 Hello friends, welcome to Foodiepreneurs Finest, instant brand deal bonus. In this bonus, we're gonna talk about how you can land your first brand deal. Now, first up, why are landing brand deals so important? What are you gonna get out of it? First up, if you are an established brand, then you most likely will get paid. For us at 720 Suites, every time we do a brand deal with a smaller one, we get paid. Second about, of all, you get more audience as well. When you cross pollinate with other brands, you're able to have their followers come and follow you as well and vice versa, and thus growing your subscription base. And then that way, you're gonna get more customers, more sales. And lastly, status, status upgrade. When you work with a very big, well-known brand, it gives your brand that much more trust and that much more credibility. Now let's dive right in. What is the strategy here? First up, we wanna be able to work with micro brands to gain the traction, especially when you're first starting out. We understand you wanna work with the big brands like Nespresso, like Nike, like Adidas, like all these are big brands that you wanna work with. Great, have that as part of your vision. However, we wanna start off small. We wanna be able to work with micro brands first. Grow your audience by cross pollinating each other's followers. Now, how does that work? Because let's say for example, when you work with other brands that have similar following and you have similar voice and similar interests and you target to the same demographic, what's gonna happen is that people who follow them will follow you as well. They have a much more likely chance to do so because you have alignment and complimenting each other's brands. That's the reason why cross-pollinating works really well together. And on top of that, when you have worked with multiple smaller brands, this becomes your leverage point for you to be able to work with other big brands. That's why you need to start off small. This also creates a win-win situation where you're leveraging off each other's followers. For example, when we first started off, our first collaboration is with this marshmallow brand called Archimelos. And Archimelos is really what really well known for selling marshmallows at the local farmer's market. Now, the outcome is this is for us to grow and create awareness. That's the only thing that we're banking for and we're not really looking to make the big bucks because once again, we're starting small to gain that momentum. Our goal right here is to work with enough micro brands for us to hit more than 10,000 followers. That's when you know that, hey, you know what, your brand has legs and that you have enough leverage power to work with the big dogs, the big guys, okay? Leveraging off big brands to scale. Now that you're in a position to do so, why do you wanna work with big brands? Because it helps you grow your social status and credibility by you associating yourself with big brands and understand one key thing. This is where a lot of people get the mistake on is that when they work with these big brands, they're thinking that, oh, wow, they must have a lot of budget. I probably would wanna be able to make a ton of money working with them. That's actually contrary to what you should be doing because the goal here is not to work to make money. Our goal here is just to create a win situation for that big brand to work with you because they have the leverage point. They know they have the brand equity. They know that they have a solid foundation. They know for a fact that they won't lose if they don't work with you. Whereas if you don't work with them, you're losing up big time. That's the reason why I would do anything to work with the big brands. For example, when we worked with Nespresso, we actually had to lose money working with them. Not only are we promoting their product and promoting their campaign, in addition to that, we had to pay for our own graphic designer. We have to pay for our own legwork and our own R&D to create a flavor specifically for Nespresso. All in all, we spent around $2,000, $3,000 in our sweat equity just to work with Nespresso. And it was an investment that we had to make and that we thought it was a smart decision to make. And in turn, it allowed our brand to grow so much more rapidly because now we were able to attract investors. Now we're able to attract franchisees. And in turn that helped us sell our big entire franchise as a whole. The outcome here is so then that way, you can have more leverage to work with smaller brands as well. When you have worked with Nespresso, just guess what? Other small brands are all lining up to work with us 720 suites because they're like, wow, they're the hot shit. I wanna work with them. And in turn, we're able to charge these smaller brands and to be able to actually have much more leverage point. Also, it allowed us to gain more trust with our customers as well because if you have worked with a world-renowned coffee brand, most likely your stuff is pretty good. Also create brand equity for investment and selling in the future and that's exactly what we did with our brand. And that's why I'm able to share this with you. Your first goal is to land your fixed first big brand after you've worked with the micro brands. And this is the strategy that we have the two prong strategy, micro brands and then you upgrade to the big brands. Now, we will be covering specifically how to get brand deals with micro brands to begin with. Why is that the case? Because by the time you're ready to work with big brands, you will already have graduated from 3D printers finest and we're gonna be able to upgrade you to the next program that will teach you how to work with the big brands. But nonetheless, the fundamentals and principles are very much the same. Now, the eight steps in getting micro brand deals. First step is who are the brands that you wanna work with, right? We covered it in the previous bonuses. If you haven't checked it out, definitely check out bonus number four. What are their values, voice, size, audience, categories that these brands have? Understanding who is it that they value? What is it that they value? Do they value sustainability? Do they value teamwork? Do they value integrity? Understand what their values are. Understand the voice, the size of their audience and who is it that are their audience and the category of brand that they are. Are they a lifestyle brand? Are they a food brand? Are they a leisure brand? Our goal right now is to find brand alignment. So for example, if we're talking about 720 sweets as our ice cream brand, we're selling ice cream. We wanna find brands that compliment to our offering. They compliment to ice cream. So sometimes when you're thinking about, oh, you know what, how does coffee and ice cream mix? In a way, it doesn't really mix. We're not in the same line of business. However, when we create a coffee-flavored ice cream, that's when it mixes. Same thing with marshmallow. If you're thinking about it, we're not direct competitors. We are complimentary businesses because selling marshmallows and ice cream, we're kinda desserts, but our clientele don't mix or they don't cannibalize each other. I'm not partnering up with another ice cream brand. I'm partnering up with other brands who compliment my brand. We've worked with hype-beast brands. What does that mean? We worked with brands that sell really popular shoes out there as well. Why is that the case? Because we cater to the millennials, the people that are in university and the kids that are in university, they're looking for things that are very popular, very in and very, very in demand. And a lot of times, sneakers is a really big cultural item within this demographic. And that's the reason why when we partnered up with the hype-beast brand, they brought in a lot of other followers because their voice, their values are very aligned and complimented to our demographic as well. Next up, how do you find these brands? You're like, hey Wilson, I get it, but how can I find the brands? Well, understanding your customer avatar is where it all begins because it's all about what they love and you're just basically positioning what you are as what they love and also other stuff that they love together. So then that way, everything compliments each other. You need to understand their age, their interests, ethnicity, technology that they use, the media that they consume. Are they on TikTok or are they on Instagram? What are their values? Do they love the environment? Or do they want to be belonged? Do they always game? Is it in eSports that they're in? Understanding their values are very, very important. Stock them on social media, follow at least 10 of them that are your target demographic. So for example, for us at 720 Suites, what we did initially is that we just followed our customers. And when we follow them, we get to have a peak in their personal life and we get to see the brands that they use, what they buy, what everything that they do. We understand them because we're living it through their lens. Study what brands they use, what gifts they buy, what brands they wear, where they eat and what they eat. These are all very key insights to help you uncover your target demographic and other complimentary brands. And we dive into deep about how you can locate your customer demographic in Foodiepreneurs Finest, module one and module two. Definitely, if you want to learn more, go into the modules, dive deep into those lessons as well. What they're wearing, cover that, talk to them. Another key way for you to uncover this insight is to talk to your customer demographic. Talk to them and ask them what are the brands that they are using? Ask them what do they do on their leisure time? What gifts they buy? This is something that I always do is to make sure that I keep tabs with the people that I serve. Understanding what is it that they're wanting, understanding what are the struggles that they have and for us to be able to help them bridge that gap, right? If they're looking for gifts, nice innovative gifts for their friends, then we create something that is innovative. That's why you need to understand your target demographic. Okay, now that you understand them, as an example, 720 suites, we haven't covered that our customer demographic are female inter-university kids and they love calligraphy in their spare time. And that's the reason why we partnered up with a calligraphy class and for them to host their workshop at our location, that's just one area and one collaboration that you can do. Next thing is that they also enjoy treats that they buy for their friends, like Archimelos, like pre-packaged Marshmallows, Artisan Marshmallows that they buy as gifts for their friends and family. And how did we even know that? It's because we stalked them through their Instagram. We asked them, hey, if you were buying gifts for your friends and family, what do you do? What do you buy? And at that moment, Archimelos was the brand that was popular. And that's the reason why we reached out to Archimelos and established our first brand deal with them. And next up, they all love coffee. They love Nespresso coffee because there's a status upgrade. They feel like they're premium. And that's the reason why we started having that in the back of our mind in the very beginning. And it took us two to three years to be able to grow our subscription base, to grow our following and our reputation in order for us to be able to work finally with Nespresso. See what other companies are aligned and complementary to your brand. That's the key here. It's complementary to your brand. It could be really wild. It could be very left field, right field. Be creative with this whole process, okay? Break down and compile the companies and the dream micro brand list in the link below. Download it so then that way you can start compiling this micro brand list that you would want to be able to work with. Now that you figured out who you want to work with, why would these brands want to work with you? We need to understand. We need to be able to, before we reach out, understand why they want to work with you. Because once again, with these brands, they have so many different options of other people that they can work with. Why you? What is it that you're offering your voice, your values, mission, purpose, and your followers? And if you have the budget, how much are you paying? And if you want to learn more about values, mission, and purpose, and how you find that, once again, dive in 3D printer's finest program, module one and module two. That's where we dive into deep on how to uncover these items. Now that you've figured out what is it so special about yourself? What do you say when you reach out? You figured it out already. You figured out who to talk to. Now it's about reaching out. There's two copywriting philosophies that I'm gonna be sharing with you. First up is ADA, stands for Attention Interest Desire Action. Next up is WIMPH. What's in it for me? This is the framework that we're gonna follow when crafting the message following the ADA framework and understanding WIMPH. What's in it for me? Let's dive into deeply about what this means and how it works. First up, attention. We start off with our message with attention. What would capture the attention of the brand that we wanna work with? Usually it's stuff about that specific brand because everyone loves themselves, okay? A key note here is that a lot of amateur company and the smaller brands, when they first start off, they would reach out, hey, you know what? I have the best vegan cookies. I wanna work with you and I want you to be able to promote me. Do you see when you approach someone like that, it's all about me, me, me, me, me, but never really about the brand, never about you, you, you, you, you. So we need to think about, hey, whenever we're starting off a conversation when we're reaching out, it's always about that person that you're reaching out to, understanding what would capture their attention. Next up, now that you have their attention, it is time to pique their interest. What would be interesting for the brand to keep reading? Usually it's about facts or common themes about you too. That's a good way to merge your brand into the conversation as well and what you do. Next up is desire. Now that they have that interest, you've piqued their interest, we wanna be able to give them the desire to work with you. Now comes the framework of WIMPH. What's in it for me? People ask that all the time. Okay, great, you have a great brand. Okay, great, you've piqued my interest. I know you have a great brand, but what's in it for me? Why do I wanna work with you? Why do they wanna work with you? There's only a few things. First up, it's money, right? Are you paying them to work with you or is a collaboration that's gonna be able to make them a lot of money? That's number one. First and foremost, if you can afford that, great. If not, then I would go into number two, value. What kind of value are you promoting, providing for that micro brand? Is it a special cause? Is it a special holiday that you guys are doing? Let's say you're doing a holiday gift basket, right? And you wanna include other brands that your target customers would enjoy. Then find other brands that would want to be able to include themselves in this gift basket as well. That's value for a special cause or a special occasion. Status, are they first to break the news? For example, are you someone that has a status upgrade? Are they gonna be able to associate with you because you're the hot shit, right? So same thing. You wanna be the cool kid in the class and everyone wants to be friends with the cool kids. Are you gonna provide that for that micro brand? Understanding that and identifying that when you reach out would help you land those brand deals. Brand associations, right? So for example, for us, after the fact that we worked with Nespresso, the world renowned brand, we just need to bring that up. Then automatically, because we worked with Nespresso, they know and they think that, wow, we have this brand association. I wanna work with you. I wanna be in the cool kids club. That's the reason why they would wanna work with you because there's this brand association. Now that you've piqued their interest, now that you've given them the desire to work with you, the action, what do you want them to do? Reply with what you want them to do. Don't beat around the bush and be direct. Now's an example for you, okay? Let's say I wanna be able to work with Archimelos, that marshmallow brands with my ice cream shop, okay? 720 Suites, us as a new ice cream brand. To get their attention, first up, I need to find out the name of Archimelos and the owner's name, Kyle. We found out his name is Kyle and I'm like, wow, do you work with Charlie? Huh, interesting, what are you talking about? Charlie from the chocolate factory. Oh, interesting, why? You captured my attention right away. If I'm Kyle and I'm reading this, huh, this guy's interesting. I captured my attention. I wanna read on the interest. What makes me interested as Archimelos? Just by looking at your creations, I'm already ready to bite in. Okay, you know what, you're stroking my ego. Okay, cool, yeah, I'll read on. I bet that's what the executives from Nordstrom are saying because I stalk them, I stalk their Instagram and I know for a fact that they host and they have a kiosk at Nordstrom. Okay, you know what, my ego's higher now, you're uplifting me, you're stroking my ego. Okay, I'll continue to read on because you have piqued my interest. Now the desire, okay? My wife and I were just thinking, if only this matched with a couple of scrumptious ice cream, that would truly be heavenly. Okay, now it's time to merge that together. My name is Wilson, we actually went to one of the best ice cream shops in Vancouver as voted by people of Vancouver. It would truly be the talk of town if we, the best Marshmallows plus the best ice cream created a nice and new creations that no one has ever seen before. Okay, that's cool because hey, I know I sell the best Marshmallow, now I get a chance to work with the best ice cream in town, not self-proclaimed but voted by people of Vancouver. Okay, okay, interesting, interesting. Let's do something here. I think that's pretty cool. That's the mindset that we want the micro brands to have is that okay, okay, I want to do something with you, create something fun, create something relevant and create something that would increase my subscription to my followers as well. Now the action is if you want to be interested in part taking in such a mission, let me know, much love, Wilson. That's the type of message you want to be able to craft for your brand deals every time you reach out. So now that you've figured out your message, you've figured out who to approach and reach out to, how do you approach them? Email, DMs and in-person events, especially with what's going on in the world right now in-person events most likely is not going to happen, but if they have a physical location, it doesn't hurt for you to actually reach out to them and actually go to their location. And then also emails and DMs is a great way to reach them because they're a business, most likely they will check their email and they will check their DMs and I never find any problem with reaching out to micro brands. Now that you've reached out, now that you've crafted your message, what if they said no to you, okay? Well, thank them because most likely once again, it is a timing issue because let's say for example, that brand is already working with other influencers and other deals at the same time. They just don't have the capacity to work with you at that moment. Doesn't mean that they don't want to work with you. So make sure that you guys don't take it personally. That's a really, really key thing because once again, this is a very, very tight community. Everyone within the industry knows each other and you don't want people to badmouth you because if one person badmows you and they know three or four other influencers or other complimentary brands, then most likely word would spread and the chances of the other guys working with you would be much more slimmer. So definitely if they reject you, just play it nice, thank them for their time and reach out in let's say three or four months when things settle down again. Now what if they say yes to your brand deal? Be responsive, be courteous, be organized and always be thankful because it's never something that you should take for granted and on top of that, you wanna make it as easy as possible to work with you as your brand because once again, that's how you should show up to all your customers and also the brands that you work with. Now that you've got this collaboration, you're like, okay, you know what, what should we do next? The next thing is to come up with an offer together because it's a collaborative effort. Now it all comes back down to one question that you should always, always ask. Always be able to answer is what is a win-win situation? What is a win for you? What is a win for your micro brand that you're doing collaboration with? If it's a win for both people, that's a good deal. That's a good offer. If it's only a win for you, uh-uh, that's bad. If it's only a win for them, no good either. Always a win-win situation when we're working with micro brands. Now, to find the objective for you and your collaboration partner, there are only two types of objectives that you should think of. First up is to gain awareness and second is to increase sales. What do I mean by that? Brand awareness focused collaborations. Oftentimes the easiest way for you is to host contests and for you to host giveaways. For example, for your audience to win a $50 gift card because this is the least friction for your followers to take action. And if there's the least frictions, then the more actions they'll take and in turn, they will tag their friends, they'll follow and they'll also share in order for them to win. A lot of times, a lot of people, let's say for example, I'll give you an example. If you require your customers to purchase from you in order for them to win a $50 gift card, that's a lot of friction because first up, you need someone to buy from you first. That itself already pushed off a lot of people. So if your goal for this whole campaign and this collaboration is for brand awareness, then it doesn't achieve that because the word's not gonna spread. If we want the word to spread, if we want people to be aware of your brand and aware of you and your existence, then hosting contest giveaways that has the least amount of friction for your followers to take, then that's the best because that's what would promote them to actually take the action. So that's why they will tag, they will follow you and they will share for their opportunity to win. Next up is increased sales focus. Let's say for example, you're like, hey, you know what? I don't want to increase awareness anymore. I wanna be able to increase my sales instead. Well, you can host bundle deals and that's the most effective way for us to see collaborations do well because for example, if you buy $20 of our marshmallows, you would get a free ice cream. That's a very good bundle because now you just need to be able to work out the math with your other brands that you're working with to in order for them to see, hey, is there enough margins for you guys to split that $20 in order for your friend and your micro brand to win and also for you as an ice cream brand to win. And that's exactly what we're able to do. Bundle deals work really well as well because it gives more incentive for people to buy. For example, if they walk into my ice cream shop, they see an ice cream that is worth $7 and they see marshmallow that's worth, let's say $20. Now, if they buy a packet of marshmallows to take home to give their friends and family and they would get a free cup of ice cream, then they're much more likely to just give you 20 bucks to buy that marshmallow and on top of that, they'll get that free ice cream. And in turn, for your brand, you get a free ice cream, let's say you make five bucks and for Archimelos, let's say for example, this packet, usually they sell for 15 and that's where they can actually have that synergy and that's how you're gonna be able to have this bundle deal work out in your favor. Just provides more incentive for people to buy. Now, your action item is for you to come up with 20 complimentary brands that you can work with, create your outreach emails and start reaching out to at least five brands. You need to make sure that you start taking action in order for you to see results. So definitely take action and create the brands that you wanna be able to work with. That's the end of this bonus and if you wanna learn more about brand deals, collaborations, influencers, definitely dive into the module sections of 2D Printer's Finest. I'll see you guys in there.