The Side Hustle Show - Full Episodes - Getting Started with UGC: $300/hr as a Content Creator w/ No Audience Required

The $750 deal was like 10 days into my UGC journey and that was with an app company that I just ended up emailing and yeah they handed 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 UGC 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 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% 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. Now I can charge well over $1000 per UGC video. When a brand is hiring you for UGC nine times out of ten they're going to have a plan for you.

300 bucks an hour as a content creator with no audience required. 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 Megan call your UGC.com Megan call your welcome to the side hustle show. Thanks for having me Nick I'm excited to be here and shout about UGC. This is a new of like an elder millennial so you're going to 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 the 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're you've got a young kid at home you're working full-time and you can see this opportunity and the goal is like if I can just make a thousand bucks a month that would be fantastic and then you land your very first deal is $750 you're like okay there's something to this walk me through this first deal and how you got started yeah for sure 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 yeah 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 a portfolio but I'm not getting paid to do this but 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 piece together information from people I was following on TikTok that I saw doing you GC it's my 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 toy kit that we gave our you know we got our son off of Amazon or something and then a travel fidget spinner I had four videos total when I hit publish on my portfolio and I just did on Canva it wasn't like I you know 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 were those posted to your own social channels or this is just like hosted on Canva at this point as a as a placeholder as like a place to showcase those videos yeah just mainly Canva I think I probably I decided to start a new TikTok like kind of taking everyone through my journey I saw other people doing that I'm like okay this could probably keep me accountable to continue doing it and sharing my process my journey um starting you GC so I started a brand new TikTok um and I think I posted those video examples there just because I thought that's what you should do and so yeah the 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 um 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 partnerships and I got several responses from that that's why I landed my second UGC deal the first one though that you mentioned the $750 deal uh was like 10 days into my UGC journey and that was with an app company that I uh just ended up emailing cold pitching via email and uh yeah they ended up hiring me for three videos initially and then I wanted to make more money to improve that I could actually do this and make a you know good chunk of money for my first UGC 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 so then I ended up being about $750 for those five videos okay so step one create the portfolio step two start through it and the brand outreach and it sounds like I'm just gonna scroll my feed and show who's showing up in the ads like I know they're investing and user acquisition and growth marketing so they're they might be more receptive to this which is my my approach would have been like well what are the you know top 25 50 brands that I already know like and trust and I use I'm gonna start there it sounds like uh you know maybe that maybe that comes down the road yeah I mean I 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 gonna add DM if you're gonna email if you're just gonna 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 gonna 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 so even even software like you said the first deal was a an app company yeah 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 yeah the it's whenever people ask you like what kind 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 your headphones right your mic like you what whatever you're using as a podcaster so many brands are are using you know user generated content in their marketing strategies okay so that's that's what they're getting out of the deal is we're gonna hire Megan or a hundred people like Megan to fill out our own content feed like this it's I think there's always another day coming around there's always going to be 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 use obviously getting paid to do it and so 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 of the brand like on the brands 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 could I be a 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 that this 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 you're gonna like with Instagram DM you know 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 products 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's you know email 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 but you know of course it could go unread or could get lost in the mix and that's where follow-up can come through to yeah 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 trend reverse engineer you know their email like Jay Smith at brand name dot com you know trying to figure out what are the common email structure is exactly in there or is this a delinquent message too yes totally yeah it's that's totally an option and also I mean now because I'm making money with UGC I'm I've reinvested so I use a software called hunter dot IO if you've heard of it yeah 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 uh 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 sure sure you're gonna pay for it so hunter dot IO is a great software what is a typical response once you reach that decision maker they're like an immediate yes and the rate is $500 like do they have a template response or something that they're used to paying people like wow what what typically happens next it kind of a mix back but 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 stocking 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 that's a good sign because they're already doing 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 gonna be either hey thanks so much for reaching out we had to 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 they could be you know it could 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 sign so I really wanted to make UGC for this supplement company because I'm obsessed with them and I just am a loyal customer of spent thousands of dollars on their products and so I reached out to them in like an August sent them an email and they said no like we're we have an agency that handles this like we're not 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 is you I use a loom l o m loom software it's a screen recording software I basically screen record my screen my computer screen and have my little face up there as well 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 is probably like six minutes long I even created a Google doc with all like the three concepts that I had for them for a UGC videos told them why they should hire me to create UGC and uh sent it to them was super confident and again they're like sorry like no we just we're not gonna work with you right now 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 you 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 there again well that's a great lead in on one like 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 just and you know I see this all the time with you know guest 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 it makes sense on the brand side too so they ask well how much you're gonna charge what's some of your rates and now the deer in the headlights gotta go well what should I charge so what are you so I'm back to that yeah for sure so this point well just kind of 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 gonna be like one fifty to two hundred dollars per UGC video most brands want multiple UGC videos when they're hiring you so one fifty to two hundred that's what I charge 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 a thousand dollars per UGC video and you can also charge usage rights if a brand like that supplement brand these are super short like they're yeah there's some what I highlight there's some editing required there's some creative thought we'll get into that but like we're talking about a forty five second video yes thousand bucks yeah do do the hourly rate on that yeah exactly yeah so for this brand you know they I yeah I charge them a little over a thousand dollars 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 you know it's easier to me than just starting out right 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 that's kind of the great thing about UGC like you're gonna get better and better you're gonna be able to charge more so your hourly rate technically is just truly going to increase kind of into to a crazy amount yeah and each each video that you do it adds to the portfolio makes it easy to sell the next job plus you get better at the creative process and doing the work and you improve the processes and all the stuff some yeah I definitely see there's some economies of scale and one yes is likely two three four five yes is because they want multiple videos and it's like it's not really worth you know sending you 150 bucks for the one but if you could do five of them then okay now we got now we're talking what happens when somebody says oh we we do our influencer partnerships or UGC partnerships through an agency and now it's like well now there's another middle man to deal with yeah um 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 um which you could ask for it you could probably do some research googling it um but if you find the agency that that's another way to connect with brands is so many brands do higher 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 uh 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 a place to potentially get matched with a lot of brands a lot of brands for a little effort without you know having to send out hundreds and hundreds of cold DMs or it's just you know can I 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 uh ask if you'd be interested in it yeah and it's also important to note that now because UGC is such um 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 billo or there's b-roll incense app 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 um each app is a little bit different how it works the logistics of it but there's also platforms like brands meet creators vidzy coley breakfast.io which is b-r-k-f-s-t.io um there there's just an insane amount um that it could be overwhelming to new people but what I always recommend is you know 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 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 um and yeah stick your flag out and say I'm open for business come come hire me um this is uh this is super interesting stuff does it make sense to transition a little bit to the creative process because my you know we've joked about this on the on the show in the past like my bread and butter is a 45 minute podcast episode like short form is 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 convinces people that they want to buy this product that the brand is paying you to promote you know what do you be like is keep a uh you know I did 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 I think I'm gonna draw a blank like I'm gonna freeze when the brand you know wants me to make a video well what am I even gonna 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 ten they're gonna have a plan for you so that could look different depending on the brand most brands are gonna send you a creative brief so they're gonna have you know they could even send you a script like a full on script I had a student of mine get a get a ugc deal just literally reading an eight minute script that they sent her and she got paid six hundred dollars 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 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 in 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 here the shots that we want you to get for example like my mom got a ugc or she's in the process of you know she's in communication with the 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 you know brush your hair with the 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 this is you know the talking points like and and a spectrum and everything in between with some that makes sense and that's actually less makes it less intimidating because it's like oh if you give me the outline or give me some guardrails this structure around it as you know to the extent of you know brushing your hair not that that would be applicable to me but that's that's helpful in 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 gonna read a script every time and it's gonna be a breeze every single time you know so there are like if you were like I always tell people you know 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 gonna have an in-house video editor for you to do right 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 chat gbt or other AI writing tools that can kind of get those creative juices flowing so it's what I tell people you know if you 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 um to kind of get get those ideas flowing because those 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 yeah if you're the person who's super intimidated maybe not decide us for you but we've got lots of other options for you but if you're like hey I like making videos I like watching videos I like brand you know I'm a consumer um I could go to town with this so you get the first deal and you make this effort to go well I made you I made you a couple extra would you like to buy those too would they say yes what happens what happens next like you're like okay I got I got a bite I'm 10 days into this I got I got a deal there's obviously something to this and you talk about this scaling up and do it as a on the side from the day job yeah so I was elated when I got that deal and I was uh on cloud nine which I think most UGC creators can feel that way whether it's a hundred bucks whether it's eight hundred bucks um 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 said a ton of emails uh 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 UGC creator I was studying those ads seeing what I liked what 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 um it was just a continual process reaching out to brands I started landing you know more UGC deals and other different industries um and just you know working with agencies I got better at commuting communicating with companies I would raise my rates every now and then when I was feeling a little confident so um it kind of just snowballed and it it was great you know I was obviously working a full-time job and I got a new job a few months into my UGC journey and um it was a more demanding job and so I had to find pockets of time to do UGC um so you know getting up really to come up where a coworker or a boss is like hey what I saw you on my feed for some random company like does that ever happen I 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 what the heck are you doing besides random people like I the first video I did for that app company I remember I got like two different people that I went to college with like a decade ago that I haven't spoken to in years DM me on Instagram be like hey just saw your ad for that ad but I don't I don't really know your your influencer now and this I had explained it's kind of it's kind of funny and that's kind of what happens when people when you start doing UGC and start landing deals is you're gonna have like a random people reach out and be like what the heck are you doing so um yeah I mean it was you know I didn't and that that is the 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 um and that that can be I mean it kind of depends on the person but you can also do faceless UGC um I have done a lot of UGC where I literally don't show my face so yeah home products like brands or nail care companies where you literally only show your hands um so though though that is an option for people which I think is important to know 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 have I mean that's similar like all my or most of my amazon influencer videos just me pointing the camera at the thing and talking about it and maybe you see my hands it's like it's not necessarily face on camera but I mean it could be but then have to be and then we had another this guy who has been in the side us on nation community forever his side us all was uh maybe similar or like or at least at least related maybe a cousin of this where he was like on fiber I will be your video spokesperson you kind of had like a you know corporate looking output on the suit and tie and I'll you know talk about your thing and that was kind of the the interesting part is 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 it's similar here it's like uh you know you're you're kind of in control you're doing the manual outreach in this case to say yeah this is a brand I already like or could see myself partnering with versus some random inbound or say uh do I really want to be showing this thing yeah exactly yeah I mean 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 the longer you do it the more pickier you can be obviously and the the thing about fiber is yes that's exactly UGC so many UGC creators are on fiber landing UGC deals and the great thing about that which um you probably now after talking to that person is it they come to you right so you're not doing all this outreach and spending all this like time and energy you know sending emails sending DMs it's great even though it's not like a really quick thing on fiber it usually takes a little while um but that is that is one of the benefits of going on freelance platforms like fiber as a UGC creator because then brands are actively looking they can find your gig and hire you and it's it's super interesting because it's not going on your feet so it's like 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 is 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 was I go out I know I'm going to have to send 10 pitches before I get a yes I know I'm going to have to send 50 pitches before I get a yet what kind of numbers games should people expect oh gosh I think I probably sent like 30-ish emails before one said yes to me um possibly a little bit more between 30 to 50 and you know I've I've had like people that I've taught that um you know they send out their first Instagram DM and it just how 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 but yeah you know it's it's gonna be it's gonna be a game that's why I always tell people um 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 who are busy right like there's a lot of you know 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 they're stay at home moms who are just like chasing kids around that they just can't do that so going on these platforms like brand-s-meat creators for example it's 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 it no and that's the name of the game in any sales relationship or it's gonna take a lot of notes before you get to it yes or a lot of not even getting any responses like in my case I had an knock on a lot of doors before I ever sold a paint job it's like you know you got to you get to do some filtering that has to happen exactly 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 what's going through your head to be like is because it's very much and maybe there's some recurring contracts as as part of this but it's kind of like every month I got a book another five to ten deals so I could pay the bills yeah for sure um it was 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 um and you know what the the real turning point in my UGC business was getting monthly retainer clients so like I mean that changed everything for me so when I was obviously you know work-eful time our son was like probably one and a half to at this point um 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 the full-time job um and then I had a company offer me like three thousand dollars to do some Instagram reels for them every month and I thought three thousand bucks extra every month sounds pretty good so I'm just gonna 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 um and I already worked from home which was obviously a bonus because I could do some things in between work um and so that really kind of made this switch like okay some like making three grand from this a couple extra grand from random UGC deals that would come in and then I got my next like bigger monthly retainer client that was paying me four thousand dollars a month and with that client I was also offering some social media management which a lot of UGC creators do um and so that that's that's an option for people if they want to you don't have to do that but I was like okay there that's kind of what they're looking for I'm willing to do it um and so I took on another pretty big contract um and so I had this consistent money coming in and eventually about about a year into it um a year into my whole UGC journey um 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 whoa 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 gonna keep these clients and then that second client was now paying me five five hundred dollars a month because I was doing a little more stuff for them so it was good chunks of money coming in that I could not a hundred percent rely on but basically rely on every month um so I was able to quit my job you know when I was making consistent reliable 10 to 13 thousand dollar months um with UGC deals and it would just I would almost be impossible to continue working full time in doing that much UGC so something had to be it has something had to be gone and that was my full-time job but that's incredible to build it to the point and a hundred twenty plus grand a year 10 grand a month plus on the side yeah and then say well it's not sustainable to keep doing it on the side so yeah something's got to give yeah first one three grand a month make us some Instagram real as like can you give a sense of like the volume of work that was yeah it was so the great thing about that contract is I had total creative freedom which helps with the whole process like 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 you know three hundred dollar candles two hundred dollar blankets um that kind of stuff so I didn't have to show my face in any of it which was nice um 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 um it's 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 idea like different ways to show up like it it's like you know I thought I thought I would and what helps with that is obviously just stocking 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 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 um and yeah and some 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 um you know that's 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 gonna 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 is it gonna do anything maybe it sells a couple who knows but it's it's almost like we're gonna we're gonna sprinkle our budget around in the hopes that one or two of these takeoff and you know 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 uh you know i had another client paying me fifteen hundred dollars a month for five Instagram reels that were like ten 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 if they're clothing brand which they were and they're competing in all these other clothing brands they're they have no option then to be consistent on social media and build a following build and engage community people that's interested in following them right 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 our our products via ads so i think it's a mix i think it's a totally a mix of like brands need both organic and they need paid media that's interesting it's like it's a it's a cost of play in the game at this point and to well to be on the receiving end of that that's good for the creators you've mentioned a lot of different tools and apps which i think is awesome we'll link those up loom canva in cents billow like some of these are totally new to me we'll we'll big those up 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 i'll kind of go through the process of exactly what i use and what i think bare minimum should be forever ugc creator so 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 city all right that's kind of the point so you can use your phone to film if it's a decent camera and then i use cap cut to edit and that's what most people use i think there's a couple different editing apps out there but cap cut seems to be the most straightforward and i pay for cap cut 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 to stay very organized which is very easy to get very disorganized when it comes to ugc because you're going to be reaching out to so many brands you know create a new gmail account it doesn't have to be a business account where it's at url.com it can 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 paid 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 it's typically not something that's the payment part 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 um 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 um which is like $12 15 you're gonna 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 um 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 lav mic or something like that yeah cool that's that's helpful like low tech don't don't stress about the payment yeah that's a good problem to have you'll figure that out somebody's like how do i give you money like well let me exactly i could solve that yeah um anything you would do 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 um so yeah number one like focus on building relationships with brands and being a good person to work with like don't be difficult to work with uh you know be responsive be be polite like just be a good person to work with and brands will want to continue working with you um and then that will lead probably to monthly retainer clients which can significantly increase your income as ugc creator so for sure the monthly retainer clients um and just i think just not being afraid to reach out to bigger brands as well like brands of all sizes um need content and it's not always going to be you know it's 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 like it's it's going to be a little slow but eventually you'll get yeses and increase your confidence so i think is there you know pricing tiers like if i'm reaching out to alo like on your hat or Nike and i come back with you know $200 and they're like ugh that's that's a red flag that's too cheap we're used to paying billions of dollars to lebron james or somebody this you know what is this is there anything like that when you when you mentioned going after bigger brands i 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 and ugc creators will tell you different things like don't do this do this like it's a it's a mix but my opinion is if if you can get the brand to tell you what their budget is before you ever state any number yeah yeah you you're putting the ball in their court so um it's it's kind of best so i've had brands reach out to me and i'm like so what what is your budget for three videos what can you give me a range of what what your budget is and sometimes you know it'll be like a hundred dollars 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 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 rates 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 a thousand dollar for two ugc videos budget in your portfolio states that you only charge two fifty for one for one video and they're going to save money you're going to lose money so 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 um 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 spending an hour or two creating a video for a hundred dollars but maybe you do maybe maybe you you won't feel good about that but knowing what you feel good about and like what's worth your personal time right now based on your financial situation and your goals um it's it's so important to know that otherwise you know i've seen ugc creator after ugc creator start ugc and only be okay and feel worthy of getting these fifty or a hundred dollar 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 is going to be a game changer yeah okay i was just i was just helpful you because it's like you know yeah you can go out and buy you know web design like we talked about fiber 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 case prices could be a signal of the potential quality or reach it's gonna have who knows yes but um that was just something that popped into my head i was gonna ask any big surprises from your own journey or from your students or what's you know what's going out there in the ugc universe these days for sure so yeah i mean the biggest thing here comes my mind is i have i've actually helped and taught most of my students happen to be gen-exors and baby boomers so the way that got started was about a little over a year ago um i was on a brand call with i sent a video pitch to a brand that i really wanted to work with it they loved it and they had me hop on a zoom call with like four of their uh marketing marketing team so um i was on a call with them trying to convince them to hire me as a ugc creator is going pretty well and i had mentioned that my mom who is 63 uh 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 like loyal customer as a my and so they were like their ears kind of perked up and they're like oh my gosh that that would be amazing if your mom could be in one of the three ugc videos that you can do like time out time out we don't watch you but we watch you i know and and so i was like like of course my mom's gonna be down for it she loves me she's gonna support me she's gonna 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 a post like me is a you know 33 year old at the time so i was like okay like fantastic that's great i heard that it didn't really think much of it besides just kind of coordinating with my mom we did the video together um and it was great super fun and then i realized that if they were looking for older creators um 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 xer 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 and so 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 xer or baby boomers to be like in our in our videos to to do ugc for us and we just can't find that many of them so i've actually well there was some data that was like you know it was probably a couple of years old but like that's the fastest fastest growing demographic on tiktok is like these older generations yes it's like we need people to come and speak to them 100 percent now we're now we can stack side hustles like it's so are you going to build the gen x boomer ugc creator agency now i you 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 like it's been so incredible to see so many people who are in that in those two generations the gen xer is the boomers like 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 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 really really cool to see that's super fun yeah so we got Megan 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 what's next for you what's what's on the horizon for this year um well 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 um yeah my goal is just to continue creating good content for companies that they could 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 uh just dive into it because you never know what could happen. Very good what a what a fun creative side hustle we'll link up all of the resources mentioned in the show notes uh for this episode this was like when Megan when you reached out as like obviously this has been on my radar for a couple years but never really connected with somebody making a serious run at it and it's that'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 um it checks that box if 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 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 called it gravy time like you know I don't need it anymore it's just like its bonus and then the especially with those recurring contracts but otherwise too like your workflow the process improvements as you just get a few more reps under your belt uh the hourly rate really starts to improve some super inspiring episode if uh you're new to the show welcome we've got hundreds of actionable episodes in the archives to help you make more money if uh if you GC isn't your thing um would 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 uh how it works is you go to hustle.show you answer a few short multiple choice questions takes probably 60 seconds you can do it on your phone um the questions are about your side hustle interests your side hustle goals and it'll recommend you eight to ten 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 side hustle nation.com slash deals for all the latest offers from our advertisers in one place thank you for supporting the sponsors that support the show that's it for me 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 so fire off that text message maybe you know that uh Gen X or boomer person in your life who could make a little extra money with ugc and uh 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 hustle on