Many creators would be thrilled to land a single sponsor.

Dakota, however, has already cracked the sponsorship code. His calendar is booked solid, new sponsor every week for 6+ months, with more knocking that he simply can't fit in.

He runs a podcast and YouTube channel in the tech niche, helping people break into the tech industry. His content is on track to bring in close to $100,000 (up from about $60,000 the previous year), and he's got a full-time editor.

But it wasn't always like this. 

In fact, for a long time, Dakota was stuck in a “hit-or-miss” cycle many creators know all too well. That is until he met Justin Moore from Creator Wizard.

The Hit-or-Miss Years

Dakota's been creating content on and off for about 7 years. He started landing sponsors around 2 years ago, which is when he began taking YouTube seriously as a business.

The issue was, his sponsorships were wildly inconsistent.

Dakota would land one sponsor… then go 4 or 5 months before landing another. There was no system or repeatability. His sponsorship income was more an occasional win than anything, followed by a long dry spell.

His sponsorship approach back then consisted of "asking around."

"Before I met Justin, the way I approached it is I would ask my fellow YouTubers, like, 'Hey, how much do you charge for this? Have you worked with this brand? How much did you charge them?'"

Then he'd fire off his media kit (prices included) and leave the ball in the brand's court.

"I would just throw them a media kit… 'Here it is with my prices. Let me know if you want to do something.' I would leave it at that."

How well did that work?

"It failed almost every time," Dakota said. "Or they'd come back and super lowball me, like, 'Oh, you want $5,000? We'll pay you $200.'"

Enter Creator Wizard

A couple years ago, Dakota heard Justin Moore on a podcast and started following Creator Wizard. He read Justin's book, Sponsor Magnet, and from there his revenue only went up.

The first thing to go was Dakota's pricing sheet.

After reading the book, he deleted the prices from his media kit entirely and started treating every single brand as its own conversation (using Justin's R.O.P.E. method to figure out what each brand needed).

"The whole thing I wasn't even doing was UGC content. I had a brand reach out to me and I was like, 'Oh, I'm not too sure about this.' After hearing Justin's thoughts on that, this is now an ongoing brand deal… we've probably done about $50,000 worth of work with them alone."

How Dakota Prices His Deals

Dakota's process now looks nothing like the media-kit-and-pray approach from his early days.

When a brand asks for his pricing now, Dakota doesn't send a number. He asks to hop on a call, because as Justin Moore teaches, a personal connection makes it much harder for a brand to write you off.

"If I was just to throw out a number like, 'Hey, $5,000'… okay, you know? But if I'm talking to them, I show I have their best interest at heart, they build that connection, and you can better understand what the brand needs."

On that call, he digs into what the brand is after. 

Repurposable content? 

UGC? 

Usage rights?

Exclusivity? 

Then Dakota goes back and builds 3 to 4 bespoke packages, and asks the brand a specific question he picked up from Justin:

"Do you have an idea, from a budget-feasibility standpoint, of what those packages should be priced at?"

"That line I got from Justin during one of his podcasts, and I use it every time. I want to say 8 out of 10 times it works. They'll come back and tell you a price, and often that price is a lot higher than what I would have pitched."

Turning a 3-Month Ask into a Full Year

Dakota's year-long deal with Meter (a networking-as-a-service platform) is the perfect example of the tiered pitch approach in action.

Meter didn't come in asking for a year. They originally wanted a 3-month agreement including just 3 sponsored podcast episodes.

So Dakota built what Justin calls a “tiered pitch.”

His lowest tier was exactly what the brand had asked for (a 3-month agreement with 3 sponsored podcast episodes), and his top tier included a full year (2 sponsored episodes a month, plus 5 LinkedIn articles spread across the year), priced just slightly above the number they'd given him.

"[The brand] immediately said, 'That's such an amazing idea. Yeah, let's do that.' My top package is always just slightly higher than the number they give me," Dakota said.

"But it always feels like, for most of my negotiations, they go for that higher package because they see the value in it."

That single deal now covers his entire business overhead for the year.

"I can pay my editors, I can pay all the subscriptions… that's taken care of for the next 365 days. Any other sponsorships I work in after that are just icing on the cake."

Dakota’s Secret Weapon: Post-Campaign Reports

If there's one thing Dakota credits for turning one-off deals into repeat business, it's the Post-Campaign Report (another play straight from Justin Moore's brand deal principles).

Every month, he delivers a report to Meter on how the previous month's content performed. On the very last page, he outlines how they can improve on the next campaign, and pitches it.

"Those post-campaign reports have opened up so many opportunities to re-engage and do a second sponsorship with brands than anything else. Before I met Justin, I was doing a lot of one-offs… we'd do one campaign and then never talk again."

Now the brands come to him.

"They're like, 'Oh, that's a great idea. Can you give us a proposal for that?' And then it just starts that flywheel again."

The reports have done something else, too: they've made Dakota the creator brands want to work with.

"They're saying things like, 'You're the easiest content creator we have to work with.' Every month I deliver a post-campaign report… they're like, 'None of our other creators are doing things like this.'"

Charge What You’re Worth (Even When It’s Scary)

Dakota will be the first to admit he charges more than most creators his size. And yes, it scared him at first.

"I was worried [charging more] was going to hurt me detrimentally. But the brands keep coming back and rebooking. They're happy with the results they're getting for the price they're paying."

The numbers back him up, too.

His year-long Meter deal runs about $2,500/month. The 6-month deal he booked with Rippling (an HR and hiring platform) came in at $15,000, covering one dedicated podcast, 3 integrations, LinkedIn posts, and a newsletter sponsorship.

And the fear that his audience would revolt over sponsored content never materialized.

"I was worried they'd be like, 'Oh, you're a sellout.' Absolutely no change in the audience. If anything, I've gotten more viewers. People expect it… they understand it takes time, money, and effort to create good content."

Dakota's Advice for Creators

1. Never just "spit back a number"

The single biggest change Dakota made was refusing to answer "what's your price?" with a price.