where it's kind of shifted from 2023 where i did a lot of freelance work from that 2024 actually my

affiliate marketing is significantly up so that's kind of replaced freelance. Not to say that I wanted it to, but rolling with what you're going to get every year, you kind of just got to be fluid with it and not freak out when things are going the way. I mean, there's definitely times where I feel like I have like a semi-annual freak out of, ah, what am I doing? And then I go back to normal. I'm like, I just got to get off my chest. I got to talk to things, text up a few of my other food bloggers. I feel like this is the buzz, what's happening right now.

I'm just like, RPMs are so low this year so far. It's frustrating, but I'm like, okay, if I can't do anything about it, how can I drive more people to my site? Rank IQ, I'm two months into that. And why did I wait so long? Do you see a theme here? Why did I wait so long? Do you see a theme here? Why did she wait so long? Because you can't do all the things at the start. That's why.

There it is. I know. Is it really working or are people just getting paid a lot of money to say this? Like, I don't know. Yes. Yeah. You have to be discerning with the information that's coming at you as a blogger, because there is a lot of transparency and blogging. And that's what we're trying to do here today is to give some transparency. But there are obviously people out there promoting things, just because it's an affiliate thing, and they want to make money off of it. And so I think that's the lesson too, is when you are working with brands, when you are working with affiliates, we've talked about it a million times, but just be authentic in choosing the brands that you work with. Right. And I think to go off that, another way to expand blogging into other areas of your life, I love to work out. The workout app that I do, she also does a fitness challenge that has nutritional components. So I pitched to her and she was like,

yeah, I would love to include your recipes. So now that's also a great way to share my recipes into a specific niche of its macro counting food. Do I always do it? No, but is it great for people to... It's a great way to get your name in a different space. So if you're like, okay, well, vegans and... I mean, it could be vegan, vegetarian, keto. And if you don't specialize in any of those, maybe it's a type of cuisine. Try cooking classes and traveling or book clubs or

local library classes. There are so many ways to get your recipes in other people's hands as well as promote your blog and blog name so people are familiar with your stuff. When it comes to hosting your website, you want somebody you can trust. That's why we recommend BigScoots. Not only do we recommend BigScoots to our students, but we both use them for our own blogs as well. We love them because as a new or experienced blogger, their hands-on 24-7 support is invaluable. Anytime we've submitted a support request, we've gotten quick responses

from a real person ready to help. Big Scoots has an uptime of 99.99%, meaning your site won't go down at critical times like with other hosting companies. With managed and shared plans, you'll be able to get support that fits your budget. Big Scoots is a perfect hosting company for bloggers. Use the link in our show notes to find a plan that works for you. Yep. And recognize that people are going to come in from different areas. Not everybody's going to

come on after your blog. Not everybody's going to come in after your social. We added the podcast last year. We're getting more people coming in from the podcast now, which is really exciting. All these fresh new people are coming in who are already really interested in blogging and interested in what we're talking about. And so they're finding us. And so niching, I think, is important in that regard too, so people can find out. And I think that that's attractive to brands too. Honestly, when they know, when they can go to your blog or your socials and say, okay, this is what this person's about, then they can look, okay, is our ideal customer in alignment with her ideal reader? And if that's the case, then you're going to be a lot more attractive to a brand because they're essentially tapping into your community and hopefully converting them to customers of theirs.

Right. Right. And social definitely allows brands to see behind the curtain of what your personality is like, how you interact with your community. But I also have a lot of successful bloggers in general who don't ever touch social and all their stuff comes from ad revenue and even affiliate marketing through their website. And not to say they're anything less of a person because they do that. It's just their personal preference. And it's also... I feel like they've been in it longer. They have Pinterest. I feel like I'm always... The blogger, I'm like, Oh, I was after the Pinterest boom. I was right after Facebook boom. I missed the Instagram boom. And now I just TikTok. So Lemonade came out and I was like, we're on it. Come on, let's do it.

And where am I? Like less than 100,000 followers. I'm like, I don't care. I don't care. I'm on it. I'm putting effort into it. It doesn't matter. But you know what? You just said something really important. You were after the boom of all of them. And you're still able to blog full time in four years. Yeah. Don't discount that. That's true. And also, I would like to give myself more credit. I like to say two years because two years is really when I bought the blog. Yeah.

Yeah. Yes. So two years. That's incredible. So let's dive into this process of working with a brand. Sure. What does that look like? And how does a person know how much they can charge out of the gate? Is it dependent on website traffic? Is it dependent on followers on social? Is it... I don't know. Okay. I like to work backwards. I look at... Honestly, my monthly expenses as a business. What do I need to make to provide

for myself? I look at taxes because that's not fun. And so I work backwards. And so I feel like you can toss out a lot of different numbers. They're really unique to you. I would determine first what your hate rate is. That means how much are you going to allow someone to pay you? And you're going to hate your life doing it. That's me. I will say that I've accepted one from a really big wine brand a year ago. And I was like, how can I pass this up? I literally drink their wine. I support them every week. I drink it every Friday. There's no other way. And they had no more than $350. Okay, this was actually three years ago. Sorry. Because I would never accept that now. But they were like,

but we'll give you access to our winery sale. And we don't have this budget at time, but we will more in the future. Let me tell you something. They've never had any more budget in their future. And I still took the $350. And the whole time, I hated doing it. I was like, I don't even want to submit it because this is so low. I'm so much more than this. So I would say my hate rate is like 1500 transparently for a baseline sponsored Instagram reel and three stories. Simply because you think about like, okay, we're going to give 25% to 30% of that to taxes. So then I'm looking at like anyone who's like a statistics major. Don't quote this, but like we're going to round $1,200.

And then groceries are expensive. So that's another like, I don't know, $100. And then my virtual assistant, she writes my posts. I pay her every week. Okay, now I'm at like $900. And I'm like, okay, $900 is a decent daily fee if it's going to take me one day to post it. But does the contract have edits in it? Do they want white listing? Do they want copyright? Do they want exclusivity? Are they going to put 60 days of

paid media behind it and I'm just going to sit on my thumb and not get anything for it? No. So that's kind of my hate rate right now. Also, we never, ever, ever put our hate rate as our rate. You should double it or triple it. And that's what you should go in with. Swing. Swing and strike out. I don't care. But don't go in there and have them say,

Oh, well, actually, we can only give you half of this. Because then you just dug yourself into a hole. And now you're really debating the morals of, I don't have any other gigs. Should I take the $750? Should I not? Whatever. So I almost always double my rate when I'm pitching and or providing details. And okay, well, that's end of question one. Because I could keep spiraling into more things. I'm just, I'm just, my mind is like, wow, this is, I love specifics. And you have given so many specifics in terms of like, their rate might be something different, but you know, it's okay to have a bottom dollar because I think we've all done it. You've accepted something because you were

desperate and it was miserable and you're never going to do it again. And maybe everybody has to do that once. I don't know. Maybe that's how you figure it out. Unfortunately, I think there's like three or four times where you're like, okay, I'm just not going to do it. I also think that in terms of social content, Instagram, I think you can charge more for in the sense of you have a loyal community. You have people that trust your recommendations because of what... And I mean, we're talking like 200 followers to mega influencers. TikTok, there's a lot more variability. Honestly, I've had TikToks that get over millions of views simply because the brand is putting paid media behind it. You know that so you can charge for

it. But I've seen one TikTok video in general, I charge less for simply because the captions are way less. You don't have to include certain messaging. It's usually a voiceover. And there's no associated photography with it. There's no cover photo. There's nothing. That being said, I did have a person or I had a brand in February of 2023 that they were like, we want one TikTok video. I said, okay, my rate's $1,200. And truthfully, it's quarter one. So I did lower. They wanted one video and they gave me the recipe. Okay. There's not much work there to do. Yeah. 1200 bucks. They come back and say they can only give me 600. They're like, listen, I talked to my other blogger friends. I'm like, is this normal? Why is TikTok lower? What are we seeing here? Which is helpful. I think the more transparent you are with your colleagues and people in the industry, it makes you better. It makes you better at negotiating. And I don't care if you want to

add a zero to it, take a zero off. I don't care. You can be as flexible as you want. So I'm like, do I want to accept? I'm like, can you meet me at 950? Never feel like you need to accept that first throwback. That first throwback. And she said, nope. For, and I quote for people, your sides,

we do not pay anything more than six 50. First off. Thanks for that little light. She. I'm like, really? You never pay anything more. Well,

obviously you've never worked with me because I have great content. Just pipe yourself up when they're kicking you down. Yeah. And then she sent me the contract. I was like, okay, fine. I'll do 650. It was, again, Q1. We did not have much happening in Q1, especially in 2023.

Are we going into a recession? Are we not? Brands didn't know. No one had a budget. Whatever. So then she sent me the contract. And there are three associated digital images that they want exclusivity for copyright and they want it. And I'm like, I'm sorry. So I have the email pulled up. I'm going to read the wording because I was a bit flabbergasted. And I said, basically,

thanks for getting back to me. I also was asking to change the pay time because everything is flexible in a contract from net 90, which is ridiculous, to net 30 or net 15. I really... Nothing more than net 45, just because it's so much time between you when you get a paycheck. And I say, let's back up quick and revisit the deliverables as I want to make this work with your team too. When we were discussing deliverables, we had negotiated TikTok video in the contract. There's three static images included. My pricing for three static images and all usage rates on top of it is X. I actually said a little lower than what I like to do because she was already so kicked me down. She didn't accept $1,200. So I said $750. And so I said the photographs they can expect to see are professional photographs that will

highlight their brand and product. Photography is my bread and butter. And I feel like the team will be very happy with this investment. So the total for this would be $1,400. Can we amend the contract to reflected deliverables, either one video or one video plus images? Please let me know what works best for you. I so appreciate your back and forth as we get this ironed out. I feel like we're getting close. Thanks so much. So like respectable, I'm going to have to come back and say, okay, how can I like go to bat with what I know as a creator, I need to get paid. Hello, unfortunately, given our tight budget, we just aren't able to budge and offer you more than $650. To be totally transparent, most influencers are fine with snapping just a

few photos and sharing those with us as a part of the campaign deliverables. But we should have made that photo ask more clear upfront. That said, it's probably not a fit this time around. Best person. And I was like, okay, I learned a lot here. One, I didn't settle. Two, I asked for it. I never once compromised my values. And three, another, my friend who I usually ask for rates, she actually got double the money. She has a larger TikTok following. And they also put three images in it. And they actually took the three images off, or they amended the contract to include it. So she and I... But it was actually two different brands that they were representing. So she and I were actually going through this process at the same time. They amended for her and they kicked me to the curb. And I'm like,

you know what? Still, to this day, she hates... She's had issues with it. She had to redo the content. They asked for more. They were a P-A-T-A. Pain in the ass. I don't know if that's a thing, but we're just going to say it out loud. I'm like, what's like an abbreviation for that? And so you learn a lot from brands in that aspect. I love that you honestly just read straight from your email. That was fantastic. I think it was perfect. I love that you didn't settle. I love that you knew your bottom dollar and you looked at it like, okay, I'm in Q1. This is going to look different than Q4. This is what I need right now. And you were like, no, I am not. Because you

easily could have been like, I need the 650. I50,000. And so I'll just give them the DM photos. Who cares? But you're like, No, I have worth. And what you do when you understand your worth is you open yourself up to other opportunities that you can use your creativity. Because when we're doing, whether it's projects or working with a brand or anything, and we're not able to use our creativity or it doesn't light us up, that sucks us dry, quite honestly. And then we're not able to be creative in this space. And we have to have that space to be creative here. Because we're creative entrepreneurs. That's the whole job. So if we don't allow that, then it's not just that you're doing a job that you hate, but then you're also not able to do well with any of the other things that you're doing in your business because you're not ever

just working on one thing. I mean, let's be real. There's always a lot of things going on. Yeah. So I'm just curious now, by not accepting that, did you have another brand come upon you shortly after? I did. And it was a rush for Easter. She emailed me on Tuesday and she was like, quick turn. I've worked with this brand once. And I've emailed her every quarter just like, hey, touch and base. It was great to work with you on that campaign. She originally emailed me for a campaign right before Christmas in 2021. Same thing, quick turn, five days. Here we go.

So I know what I charge for that. And I was like, okay, knowing that, I saw that pop back up. that. And I was like, okay, knowing that I saw that pop back up and I jar 1400 or no, it was actually 650, which she was going to give five times, six times the amount. It was a $4,000 deal for the same less deliverables actually. And some few photos. And actually when I was doing it, I was like, it was, they were carrot cake muffins with the topped walnut. And when I photographed it, I wanted like, after I edited, I almost looked at it. I was I photographed it, I wanted... After I edited it, I almost looked at it. I was like, I feel like I could have done a little bit better. I was in my own worst critics. I wanted the saturation to be a little bit better in the photo, whatever. I emailed it to her late Thursday night. It was going to get approved,

go live on Friday. She emails me back. First thing is like, this is the best content we've ever seen. It's never been approved so quickly from a brand. Here you go, ready to post. And I've already been paid from it. And I'm like, okay, you know what? Thank you. Thank you. I need that. Just like a helpful... But also, it just makes you realize that some brands are just really... They're not with it. And if I don't stand up for myself, then someone else is going to get screwed. And other people did get screwed. And we're just... We're all out here trying to do our best. So the more that we can make the industry better. And I think also we heard questions at tastemakers like, how much is it my responsibility to make the industry better? And I'm not going to

say that I do more than what I just did in that email. But I do think when you clearly state things out, you also give your work a foundation. I don't think any email should ever respond and be like, okay, my rate is $2,000. Let me know if you want to work together. No, we should never say that ever. We should show them why our work is $2,000 because they don't know it. They need help. So actually, this is my back pocket. What I started to do probably last year is I have a Google Slides. It's three pages. I'm looking at it right now. And it is anything that I send to a brand for... If they reach out to me and they have... Not just like,

Hey, we want to have your rates on file. Don't do that because there's not a demand for your work. If they have a specific request, a specific timeline, a product, and they never say their budget. I used to ask, I would respond, what's your budget for the deliverables? Sometimes I still do if it's really in that infancy stage or just quick response. And I follow up with this phrase, please let me know what timeline you're thinking or can I have more details to understand the deliverables? And I can provide your team with a content direction brief or a content creation brief. And this brief is what is in my Google Slides. Three pages. The first one says content direction. I have my logo at the bottom left. I put the potential brand at the bottom right.

Designed in my APOP color scheme, black and white, really creative. my APOP color scheme, black and white, really creative. And then I have six to eight inspiration images that I pull. So if it's a rice campaign, I go through Pinterest. I go through honestly, some of my work and I'm like, okay, what have I done that would showcase this? And then as a lot of bloggers do, we have like running SEO research recipes. I control F on that lovely Google document and I pull anything that has rice in it. I put those in on my far right column. So I have pictures and then I have SEO research recipes. Next page is the pricing breakdown. This is where you can start to tell them how much you want and or bundle things. So that's where I like to say I prefer to work in

quarterly contracts and or semi-annual. So here is the rate that I usually charge. And the lines below, I give an item price for 3 posts, 4 posts, or 6 posts, depending on what the contract has or what they have mentioned. But if it's a specific holiday, it's only one, I don't do the bundled rate because I know they're looking for know they're promoting this product for Memorial Day. Know your brand. And then it's a three-paragraph pricing breakdown. And the first paragraph is basically a mission statement of,

this photography and content will reflect and capture blank brand. You can expect to see and tell them what you can expect to see. Fresh ingredients, seasonal foods, and blank is the star of the recipe. And then for my personality, I write duh in parentheses. That seems pretty obvious. And I say what my photography style is. Contrasting textures, natural produce, emphasis of natural light. So if you use artificial light, say you could use hard light, you could use soft light. Look what the brand wants. And then I can tell them what to expect. Expect a variety of process shots, if cooking, processing, enjoying. If it's a cocktail, I usually say pouring, mixing, stirring. I mean, we all have chat GPT now. Put this in and say, what can they expect to see?

Every post can expect to have... And then you say the content deliverables. So this one was a real IG with syndication to TikTok blog post, 30-day boosting rights. You'll be invited as a collaborator. So the real is posted on both our feeds, optional if interested. And then the next one says, this is my favorite paragraph. The fees outlined above includes, but is not limited to, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. Cost of ingredients, materials, seasonal props, professional time spent curating, editing, submitting, posting, SEO keyword research, contract negotiation, employee fees, self-employment test, etc. All of the things that we wear that we need to carry our stuff. I will ensure that deliverables are executed in a professional manner. All of the recipes created live on my blog indefinitely. Let's get into that. Because not every brand wants a blog post, but I like to work smarter, not harder. So I purposely

only give brands recipes that are already SEO research and can perform well on the blog. So if they're not paying me to do the blog recipe, I just take that little brand out of the picture when I'm taking it, snap my photo, put her back in. And then it leaves on my blog and she is two birds, one stone. That's genius. Yeah. I don't think it's that genius, but I just don't want to do as much work as... But it is because if they don't want the blog post, that doesn't mean that all that work that you're doing shouldn't be put on your blog. If this is for an Instagram post

only, then that doesn't mean that you shouldn't be able to put that recipe on your blog. You're giving them that opportunity first and foremost. It can live here forever. Yes. And I'm telling them it's going to live there forever because it's mine. And then I say the photographer owns the copyright to every image. Typical copyright fee costs 12% of brands paid media for every image. And if you want to see more of my work, check out this link. And then I have a quick note of something else we've talked about. Maybe they want to include it on their recipe or their... I've had some that maybe want to include in the magazine. So I'm talking about how we're going to go about that. If it goes on their site, it must have a backlink to the photographer and the recipe developer.

Higher DA, more backlinks. Yep. And my last sentence to tie a little pre-bow on it. Above all, it's my job to over-deliver on content and quality of deliverables and serve this brand best. Thanks for your consideration. So that's that. And then the third slide I actually recently just added because I had some brands asking about it. How many people send screenshots of demographics and analytics and you're just like,

what are you using these for? Why do you need 7 to 10 of my ugly screenshots? And where are you going to put them? So instead of sending that, I send this Google Slides sheet. And I just say about APOP. And so I have a current demographics. I have what the blog traffic is averaging. Instagram followers, I don't include. I have gender for female and male. And then the age, percentage breakdown, location, and then based on reach, what's happening.

And that's usually... Sometimes they ask for that. So I do put it in like, the past 30 days, where's my reach at? Same with TikTok. They all have the same things. And then I have my little portfolio, recent brand partnerships. It's 6 bullet points. And I have 6 of my recent brand partnerships. I have the Instagram content linked and then the blog content. It literally says, Opal Apples, one of two, colon, Instagram content, underlined, blog content, underlined. So they have the ability to go see what I did instead

of going through my Instagram. And I just feel like it reads better than the screenshots. Like, hi, here you go. This is what you want. I'm going to make it pretty for you. And so I just duplicate, copy and duplicate this slideshow for my brands. And I call it my little content creative brief. And that reads a lot better than, Hi, I charged $2,000 for it. Instead of like attached, you can see the content brief. Take this to the brand, see what their thoughts are, how I can serve you better.

And also, I usually do this when I know that I've locked it in and we haven't gone through pricing negotiation. I don't do this for everyone because it wouldn't be worth my time. A couple things that you do there. One, you prove your worth. Yes. There you go. You're giving them all that information. But then you're also saying, and here are 6 other brands that I've worked with. And here's what I've done. Go look at my work. And here are six other brands that I've worked with. And here's what I've done. Go look at my work. Not only that, you make yourself memorable because I can guarantee that you are one of few that are sending something like that. Agreed.

If you want to do it, they're going to look at that and be like, Gosh, if she's sending me this just to get the job, I can't imagine what the work's going to look like. So you're making yourself memorable instead of just sending a couple sentence email that they're going to get from everybody that they're approaching about this particular opportunity. So finding ways to make yourself memorable and stand out, I think is important because honestly, brands have a lot of people to choose from right now. There's so much noise. Yes. I'm not going to say that the industry is saturated. I don't believe that it is. But because I do think that we all... Even if we're having the same niche,

we have different things and approaches and experiences. And we have different audiences that brands can work with lots of different people who have all those different things that it can still serve the brand really well. But with that, you have to make yourself stand out, I think. And you want to stay at the front of their mind to where when they're like, you know what? She really went above and beyond here. Let's go with her over the girl who just phoned it in and sent a quick email back. Yeah. And truthfully, I started doing that when I wanted to prove my worth to brands. And so that's been something... I don't think I've had a brand tell me like,

wow, this was so wonderful. Thank you. But I think it speaks on how many partnerships I've landed because of it. So I look at it and I'm like, why didn't I start doing this before? Oh, that's another common theme. We should just title this podcast. Why didn't you do this before? Goodness gracious. Because you grow. You just grow and learn always.

Yeah. Which is fun. Yeah. This has been incredibly insightful. Yeah. You've given a ton of tips. Okay. So one thing of how you keep scaling your pricing over time, I mentioned how I charge less in Q1 to Q4. That's simply based off how many things are coming through my inbox. If I didn't have to do that, I wouldn't. But how you keep charging more other than... I think follower count, sure, it helps. But your follower count doesn't dictate what type of quality you're producing. So when your work gets better, you can charge more. And I actually had that realization when I got the blog and I was still

charging probably between $700 to $1,500 for Instagram posts. But I didn't... I felt like I was at this like plateau. I'm like, we got to get it up. Like, why is it not going up? And that's because truthfully, my iPhone content was not cutting it. Now this was iPhone eight. So like, it's way better now. I actually do do some content on my iPhone because it's just phenomenal. But learning the basics of photography or writing or whatever else you're charging a lot of money for, that's how you make it better. You give people beautiful content that they can't resist. They're like, sure, I'll pay that. If it looks like they can't create it, they are absolutely going to pay more for it. If it looks like someone, Joe Schmo just did it in the back of his

kitchen, not good lighting, that's less desirable. So obviously it takes time to continue getting better and practice. It's not what you want to hear, I know. But I think that's part of being a blogger is being willing to learn and know that you have some things that are going to come more naturally to you as you begin. And then as you continue with this craft, because that's what it is, when you open yourself up to have more space to do those things, then you can take the time to do it. Photography is not something that I have tapped into yet. I've been a blogger since 2017. It's not something that brings me joy, quite honestly. So it's something that I hire out. It brings Jennifer a ton of joy.

Oh, yeah. Jennifer. I love it. I think that you have to ask yourself, what do I love doing? What do I not? And really focus on the areas that you do love because that's the beauty of this job is being able to focus on the areas that you love and doing more of them. It's not to say that there's not going to be things that you have to do in your business that you... We don't love everything. Right. Taxes. have to do in your business that you... We don't love everything. Right. Taxes. Yeah. Yeah. You don't have to do... Just because somebody's doing XYZ doesn't mean that you have to do XYZ as well. You can gain insight and then choose your own way and say,

you know what? I can take some things that I really like about what they're doing and incorporate that into my business. But I want to do this as well or this instead of. And that's the beautiful piece of blogging, in my opinion. I love it. I agree. If you are not already signed up for Candice over at the Confident Pitch Programming, she has an email list. And I did a down and dirty one hour call with her two years ago, and she changed my perspective on how I pitch clients. And that's really helpful. I get it. I don't know, whenever she sends an email, it's just a good refresher. So I would recommend that. And when you're thinking about responding to a potential pitch, or you want to pitch yourself,

you want to think about the need for the content, the budget, the timeline, and trust. Are they just collecting rates? Or do they actually have specific actionable things that they're sending? And or on the flip side, if you are pitching them, it should not be like, Hey, we'd love to work with you. Let me know how we can work together. It should be the structure of the email usually goes for me. First paragraph is why I love the product, what specifically I love, and a little bit about me. The next text is like, I'm sure you get a lot of these emails, but this is how I'm a little different. This is my specialty. Here's my work. And I want to know... Then the next paragraph is all about the brand in terms of what products are a focus for quarter one, quarter two, quarter three, quarter four. Are there any holidays that you're preparing for? Are there any new product

launches that you're into specific retailers? Ask specific questions. So one, they know that you care about what's happening and always drive it back to, how are you serving the brand? That's my focus. Transition more from like, oh, I want to do this just because I want to make money to like, how am I serving this brand to make money? The focus changes because then they see

how committed you are to what type of content you're making. And it's great. And then say... I usually, at the end, I'm like, happy to hop on a quick 10-minute call. Don't overdo anything more than 10 minutes because people are booked and busy. And most people don't take you up on a call. But happy to hop on a quick 10-minute call to discuss design brief or content deliverables, or if there are none, then content ideation. That's a good one.

And then if they don't answer you, respond to an email in a week. Give it a week and say, Hi, I just want to follow up on this. Reiterate why you're interested. Reiterate your questions. Kind of do like a spark notes of what you just emailed them. Say again, happy to hop on a call. Then I usually wait two weeks and say, Listen, I haven't heard from you. I'm expecting you're busy. Is there another person in your industry, in your market that I could reach out to? Ask for another contact. People love getting people off their back. They are all about it. So ask for that. And then by the fourth, after that fourth email, I'm usually like, I will send and be like, I'll circle back with you

next quarter or next year. Thanks so much for your time while reading this emails. XOXO, a really cool girl that you want to work with. You just don't know what you're missing. Next. So that's usually my pitching method to number of emails. And truthfully, sometimes I don't always send the fourth email. Sometimes I'm like, okay, it's a no for now. Next. Yeah. But you keep them on a list. In my head. In your head. Yes. And I will tell you, I used to... If you're going to go through Instagram and do the pantry method where you look through all the things in your pantry and reach out to that brand, never ask for anything in the Instagram DM other than an email contact. That's it. Hi, Driscoll Berries.

I love your thing. And I would love to discuss working together or just like you, I would just love to get in contact with someone in your marketing department or who handles your social marketing. Could you please refer me to an email address? And a lot of people actually respond. Now, quarter one, again, I've mentioned this year has just been slower in general of what 2022 was. Quarter one, I did that for over 65 brands. I was kind of having an oh shit moment. And so I did it. And I got maybe 10 emails in response.

So was it worth my time? Probably not. Then out of those 10 emails, I landed zero brand deals from it. Which is not... I know that's really disheartening, but I'm all about transparency. So I'm just telling you what happened. Out of all of my brand deals, they have all come to me recently. I don't know what the shift is. I don't know what's happening. I don't know if I'm in certain networks. I started at... I mean, you sign up for Aspire IQ and Foodie Tribe and some other of these names.

I used to... Last year, I landed a lot with Foodie Tribe. And this year, I think my rates are too high and the market's oversaturated that they have. I've had zero. And I've even emailed, followed up with them and like, hey, where are we at with this? I would love to be considered. It's lemons from Spain. I mean, I can make lemonade with lemons, right? Anyone can. So what's happening here? I'm like, sorry, your rates are just too high. I'm like, well, that means that you're oversaturated and that you can't pay me what I deserve to pay.

So next. Yep. Such good information for people. I think they're going to have so much to take away from this. Good. I'm glad. And truth be told, you can reach out to me on Instagram DM or an email. Instagram DM is kind of preferred and I will respond on an audio message because again,

typing or verbally communicating is much easier. Yeah. Yeah. Awesome. Can you tell people your links, your handles and all that so they can connect with you, Courtney? Yes. I am over on Instagram, TikTok, Facebook, primarily Instagram, at a page of positivity, A-P-A-I-G-E, and then of positivity. And on my blog at a page of positivity, I'm Courtney Page. So if you get one thing right, please get my name right. And I'm just in it like with the rest of us. So I love to learn. I love to grow as we learn and connect while sharing because that's the best way to do it. It is. Thank you so much for your transparency today and openness with our audience.

This is going to be fantastic. And thanks for tuning in. So don't forget to connect with Courtney and ask her all the questions if you need any clarifications or just want to bounce ideas. Yeah. Well, thank you guys for having me. I really appreciate it. Thank you. Thanks so much for tuning in today. If you'd like to continue the conversation about blogging with us, please find us on Instagram at Spark Media Concepts.

You can also sign up for our weekly newsletter where we share blogging tips and inspiration. You can sign up by finding the link in the show notes. For those of you who are ready for the next step and want to start your own blog, join the waitlist for the ultimate blog bootcamp. The link to join the waitlist is also in the show notes. Go out and make today a great day.