Latest / The UGC Industry Podcast / 7-Figure Agency Owner: "Stop Chasing Followers, Chase Money" | Colin Madden E3

Transcript

7-Figure Agency Owner: "Stop Chasing Followers, Chase Money" | Colin Madden E3 · The UGC Industry Podcast

0:00
SPEAKER_01: Welcome to the UGC Industry Podcast, the show that brings creators, brands, and everyone building the UGC space into one conversation.
0:07
SPEAKER_01: I'm Brandon Heen, your host, and every week I sit down with the people shaping this industry, from creators landing brand deals to the founders and agencies behind them.
0:15
SPEAKER_01: Let's get into it.
0:16
SPEAKER_01: On this episode, we have Colin Madden, one of the founding members of RTech, a coach in content economy, and he has built a seven-figure agency at the age of 22.
0:26
SPEAKER_01: So, Colin, you've been doing UGC for five years, and a lot of creators want to know what this next step is after being a creator.
0:33
SPEAKER_01: So you decided to start your own agency.
0:35
SPEAKER_01: Can you tell me what led to that decision?
0:37
SPEAKER_00: So ultimately, I think like the natural ascension of a creator is it's a very interesting thing because what happens is especially when you know I've been doing UGC for the last five years full-time.
0:47
SPEAKER_00: You start to develop a real relationship with some of the clients.
0:50
SPEAKER_00: And I think ultimately that's what gave me the push.
0:52
SPEAKER_00: After have being in the space for so long, I was naturally like interested in helping others create UGC too.
0:57
SPEAKER_00: So I was just doing that for free, pretty much.
0:58
SPEAKER_00: Like I was just helping other creators.
1:00
SPEAKER_00: Every time I saw cool deals, I'd send them to my friends.
1:03
SPEAKER_00: Actually, my best friend since kindergarten, which is my co-founder now, I taught how to do UGC.
1:08
SPEAKER_00: So he had never made content before.
1:10
SPEAKER_00: He had seen me making money with content and was interested in doing it himself.
1:14
SPEAKER_00: And so, because of that, that effect over the years, like of just helping others create UGC, I realized I was actually developing like a network of creators.
1:21
SPEAKER_00: And then I just kind of reached the ceiling with my UGC after I've been doing it for so long, literally producing like tens and tens of thousands of videos, doing over billions of views.
1:31
SPEAKER_00: It just had gotten to a point where I was like, there is a next step for me.
1:34
SPEAKER_00: And so I went back down to the drawing board.
1:36
SPEAKER_00: I had developed all these great relationships with clients, and then I had my small creator networks.
1:40
SPEAKER_00: What did that look like?
1:41
SPEAKER_01: So did you have a group with them, or where were you meeting other UGC creators?
1:44
SPEAKER_01: Because I think one thing that creators lack is a community of others.
1:48
SPEAKER_01: And you were so early into it.
1:50
SPEAKER_01: Now there's a decent amount of communities out there, but how were you meeting UGC creators back then?
1:55
SPEAKER_00: It was kind of a combined network.
1:56
SPEAKER_00: So I was a struggling content creator forever.
1:59
SPEAKER_00: Like I wanted to be an influencer when I was growing up.
2:01
SPEAKER_00: I'm 22 now, but no one else was really doing it in the online money space back then, unless you were an influencer of some kind.
2:09
SPEAKER_00: But being an influencer is like trying to get an NBA contract, like doing it successfully.
2:13
SPEAKER_00: Um, it's very rare.
2:14
SPEAKER_00: And so there was a time where I had to get real with myself where I was like, okay, how can I take my content creation skills and then make money while doing it?
2:22
SPEAKER_00: Luckily enough, around that time, I got invited to an invite-only program with TikTok called the TikTok Creator Challenge.
2:27
SPEAKER_00: So that's ultimately where I met the people.
2:30
SPEAKER_00: But it was this program that existed on WhatsApp to start.
2:32
SPEAKER_00: So I got hit up by a TikTok rep on WhatsApp.
2:35
SPEAKER_00: At first, I actually thought it was a scam.
2:36
SPEAKER_01: And so you you were you were wanting to make be an influencer, but I'm guessing it was like tough to make money with it.
2:42
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, so that's exactly what happened.
2:43
SPEAKER_00: So I was going down the influencer path forever, like trying my best to be an influencer, but realized it was really tough.
2:47
SPEAKER_00: There was this transition period between like, I needed to figure it out because I either was gonna go to college or was gonna be an influencer.
2:54
SPEAKER_00: That's a very tough position to be in.
2:56
SPEAKER_00: I was like, you know what, I'll I'll see what this brand deal stuff looks like.
2:59
SPEAKER_00: I know how to create content really well.
3:01
SPEAKER_00: I don't necessarily know how to be an influencer.
3:03
SPEAKER_00: So it's very different.
3:04
SPEAKER_01: So, really, what is important to be a good UGC creator is to create videos that sell because as an influencer, you you need a following and you are influencing your following.
3:16
SPEAKER_01: So they're typically just following you for you.
3:19
SPEAKER_01: With UGC, you don't need a following at all.
3:21
SPEAKER_01: What kind of brand deals were you doing when you first started?
3:23
SPEAKER_00: I was a gaming creator, so I got introduced to doing like mobile game ads.
3:28
SPEAKER_00: And so I was able to take what you were saying is I was able to take my content creation skills, apply it to something that there was actually an objective other than just trying to entertain people.
3:36
SPEAKER_00: Mobile games have giant ad budgets.
3:38
SPEAKER_00: I was like reacting to fake gameplay, like all that sort of stuff that you might have seen in the past, especially on TikTok.
3:44
SPEAKER_00: And that's ultimately how I got started.
3:46
SPEAKER_00: So once I got that opportunity, I was like, I don't want to be an influencer anymore.
3:49
SPEAKER_00: I'd rather just make videos and get paid for making videos.
3:52
SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
3:52
SPEAKER_00: And how did you learn how to create good content?
3:56
SPEAKER_00: I would say just being motivated to create content by people leading by example.
3:59
SPEAKER_00: My my goal was like, I wanted to be just like them.
4:01
SPEAKER_00: So looking up to others and trying my best to match their styles.
4:05
SPEAKER_00: I made my first YouTube video when I was 10 years old.
4:07
SPEAKER_00: So it was just second nature to me.
4:10
SPEAKER_01: And now you manage tons of UGC creators and you train them.
4:13
SPEAKER_01: What are some skills that good UGC creators have that actually come onto your campaigns and perform versus creators that come on and don't ever end up getting enough view bonuses to make a lot of money?
4:26
SPEAKER_01: Because here's the thing in UGC, you don't need any content creation skills to start.
4:31
SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
4:31
SPEAKER_01: You can get beginner level deals and you can get up to three, four, five, six, seven K a month with no skills.
4:37
SPEAKER_01: But if you want to really hit the big bonuses and do 10, 15, 20 K a month, you need to learn how to create videos that get views.
4:45
SPEAKER_00: So what are some of those skills you see?
4:47
SPEAKER_00: What's so great about UGC is like you're identifying is like anybody can do it.
4:50
SPEAKER_00: There's a ton of truth in that because UGC is built on everyday people, right?
4:53
SPEAKER_00: It's like organic style content, but you still have to understand a few basic things.
4:57
SPEAKER_00: One of them is obviously selling.
4:58
SPEAKER_00: What we're looking for when it comes to creators is more than the content creation skills themselves, it's literally just accountability and responsibility.
5:05
SPEAKER_00: So staying consistent, listening to feedback, um, and then just like actually having that drive to continue to keep being better.
5:14
SPEAKER_00: I I've noticed like people treat UGC as like a side hustle, but it could turn it could easily turn into a full hustle.
5:20
SPEAKER_00: There's a big gap right now, I think, in UGC, simply because people think they can just treat it like a side hustle.
5:25
SPEAKER_00: My best creators went from thinking that, maybe stacking one or two deals to realizing, oh crap, like I could really do this, and then going full time into it.
5:34
SPEAKER_01: Yeah, that's what I see happening with a lot of people, right?
5:37
SPEAKER_01: We all, you know, everyone needs to support themselves.
5:39
SPEAKER_01: So a lot of people get into UGC with the job.
5:42
SPEAKER_01: It's very realistic within your first month of UGC to get up to 5K a month.
5:46
SPEAKER_01: Oh, yeah.
5:47
SPEAKER_01: And then you start to realize, okay, if I'm working 40 hours a week, I'm doing UGC maybe 10 to 20, making 5K, and I'm also making only 7K at my job.
5:57
SPEAKER_01: Yeah, what if I quit my job and then I can just go full time in into UGC?
6:03
SPEAKER_01: And so I'm I'm curious to go back to your story a little.
6:06
SPEAKER_01: You never even ended up getting a quote unquote regular job.
6:09
SPEAKER_01: So after you got these first gaming brand deals, where'd you go from there?
6:13
SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
6:13
SPEAKER_00: So I kind of evolved with the program for a long time.
6:15
SPEAKER_00: So ultimately, this gets goes back to like the original question, which is like, how did I develop that creator network?
6:21
SPEAKER_00: Since I was one of the first creators on the platform, I ultimately like shined through and was one of the top creators pretty quickly.
6:27
SPEAKER_00: Later was awarded top creator of 2022.
6:29
SPEAKER_00: So I got the role of recruiting creators.
6:31
SPEAKER_00: Wow.
6:32
SPEAKER_00: And so when you say top creator of 2022, what does that mean?
6:35
SPEAKER_00: So in the ad program, TikTok Creator Challenge, I was awarded the top creator of the program in 2022.
6:39
SPEAKER_00: Wow.
6:40
SPEAKER_00: You had the highest sales or highest computer videos?
6:43
SPEAKER_00: Exactly.
6:43
SPEAKER_00: Most volume, all that sort of stuff kind of played into it.
6:45
SPEAKER_00: But want to get trained by this guy.
6:48
SPEAKER_00: Essentially, what to go back to your question, like what ended up happening, like from taking mobile games into the new world of organic UGC.
6:56
SPEAKER_00: Back then, UGC wasn't even really a thing.
6:59
SPEAKER_00: Was it even called UGC when you were making mobile game ads?
7:01
SPEAKER_00: I just called it UGC.
7:03
SPEAKER_00: Got it.
7:03
SPEAKER_00: But I didn't learn that until I had gotten on Twitter because there was a whole nother world of like traditional UGC creators that were doing pit ad brand deals.
7:10
SPEAKER_01: Yes.
7:11
SPEAKER_00: But on the TikTok side, nobody knew about that world.
7:13
SPEAKER_00: So that's a big difference here.
7:15
SPEAKER_01: I like to say there's three different kinds of UGC.
7:18
SPEAKER_01: There's tech UGC, which is also synonymous with organic UGC.
7:23
SPEAKER_01: And this is basically just creating ads for apps and stuff like that.
7:27
SPEAKER_01: Um, then you have traditional UGC where you're getting paid anywhere from like one to five hundred dollars or even more for a single video, and you're just submitting it to a company that they run it.
7:38
SPEAKER_01: And now there's commission-based ad UGC.
7:40
SPEAKER_01: What you were doing was something almost completely different.
7:43
SPEAKER_01: It kind of was, yeah.
7:44
SPEAKER_00: It was it was slightly traditional, slightly uh like commission-based stuff.
7:48
SPEAKER_00: But what ended up happening over the years is mobile games started to kind of die down on the ad side, not necessarily sure why, but then you started seeing more like consumer apps pop up that are solving everyday problems.
7:59
SPEAKER_00: You've got like where we are today, the Cali iPeople and yeah, some of these other like uh personal assistance style apps or better your lifestyle stuff that sort of continue to keep popping up.
8:09
SPEAKER_00: And so the same opportunity that I felt when I got reached out to by TikTok the first time around.
8:15
SPEAKER_00: I remember like making my first video, that first video ultimately made me a couple thousand dollars.
8:20
SPEAKER_00: So you gotta think a struggling content creator makes one video and makes a couple thousand dollars.
8:24
SPEAKER_00: My whole life changed.
8:24
SPEAKER_01: And you were you in high school at that time?
8:26
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, I was still in high school.
8:27
SPEAKER_01: Did you tell your parents like what do you do when you just get a couple thousand bucks off a single video?
8:31
SPEAKER_00: I remember calling my mom and I was like, Mom, I just made like two thousand dollars on this video.
8:37
SPEAKER_00: The the space back then was literally so crazy because then it quickly became I made my second, my third, my fourth, my fifth.
8:42
SPEAKER_00: And then that first month I made 10k.
8:44
SPEAKER_00: What?
8:45
SPEAKER_00: Literally like my first month I made 10k.
8:47
SPEAKER_00: Oh my god.
8:47
SPEAKER_00: I even have some of the original Google Sheets where I would track per video per day.
8:51
SPEAKER_00: Uh the way that the program operated was like you would just get a notification of how much money that video made per day, and I would have to manually add them up.
8:57
SPEAKER_00: Like they didn't even have a UI or anything that did all this for you.
9:00
SPEAKER_00: Ultimately, it was it was it was just a crazy time to be alive.
9:03
SPEAKER_00: I didn't even realize the opportunity I had in front of me, to be honest.
9:06
SPEAKER_00: I feel like that same way today with organic, right?
9:08
SPEAKER_00: I just woke up one day and was like, oh my gosh, like my whole life changed from this point forward.
9:12
SPEAKER_00: I see like all this opportunity.
9:15
SPEAKER_00: That opportunity started to fizzle out.
9:17
SPEAKER_00: And ultimately, I would say it was actually the reason for that because TikTok had given me the opportunity to recruit for the program.
9:23
SPEAKER_00: So what did I do?
9:24
SPEAKER_00: Like, naturally, in the back of my head, I'm no better than anybody else.
9:26
SPEAKER_00: I'm thinking to myself, like, is there a way to gatekeep this?
9:28
SPEAKER_00: Like, I don't want to tell everybody, like, this might be too good to be true.
9:31
SPEAKER_00: My thought process actually was I was a struggling content creator wanting to be an influencer.
9:36
SPEAKER_00: I shared that same feeling with a ton of other people in the community through the space that I had seen trying YouTube, that I met on Twitter, that I met on Twitch.
9:42
SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
9:42
SPEAKER_00: And I naturally reached out to those guys first.
9:45
SPEAKER_00: I was like, hey, I have this incredible opportunity, it changed my life.
9:47
SPEAKER_00: I know how you feel wanting to be an influencer, but it might not be working out.
9:51
SPEAKER_00: Try this.
9:51
SPEAKER_00: I promise it's going to be worth it.
9:53
SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
9:53
SPEAKER_00: Those same creators today have made well over seven figures doing UGC.
9:57
SPEAKER_00: Wow.
9:57
SPEAKER_00: From that interaction.
9:58
SPEAKER_00: So that's that's really how I got started.
10:00
SPEAKER_01: And what were their paths to doing UGC like starting so long ago?
10:04
SPEAKER_01: Did they just keep doing mobile app games?
10:06
SPEAKER_00: Or like what do you do after that?
10:07
SPEAKER_00: That this is where it gets interesting because what ends up happening is the program still exists to this day.
10:12
SPEAKER_00: Um, but this loops back into organic UGC because by growing the program, I think that it became a bit too competitive.
10:19
SPEAKER_00: There is an opportunity for creators still, but it's just not the same that it used to be.
10:23
SPEAKER_00: And so I kind of just grew out of it.
10:25
SPEAKER_00: And you're talking that TikTok specific.
10:27
SPEAKER_00: Yes.
10:28
SPEAKER_00: Okay.
10:28
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, yeah, yeah.
10:29
SPEAKER_00: TikTok creator challenge program.
10:30
SPEAKER_01: Got it.
10:30
SPEAKER_01: So that that's what happens with a lot of things, right?
10:32
SPEAKER_01: This new opportunity pops up, which is like what organic UGC is right now, where the first movers just make so much money.
10:39
SPEAKER_01: It's so much easier over time.
10:41
SPEAKER_01: It it fizzles out and you find something new.
10:44
SPEAKER_01: Exactly.
10:44
SPEAKER_00: And so that's what happened.
10:45
SPEAKER_00: Like organic UGC starts to pop up.
10:47
SPEAKER_00: I'm already kind of fatigued by the TikTok creator challenge stuff.
10:51
SPEAKER_00: And the same feeling that I felt when I made my first 10K month was the exact same feeling that I found with organic UGC.
10:58
SPEAKER_00: I was like, oh my God, the there's endless possibilities here.
11:02
SPEAKER_01: And then and a point I want to make is a lot of people tell themselves this story in their head.
11:06
SPEAKER_01: They're like, oh, well, if if everything's gonna fade out, then what's the point of even starting?
11:10
SPEAKER_01: They'll be like, oh, is it too late to get into organic UGC?
11:12
SPEAKER_01: Right.
11:13
SPEAKER_01: See, the the thing is that people who are are gonna be successful in life, they hop on an opportunity, they ride it, they they squeeze the juice out of it, and then they find the next opportunity.
11:22
SPEAKER_01: Because they find the next, because it because it catapults you to do and new opportunities.
11:26
SPEAKER_01: And then you're gonna be your there's gonna be your people who are constantly skeptical, constantly thinking everything's too late, constantly thinking they can't be the one to actually succeed with something.
11:34
SPEAKER_01: And that's how you see people go down two different paths in life.
11:37
SPEAKER_00: I couldn't agree more, and I had the same thought process myself as a creator where I was like, Well, what's the next path for me?
11:43
SPEAKER_00: Like, what if TikTok creator challenge ends?
11:45
SPEAKER_00: And ultimately, like from my thought perspective, it kind of did like it started to slow down to a point where I was begging for change, like something had to happen.
11:53
SPEAKER_00: What was wrong with it?
11:54
SPEAKER_00: That that you just weren't making much money?
11:55
SPEAKER_00: Ton of ton of more creators, less opportunity type situation.
11:59
SPEAKER_00: So it there, the competitive edge had just gotten to a point where it was like, look, I gotta try something else.
12:04
SPEAKER_00: Organic UGC pops up, I get super motivated.
12:06
SPEAKER_00: My first ever deal was a college AI, like studying at classic.
12:09
SPEAKER_00: Um, but they were so great.
12:10
SPEAKER_00: They paid me like consistently, never had a request payment.
12:13
SPEAKER_00: It was like the best program ever.
12:14
SPEAKER_00: So from being a UGC creator, I might have had like five deals, six deals, or something like that.
12:19
SPEAKER_00: And then immediately was like, I'm ready to start an agency.
12:22
SPEAKER_00: That's actually what happened because I saw this gap.
12:24
SPEAKER_00: I had joined an agency, their systems and processes sucked.
12:27
SPEAKER_00: I was like, I can do better.
12:28
SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
12:29
SPEAKER_00: And then from there, I used all my previous client connections from the past, all my creator connections from the past, and started the agency.
12:35
SPEAKER_01: So basically, guys, what an agency is, is these brands need UGC creators, and then the owner of an agency will connect the brands to the creators.
12:44
SPEAKER_01: So brands will come to Colin, ask him for 10 creators or whatever, he'll provide the creators, train them.
12:50
SPEAKER_01: What was your first agency client like?
12:52
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, so I was actually a top ad creator of their program.
12:55
SPEAKER_00: The client's called Go Wish, their digital wishless platform.
12:58
SPEAKER_00: I started the agency last year around November.
13:01
SPEAKER_00: So coming up on a full year now, it was just perfect timing because I had creators, but I didn't have the clients.
13:07
SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
13:07
SPEAKER_00: And so I thought to just reach out to clients that I've already had a good experience with as a creator.
13:12
SPEAKER_00: Yep.
13:12
SPEAKER_00: That happened to be Go Wish.
13:14
SPEAKER_00: That year, since they're a digital wishless app, they ramp up their spending quarter four.
13:18
SPEAKER_00: And we just hit them perfect.
13:20
SPEAKER_00: I got on a call with them and was like, I don't know if you guys have ever heard of organic UGC, but you should give it a shot.
13:25
SPEAKER_00: Here's how much it costs.
13:26
SPEAKER_00: And they're like, Okay.
13:28
SPEAKER_00: And I remember being like, oh wait.
13:31
SPEAKER_00: Like, what do I do now?
13:32
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, what do I do now?
13:33
SPEAKER_00: Like, I didn't expect you to say yes.
13:34
SPEAKER_00: You know what I mean?
13:36
SPEAKER_00: Long story short, that ended up being our best case study.
13:38
SPEAKER_00: We helped them hit number one on the app store that same year.
13:40
SPEAKER_00: Wow.
13:40
SPEAKER_00: So we did like 150 million organic views.
13:43
SPEAKER_00: We also facilitated pay to ad creatives for them as well to run on meta, run on TikTok.
13:48
SPEAKER_00: And we just became like their creative partner for the last bit of last year.
13:53
SPEAKER_00: And ultimately, yeah, we did 130,000 users in a singular day.
13:56
SPEAKER_00: Dang.
13:57
SPEAKER_00: Hit number one in the app store, charted top five pretty much all quarter four.
14:00
SPEAKER_00: It was pretty crazy.
14:01
SPEAKER_01: So this is probably one of the reasons why Owen wanted to bring you into content economy to coach our creators.
14:05
SPEAKER_01: Absolutely.
14:06
SPEAKER_01: Did you know Owen at the time?
14:07
SPEAKER_01: And guys, by the way, so so Owen is the owner of Content Economy, which is the mentorship that I was a member of and now coaching, and that Colin also got invited to coaching.
14:17
SPEAKER_01: Um so how did you how did you meet him?
14:20
SPEAKER_00: Owen's actually like an OG in the UGC space too.
14:23
SPEAKER_00: Because you remember his first ever deals were traditional UGC.
14:25
SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
14:26
SPEAKER_00: And so the timeline for those of you listening or watching is for me, I had a pretty unique experience being a part of this like mobile game territory.
14:32
SPEAKER_00: But before organic UGC was traditional UGC, but the only way you could do this was being reached out to by a brand or reaching out to a brand, which was a much harder sell because now you're charging four or five hundred dollars a video.
14:42
SPEAKER_00: Owen started doing that.
14:44
SPEAKER_00: That's how we met, actually, was just by building in the UGC space, which was such a unknown thing, yeah, that it was almost like astonishing for me to see another person killing it in the UGC space, right?
14:57
SPEAKER_01: And this wasn't that long ago, right?
14:59
SPEAKER_01: This was a couple years ago now.
15:00
SPEAKER_01: Yeah, so a couple years ago, this now in the grand scheme of things, no.
15:03
SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
15:03
SPEAKER_01: But there's a little more guidance now.
15:05
SPEAKER_01: Whereas, like, I'm sure two years ago there was absolutely nobody telling you what to do at all.
15:09
SPEAKER_01: Whereas now you can get a little bit more direction, but man, there's still so much opportunity in the space.
15:17
SPEAKER_01: Brands need so many more creators, and there are creators available.
15:20
SPEAKER_01: Quick interruption here.
15:21
SPEAKER_01: This video is brought to you by RTEC, the all-in-one platform for UGC creators.
15:26
SPEAKER_01: So, as a UGC creator, there are really three things you need.
15:30
SPEAKER_01: One is a suite of tools to make you more efficient from editing, tracking your deals, tracking your finances so that you're not hopping around from a million different apps.
15:39
SPEAKER_01: Two, the knowledge and coaching and training from people who've already been there and done that.
15:44
SPEAKER_01: And then three, access to deals.
15:47
SPEAKER_01: RTech provides you all three of those and was built by some of the OGs from the UGC space who understand everything that UGC creators know what they need to be successful.
15:56
SPEAKER_01: You can go hop on and try it now for free.
15:58
SPEAKER_01: Just click the link below.
16:00
SPEAKER_01: So you start your agency.
16:01
SPEAKER_01: How'd you go about finding your first creators for this deal?
16:04
SPEAKER_00: Of course, I had my creator network.
16:05
SPEAKER_00: I've talked about it a couple different times, so we lean on them for a bit, but ultimately, those were not even our best creators.
16:10
SPEAKER_00: Our best creators came from net new people to content.
16:13
SPEAKER_00: Like our Goish case study in particular, it was female focused.
16:17
SPEAKER_00: Um, my co-founder, who I helped learn UGC.
16:21
SPEAKER_00: Like I literally hand-trained him how to be a UGC creator.
16:23
SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
16:24
SPEAKER_00: First year, keep in mind, he made like 300 grand.
16:26
SPEAKER_01: Oh my god.
16:27
SPEAKER_01: As a UGC creator.
16:28
SPEAKER_00: And his first year in UGC.
16:29
SPEAKER_01: Jesus, what kind of person was he?
16:30
SPEAKER_01: Like young guy, 20 something?
16:32
SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
16:32
SPEAKER_00: But but all but also that this is where the story gets interesting because he was creating content with his girlfriend.
16:37
SPEAKER_00: His girlfriend, we leaned on a lot in the first campaign that we were in with Go Wish because it was a female-focused app.
16:43
SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
16:43
SPEAKER_00: We didn't have a ton of female creators.
16:45
SPEAKER_00: So we asked his girlfriend, like, hey, do you have any friends that might want to get into UGC?
16:49
SPEAKER_00: They didn't have a portfolio.
16:50
SPEAKER_00: The only thing they had was an Instagram.
16:52
SPEAKER_00: We made sure that they were good enough to be on camera.
16:54
SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
16:54
SPEAKER_00: And started ripping from there.
16:56
SPEAKER_00: Those were our best creators and still are to this day.
16:59
SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
16:59
SPEAKER_01: Yeah, guys.
17:00
SPEAKER_01: If you have a girlfriend or a boyfriend, UGC content with boy, girl in it always does so good.
17:05
SPEAKER_01: Literally all of my best ads have another girl in it.
17:08
SPEAKER_01: 100%.
17:09
SPEAKER_01: That's it.
17:09
SPEAKER_00: That's a huge thing you you can leverage if you have one of those.
17:12
SPEAKER_00: But that's how we got the creator network, bro.
17:14
SPEAKER_00: Like I asked my girlfriend, hey, do you have any friends?
17:16
SPEAKER_00: Next thing you know, their friends are reaching out to their friends, and we developed like a unique creator network that way on all net new talent.
17:23
SPEAKER_00: And it's interesting because today, with those creators, we have enough deal flow for the agency to where they'll put our marketing agency in their LinkedIn bio.
17:31
SPEAKER_00: Like they work with us and pretty much only us, right?
17:34
SPEAKER_00: So that's a really good feeling.
17:36
SPEAKER_00: But ultimately it just goes to show that like if you're motivated and you want to do it and you care to do it, you can make it happen.
17:45
SPEAKER_01: And you can come in with no content creation and be even better than people who already do.
17:49
SPEAKER_00: Co-founder made 300k his first year, never doing content before in his life, completely changed it in a year.
17:54
SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
17:55
SPEAKER_00: Which is similar to your story as well.
17:56
SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
17:57
SPEAKER_00: Being able to just change your life just like that.
17:58
SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
17:59
SPEAKER_00: Same thing happened to me.
18:00
SPEAKER_00: It really is because the market, I think, right now, there's this just wide open position to just come in and be like the best creator.
18:07
SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
18:08
SPEAKER_00: Simply by being what I said earlier, responsible, competent, staying consistent.
18:12
SPEAKER_00: You do those three things, you'll win every time.
18:15
SPEAKER_01: So as someone who's is like curious about UGC, but just has nowhere where to begin.
18:21
SPEAKER_01: Like they're just scrolling TikTok, typing in how do I do UGC?
18:24
SPEAKER_01: They don't know how to get deals, they don't know how to make videos.
18:27
SPEAKER_01: How does someone like that go about even getting into the space?
18:31
SPEAKER_00: There's a couple resources you can use.
18:33
SPEAKER_00: Of course, I'm gonna have to give a shout out to RTech where you could sign up and be a creator on a platform like that.
18:38
SPEAKER_00: But I will say that the gap between doing that is you still don't really know.
18:42
SPEAKER_00: Like you can apply to a deal, but brands are looking at people all the time.
18:46
SPEAKER_00: You've got to be able to stand out.
18:48
SPEAKER_00: I think where you get to stand out is you do have to have a bit of a competitive edge.
18:52
SPEAKER_00: So if I were trying to kind of like blitz creak my way into being a UGC creator today, really I would start with connecting with somebody in the space.
19:01
SPEAKER_01: Like shoot it, shoot an Instagram DM just.
19:02
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, shoot an Instagram DM.
19:04
SPEAKER_00: I mean, also content economy is an incredible resource if you have the means necessary to be able to do something like that.
19:11
SPEAKER_00: But even then, if you really just had to do it, it ultimately comes down to making those connections.
19:16
SPEAKER_00: Like when our our best creator talent had no portfolio in the past.
19:19
SPEAKER_00: So if you don't have a portfolio, you don't have to feel bad.
19:21
SPEAKER_00: Yes, you should make one.
19:22
SPEAKER_00: But if you got in contact with somebody like me or Brandon, we could vouch for you for a bit for a deal or something along those lines, which goes a long way in this industry.
19:30
SPEAKER_01: So you talk to a lot of brands and agencies.
19:32
SPEAKER_01: What is their strategy?
19:34
SPEAKER_01: Because they they come to you with problems that they want solved.
19:37
SPEAKER_01: What are those problems that the brands have?
19:39
SPEAKER_00: It comes down to creator availability.
19:41
SPEAKER_00: Like, for example, I'm not an agency without good creators because they basically run the show.
19:46
SPEAKER_00: We just orchestrate it.
19:47
SPEAKER_00: And so, yes, there's talent involved when it comes to doing this because working with a team of, you know, two, three hundred creators is not easy.
19:53
SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
19:54
SPEAKER_00: But ultimately, downstream, it's like everybody's missing creator talent.
19:57
SPEAKER_00: We're in an office full of people that are in this industry.
19:59
SPEAKER_00: And everyone says the same thing.
20:00
SPEAKER_00: It's like the biggest pain point right now is finding high quality creators.
20:04
SPEAKER_00: The common misconception I think with DGC is I need to have a high quality camera or something like that.
20:08
SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
20:09
SPEAKER_00: That's not what a high quality creator is.
20:10
SPEAKER_00: No.
20:10
SPEAKER_00: What is a high quality creator?
20:12
SPEAKER_00: A high quality creator to me goes back down to the same principles I said earlier, which is like treating this like not a side hustle, but more of a full-time thing, being responsive, respectful, um, competent, all the things.
20:23
SPEAKER_00: But also, I mean, there there are a few like understandings of basic content that you'll have to do.
20:28
SPEAKER_00: One of the biggest ones for me is just like the goal to organic EGC is to fuel organic.
20:33
SPEAKER_00: Uh so understanding native ways to post on a platform, right?
20:37
SPEAKER_00: I'm gonna get really on the weeds here, is like text on screen.
20:40
SPEAKER_00: Okay.
20:40
SPEAKER_00: I know it sounds crazy, but like text on screen placement, the easiest way to tell that you're not a good creator is if you're using like some wacky Instagram font.
20:48
SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
20:48
SPEAKER_00: Instead of the TikTok font.
20:49
SPEAKER_00: Like it's just little things like that that make you stand out.
20:52
SPEAKER_00: So imagine when you're scrolling on your feed, basically what he's saying is tech text on screen is a critical component of every video.
20:59
SPEAKER_00: If you just wanted to get down to the basics, it's like you don't have to do anything fancy.
21:03
SPEAKER_00: Understand good lighting, good text on screen placement, and then also just understanding like the point of the content in the first place, which is ultimately to drive attention to a certain thing.
21:11
SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
21:12
SPEAKER_00: Or solve a problem.
21:13
SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
21:13
SPEAKER_01: So I would say, in terms of what separates a UGC creator from one that makes ten thousand dollars or more from one that makes five thousand from ones that make zero, is to make zero, it's straight up the person who's not trying.
21:26
SPEAKER_01: Oh, yeah.
21:26
SPEAKER_01: At all.
21:26
SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
21:27
SPEAKER_01: At all.
21:27
SPEAKER_00: If you make zero dollars making UGC, you're just something's wrong.
21:31
SPEAKER_01: You're genuine genuinely not trying.
21:33
SPEAKER_01: To get up to five K a month, really, you you just need to be reliable and do what you you say you're gonna do.
21:38
SPEAKER_01: When I started in in UGC, I got up to 5k a month in retainers in just two weeks.
21:43
SPEAKER_01: And I was I was wondering why this is so quote unquote easy, right?
21:46
SPEAKER_01: I have a long history in corporate America of a professional job where responding to emails, spelling words correctly, being able to go on a Zoom call and act like a normal person is just like the the bare minimum baseline.
21:59
SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
21:59
SPEAKER_01: So I asked another agency owner in content economy, hey man, all these agency and brand owners just like love me so much.
22:06
SPEAKER_01: Why?
22:06
SPEAKER_01: Because I felt like I wasn't doing anything special.
22:08
SPEAKER_01: And he was like, Do you know the percentage of UGC creators that joined a campaign and actually complete the deliverables of that campaign?
22:16
SPEAKER_01: I was like, I don't know.
22:18
SPEAKER_01: He said 20%.
22:20
SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
22:21
SPEAKER_00: And I I can second that as an agency owner, bro.
22:22
SPEAKER_00: It's hilarious because you're saying, yeah, in a corporate job, you show up to a Google Meet and act like a normal person.
22:27
SPEAKER_00: Yes.
22:27
SPEAKER_00: You spell things correctly.
22:29
SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
22:29
SPEAKER_00: Yes, you respond in a timely manner.
22:31
SPEAKER_00: There's this big disconnect in the UDC world where I don't know.
22:34
SPEAKER_00: There's like this like lack of respect, I think, for these paying gigs.
22:37
SPEAKER_00: And that's your competition.
22:38
SPEAKER_00: Your competition is somebody that can't spell something correctly or can't do what they say they were going to do.
22:42
SPEAKER_00: Are you kidding me?
22:43
SPEAKER_01: Can't respond to a message for three days and you just say, Oh, I was busy.
22:46
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, like that's not.
22:47
SPEAKER_00: No, you weren't.
22:48
SPEAKER_00: You were you were scrolling on TikTok.
22:50
SPEAKER_00: It's just people not not caring.
22:51
unknown: Yeah.
22:52
SPEAKER_01: All you gotta do is care.
22:53
SPEAKER_01: They don't see the potential of the opportunity.
22:55
SPEAKER_01: I always tell people if you've been successful at anything else in your life, maybe you played sports in college, you've had a job, a lot of people in tech sales do UGC.
23:04
SPEAKER_01: Um, they come in and they absolutely crush and they get up to the 10, 15k plus a month because of those skills.
23:11
SPEAKER_01: Communication, dude.
23:12
SPEAKER_01: It's just literally communication skills, man.
23:14
SPEAKER_01: But now, what takes a UGC creator from like 5K a month to 20K a month?
23:18
SPEAKER_01: Because that is more than just communication.
23:21
SPEAKER_00: This is an action patch question.
23:22
SPEAKER_00: I think the biggest thing holding most UGC creators back, you're gonna run into a point where you reach your ceiling.
23:27
SPEAKER_00: If you're managing anywhere between five plus retainer deals, like it starts to get pretty tough.
23:32
SPEAKER_01: That's around like that's around 8 to 12k a month, is where is like kind of where you cap out if you're only doing base pay deals and you're not getting incentives.
23:41
SPEAKER_00: The biggest thing for me as an agency is like, and I I've learned this at a very early age, actually.
23:45
SPEAKER_00: And I think it's because I was doing performance-based marketing.
23:48
SPEAKER_00: I'm not the only person that believes in this philosophy.
23:50
SPEAKER_00: Hermozi talks about it often.
23:52
SPEAKER_00: I think creators they have to be compensated for their time as if their time is valuable.
23:56
SPEAKER_00: Your time is not necessarily valuable for not doing anything or you're not driving any results.
24:00
SPEAKER_00: You just kind of have to get real with yourself and how you really get to this like 20, 30k month range is taking the bet on you and aligning with the brand on an incentive-based level, meaning commission style deals, retainer, but only upside style deals.
24:14
SPEAKER_00: That's how you get past the ceiling.
24:16
SPEAKER_01: In organic UGC, what this looks like is you get compensated for getting a certain amount of views.
24:21
SPEAKER_01: So, how does your agency structure deals to help creators hit that 10, 15, 20k a month?
24:26
SPEAKER_00: So typically how it works is you have to reach X amount of views as the floor in order for the video to qualify.
24:31
SPEAKER_00: And then there's tiers that stack on top of that.
24:33
SPEAKER_00: So if you get, you know, one to two million view video, you could earn$1,500 to$2,000 on it.
24:39
SPEAKER_00: For one video.
24:40
SPEAKER_00: For one singular video, that's right.
24:41
SPEAKER_00: There's that, but also the other component that we build is if you you're incentivized to post more.
24:45
SPEAKER_00: So most retainer deals will say, hey, you're only allowed to post one time a day.
24:49
SPEAKER_00: That video is equal$26, comes out to around$800 a month.
24:53
SPEAKER_00: We allow creators to post up to four times a day.
24:55
SPEAKER_00: Every single one of those videos can qualify for a$25 payment.
24:58
SPEAKER_00: Yep.
24:59
SPEAKER_00: So if you were really dedicated, you would post four times a day, you'd make$100 a day, you'd make$3K a month on one deal.
25:05
SPEAKER_01: Wow.
25:06
SPEAKER_00: Before any of those videos hit those next levels, which they will at that volume.
25:10
SPEAKER_00: Do you want to know the amount of creators that actually do it though?
25:12
SPEAKER_00: How many?
25:13
SPEAKER_00: None.
25:13
SPEAKER_00: Really?
25:14
SPEAKER_00: Out of the thousands that we've worked with over the years, out of the tens of thousands that are out there.
25:20
SPEAKER_01: Guys, if you're hungry and you don't want to have a job, I'm telling you, this space is wide open for the taking.
25:26
SPEAKER_01: And this is not even the best deal out there.
25:27
SPEAKER_00: Like there are better deals out there too that probably struggle with the same problems.
25:30
SPEAKER_01: Mm-hmm.
25:31
SPEAKER_01: So basically, what we're saying here is if you want to be an average UGC creator, you are just going to worry about if it's not guaranteed pay, then I'm not going to do it.
25:41
SPEAKER_01: If there's view minimum requirements, I'm not going to do it.
25:43
SPEAKER_01: And and look, maybe all you want to do is make$5k a month.
25:47
SPEAKER_01: That is some people.
25:48
SPEAKER_01: Some people they don't want to put do it necessarily to make$20K.
25:51
SPEAKER_01: Because let's be real, it's it's not easy.
25:53
SPEAKER_01: So it is very, very, very easy to get up to$5K a month with UGC just doing some some easy base pay deals.
26:00
SPEAKER_01: But if you want to get up to the serious, genuinely life-changing money, you need to look for performance-based deals and ones where you can post an unlimited amount of times a day, or at least several, because it's always going to be easier to post three videos a day for one company than one video a day for three companies.
26:18
SPEAKER_00: I totally 100% agree with that.
26:20
SPEAKER_00: And the thing you'll notice, like for more of the existing UGC creators out there, is to Brandon's point, once you've dialed in the formats and you've created a healthy creator account, you're consistently getting views on average, it's not hard to just replicate the same content.
26:34
SPEAKER_00: Like it comes down to just like building systems from there.
26:37
SPEAKER_01: And that is how people get to the point you hear people saying, Oh, I make 10K a month and one hour a day.
26:42
SPEAKER_01: Yeah, that's possible, but it's it's not that that way at the start.
26:46
SPEAKER_01: But once you get onto a good campaign where your account's doing well and you know the formats, you you can legitimately do the 10K um a month working two hours a day.
26:57
SPEAKER_00: As much as there's like a gap for good UGC creators, there is a decent amount of good UGC creators that are doing 20K a month.
27:03
SPEAKER_00: Guys, that's a quarter million dollars a year.
27:06
SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
27:07
SPEAKER_01: And there's people fresh out of college doing that.
27:09
SPEAKER_01: They're stay-at-home moms doing that.
27:11
SPEAKER_00: And keep in mind, on a random Tuesday, you could just take the day off.
27:13
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, exactly.
27:14
SPEAKER_00: You know what I mean?
27:15
SPEAKER_00: It's not like you get some crazy corporate job to make a quarter million a year.
27:18
SPEAKER_00: So my girlfriend was actually first to doing content for the first time ever in her life.
27:22
SPEAKER_00: She worked at a high school, she never thought about doing content.
27:25
SPEAKER_00: She's making 10k a month consistently today.
27:27
SPEAKER_00: There's no other industry in the world where you you don't have to have any like skills necessarily in order to get in, other than just the drive to do it.
27:36
SPEAKER_00: Yep.
27:37
SPEAKER_00: And I've experienced it forever.
27:38
SPEAKER_00: I've personally trained people that have made millions through this industry.
27:42
SPEAKER_01: And what what what blows my mind and what frustrates me about all these people who are who are out there saying that they want to make money online, saying they want to do these things, they don't even want to put in the work for three months to make 10 to 15k a month.
27:56
SPEAKER_01: Do you know how long you have to work in corporate America to make that much?
28:00
SPEAKER_01: You graduate college, you get a job for 65k, oh, you work for an entire year, 5% bonus.
28:06
SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
28:07
SPEAKER_01: Now you're at 72K after working an entire year.
28:10
SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
28:11
SPEAKER_01: If you grind for three months, you can make$5 to 10K a month with UGC.
28:16
SPEAKER_01: That is genuinely unheard of in any other type of money-making opportunity.
28:21
SPEAKER_01: But here's the thing that makes that's the difference about UGC is no one's gonna tell you you have to do it.
28:28
SPEAKER_01: When you have a job, you have to do it.
28:31
SPEAKER_01: And if you don't, you get in trouble.
28:33
SPEAKER_01: Most people just don't have the the internal drive to do something when they don't have to do it.
28:39
SPEAKER_01: And that's why most of the world is an employee.
28:42
SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
28:43
SPEAKER_00: That is the biggest thing, bro.
28:44
SPEAKER_00: As an agency, we've been recruiting out of content economy for a long time.
28:47
SPEAKER_00: Why I think sourcing out of a community like content economy or out of content economy directly separates those creators from the average because there is accountability built in.
28:59
SPEAKER_00: Um and that always is what makes it makes a better creator.
29:02
SPEAKER_00: That sense of urgency and accountability only comes from a special person.
29:06
SPEAKER_00: And if you don't have that, you're probably not gonna make it, but you can still get it done by like joining a program or learning from another or getting a mentor, something like that, that is going to hold you accountable because that is a huge, huge gap.
29:17
SPEAKER_00: It's like going to the gym on January 1st.
29:20
SPEAKER_00: You go for a couple days and then drop off because no one's telling you to do it.
29:22
SPEAKER_01: Yep.
29:23
SPEAKER_01: Yeah, there is something to be said about making the making the bet on yourself, yeah.
29:29
SPEAKER_01: Making an investment in yourself that you're just gonna keep your promises when you do that, and you're and you're in you're in a group of of seeing other people doing it, right?
29:37
SPEAKER_01: If you're on your own and you're not seeing people make this 10 to 15k a month, or even 5k a month and within like a month of starting, it just seems impossible.
29:46
SPEAKER_01: You're like, oh, it's not real.
29:47
SPEAKER_01: People couldn't do that.
29:48
SPEAKER_00: When you see it every day, you start to realize that you can do it too.
29:52
SPEAKER_00: Honestly, as an agency owner, I I look at some of the creators that are earning out of content economy and I'm like, might have to kick the dust off my boots and start being a creator again, man.
30:02
SPEAKER_01: Yeah, no, I saw I saw some deals the other day.
30:04
SPEAKER_01: I mean, there's there's people making 8k base on one deal.
30:08
SPEAKER_01: I'm like, dude, I kind of want to do that.
30:11
SPEAKER_01: Yeah, yeah, yeah.
30:12
SPEAKER_00: It's uh it's funny.
30:13
SPEAKER_00: I think once you get to like our level and doing this, and I've seen the market for a while now, it's like there even to this day, there's like some compelling offers where I'm like, yeah, even though no matter how busy I am, they're only getting bigger.
30:26
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, no matter how busy I am, I'll still sacrifice a Sunday to make some content for a K retainer or something.
30:32
SPEAKER_00: I'll be running agency deals, and then I don't know, somebody hits me up and is like, yo, would you make a piece of content for me for like a couple hundred bucks?
30:37
SPEAKER_00: I'm like, like, yeah, absolutely I will.
30:39
SPEAKER_00: You know what I mean?
30:40
SPEAKER_00: I'll still do it to this day.
30:41
SPEAKER_01: So what's next for you in this space?
30:43
SPEAKER_01: You've been a content creator for many years.
30:44
SPEAKER_01: Now you have a successful agency.
30:46
SPEAKER_01: What do the next couple years look like for you?
30:49
SPEAKER_00: So I've I've hopped into the B2B world now.
30:52
SPEAKER_00: Um, and I think ultimately, as compelling as the creator offers are, ever since the beginning, what has separated me from the rest was helping others make money with DGC.
31:03
SPEAKER_00: That's what RTEC does.
31:04
SPEAKER_00: Honestly, that's what my agency does at this point.
31:06
SPEAKER_00: Yes, we serve our B2B clients, but we've done over half a million dollars in the last year to our creators.
31:11
SPEAKER_00: That's a very fulfilling thing for me.
31:12
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, and what is RTech?
31:14
SPEAKER_00: Um, yeah, so RTech is essentially the full creator suite from learning through the academy to actually having the tools to create the content.
31:22
SPEAKER_00: And then once you've gotten to that point, you can literally apply to active paying deals across all the platforms.
31:28
SPEAKER_00: So it's it's basically the all-in-one hub to be a UGC creator.
31:31
SPEAKER_01: Yes.
31:31
SPEAKER_01: RTEC is is the platform that's created from the people who run content economy.
31:37
SPEAKER_01: Owen, me, Colin.
31:39
SPEAKER_01: Content economy is the premium mentorship.
31:43
SPEAKER_01: And then RTech is the platform where you go on, um, you get you get deals, you learn how to be a good creator that can get those huge bonuses, and then also have a bunch of really helpful tools to make you stay more organized, less stressed, and uh just make your help you go full-time with content and have it be a great experience.
32:00
SPEAKER_00: More of a, you know, more of an accountability like style thing, but you still have to be able to have that accountability on your own, as opposed to content economy where you would get that hand training, hand experience.
32:10
SPEAKER_00: But more of kind of like a soft way to get into UGC, learn the ropes, see how you like it.
32:15
SPEAKER_00: It's not necessarily for everybody.
32:16
SPEAKER_00: Yes, it's easy, but it might not be for everybody.
32:20
SPEAKER_00: RTEC's a good way to to do it.
32:22
SPEAKER_01: This was uh this was uh awesome talking to you.
32:24
SPEAKER_01: Um, I'm I'm excited to continue building everything together.
32:27
SPEAKER_01: This has been so much fun.
32:29
SPEAKER_01: So, any la any last thoughts for the for the crew that's listening?
32:32
SPEAKER_00: Look, if you've ever thought about getting into UGC or you've seen it around and you've listened to this whole thing, there's an incredible opportunity in front of your face.
32:40
SPEAKER_00: It completely changed my life.
32:41
SPEAKER_00: It's completely changed Brandon's life.
32:42
SPEAKER_00: There's a ton of people in this room that you guys don't see that it's changed their lives to.
32:46
SPEAKER_00: So my words of encouragement are take action.
32:49
SPEAKER_00: And yeah, that's really it.
32:51
SPEAKER_01: Awesome.
32:52
SPEAKER_01: Well, thank you guys for listening to another episode of the UGC Industry Podcast.
32:56
SPEAKER_01: You can find Colin's socials down below, as well as a link to sign up for content economy or RTech.
33:03
SPEAKER_01: Um remember, every week we're dropping this, we're connecting with the top creators, agency owners, and founders in the space.
33:10
SPEAKER_01: Feel free to hit me up on IG as well.
33:12
SPEAKER_01: See you next time.