300 bucks an hour as a content creator. Today's guest went from zero to over 100 grand a year on the side from her day job with a unique online business centered on UGC. That's user generated content. This is... getting paid by brands to help them fill their social feeds with organic looking content, even if you're not an influencer, even if you're not a niche expert, and even if you don't have any following right now.
from MeganCollierUGC.com. Megan Collier, welcome to the Side Hustle Show. Thanks for having me, Nick. I'm excited to be here and chat about UGC. This is a new, I'm like an elder millennial, so you're gonna have to break it down for me. But I'm excited to learn alongside the audience in this one. We're covering step by step how you can tap into the UGC gold rush. And it absolutely is a gold rush that I see going on right now.
how to approach brands and land your first deals, figuring out pricing and production side, and how to potentially scale to hundreds of dollars an hour, maybe even a full-time income stream, just like Megan did. So I want to go back. So my understanding is you've got a young kid at home, you're working full time and you kind of see this opportunity and the goal is like, if I can just make. $1,000 a month. That would be fantastic.
And then you land your very first deal, $750. You're like, okay, there's something to this. Walk me through this first deal and how you got started. Yeah, that's basically it. You know, I was scrolling on TikTok one day randomly, like a lot of us do these days.
Saw somebody talking about UGC. They explained it fairly clearly. It made sense to me. And I already knew that brands were, you know, they needed content because most brands are on social media. So it made sense to me. And so I was like this. kind of sounds too good to be true, but I'm willing to try it out. And so I did, I just kind of jumped right in. And I had a goal of a thousand bucks a month. I thought maybe, yeah, we could pay our car payments, maybe some groceries. And yeah, I started.
Basically, I created a portfolio using products around my house that I already had. created video examples so brands could kind of get to know me my style of content okay so this was stuff just i had this lying around i need i need a portfolio but i'm not getting paid to do this but i need i need something to Show somebody on a media kit type of deal. Exactly. Media kit, portfolio, you can use them simultaneously. Just really one central place. And that's what I just saw.
I kind of pieced together information from people I was following on TikTok that I saw doing UGC. Okay. So I'm like, okay, I clearly need a portfolio. So that's what I did. I literally had two videos that I did about the cat treats that we give our two cats. a toy, a toy kit that we gave our, you know, we got our son off of Amazon or something. Okay. And then, um, a travel fidget spinner. I had four videos total.
when I hit publish on my portfolio. And I just did it on Canva. It wasn't like I coded a website or built this crazy website. It was really, really simple. Yeah, four videos, hit publish, and I started reaching out to brands. Okay. Were those posted to your own social channels or those are just like hosted on Canva at this point as a placeholder or as like a place to showcase those videos?
Yeah, just mainly Canva. I think I probably, I decided to start a new TikTok, like taking everyone through my journey. I saw other people doing that. I'm like, okay, this would probably keep me accountable. to continue doing it and sharing my process, my journey starting UGC. So I started a brand new TikTok. And I think I posted those video examples there just because I thought that's what you should do.
Yeah, the portfolio was the main thing that I sent to brands, though, when I was reaching out. And I was reaching out to brands. two ways. One is Instagram DM. I would like literally just scroll Instagram, look at the ads that I was seeing. on Instagram and then go and follow the brand if I wasn't already following them. And then I would DM them and say, hey.
I'm Megan. I'm a UGC creator. I've been seeing your ads. Your product looks like something I could totally use myself. And I'd love to be connected with the person in charge of handling partnership. And I got several responses from that. That's how I landed my second EGC deal. The first one, though, that you mentioned, the $750. deal was like 10 days into my UGC journey and that was with an app company that I just ended up emailing cold pitching via email and yeah they ended up hiring me for
three videos initially, and then I wanted to make more money and prove that I could actually do this and make a good chunk of money for my first EGC deal. And so I ended up, I didn't tell them, but I made five total videos for them. And I was like, hey, I ended up having a ton of like ideas for you guys.
And I have five videos if you want to buy the other two. And they were like, oh my gosh, yes, 100%. We need all the videos that we can get. Oh, okay, okay. So then it ended up being about $750 for those five videos. Okay, so... Step one, create the portfolio. Step two, start doing the brand outreach. And it sounds like I'm just going to scroll my feed and show who showed up in the ads. Like I know they're investing in user acquisition and growth marketing.
So they might be more receptive to this. My approach would have been like, well, what are the top 25, 50 brands that I already know, like, and trust and I use? And I'm going to start there. It sounds like, you know, maybe that comes down the road. Honestly, I think that...
what works is the only way to land the deal is literally by connecting with brands. So it doesn't matter if you're going to DM, if you're going to email, if you're just going to start with the brands that you already like, because that also is super powerful because you're coming to the brand saying, hey, I've been using this product for X amount of months or X amount of years.
they've already got that like, it's a bonus for them because they have a real customer that's going to be willing to make some really authentic, genuine content. So yeah, 100% you can start with brands.
you already know, you already like, you can quite literally, this is what I tell people, if they're kind of having a block on who to reach out to is take a pen and piece of paper or take your notes app on your phone, go walk around your house and look at all the products that you have, that you've purchased, that you use on a consistent basis.
I can almost guarantee most of those brands are posting consistently on social media and probably a lot of them are also working already with UGC creators. Yeah. And it's not just, you know, I'm thinking of like the closet and shoes and clothes, but also... food and snacks and toys and games like all sorts of stuff so much and even and even software like you said the first deal was a was an app company yeah i've worked with
so many apps, software companies that I've used for years and just, you know, they just hired me to do UGC. So whenever people ask me, like, what kind of... brands are using ugc creators it's truly a mix it's it's across the board i've worked with fashion like clothing companies software tech companies like you as a you doing podcasts like
I'm looking at your headphones, right? Your mic. Whatever you're using as a podcaster, so many brands are using user-generated content in their marketing strategies. Okay. That's what they're getting out of the deal is we're going to hire...
Megan or a hundred people like Megan to fill out our own there's always another day coming around there's always going to be need needing more stuff to post and so this is a way to kind of crowdsource that in an authentic looking way or you know from actual users of the thing And so that's their benefit. Benefit to you is obviously you're getting paid to do it. And so it sounds like from your Instagram DMs.
it's like could you connect me with the you said the person handling content partnerships or is like some is that an official job title that i want to like be on the lookout for yeah it's it's going to be different for every brand right so What I like to tell people is, you know, typically when you're reaching out to medium, you know, from medium to large sized brands.
The person that's looking at the DMs on the brand's Instagram account is not typically a decision maker, right? It's going to be a customer service person that just wants to answer questions quickly. So that's why I say always ask to be connected with the brand partnerships or it could be an influencer manager. It could be a partnerships director. It could be a creative director. So you could ask it in a specific way more.
Like, can I be connected with the person in charge of handling partnerships? So you don't have to say a specific title, but just whoever's in charge of, you know, working with content creators. Okay. And same thing over email, like is this through the generic? contact form on the on the page it seems like
Half the time, that's just going into a black box where, you know, maybe it's customer service that checks that or maybe it just is into a black hole. But it's the same kind of language. Like, could you put me in touch? Could you connect me with the influencer marketing department or something?
Typically, it's going to be the same. Like with Instagram DM, it's going to be a little quicker, shorter text. It's not going to be like, hey, I'm Megan. This is who I am. This is what I love about your product. Like when you email somebody, it could be the generic email if you literally cannot find the email of whoever is in charge or a marketing person.
contact info. So it could be, and I do find that when the generic email is the only one that you can find and you do send cold outreach emails to those, they typically do get forwarded to the right person. you know, of course it could go unread or could get lost in the mix. And that's where follow-up can come through too.
Yeah. And I suppose you could look on LinkedIn for somebody who has like a, you know, marketing director, partner marketing, you know, something like that in their job role and try and reverse engineer. you know, their email, like jsmith at brandname.com, you know, trying to figure out what are the common email structures to try and get. Exactly. Or it's just a LinkedIn message too. Yes, totally. Yeah, that's totally an option. And also, I mean, now.
Because I'm making money with UGC, I've reinvested. So I use a software called Hunter.io, if you've heard of it. So that makes it way easier. You'll have less of a headache. You'll have... you know, a way higher chance of actually finding the person that is in charge or in the marketing department, at least. So that's like 60 something bucks a month, I think.
It can be worth it. I mean, if you get one brand deal from one email a month, it's going to pay for it. So Hunter.io is a great software. What is a typical response once you reach that decision maker? an immediate yes and the rate is five hundred dollars like do they have a template response or something that they're used to paying people? What typically happens next? It's kind of a mixed bag. It depends on the brand. A lot of brands have an entire process for how they work with UGC creators.
And you can even go, you know, if you're stalking brands, trying to figure out who to reach out to, you know, you can go to the Instagram account of a brand and if you see a bunch of random faces. In all their videos, they're likely UGC creators, and that's kind of a green light. That's a good sign, sure. Yeah, it's a good sign because they're already doing it. You don't have to convince them to hire you as a UGC creator, right? So if they're already doing it, that's a green light.
When you get a response from a brand, it's going to be either, hey, thanks so much for reaching out. We had a look at your portfolio. You look like you'd be a great fit to make content for us. This is what we currently need. Other times, it can just be wrong timing, right? So for example, I reached out to a supplement company that I have used for years. And you don't have to be a customer of the companies you're reaching out to, obviously. But it's a good start.
So I really wanted to make UGC for this supplement company because I'm obsessed with them and I just am a loyal customer. I've spent thousands of dollars on their products. And so I reached out to them back in August, sent them an email. And they said, no, we have an agency that handles this. We're not interested in working with you right now.
And I was a little annoyed because I really wanted to make content for them. So I sent them a video pitch. So this is another thing that you can do. I use Loom, L-O-O-M, Loom software. It's a screen recording software. I basically screen record my screen, my computer screen and have my little record and just kind of introduce myself so for them I kind of took it a step further because I really did want to work with them
I sent them a Loom video. It's probably like six minutes long. I even created a Google Doc with all the three concepts that I had for them for UGC videos. Told them why they should hire me to create EGC. and sent it to them, was super confident. And again, they're like, sorry, like, no, we just, we're not going to work with you right now. So I was like, okay, okay, that's fine.
So then come a month ago, they emailed me and they're like, hey, Megan, we're ready to work with you. Just send us your rates and we'll, you know, we'll, we'll get you set up. And I love the video concepts that you shared with us six months ago. Let's do those. I told them what I would charge and they hired me and paid me and it was great. Very good. Well, that's a great lead in on one.
staying in touch going above and beyond doing the follow-up and just the timing might not be right like yes we like you we like your work but and you know i see this all the time with you know guests pitches where it's like well we just we just did an episode about that but if you come back in six months like okay now it's now it's perfect but exactly so it makes sense on the brand side too so they ask
Well, how much are you going to charge? You sent me your rates. And now the deer in the headlights kind of go, well, what should I charge? And so how do you respond back to that? Yeah, for sure. So at this point, I think most people that are listening maybe don't have any experience with this. So I always recommend... If you're brand new to UGC and you're just starting out, the typical beginner rates are going to be like $150 to $200 per UGC video.
Most brands want multiple UGC videos when they're hiring you. So 150 to 200, that's what I charged at the beginning. Now, because obviously, like anything else, you get better, you get clients, you get, you know. you get results for brands. Now I charge, you know, I can charge well over $1,000 per UGC video. And you can also charge usage rights if a brand like that supplement brand.
And these are super short. Yeah. I want to highlight there's some editing required. There's some creative thought. We'll get into that. Yeah. But like we're talking about a 45 second video. Yeah. A thousand bucks, you know, do the hourly rate on that. Exactly. Yeah. So for this brand, you know, they, I. Yeah, I charged them a little over $1,000 per video, and they hired me for three videos.
So those three videos, again, I've been doing this two and a half years. It's easier to me than just starting out, right? Yeah. But those videos took me less than two hours. One of them I did with my mom. So I had her come over to my house. We recorded at my house.
I edited it right after she left. It was very quick, very simple. But yeah, that's kind of the great thing about UGC. Like you're going to get better and better. You're going to be able to charge more. So your hourly rate technically is just truly going to increase kind of.
to a crazy amount yeah each video that you do it adds to the portfolio makes it easy to sell the next job unless you get better at the creative process and doing the work and you improve the processes and all this stuff so i definitely see there's some economies of scale and one yes is likely two three four five yeses because they want multiple videos and like it's not really worth it
you know, sending you 150 bucks for the one, but if you can do five of them, then okay, now we got, now we're talking. More with Megan in just a moment, including the platforms and agencies that could potentially eliminate this cold outreach from your marketing plans. and why you might not need to be super creative to come up with new video content and styles all the time. Coming up right after this.
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What happens when somebody says, well, we we do our influencer partnerships or UDC partnerships through an agency. And now it's like, well, now there's another middleman to deal with here. You could do, I mean, two things, obviously, you could just. move on to the next brand. Or if they give you the name of the agency, which you could ask for it, you could probably do some research Googling it. But if you find the agency, that's another way to connect with brands is so many brands.
do hire agencies to outsource their UGC creator. So if you were to go on Google and type in UGC agency, there are so many agencies because most brands are working with UGC creators. So you could do that. You could go find the brand or find the agency and reach out via email and just tell them who you are. and include your portfolio almost like you are pitching directly to the brand and then just ask to be added to their creator roster if they do have a client coming up.
And you kind of fit who they're looking for as a UGC creator. Yeah, that seems like a place to potentially get matched with a lot of brands for a little effort without. hundreds and hundreds of cold dms where it's just can i get on your preferred vendor list your your your roster of creators and whenever a gig comes up maybe they send it your way or say this is something
ask if you'd be interested in it. Yeah. And it's also important to note that now because UGC is such a popular way for brands to keep up with their marketing and their marketing efforts. There's been so many, like not only agencies, but apps. platforms to just hop on and you could download an app called Billow where there's B-roll.
There's so many apps that you can download on your phone and create profiles, and then you'll be able to connect with brands on those apps. Each app is a little bit different, how it works, the logistics of it. But there's also platforms like BrandsMeetCreators, Vidzy, Coley. breakfast.io which is b-r-k-f-s-t.io there's just an insane amount that it could be overwhelming to new people but what I always recommend is
dip your toes into a couple of them. I personally don't use a ton of those platforms. or apps because I've been doing it for so long that I have contacts already. I have repeat customers. I have retainer clients, right? So, but when you're just starting out, you know, join a couple apps, join a couple platforms. create profiles and connect with brands that way. It's a really good way to get started.
That makes sense to go where they're already used to shopping for this type of service. Yeah. Stick your flag out and say, I'm open for business. Come hire me. This is super interesting stuff. Does it make sense to transition a little bit to the creative process? Because my, you know, we joked about this on the show in the past, like my bread and butter is a 45-minute podcast episode. Like short form is a foreign language to me. And there's...
There's a skill that goes into making something snappy but still tells a story and ultimately... you know hopefully convince those people that they want to buy this product that the brand is paying you to promote you know what do you be like just keep a rolling dock of different ideas or what what's working on that side yeah so The good thing about working with brands as a UGC creator, even if you're new and you're highly intimidated by the entire creative process and...
I get so many people reach out to me and say, I think I'm going to draw a blank. I'm going to freeze when the brand wants me to make a video. Well, what am I even going to do? But the great news is that it's not typically an issue because... When a brand is hiring you for UGC, Nine times out of 10, they're going to have a plan for you. So that could look different depending on the brand. Most brands are going to send you a creative brief.
So they're going to have, you know, they could even send you a script, like a full-on script. I had a student of mine get a UGC deal just literally reading an eight-minute script. that they sent her, and she got paid $600 for that. So it really just depends on what the brand is looking for. I've had brands that say, hey, we love your style. We trust you as a UGC creator and your creative process that we'd love for you to just like.
roll with it and come up with your own ideas and your own script and just have total creative freedom. On the other side, though, there's so many more brands that send you some type of outline, whether it's like a bullet point list, a full on script. Hey, here are the shots that we want you to get. For example, like my mom got a UGC, you know, she's in communication with a brand and they sent her a whole notion doc that has, hey, here's the script that you need to read and then the visual.
input, like brush your hair with the hairbrush that we're sending you while you're saying this script. So it can be as detailed as that. It can be like, hey, here's the videos that have performed super well for us in the past when we've hired other UGC creators. Maybe you can replicate those in your own way and then send those to us. Okay, it's similar to the world of podcasts, advertising, where some brands are like, hey, you're a user.
say it in your own words we trust you and others are like this needs to be read verbatim uh this is you know the talking points like and and a spectrum and everything in between that makes sense and that's actually less makes it less intimidating because it's like oh if if you give me the outline or give me some guardrails or some structure around it as you know to the extent of you know brushing your hair not that that would be applicable to me but um that's that's helpful and
trying to come up with something that would be compelling. Yeah. Yeah. And I think that it also, I mean, obviously you've got to learn. It's not like you're going to read a script every time and it's going to be a breeze every single time. So I always tell people, script writing is a skill that you should have. Editing as well, right? You should have it. You shouldn't always rely on the brand is going to have an in-house.
So with script writing, it's a skill like anything else. You'll get better and better at it. But it's also helpful to know that we now have ChatGPT or other AI writing tools that can kind of get those creative juices flowing.
So that's what I tell people. If you are totally drawing a blank on what to do, feed in some information using AI and kind of utilize that tool that we have now to kind of get those ideas flowing because that can be a really, really great resource, especially for people who are just starting out and who are super intimidated by the whole process.
Yeah. And if you're the person who's super intimidated, maybe not the side hustle for you, but we got lots of other options for you. But if you're like, I like making videos. I like watching videos. I like brand, you know, I'm a consumer. I could go to town with this.
So you get the first deal and you make this effort to go, well, I made you a couple extra. Would you like to buy those too? And they say, yes. What happens next? You're like, okay, I got a bite. I'm 10 days into this. I got a deal. There's obviously something to this. scaling up and doing it as a on the side from the day job. Yeah. So I was elated when I got that deal and I was on cloud nine, which I think most UGC creators can feel that way, whether it's a hundred bucks, whether it's 800 bucks.
It's just a really good feeling because that kind of instilled this confidence in me that... Okay, I reached out to this brand, even though I sent a ton of emails. One said yes to me, they paid me, they liked what I did. It kind of was like, okay, I can do this again and again and again. So that's what I did. I just continued doing that. I continued studying other content. Every time I saw an ad for a product that was probably a UGC creator, I was studying those ads, seeing what I liked.
what drew me in, what made me possibly even buy a product. And that helped a lot in knowing what kind of content brands wanted and needed for their own purposes. So it was just a continual process. Reaching out to brands, I started landing, you know, more UGC deals in other different industries. You know, working with agencies, I got better at communicating with companies.
raise my rates every now and then when I was feeling a little confident. So it kind of just snowballed and it was great. I was obviously working a full-time job and I got a new job a few months into my EGC journey. And it was a more demanding job. And so I had to find pockets of time. to do UGC. Did that ever come up where a coworker or a boss was like,
hey, I saw you on my feed for some random company. Like, does that ever happen? I'm sure it has happened to other people. I haven't had that happen where while I was working a full-time job, I had anybody like say, what the heck are you doing besides? random people. The first video I did for that app company, I remember I got two different people that I went to college with a decade ago that I haven't spoken to in years DM me on Instagram and be like,
just saw your ad for that app. I don't really know what you're doing. Are you an influencer now? And as I had explained, it's kind of funny. And that's kind of what happens when you start doing UGC and start landing deals is you're going to have like random people reach out and be like, what the heck are you doing?
You know, I didn't. And that is a thing that people do because some people don't want their co-workers to know what they're doing, right? They kind of want to be anonymous. I mean, it kind of depends on the person, but you can also do. faceless UGC. I have done a lot of UGC where I literally don't show my face. So home products like brands or nail care companies where you literally only just show your hands. That is an option for people.
which I think is important to note because a lot of people do want to remain anonymous online, especially if they're working a job where they don't feel comfortable. Um, so yeah, faceless UGC is for sure an option too. Okay. We had, I mean, that's similar. Like all my, or most of my Amazon influencer videos are just me pointing the camera at the thing and talking about it. And maybe you see my hands. It's like, it's not. on camera but i mean it could be but it didn't have to be
And then we had another, this guy has been in the side hustle nation community forever. His side hustle was maybe similar or like, or at least, at least related, maybe a cousin of this where he was like, uh, on Fiverr, I will be your video spokesperson. He kind of had like a.
you know, corporate looking, I'll put on the suit and tie and I'll, you know, talk about your thing. And that was kind of the interesting part. It's like, well, it's got to be a brand that I'm comfortable representing because it's going to be my name and my face, you know, pitching this thing. And it's similar here. You're kind of in control. You're doing the manual outreach, in this case, to say, this is a brand I already like or could see myself partnering with versus some...
random inbound where it's like, ah, do I really want to be showing this thing? Yeah, exactly. Yeah. And that's the great thing about UGC is like, obviously you are a freelancer, you're a contractor. So it is up to you who you work with. And the longer you do it, the more pickier you can be, obviously. The thing about Fiverr is, yes, that's exactly UGC. So many UGC creators are on Fiverr landing UGC deals. And the great thing about that... which you probably now after talking to that person is...
they come to you, right? So you're not doing all this outreach and spending all this time and energy sending emails, sending DMs. It's great, even though it's not a really quick thing on Fiverr. It usually takes a little while.
But that is one of the benefits of going on freelance platforms like Fiverr as a UGC creator because then brands are actively looking. They can find your gig and hire you. And it's super interesting because it's not... going on your feeds as i you know my friends might see it if it happens upon the algorithm sprinkles it down into them but it's like it's not
you know something necessarily posting i don't need to have a ton of followers to even get these gigs because it's like it's for it's you know freelance content creation it's going on somebody else's feed going on somebody else's site some Do you have a sense of the take rate for this cold outreach? I know I'm going to have to send...
10 pitches before I get a yes. I know I'm gonna have to send 50 pitches before I get a yes. What kind of numbers game should people expect? Oh gosh, I think I probably sent like... 30-ish emails before one said yes to me, possibly a little bit more, between 30 to 50. And you know, I've had...
like people that I've taught that, you know, they send out their first Instagram DM and it just, oh my gosh, it's like amazing timing and it works. And they are landing their first UGC deal like day two into their journey, which happens more often than you think. Yeah, you know, it's going to be a game. That's why I always tell people, you know, do cold outreach for sure. I'm a big proponent of that. But also, don't put all your eggs in one basket, especially people who are busy, right?
There's a lot of full-time working professionals that are doing UGC on the side. They don't have... two extra hours to just send emails or, you know, their stay-at-home moms who are just like chasing kids around that just can't do that. So going on these platforms like Brands Meet Creators. for example, is just a really good start just because
you're already able to see who's looking for UGC creators actively and connect with them with like almost a click of a button. That's helpful to hear. The name of the game in any sales relationship, it's going to take a lot of no's before you get to a yes or a lot of...
Not even getting any responses. In my case, I had to knock on a lot of doors before I ever sold a paint job. Exactly. There's some filtering that has to happen. More with Megan in just a moment, including when she felt comfortable calling it quits at the day job to take her UGC side hustle full time. negotiation best practices, and the surprising age group that's most in demand for brands.
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Go to shopify.com slash side hustle to upgrade your selling today. Shopify.com slash side hustle. At what point do you feel comfortable saying, I can do this full time? Like, was there a specific revenue target you were trying to hit? Like, what's going through your head to be like, and maybe there's some recurring contracts as part of this, but it's kind of like.
every month I got to book another five to 10 deals so I could pay the bills. Yeah, for sure. It was a slower process, I would say. And I think that when I started landing more UGC deals, it was kind of like, oh my gosh, could I actually do this full time? Like, is this... tangible. And you know what? The real turning point in my UGC business. was getting monthly retainer clients. I mean, that changed everything for me. So I was obviously working full time. Our son was like...
probably one and a half, two at this point. And I was super afraid of taking on monthly retainer clients, even though I had a couple opportunities come my way. I just thought it was going to be way too much work on top of a full-time job. And then I had a company offer me like $3,000 to do some Instagram reels for them every month. And I thought,
3000 bucks extra every month sounds pretty good. So I'm just going to make it work. So I said yes to them. And they were like almost a year long contract. And so Every month I was making three grand and it got easier and easier. That's the great thing about monthly retainer clients. You're not having to relearn about a new brand every single month.
And so it did get easier. I was able to batch content in between working or mornings or whenever. And I already worked from home, which was obviously a bonus because I could do some things in between work. That really kind of made this switch like, okay, so I'm like... making three grand from this, a couple extra grand from random UGC deals that would come in. And then I got my net.
like bigger monthly retainer client that was paying me $4,000 a month. And with that client, I was also offering some social media management, which a lot of UGC creators do. an option for people if they want to. You don't have to do that. But I was like, okay, that's kind of what they're looking for. I'm willing to do it. And so I took on another pretty big contract. And so I had this consistent money coming in and eventually about
about a year into it, a year into my whole UGC journey. And I had these two clients, plus I was doing other UGC deals, plus I was working full time. I kind of I was like, well, this is a lot. I'm basically working two full time jobs. Yeah, basically two full time jobs. Yeah, exactly. So I kind of had to let one thing go. And I knew I was going to keep these clients. And then that second client was now. paying me $5,500 a month because I was doing a little more stuff for them.
It was good chunks of money coming in that I could not 100% rely on, but basically rely on every month. So I was able to quit my job when I was making consistent, reliable $10,000 to $13,000. months with UGC deals. It would almost be impossible to continue working full-time and doing that much UGC. So something had to be, something had to be gone and that was my full-time job. But that's incredible to build it to the point.
you know 120 plus grand a year 10 grand a month plus yeah on the side and then say well it's not sustainable to keep doing it on the side so something's got to give so the first one three grand a month make us some instagram reels like Can you give a sense of the volume of work that was? So the great thing about that contract is I had total creative freedom, which helps with the whole process. It would probably be a whole different... beast if I had to make the videos.
send the videos to the company, they approve them and go back and forth. So that was a really good thing where I had creative freedom. They sent me all the products. It was like luxury home products, like $300 candles, $200 blankets. that kind of stuff. So I didn't have to show my face in any of it, which was nice. So it was all just product focused. And the thing about Instagram reels is
They're not as involved as like, say, the supplement company that hired me. You know, I have to create a script. I have to show several different shots of the product. It's not as involved. It's a little more quick. It's a little more like, hey, I could make my bed. and show the blanket on my bed, and that's an Instagram reel, and I'm done for the day for that one.
So it was like between 15 to 20 videos per month, but I could batch most of them like on the weekends or maybe over the span of a couple weekends. Do you run out of like ideas, like different ways to show a blanket? I thought I would. And what helps with that is obviously just stalking what other companies are doing, right? Getting inspired, like what's working for people? Like what do people actually respond to on Instagram when it comes to home products? There's so, I mean.
That's the great thing about being in the content creation field is not obviously stealing people's ideas, but... having so much content that you're literally just exposed to every day that can really get those creative juices flowing. And yeah, and some reels flopped, like they didn't, like you got a couple hundred views, some like...
went viral and sold a bunch of their products organically, which made the brand really happy. But that's just part of the game. They need to be posting Instagram Reels. And if I'm the one that can fulfill that need... they're going to pay me money for it. Is that kind of where the ROI is for the brands where it's like, you know, the video that gets a couple hundred views isn't going to do anything. Maybe it sells a couple, who knows.
But it's almost like we're going to sprinkle our budget around in the hopes that one or two of these take off, pay for all of the losses, and then hopefully still make us a profit from our social feed. I think that it's... I don't think it's a question. So the way I look at it and... What it likely is is that brands... really have no choice. So like when I create, you know, I had another client paying me $1,500 a month for five Instagram reels that were like 10 seconds long.
I don't think really those videos that I made for them were bringing in a bunch of sales, right? but they have no other option. If they're a clothing brand, which they were, and they're competing against all these other clothing brands, They have no option than to be consistent on social media and build a following, build an engaged community of people.
interested in following them. So for them, I think that it's the overall picture with every brand is like, okay, we have to post organically on social media, but... we're also going to hire people that can create content that's going to sell directly. products via ads. So I think it's a mix. I think it's totally a mix of brands need both organic and they need paid media. That's interesting. It's a cost to play in the game at this point. And to be on the receiving end of that, that's...
You've mentioned a lot of different tools and apps, which I think is awesome. We'll link those up. Loom, Canva, Incense, Billow. Some of these are totally new to me. We'll link those up in the show notes. Anything else on the tools tech side that you're using to help run your business? So I'll kind of go through the process of exactly what I use and what I think bare minimum should be for every UGC creator.
I use my iPhone to film. That's another great thing about UGC. You don't need a fancy DSLR camera. You're not a massive production studio, right? That's kind of the point. You can use your phone to film if it's a decent camera. And then I use CapCut to edit. And that's what most people use, I think. There's a couple different editing apps out there, but CapCut seems to be the most straightforward.
And I pay for CapCut Pro, but you do not have to. And then, yeah, Canva for your portfolio. You know, if you want to create a new Gmail account. stay very organized, which is very easy to get and very disorganized when it comes to UGC because you're going to be reaching out to so many brands. It doesn't have to be a business account where it's at URL.com. It can just be a Gmail account if that's all you can do right now.
And then in terms of like payment, that's another question that gets brought up a lot. Like, how am I going to get paid? you will it's across the board so I've had brands pay me via PayPal so setting up a PayPal account if you don't have one already would be a good option or good probably just a good idea and then
I've also had brands pay through Stripe or bill.com is a kind of a popular one for brands to use third-party payment software. Also direct deposit. At one point I was on a company's payroll. So it kind of just depends on the brand, but it's typically not something that's the payment part tends to be a big question, but I don't think it's something that you actually have to figure out before you start because
the brand's going to tell you exactly what their preferred payment method is. But yeah, those are kind of the main things. And then in terms of like filming, what you need, like gadgets, tools and everything. Really basic, in my opinion, is going to be a tripod. I got a $25 tripod off of Amazon. I got a selfie light, which is like $12, $15.
You're going to want to use as much natural light as possible for every video you do, but I started my UGC journey in a very, very dark dated apartment, and it was just not super pretty. The lighting was horrible. So I really utilized artificial light, which selfie light. whatever, ring light, whatever you want. And I actually don't even use a microphone for my UGC videos because my iPhone does a pretty good job. So depending on if your audio is terrible or not.
get a microphone off of amazon or just see how it goes yeah i can picture like you know some people holding up like a little baby lab mic or something like that yeah so that's that's helpful like low tech don't don't stress about the payment exactly that's a good problem to have you'll figure that out if somebody's like How do I give you money? Like, I could solve that.
differently if you had to start over to either accelerate the journey or land bigger deals faster or anything that comes to mind there? Yeah, I think I would not be so afraid of taking on monthly retainer clients. And I wish somebody had kind of told me that or I kind of had figured that out sooner just because it really it just makes such a big difference so yeah number one like focus on
building relationships with brands and being a good person to work with. Don't be difficult to work with. Be responsive. be polite, like just be a good person to work with and brands will want to continue working with you. And then that will lead probably to monthly retainer client. which can significantly increase your income as a UGC creator. So for sure the monthly retainer clients. And I think just... not being afraid to reach out to bigger brands as well.
Brands of all sizes need content, and it's not always going to be a yes, but that's something that I realized in the beginning just from different side hustles I've done in the past. It's going to be a little slow, but eventually you'll get yeses and increase your confidence. Is there pricing tiers? Like if I'm racing out to Aloe, like on your hat or Nike. And I come back with $200 and they're like...
That's a red flag. That's too cheap. We're used to paying billions of dollars to LeBron James or somebody. What is this? Is there anything like that when you mentioned going after bigger brands? I don't think that brands are super turned off by that. It's best if the brand can kind of give you a budget or even like a range. So I've had brands reach out to me and UGC creators will tell you different things.
don't do this, do this. It's a mix. But my opinion is if you can get the brand to tell you what their budget is, before you ever state any number. Yeah, don't be the first to throw out a number. Yeah, yeah, you're putting the ball in their court, so it's... kind of best. So I've had brands reach out to me and I'm like,
So what is your budget for three videos? Can you give me a range of what your budget is? And sometimes, you know, it'll be like $100 per video. And I'm like, okay, great. So I know I'm not going to continue this conversation, right? Come back to me if you do have an increased budget in the future.
But then other times it's more than what I would have just thrown out. Right. So you can make more money that way. And this is a little tip to that. This is related, but on your portfolio, like on my portfolio. Anytime I tell people like, hey, create a portfolio, I don't ever tell them to put their rate. in their portfolio just because you are going to miss out. on that. Like if a brand is searching for
a UGC creator and they've got $1,000 for two UGC videos budget and your portfolio states that you only charge $2.50 for one video, they're going to save money. You're going to lose money. You don't have to put your rates on your portfolio. You can create a rate card if that makes you feel better and you're able to send that because every now and then brands do ask for rate cards.
You know, you can do that. But at the end of the day, you know, it's really just about communicating with the brand. Like, is it going to work? Is it going to make sense for you? Are you going to feel good about it? spending an hour or two creating a video for $100. Maybe you do, maybe you won't feel good about that. knowing what you feel good about and like what's worth your personal time right now based on your financial
situation and your goals. It's so important to know that. Otherwise, I've seen UGC creator after UGC creator start UGC and only be okay and feel worthy of getting these $50 or $100 UGC deals where They just start spending so much time barely making any money and they end up quitting because it gets frustrating. But knowing what your worth is and like focusing your energy and efforts on brands that are willing to pay you.
at least your bare minimum rate is going to be a game changer. Yeah. Okay. I was just, I was just helpful because it's like... you know yeah you can go out and buy you know web design like we talked about fiverr for next to nothing or you could you know hire some professional design agency millions of dollars if you're nike or somebody with the budget for that where it's like there's
In some cases, prices could be a signal of the potential quality or reach it's going to have. Who knows? But that was just something that popped into my head. I was going to ask, any big surprises from your own journey or from your students?
What's going on out there in the UGC universe these days? Yeah, I mean, the biggest thing that comes to my mind is I have actually helped and taught. Most of my students happen to be Gen Xers and baby boomers. So the way that... got started was about a little over a year ago I was on a brand call when I sent a video pitch to a brand that I really wanted to work with they loved it and they had me hop on a zoom call with like four of their marketing team
So I was on a call with them trying to convince them to hire me as a UGC creator. It was going pretty well. And I had mentioned that my mom, who is 63, I mentioned that she is actually like, she told me about their products. It was a footwear company. And so I was like, yeah, my mom loves you guys. loyal customer, as am I. And so they were like, their ears kind of perked up and they were like, oh my gosh, that would be amazing.
if your mom could be in one of the three UGC videos that you could do for us. They're like, time out, time out. We don't watch you, but we watch your mom. I know. And so I was like, Like, of course my mom's going to be down for it. She loves me. She's going to support me. She's going to be down to do this. And so they said that's perfect because...
your mom as a baby boomer, like 60 something year old, I can't remember exactly what they said. They said that she is more part of our target demographic. Like we sell most of our shoes. to people more toward her age, even opposed to me as a 33-year-old at the time. I was like, okay, fantastic. That's great. I heard that. I didn't really think much of it besides just kind of coordinating with my mom. We did the video together and it was great. Super fun.
And then I realized that if they were looking for older creators, there's probably a ton of brands that are looking for older creators. And I never, like rarely ever saw anybody. over the age of 50, like nobody in their 60s doing UGC. And so I started posting about it, telling people like, hey, if you're a Gen X or if you're a boomer, I bet you anything there are brands looking for you and you could get paid to create content for them. And it kind of took off, it blew up.
There was I've had dozens of brands reach out to me personally and be like, hey, thank you so much for posting this because we've been looking for people that are. Gen X or baby boomers to be like in our videos to do UGC for us. And we just can't find that many of them. Well, there was some data that was like, this was probably a couple of years old, but like that's the fastest growing demographic on TikTok is like these older generations.
It's like, we need people to come and speak to them. A hundred percent. So is that the next, now we can stack side hustle. So are you going to build the Gen X boomer? UGC creator agency and now I know you can like play matchmaker and start leveling up here you know I could I've been asked that several times I'm I'm not about the agency life I don't think but it's been it has truly like been
It's just been so amazing. It's been so incredible to see so many people who are in those two generations, the Gen Xers, the Boomers. find out about UGC because I blab about it all day on TikTok. And they're like, what in the world? They literally had no idea. And they start UGC.
And they're like, oh my gosh, I'm actually like getting UGC deals. Brands want to work with me. They're sending me free products. I'm making money with this. Whereas like a few months ago, they had no clue this was even a thing. And it's just been really, really cool to see. That's super fun. So you got Megan at call your UGC.com. She is at Megan underscore UGC on.
Instagram, TikTok, and stan.store. You find some of the portfolio links and other content creation over there geared towards the people trying to do what she's doing and build up your own UGC side hustle. next for you? What's on the horizon for this year? My goal is to do more UGC deals with my mom. We've done three so far and she's doing her own UGC deals, which has been really fun. Yeah, my goal is just to continue.
creating good content for companies that they keep coming back for more and just keep spreading the word about UGC to all people of all backgrounds, all ages to just... you know, get started and just dive into it because you never know what could happen. Very good. What a fun, creative side hustle. We'll link up all of the resources mentioned in the show notes.
for this episode this was like when megan when you reached out it was like obviously this has been on my radar for a couple years but never really had connected with somebody making a serious run at it and it's super interesting especially from the standpoint of i don't need to be a super influencer i don't need to have a built-in following here so it checks that box of something fun creative if you like
filming if you are a consumer of goods anyways as i bet you are and you know here's you maybe you can learn some new video editing tips and tricks along the way i like the call to build recurring contracts, build long-term relationships, makes life easier for the brand. They don't have to hire somebody new every month. You don't have to learn a new brand, a new brand language every month. Plus it adds some stability, kind of like baseline revenue. You're still free to go out.
and pitch other deals, but like at least you're stable and maybe that's... get to the goal of like i could pay my rent i could pay my mortgage with like this recurring contract like my day job is we call the gravy time like you know i don't need it anymore it's just like it's bonus especially with those recurring contracts but otherwise too like the workflow the process improvements as you just get a few more reps under your belt, the hourly rate really starts to improve.
Super inspiring episode. If you're new to the show, welcome. We've got hundreds of actionable episodes in the archives to help you make more money. If UGC isn't your thing, we'd love to have you binge on any of those. It's kind of a choose your own adventure type of deal. If you're not sure where to start, I want to invite you to build your own personalized side hustle show playlist. How it works is you go to hustle.show, you answer a few short, multiple choice questions.
Probably 60 seconds. You can do it on your phone. Questions are about... your side hustle interests, your side hustle goals, and it'll recommend you eight to 10 side hustle show episodes to start with as a potential jumping off point. What to listen to next. That's at hustle.show.
Big thanks to Megan for sharing her insight. Big thanks to our sponsors for helping make this content free for everyone. You can hit up sidehustlenation.com slash deals for all the latest offers from our advertisers in one place. Thank you for supporting the sponsors that support the show. Thank you so much for tuning in. If you're finding value in the show, the greatest compliment is to share it with a friend. Fire off that text message.
Maybe you know that Gen X or boomer person in your life who can make a little extra money with UGC and help spread the word that way. But until next time, let's go out there and make something happen. And I'll catch you in the next edition of The Side Hustle Show.