EP 25 Behind the curtain: brands that don't pay
Influencer price transparency is on the table this week. From Influencer glassdoor initiatives to reels detailing "brands that work with creators under 10k." We are breaking down the call out culture around brands that don't pay, what the process looks like on an agency level, & what to consider when handling a negative brand interaction.
Resources Mentioned:
Influencer Pay Gap
FYPM
Clara
Timestamps:
[2:01] Clara and FYPM - these apps offer transparency - but the brand needs to see what is happening.
[3:37] What happens start to finish with these apps?
[7:23] Agencies have to take margin out of the budget.
[11:05] As a creator, what do we give leeway to?
[14:05] Ask for your worth - don't tell others their worth.
[19:03] Language is crucial.
[22:25] Other forms of transparency.
[26:49] Takeaways.
--
Find Harley:
IG: @theharleyjordan
Website: theharleyjordan.com
Find Sonia:
IG: @Sonia.elyss
Website: www.soniaelyss.com
Follow The Brand Meet Creator Podcast:
Rate, Review, Subscribe & Share: podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/brand-meet-creator
Welcome to brand meet Creator Podcast with me Harley Jordan and Sonia Elise, a place where we pull back
the curtain and the trashy filters on the influencer marketing industry.
So pull up a chair and grab a notebook, it's time to shed some light
on the ever changing it's diverse. Thank you again for joining us for another episode where what an intro right? Where we are going to tackle something that I think is so interesting that has evolved over the past two years and with my lifetime in influencer marketing, which is a very long time. I have seen other apps like these come and go. But I think in the last two years, two main ones have stuck out to me. And those are FYP M. And Klara and what these apps do if you're unaware is they help pull the curtain off of pull the curtain on behind the curtain pull the curtain back, get us back there and expose what is happening in the deals between brands and influencers.
What is happening with influencers? Yes. And you know what I started following FYP M leap you pay me and influencer pay gap a long time ago like far before I actually started within influencer marketing, because I thought it was so interesting. I remember a couple influencers on YouTube, posted about them and did like a roundtable on pricing. I ended up going and following them then and I thought it was so interesting. And I think that is actually why I ended up started pitching started asking for product around 3k. Because I saw all of these examples. So this, both of these accounts have really been around the block and are pushing creators to, you know, know their worth a little bit more every day.
Agreed. And I think the main reason both apps or both platforms got started was because they saw that there was a major disconnect between the brand side and the influencer side in terms of what was being offered for payments. So they wanted to create a glass door like platform where people could divulge more about what were they paid? What was the experience, like, you know, all of the details that went into a recent partnership. Now the big difference between the two platforms that I am aware of, I'm not actively using either one. But part of the research is that Clara allows brands to log in and see how they're being graded. FY F Y P M does not. So it's influenced or only on that side. And I think that's really the biggest issue here. Both were started with the intention to create more transparency, which I think is fantastic, and definitely something that we need. However, if the brand is unable to access what is happening, I think that causes a little bit of a problem. Because if Harley has a poor experience with a brand, and I'm that brand, I want to know because I think a big thing that Harley and I have been talking about is that a lot of larger brands that have influencer partnerships, actually outsource the work to age, right. And it's really the agency that's executing. So what have you seen in this arena? Both as someone who's casting and someone who is doing the creative work?
Yeah, I think that when I'm handling someone I hate, it is very often with an agency. It's not with the brand themselves. Very seldom Am I actually talking to someone from the brand itself. And I think that pulling pulling back the curtain on this too. And how this actually works is probably a really, really important piece of this puzzle. So let's let's chat about what happens from start to finish when a brand is coming up with one of these campaigns. So Sonia, you're the one that starts off this process as a brand strategist. Okay, as the brand strategist, this brand is going to go to Sonia and her team and you're going to do what we're
going to create the scope of work, we're going to talk about what are the goals for the campaign? What is the budget, how much content would you like to see at the end? What is the main talking point that we're trying to communicate here, all of the big stuff, then we essentially synthesize that information into a brief a scope of work, an outreach list potentially, and some goals. So potentially $30,000 The goal is going to be 15 Real something like that, you know, we base that all up at the very beginning and then from there either of the A brand can go back and execute based off of everything that we've prepared for them. Or they asked us to execute and cast that campaign for them. And that's also where someone like a Harley comes in.
Yes, that's, that's where we come in. The thing that I didn't realize behind this, and I don't think a lot of people do is how deep this really is into what the brand is looking for those marketing goals. It's not just, I have let me take on five creators, it's okay, we are scouting for this huge budget, it is 30, grand, 100 grand 200 grand a million dollars that we are looking at for this quarter this year, whatever this is this campaign. And then we kind of go from there. So you would come to someone like us, who manages clients who manages influencers manages talent, and say, Okay, I'm looking for this kind of person. Do you have anyone that could do that? What is their rate? What is their whatever? So the misconception that I think influencers have is when you when you say your rate, and it's $500? Or you're asking for what the huge budget is, they have a like the budget is bigger than what their allocation for a single person.
Yeah, we get that a lot when we reach out and we say, Hey, this is the scope of work that we're looking for. Could you give us a rate? And then we get the reply, well, what's your budget? Okay, well, my budget is $100,000 for the quarter. So what's your rate? Yeah. Could you just ask her what your rate was? Yeah, we didn't have to have this extra email conversation. I definitely think that's one thing that people need to keep in mind. You're You're so right there. I think influencers don't understand that side of things. And I think brands,
you're having so many different people of different sizes come into these these things, that it's really just you're playing influencer Tetris and trying to find the people that you have left and the budget that you have left. And if you come across someone that's fantastic, that has 100k, maybe you're trying to allocate more budget, or maybe they don't respond to you in five days. So then you have a problem there, and you have to keep on scouting. So I don't know this whole piece about treating this like a business goes. I mean, that's an underrated piece of advice to like respond to my email, I'm trying to pay you
going back to how this all works from a more broad perspective, since I think a lot of influencers do not understand what you and I do before they even get reached out to, to give us that rate. We also have to as an agency, and this is why I think many agencies who are larger get complained about and give poor treatment influencers, we have to take a margin out of the budget, and Yale influencer, marketing groups that maybe are reaching out to hundreds of influencers at a time casting, they're gonna be more likely. And I'm don't want to generalize, because there's all types of lovely people out there as well. But if they have to take a margin off of what they're spending, which means they need to somehow make an additional profit, they're going to be more strict about what they're spending per influencer than someone who has a flat fee, or someone who works internally for the brands, right? Because if I work internally for the brands, and I make a salary pay, yeah, I don't care, I get paid the same either way. But if I'm an agency, and I'm trying to work to make a margin or a commission or something else, based off of the deal that I've made, I'm more strict and going back and saying, Hey, I can't pay 1000, I can pay 250. Right, you might be saying some kind of crazier things to negotiate deals, and you might have harsher terms and your contracts and other stuff, which is why influencers end up with a bad taste in their mouth is because it's business baby, you know, like, I'm not saying these things, but it is a way and so we don't structure ourselves in that way. The fee is upfront. For the amount of work, it's a flat fee. So I'm not trying to undercut because I did have the old way of undercutting because I came from the agency world. And I knew that's how it was done. But then I realized it was too stressful. I was constantly having to go back to influencers and say, Oh, well, we can't pay you that much. We can't pay that much. Because I was trying to make this little margin off of each person. Right now, I tell the client up front, this is the flat fee to execute the partnerships within this budget range. It goes up for this many more people or for this much amount more money, right? Because the more money we spend, the more work it is or the more influencers that we cast,
the more and I think on the brand side, it has to be like that on the brand side. It has to be like that. And the struggle for us as an agency is that I'm not going to charge my creators to do all of the work with a flat fee. So instead, I have to take a commission off of their rates as I book out these partnerships. So So, again, like let's, let's really dig into this creator, that takes a week to respond like, that's a waste of my time. That's a waste of resources. That means that I'm getting paid less per hour essentially, like
so many issues, the longer you take to reply with edits, the longer you take to reply with your availability, your address for mailing, like so many things, it's just wildly slows the process down and the slower things go, the less money I make. Because I am that spending time sending those follow up emails and not getting paid for them tracking the route and trying to understand your new vacation schedule, you just decided that you had to create or this week be like, by the way, I'd love to wrap this project by the 21st. Because I'm going out of town for a month and I will no longer be on email. Oh, oh, you didn't? You didn't want to maybe mention that at the beginning of the partnership. So we re wanted to mention it the week off. Okay, that's That's cute. So
bringing it back to these negative complaints, these negative complaints about the brand? And how difficult that is as the brand. What can what what do we need to give a little bit of leeway to as a creator?
Sure. I think as a creator, before you rip someone apart on these platforms, you need to consider one Do they work for the brand directly. And I think a lot of times I have seen quote unquote scandals flare up on Instagram stories through the F YPM. Page, and then it comes out later and they're tagging the brand, they're tagging the brand, they're tagging the brand, and then it comes out later it was handled by an agency and then they start tagging, right and see, that's really difficult for a brand to manage.
So you're not gonna you're not gonna call up the agency, you're not gonna call it the agency, you're just gonna call out L'Oreal or whatever else, whatever brand it is.
Um, yeah, I think that's really difficult. I think the other problem is influencers start to say, well, she has 5000 followers, I have 5000 followers, why am I not getting paid the same? When they see the other things? And it's like, you're not the same? Like it could be that not that she has a for I mean, in the beauty world. Sometimes we're looking for like a golden nugget, right? I'm looking for like a redhead with curly hair and freckles. And like I'm trying to get this one person and she may have
done ASMR and has like, No,
I think you need all of these weird checkboxes looks, yeah, I can hardly looks interested. Well, I have the same number of followers, so I should be paid the same. And then it becomes a rant, either on one of these ads or on social quote unquote, outing this brand for not paying equally when most creators are not created equally. You all do different things. You all look differently. You're all specialized differently. And thus, we pay you differently based off of the project that we
Yes, yes. So I actually had I actually had a follower slide into my DMs with a post from FY pm recently. And it was in complaint to like one of one of the stories that I posted about a brand just being annoying. And I do this, I do this all without a name. So I posted this all anonymously. And I don't like calling out brands, I don't think that's fair. And when she slid into my DMs she was like you should be charging this, this and this for stories. And I bet your engagement rate is fantastic. And I bet X, Y and Z. And I was like Thank you. Thank you. But I definitely can't charge the rate that you just said. Like that might be a starting rate. But I definitely oh no brand would go for the rate that she told me. And I was sitting there like, if I don't I don't know what to thank you but no, how do I even start this conversation? It also
raises a big flag about like empowerment and the more that we empower people to ask for their worth, which I do fully agree with, ask for your worth. But also keep in mind that when you start to chime in on other people's worth, there's an issue because you don't know the difference. Like for example in for the example that you're talking about, she doesn't know what else you're working on. She doesn't know the other businesses that you're running, what type of income and dedicate time dedication that goes towards right. Not every single person has to be a full time content creator and that's not every single person needs to pay the same. I know a lot of people who love content creating they only want to take on two partnerships a month or one person per month. They don't wait on charging the super high rate. Yeah, they can wait they have to they were able to say no way. Yeah, way less pressure on outcome of the partnership, they feel like if they don't go to these, like super top tier rates, and they want to enjoy working on the partnership and wash their hands of it and walk away and say, Great, I maybe I could have turned 5000 But I liked charging 2500 Or I like charging 3000 Because it, you know, the level of money that I need, it feels right, I don't feel pressure, etc. So to have this call out culture of like, well, you deserve 10k And you deserve 5k And you deserve 25k Because somebody else made that but you're not all apples and apples here. It's like apples and oranges every single person every influencer is a different fruit.
I mean, look, I am not a full time influencer, I cannot say I am a full time influencer at all, I mean, not even close. I mean, I, most of my income comes from my services and my other business efforts. It's not coming from partnerships. And that's because I want to focus on that right now. And if I wanted to focus on partnerships, I'd be doing a whole heck of a lot more outreach for myself and positioning my account differently. But it needs to be a multiple stream of income thing, not a full time income thing. And that that differentiation between multiple streams of income versus my full time gig is it's just a different story.
I agree. And I think when you zoom out on these apps, the overarching necessity for them, or the overarching purpose that they're trying to achieve is a good one, right, opening up the conversations and letting people have some sort of point of reference as to what has worked and what has not worked for people's pricing in the past. But at the end of the day. It's not apples to apples, as I said, like I think
it's the culture, it's the culture, that's the issue. Sure, these resources are fantastic. I think it's the culture within them of Kancil culture bashing, that kind of thing.
Yeah, and no brand that's watching that. And I appreciate when people call out something that's like really absurd over there, right? Recently, I did a series of reels talking about how someone didn't get paid for all of their affiliate partnership stuff. Yes, not acceptable, how people have their image stolen and used for ads, that was not approved, not acceptable. But when it comes to a poor experience, in terms of someone potentially being rude, or they offered you a really low rate, I don't feel like that's worth putting somebody on blast, because you don't know the background of where that company is coming from. You don't know the background of where that agency is coming from. And I think your time is better spent most likely, again, it's up to you. But definitely your outward facing profile is better used uplifting the brands that you've had a good experience with, then
behind the scenes, just say no, you you have that authority.
Exactly. Just say no and be like, I don't really this is too low for me goodbye. As opposed to saying this is too low for me screenshot. Can you believe they even offered me this? I can't believe it. Because I've met a lot of people both on the agency side and brand side that are not educated deeply in influencer marketing, and they're empowered to offer lower rates. Or I've met clients who said, Great, we'll give you this $100,000 budget, but I'm not paying a single influencer over $500, then what is that agency supposed to do? If the brand has already valued at that level? That's what I'm allowed to offer. I'm not the owner of the company. That is to say, hey, some people are worth more than the 500.
i Yeah, I think I think the thing that you need to be looking for is, is it an agency signature at the bottom of that page, because that changes things? And also what is the what is the outward experience here? I mean, I had a really bad experience recently with a brand to the point where and it was the brand, to the point where I had this like blood boiling gut reaction, because they were putting down one of our influencers who had amazing engagement has amazing conversion. And this person was saying, Oh, this, this person's only worth $300 For our rail and she has 50k Based on her some kind of metrics that they provided me. And the reason that I was so angry was because they weren't educated. You clearly don't know the industry you clearly don't know what you're talking about. So instead you're being rude and demeaning to my influencer, maybe that's a customer service issue. That's a customer service issue, not a your brand partnerships issue.
I think a lot of it does come down to language and communication. It's such a wild world out there what how people interpret information. And I think using the word This isn't worth it is very demeaning using the work that's not in my budget is on you, that's I'm able to wait, what's in my budget is 300. That is a completely different story as this is not worth it, because every
brand needs to know that needs to add that to their lingo right now, this isn't in my budget versus saying something rude. Absolutely not.
And at some people, you know, culturally or just in their background, who knows, may have been taught that this isn't worth it is not offensive, you really don't know where they're coming from, they may be saying they may be using the word worth it, but meaning I don't have it in their budget. So I guess it's like, so difficult to know where all of these things are coming from. And you're also dealing with international brands, brands that are new to the market, some brands that only have startup funds, some brands and personal funds. And it's like everyone's perspective, coming into this business is so different influencer and brand that I think there just needs to be a little bit more leeway here for the acceptance of mistakes, errors, etc. And just saying, you know, in this situation, we're Harley feeling ffensive like, Okay, this isn't for us, then like goodbye, as opposed to taking a screenshot and going on a rant about it, you know,
it's just, it doesn't even feel like a teaching moment. I don't want to be taught, I mean, I just need to use my power to walk away and not let it affect me. And that's the most power that you can take.
Exactly. And you don't know what position other influencers are in, when they see that $300 other influencers might say like, I need this $300 here yet, and who knows why, and they're willing to take it and they're fine with the deal. You're not allowed to be the one that says, oh, but you're worth X, Y and Z, like you get to say what you mean and what you're willing to do at the end of the day. And I love that the conversations are open now and that there is more communication about what people are right paid. But there it's a double edged sword, because the more that we call out brands, the more that brands feel weary about spending in the influencer space, the less they're going to do, it's going to become sort of a scary thing for them to get out offers because you know, what are some of the screenshots listen to and calls me out? Like that's not the type of feeling that you want in the industry as a whole?
What about other types of transparency in the in the industry, we're seeing a lot of creator coaches that are posting brands that work with creators under 10k or selling slash posting contact lists, contact information for brand managers, influencer, marketing, teams, partnerships, etc. Give me Give me your thoughts. Just lay them on me.
It's such a slippery slope. The it is so difficult. And so many influencers talk about how to make connections in the industry, how do I get invited to the events? How do I get on the press mailer? How do I find the contact of the right person? Right, right. And a lot of that comes with time, it's not an overnight thing. So to have someone say, Oh, well, I took all the information that I've gathered, or I bought this information on a database, and I'm just going to blast everybody. It's just very unprofessional. It's illegal actually to be selling anybody else's information in the first place, just like it is in advertising or
gas. Yeah, exactly. You're also putting them on blast so that you're creating more competition in the industry. So if you're seeing that, honestly, I would, I would turn the other way. And even these creator coaches that are posting these brands that work with creators under 10k, like I know that is well intentioned I really do. But they've just created this like clickbait to get people to go to them and now you're going to over overrun this brand, for sure
that brand that was before intentionally looking for influencers to partner with willing to pay full rate if they get an influx of 1000 influencers, emailing them, they're going to be able to lower the amount per influencer that they pay if they want to. So it does create a scarcity tactic 100% Also, it just devalues the people who've really spent the time to build up their relationships over time and most likely and I have never once not ever once hired someone from a cold email. Sorry if that ruins someone's day i Sorry, but I have never done it at all my people I have found myself or we have found through them tagging brands organically and gaining traction over time or because of a specific look or feel that we were trying to do.
Okay, let me just say I've been hired from a cold pitch. So many of my clients have been hired from a cold pitch so scary, you know, scare you,
you should absolutely do it. It's part of the game. It's part of the work and part of putting in the effort. But I'm just saying when it comes to trying to take the easy way out and buy lists and blast 1000 contacts,
yours no, yeah, there's
likely not going to make a sale based off of that you're probably better spent building the relationships through DMS, or trying to get in contact in another way that's more personal than just trying to apply these emails, and no one has ever heard of you before.
I mean, look brands want to work with and agencies want to work with people that are really easy to work with. So if you are building that relationship, if you are being that fun person to work with, then they'll call you back.
Absolutely. If you deliver on time, if you invoice promptly, if you like it, all the things if you respond Wow on time. If you respond quickly, if you make your edits quickly, if you do all of these things. And I'm not saying quickly, like within the hour, I'm talking about like by end of the day or by the next day or you respond, great identify, we'll give it at this date. Yeah. Then, I mean, my retention rate of recasting people is so high, I was like, I will push every client to hire you again. If it was a breeze to work with you and you made quality content based off of the brief. I make my life more difficult.
I have enough to work with. Yeah, deliver early, if not on time, go above and beyond. Do
all the things Okay, let's let's bring it down to the final nuggets
here. Wrap it up. I need a take home box.
I feel like my biggest takeaway here is to stop the call out culture. Yeah. And focus on uplifting brands that have been worked with Well, that's my number one but my number two is I really hope influencers spend more time understanding how the agency side of things work, and how the business side of things work when it comes to influencer marketing, and take that into consideration when it comes to their complaints.
Absolutely. I can't cancel culture at the end of the day canceled culture is not something that either of us approve of. I don't think it's effective for your message. It doesn't help anyone. But also the best way to get ahead within this industry is truly to know the ropes. So I am so glad that you're here. I'm so glad that you're listening to all of this, honestly, because the more you know, the more you can walk into that conversation with the right lingo with the things that they care about with all of those things that are going to make you so easy to work with that they are gonna rebook you over and over and over
and over and over and over. Forever and ever and ever. Amen. Forever and
ever and ever. Amen. I love it. Okay,
well here is to you booking the next gig and cheers See you soon. We're so excited for your new journey.