How to Work with Affiliate Partners and Brands

One of the things that I absolutely love about what I get to do here on this podcast is to share bits and pieces of my journey with you. I get to share the behind the scenes, I get to share how I started, like how things were back in 2018 versus today. And one of the things that I get asked a lot I get asked a lot about is, how did you initially start working with affiliate partners and brands? Like how have you been featured on the Buzzsprout? Channel? How have you gotten to do stuff with

All right, so we can't really settle into the whole idea of working with affiliate partners and brands without mentioning some of the awesome resources that I already have. So all the things that we talked about here today, the strategies, the resources, they're all going to be found in the show notes. So KrystalProffitt.com/episode356 is where you're going to find all of the things that we're

Okay, now that that is out there. I wanted to give you a quick example of how I plan my different launches with my partner brands affiliate brands that I work with, and kind of give you a behind the scenes of what that looks like simply because this is a mystery to a lot of people. This was a total mystery to me to like, let's be really honest, I didn't know how to do this until I tried my first affiliate launch. And I tested the waters. And now here I am. I mean, we're almost five years in to doing affiliate launcher launches my own launches, like, I mean, it's just, it's something that is a wash, rinse and repeat situation at this point, because I have a system that works for me. And that's really the disclaimer that I wanted to throw out there. I've seen a lot more content creators and entrepreneurs being very upfront with letting you know, the things that I try. And I'm sharing with you, they may or may not work for you. Okay, like, let's throw that out there. I may have different circumstances, I may have a different type of audience, I may have just a very different approach and how I do things. And so I want to throw that out there for you to take everything with a grain of salt and not say, well, Krystal said to do it exactly this way. You'll never hear me say that. By the way. If if you have then that's it was miscommunicated somewhere because I've said so many times on this podcast, that there are guidelines, right? We don't say there's rules to content creation, there are guidelines you can follow. But at the end of the day, it's your content. It's your business, and you have to run it in a way that's going to work for you. All right. But this is what I typically do. So I actually have a few upcoming promotions, and I wanted to give you a little bit behind the scenes of what that looks like whenever I'm creating them. So the first thing I do is I use Asana, y'all know this, I've told y'all this so many times, I'm a an affiliate of Asana, because I love it so much. I'm reading the all the notes for this episode today are in my Asana. So many things. I'm gonna link to more of my Asana resources, even though I talk about them all the time. This is my project management software that I use to control my life. Basically, it's how I show up here on a regular basis. It's how I batch my content. It's how I don't let something slip through the cracks. And so I rely heavily on Asana to help me promote or use create a, let me try this again, hang on, I'm trying to read and talk at the same time. And that doesn't always work well for me. So I use a sauna to create a promotional calendar, which will lead into the email marketing that I do for an affiliate launch, which leads into social posts that I create. And I will end up sharing my affiliate link using a tool called pretty links. So I kind of wanted to step it out. Again, there's going to be a visual representation of this in the show notes. But I just want to give you kind of an idea of the different tools that I use. So I use Asana, and then I create a promotional calendar, which is like, throughout the year, you'll hear it on this podcast, you'll hear me talk about it on my YouTube channel and you will get emails if you're on my email list of the different promotions that I do throughout the year. Kill that's all strategic. That's not like fly by the seat of my pants. You know what, it's, it's July, I should promote something about Asana. No, it's not what I do. I have everything strategically planned out in Asana. And it was first written out in either a Google Doc or in my journal, like my handwritten Journal of what I wanted to promote for the year. And then I loaded up in my email marketing system, which is ConvertKit. Another, we'll get to that later. It's another application that I love. But then I will create social posts and I'll plan them out. And then I use a tool called pretty links, which I rely on so stinking much. So you have probably heard of a tool called Bitly. Right? Where you can create short links instead of having if you've ever been an affiliate for another company, then you know, even Amazon I started out like that was my very first affiliate partnership. I was an Amazon affiliate. And this was like right before they started making the shorter versions of the Amazon links, y'all they were so horrendously long. There were so ugly, and I have a pet peeve about ugly URLs, which is why I love that pretty links is called pretty links because it makes them short, sweet and pretty. And because I have a WordPress website, I can create all the different URLs that I want so krystalproffitt.com/"whatever affiliate link that I want to use". So you can go to KrystalProffitt.com/asana and that's where you will be routed to my affiliate link for Asana, KrystalProffitt.com/convertkit. So you see, I'm saying like, it makes it really easy for me. At the end of the day, this is what I love about this part of doing affiliate launches is whatever I can do to make it easier on myself easier on my audience, but also adding value like that's the trifecta, okay, I'm gonna say that, again, whatever I can do to make it easier on me easier on my audience, and it delivers value. That is really, really what you're going for, if you're going to be doing any kind of affiliate or brand launches. All right. So that's kind of the high level example of how I plan my

Now, I wanted to go a little bit more into the detail of the different kinds of affiliate or brand launches that I have participated in. So there are a one time launch, right. So this is something that comes around once a year. And I know, okay, I'm going to just put a whole bunch of effort and energy into a one time lunch, then there is a nother kind that I call. You could call it cyclical or seasonal. But that's really where I'm going to use dynamic content, because it's something that comes around more than once a year, or it's something that I can promote whenever I want. So an example of this is using Asana, this is I can I can promote, there's no promotional calendar that says, you need to promote Asana every single episode, or every other episode, or every six months, like it's one of those things that I decide for myself. And whenever I'm doing that, and I'm planning out my promotional calendar, I say like, I will look at my content calendars, right, I will open up my Google sheet that has the profit podcast calendar, I'll open up my YouTube calendar. And I'll look at the two and I'll say, Okay, where is a good alignment for me to promote something that is affiliated with this topic. So for example, if I'm going to talk about content calendars, or I'm going to talk about project management, it just makes sense to talk about a sauna like this, this is the tool that I use, right, or if I'm going to talk about podcasting, I'm going to talk about Buzzsprout because I'm an affiliate with this brand. And it's what I use, it's the tried the true the trusted brand that I have endorsed since day one, of course, I'm going to talk about it if I'm going to be talking about podcasting. But this is the different thing. So it's not a one time launch, because I could do it whenever I want to. But yeah, there's just a few different ways that you can go about it. So you can add dynamic content into your podcast, which I have lots of resources on dynamic content that you can go check out in the show notes. If you don't know what this is, it simply means adding an audio file at the beginning or the end of your podcast episode. And then you hit this button, this magical button in Buzzsprout. And it will apply it to every single podcast episode that you have. So this episode is 356. So if I hit that publish button on my dynamic content, it will not only put an audio clip at the beginning of today's episode, it will put an audio clip on every single episode I've ever created on this show. So if someone were to go listen to episode one, they would hear about the promotion that I'm doing for right now, like the timely promotion that is happening. All right, but that's something that is it's totally up to me, I have to make that decision of whenever I want to do those type of launches throughout the year. And then there's what I like to call a series launch. So whenever it's a series launch, this simply means that it could be multiple podcast episodes or multiple videos within the promotional period. So this could be one of those like, once or twice a year launches, but within my content, I'm going to stretch it out. So you if you've been in my audience for a few years, then you know that every year I'll promote BC stack, which is actually happening right now, don't worry, we're going to talk about that here in a second. I'll promote Amy Porterfield digital course academy that usually happens in September. So if you're interested in creating digital courses, like it's coming up just there's the heads up that I'm going to be promoting DCA again this year, and then I will promote it Be school with Marie Forleo. I have promoted podcasters kid, which is another once a year promotion. And what I will typically do is I will create a series of content that leads up to that topic. So I am fully endorsing this person, this program, this product, this brand for multiple pieces of content, so either multiple podcast episodes, or multiple videos. But I think it's really important to distinguish how a series launch is a little bit different than just mentioning something one time, or adding it to your dynamic content over and over again throughout the year. So I will treat this BC stack launch that we're in right now different than I will talking about Asana because I can talk about Asana whenever I want. But BC stack, like the one that's happening right now is only available from June 12 through the 19th 2022. Like after that it's gone. I can't talk about it whenever I want. Because it's not there, you can go by it. So I'm not going to talk about it throughout the year all the time, I'm only going to talk about it whenever it's open for you to purchase it. And by the way, it's only $49. And you should go to the show notes, I have a link to it, you should go check it out. Because it is amazing. And I have a great product in there. So there's no plug. I'm gonna talk about it again here in a second. But I just want you to know, you should go grab it before the doors close. Okay. All

Now moving on. The next thing that we really need to talk about when it comes to partnering with affiliates partnering with brands, I think it's really, really important that you should optimize your existing content. Hear me on this. Okay, those of you that have been podcasting for a while those you've been creating YouTube, I want you to go back to your existing content and optimize it for the brands that you are working with. So

But let's go back to now I know this is a part like I teased it in the beginning and I haven't talked about it. So we're gonna talk about it now. But y'all want to know, well, Krystal, how did you get to work with all of the brands that you're working with today? And I want to tell you, I actually have a link to my tried and true my favorite tools. And it's going to be linked in the show notes. But it's KrystalProffitt.com/tools. It these are my favorites. These are all of my affiliate, like, I just tell you upfront, like, these are my affiliate links, okay. And the reason why is because people ask me, Well, what do you do? What do you use for podcasting? What do you use for transcripts? What do you use for podcast interviews? What do you use for your SEO on your YouTube channel? What do you use for email marketing? What do you use for bookkeeping? Like, there's so many things, what do you use does use your calendar, I get so many questions. And instead of repeating myself over and over, I created a link like a page, it's on my website that has all of my favorite tools, all of my favorite tools. And it's fantastic, because now I only have to remember one URL, and I can send everybody there. And it is, it's awesome. So if you have multiple affiliates, and you have not done this, highly, highly recommend you create a tools page or resources page, whatever you want to call it on your website. That way, you can have everything in one central location and you can send people there often. Okay, my favorite ones that I have on there are Asana, ConvertKit, TubeBuddy Buzzsprout, Calendly, Squadcast, I'm like, on the top of my head, otter.ai Canva. Pro, like, there's just I could just go on and on. There's a lot of stuff listed there. So go check it out. But I wanted to circle back because we are going to talk about how did I get partnered with these brands. First and foremost, I want to talk about the first one that I partner with. So I already told you, I signed up for amazon, it was my very first one, y'all all you have to do go fill an application done, you can be an Amazon affiliate, alright, they don't pay out as well as other affiliate programs. But you know what, it's where you can get your feet wet. It's how I got started. I recommended books on a regular basis, like, Hey, I read this book, I love it, go get it on Amazon, I'd get a few cents a few dollars here and there. It was not paying a lot of bills. But you know, like I said, it helped me learn about affiliate marketing. Next, I moved into Buzzsprout. So I became an affiliate with Buzzsprout and actually became a creator. So this is the difference, right? I started really promoting Buzzsprout. Org organically without even realizing I was doing it. Now here's, here's what I mean. So I was a part of their Facebook group, whenever it was like one or 2000 people now it's like 26,000 or something. It's like it's ridiculous amount of numbers today than it was whenever I first got started. But I just remember I just kept cheering how much I loved this brand. I kept telling everybody go use Buzzsprout. And I'd never used any other ones. So when people ask people still ask me to this day to compare. What do you think about this one versus that one? I'm like, I really don't know. I've used Buzzsprout since day one. But I became a cheerleader for the brand. Because I genuinely loved it. It made my life easier. It made me just able to do things that I thought were kind of impossible for me to do. I thought, Well, who am I to do these things? They look so hard. But I was able to do them with Buzzsprout. So I kept cheering them on. And you know, in the Facebook groups, you know, answering questions, and I was just really dialed into their community. And then one day, I got a message from somebody on their team. And they were like, Hey, have you signed up for our affiliate program was cool. I didn't know you had one. So sign up for their affiliate program. You know, I started getting a few you know, $20 here, $20. There. It's like, Oh, you got an affiliate affiliate. Cool, cool, cool. This is awesome. I'm starting to actually make some money like it's paying, paying some of my bills. This is great. Well, then, after about maybe six to 12 months of just being a huge cheerleader of their brand. Somebody reached out to me again, and they said, Hey, how about you become one of our Buzzsprout creators? I was like, what does that even mean? I don't understand. And so you know, they sent me a link and they were like, oh, you know, we're going to pay you a monthly stipend. We're going to cover the cost of your like your monthly hosting for podcasting. And all of this happened all of this happen because I was a cheerleader of their brand without ever expecting anything in return. This is like the key point here, because I want you to become so infatuated with the tools you love. And let me say this, this needs to be an organic thing, okay? Because I can tell y'all we can read through you like freaking glass, whenever you are trying to champion something you really don't like, or you don't know about, you know, I get reached out to all the time for people that are like, Hey, we you talk about our brand on YouTube people that are willing to pay me hundreds, sometimes 1000s of dollars. And I turn them down. Oh, maybe you're like, oh, Krystal, that's pretty stupid. What are you doing? Hear me out, hear me out? I don't use their product. I don't use I have had multiple businesses come to me and say, Will you talk about this? Or will you create a video about this, we'll give you a free account. I recently just had an entire subscription expire, I signed up for their affiliate program last year, they gave me a full year of their software. I used it once. And I haven't touched it again. And I was like, oh my god, I can't partner with this. I don't love this product, I have to be in love with the product. And this is just my opinion. Again, going back to what we said at the very, very beginning. This is how I operate my content and my business. So I'm not saying that you absolutely have to be totally infatuated with something before you ever endorse it. I'm not saying that. I'm just saying that is how I operate. Because I feel like I can't really fake something that I don't

So this is how I got affiliated with Buzzsprout. I just kept championing them how much I love them. And I eventually just stepped into this creator role. The same thing happened with stream yard. So I actually was connected with a friend who she convinced me y'all heard me talk about Mel, like Mel has done amazing things like she's done so much content for stream yard as one of their brand partners. And she just kept Championnat like, oh my gosh, like streamer the streamer that and I was like, Man, she loves it so much, I need to go check this out. She's the one that made me sign up for stream yard, because she loved it so much. And because she fell in love with it. I was like, Man, this is so awesome. she'd show me all her behind the scenes of how she did this, how she did that. I fell in love with the brand and I started championing them, I started creating my own YouTube videos about them, I started talking on podcast about them. And then someone on their team reached out and said, Hey, do you want to do some YouTube videos for us? Do you want to be a stream yard creator? I was like, yes, absolutely. And so these things have happened organically, because I have championed the brand without expecting anything in return. I know I've said this before, and I'm probably gonna say it a few more times. But this is how these organic brand relationships happen. Because what I see too often is people are saying, well, I talked about this brand, like 17 times, why aren't they paying me? It's very entitled, okay, I'm gonna call you out if this is you stop feeling like you are entitled to anything. Because if you don't have a contract with these people, why should they pay you? That's bottom line, like I'm pretty black and white in the business world of, if you don't have a contract with somebody to be paid for something, you're likely not going to get paid for something. So that is my approach to it. And this is why I like to help my audience find the best resources. And I'll be very honest with you. A lot of the brands that I talk about, the reason why I love them so much is they have some sort of free plan. Okay, because I know a lot of y'all are strapped like y'all are on a budget and you're like Krystal, I can't go pay in $500 for this software $200 for this 150 bucks for that 175 for that one, like I get it I this is how I started to I totally understand. So most of the brands that I endorse, have a version of their platform, their product or software, whatever it is, they have a free version, or they have a very affordable option. And that is why I endorse them to you because I know that they will add value to your life. So when you are approaching Who should I endorse? Who should I partner with? Think about those things. Again, let's go back to the three things that trifecta. How are they like, how much do you love them? How is it going to benefit your audience? And how can you add value? How can you do those three things because this is what is so

Now I know many of you are like, how did you partner with Amy Porterfield? How like I want to know how this worked because I still I still don't understand how have you been able to have this relationship with her? So this is this is kind of a different story. Okay, because this is not something that everybody can do I understand And that, but it's my story. And I that's all I know, right? It's all I can share, because it's my experience. So in 2019, this is when I signed up for BSchool with Amy. And so she did. She was an affiliate. So I mean, let's be really clear. I learned a lot of my affiliate stuff from Amy by watching her and how she promoted B School, which is Marie Forleo's program. She's been an affiliate BSchool for a long, long time. And I watched what she did during the launch. I was infatuated. I was like, Oh my gosh, this is so smart. This is so great. And I knew that I wanted to invest in B School. I knew it was the next right step for me. So I invested in B School. I also invested in digital course Academy in 2019. And with those courses, one of the bonuses was getting a ticket to her in person experience. It was the entrepreneur experience. Now she does this virtually now I know I'm so sorry. For those of y'all that are just brand new to her community, you're getting to know her. We all got to meet her in person in 2019. And it was amazing. We got to go to San Diego, my husband and I went we it was like right around the time of our anniversaries. We celebrate anniversary. It was just like sunshine and rainbows. It was so awesome. But what I did, as my marketing brain had switched on at that point, I thought, well, if I'm going to meet Amy, she's going to be meeting like there were seven or 800 other entrepreneurs there. How am I going to stand out? That's all I kept thinking, How do I stand out in the sea of people? Well, one of the things that I did was, I got to know her team. I get to know her team so well that whenever we got to the venue, it was the Loews Coronado hotel, I still remember this. I saw so many of her team members. And I was like, Oh, my gosh, there's Emory. Oh, my God, there's Sylvia, I got to meet Josh, I got to meet Chloe, I got to personally meet all these people on her team. Because of the Facebook group, I made sure that I was a active participant in her group, because I wanted to really understand like the dynamics of their team and how they worked, because they're pretty awesome people. If you don't know this, they're pretty amazing people. Like I highly endorse team Porterfield all the way they are so incredible. And so I wanted to get to know them. Because I just, I liked who they were, as humans, I didn't ask for anything. I wasn't expecting anything. In return. This goes back to what we were just talking about, like, being a good person without expecting anything can actually go really far. It really can. I know, it's such a basic life principle. But I think it's something that we all need to practice a lot more of. So while we were there, you know, I got to, you know, take selfies with some of them gets chats, and it was so awesome. And then there was a point in the night where we got to take pictures with Amy. This is where my marketing brain really clicked on before we ever even left taxes to go to California. I had, and this is where you're totally gonna make fun of me. But y'all have seen this picture likely. It's been on Amy's Instagram. I've shared it multiple times. There is a woman in our neighborhood that creates the vinyl cutout shirts. And I had her create this shirt for me that says, if you're multitasking, come back to me. Because it's Amy's signature saying write this if you listen to her podcast, if you've watched her trainings, like she says all the time. And so I thought, You know what, I'm just going to be super silly. And I'm going to have this woman in my neighborhood paid her $20 You know, I bought the t shirt. I took it to her. And she was like, Oh, yes, she she was like, I would have done it for free. But sure, you know, I'll accept 20 bucks. So she created the shirt that said, if you're multitasking come back to me. It was my way of standing out among the hundreds of entrepreneurs that were there. Because I remember saying, I really want to make an impression. I want to be memorable and not in a bad way. Because we've seen those people too, right? The people that are memorable in a bad way we remember we're like, oh, that person's never gonna get invited back to an event or back to the community. And I wanted it to be subtle how I wanted it to be something that was a little silly, a little funny, because that's how I like to roll. And it was so well received by her team. They still talk about it like they've told me about like we still talk about the show. We think it's hilarious. We think it was like such a great thing. And it was just my way of connecting with them in a way that was very unique and Very different. And I mean, I've had this amazing connection with Amy, like she endorsed my book, start a binge worthy podcast, I'm so grateful for her doing that she has asked me to speak and her Momentum community, I've been an affiliate of her programs. But it all goes back to this organic fluid connection that we had in this very intimate way. And like I said, I know that this isn't something that everybody can replicate or duplicate. But it was something that took thought it was something that took effort, it wasn't me just spamming her team or saying, oh, you know, I really want to be best friends with Amy, or I really want to make this happen. And this, I didn't do any of that. I did all the things that I did without expecting anything in return. And it will come back tenfold. If you approach partnering with affiliate partners that way partnering with brands that way, or even if you're looking at sponsorships for your content, like that's a different story, right, because you are expecting something in return, you're expecting to be paid for the content that you're creating. But I still think that you should deliver above and beyond. And that should just be the benchmark that should be the foundation of how you approach creating things in your content, creating things in your business is I'm going to over deliver and value and not expect for a whole bunch of stuff in return, I'm just going to do it to do it. And to be a good human and just to be that person that surprises and delights my people and the people that I work with, because that's how I want to be

But oh my gosh, oh, I could go on and on about all this stuff. I love talking about affiliate and brand partners. And I want to take just a few minutes and tell you about BC stack 2022. Because like I said earlier, it is happening right now. And I want you to go to KrystalProffitt.com/bcs22. This is where you're gonna go straight to the link to buy it. Like I said earlier, it's only $49. But what this is, is this

So all the things we talked about today show notes, KrystalProffitt.com/episode356. Go check all those go watch all the resources, check all of them out. And that's all I have for you today. So as always remember, keep it up. We all have to start somewhere.