The Exact PDF I Use to Negotiate Brand Deals
As a full-time content creator without an agent, I negotiate my own brand partnerships. I used to use a media kit but recently I switched to a one-page PDF that's been working really well for me. In this post, I'll walk you through how to use it and how to get access to my template in exchange for a cup of coffee. Without further ado, let's hop in
Alright friends, the first thing you should know is I am demoing everything within a Canva Pro account. So if you log into your Canva account, you see a crown next to a particular feature or you don't see access to what I'm showing. Feel free to go to lashondabrown.com/canva45 to get access to a free 45-day trial of Canva Pro. Now if you still want to use a media kit to promote yourself to brands for potential partnerships, then you can just type in media kit within the search bar in Canva to pull up 200+ templates that range in style and color. Obviously, you can edit those templates to fit your brand but I want to make sure you know that you can start from a template or you can start from a blank page. Now in my case, I actually created my from scratch but I made available to you all. This exact template will be automatically delivered to anyone who buys me a coffee after this post goes live. So after watching this video if you just want to get access to this instead of having to recreate it from scratch, just click on the link in my description or go to lashondabrown.com/coffee and you can buy me a coffee to support this channel.
Now I'm going to walk you through how I customize this template when I am interested in pursuing a partnership with a new tech company. You can utilize anything you see here or click on the elements and delete it to bring in new ones. In the top left-hand corner I type the type of proposal so for most partnerships I would change this text here to UGC proposal. Under that, I would add the company logo for the brand that I am pitching. So I would delete this element by clicking on it and either clicking on the trashcan or delete on my keyboard and then uploading the logo for that company. You will want to upload a logo with a transparent background typically that will be saved as a PNG and you can upload it simply by clicking on uploads on the left-hand side. Underneath that I include an image that reflects the brand that I’m pitching. This attention to detail will go a long way. You can simply google the company and pull an image from there or if you're really feeling extra, you can go to the website of the brand and create your own mock-up image using smart mock-ups. I'm going to be doing a video about that later. But say if I was pitching Flodesk, I could take a screen grab of their homepage, drop it into a mock up and then put the image here.
Underneath that, I typically will share what my preferred partnership is. When you see pricing for most companies that are service-based you'll see a good, better, and best price. Good being the lowest, best being the highest. I typically will put the better option on top. Underneath that, I explain my rationale for why I think that's a good choice. And I include a lower price option where I remove some of the aspects of that pitch. And I include an add-on if they want to do more. I would share that hey, I did this with another company. If you want to add on this, it's only an additional X amount of dollars. The intention of this proposal is to provide them with enough information to continue the conversation and to go into negotiation. This should not be the end of the road. The only time where it would be the end of the road is if the company literally has no desire to adequately compensate you. And in that case, it's helpful to be upfront in the beginning to save yourself time and honestly to save them time as well. So I tried to be as frank and honest as I can be in this proposal. If you prefer to give pricing ranges instead of exact numbers, at least give people a ballpark for what it would cost to partner with you so they can determine whether or not it's a good fit for their brand. Now if you need more room for text, you can always click on this element here, copy this element by clicking on Ctrl C, and paste to create the look of two columns and you can see as you drag it, it will give you guidelines for how you can line that up.
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Now on the right-hand side I typically provide my latest stats for my YouTube channel. So wherever your top performing platform is, where you would more than likely share this content, you want to include that information. I also include information about my audience in terms of their demographics so the brand can kind of see who's resonating with my content the most. Underneath that I do two more platforms, Instagram and LinkedIn are my secondary options for placement for content. And then I always include my current number of email list subscribers. The company may want to pay extra to not only have you create the content, but to advertise the content to your email list knowing that emails convert extremely high. So make sure that you include that data as well. Underneath that I have my top affiliate partnership, because I want them to understand, my rate is based on my past performance, and I want them to know I understand my value. So your value is not just the number of followers or subscribers that you have. It could be quotes or testimonials from past clients, or it literally could be your conversion rate on clicks. Typically a brand partnership will involve them giving you some type of code or referral link so that they can track the performance of the campaign. And so I like to share what my top performing partner gets from me. So I'm able to share my number of referrals, how many converted to paying customers, and what my conversion rate is. For my top performing partner right now, I'm converting at over 60% which simply means one out of every two people that click on my link after watching my content, convert to a paying customer. Understanding this data will give you the capability of charging more because you convert higher. If you don't include this data, they are likely to judge you simply by your vanity metrics which are the number of subscribers, the number of video views, anything that you can just see at a glance when you visit someone's profile. So make sure that you know these numbers because this could be the difference between getting paid hundreds and getting paid thousands.
Underneath that I have a place to put my headshot. I put my first name and my last name and my title right now my title is Speaker, YouTuber and, Tech Educator, which really describes what I do. And then I include links to the social media platforms that I put the stats for here, that way if they want to immediately go check out my YouTube channel, my LinkedIn profile, or my Instagram profile, they can click here without having to search for those links. If you want to link these up, you can just click there, click on link at the top and put in your social media platform. And then that will link this image to your platform. When it is saved as a PDF, it will be clickable. Underneath that just put your logo if you don't have a logo, you can always click and delete it. When you are done customizing this click on Share, then click on Download, under file type you want to select PDF standard, which is the best for emailing PDFs.
So this is typically what I would do if I wanted to start negotiations with a brand. I would modify this template, save it as a PDF named for the company receiving it, and attach it to an email to hopefully lead to further emails, further conversations, and a mutually beneficial partnership. So don't get so caught up in the fact that I use this template for specifically my life as a content creator because the mindset that goes into creating a proposal like this would be really helpful for any type of service provider. We have to understand what our unique selling propositions are like, what makes you valuable, why should someone do business with you versus someone else in your industry. And your rationale, your attention to detail, and your stats are what set you apart. So I want to make sure that you guys know that because it's not just a Canva template. It's not just something cute you can design and save as a PDF. This type of document can literally be the game changer between getting a partnership and not getting a partnership, presenting yourself in a professional manner, and changing these colors to match your brand. It's really going to set you apart and if for some reason your brand colors are not mine I completely understand. You can select color palettes from Canva or you can drop in your own brand kit and simply toggle between those colors. So say for instance, if this particular template was a better fit for me, I could just have toggled there. Here's another example where you can see as I'm shuffling, it's not only changing the colors, it's also changing the fonts. So you have tons of options available within Canva to really fit your aesthetic. So make sure that when this goes out, this is you on paper, so that when people see this they are impressed by the professionalism and they are encouraged to learn more.
Thanks so much for reading this post. I'm LaShonda Brown, a Canva Verified Expert from Virginia. If you would like to try Canva Pro free for 45 days, visit lashondabrown.com/canva45. The link is in the description for Buy Me a Coffee if you would like to receive the template in this post. Until next time ta-ta for now.
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