I walked into VidSummit wearing a custom shirt that said: "I wrote this. Talk to me."

Right under it was the cover of my book.

Shameless? Absolutely. But it worked. By the end of day one, I'd talked to over a hundred creators about one thing: what's actually working with brand deals right now.

Not what worked in 2021. Not what some guru on Twitter says works. What's working today, for real creators, with real brands.

A few patterns kept showing up. Some I saw coming. A couple caught me completely off guard.

Here are the five that matter most for you.

Your Email Pitches Are Drowning in AI Slop

Here's the thing: everyone has ChatGPT now. Claude. Gemini. Pick your poison.

So creators are blasting hundreds of AI-written pitches to marketers. Some are even running agents that fully automate the whole thing.

Let me ask you something. When you get an email that obviously came from a chatbot, what do you do?

You delete it. Or you just never reply.

Now imagine you're a decision maker at a big brand, buried under hundreds of those every week. And here you come with a pitch you actually thought hard about. Maybe you used the ROPE method from Sponsor Magnet. Maybe you spent an hour on it.

Doesn't matter. To that marketer, it looks like more noise. Another AI pitch. This person doesn't care.

I heard this from creator after creator. The emails get opened. The tracking software says so. But the replies just aren't coming like they used to.

The antidote: video pitches

Video pitches are the antidote to AI slop.

You take the same ROPE structure and say it on camera. Relevant to a campaign the brand is running or has run. Organic proof that your audience already loves their category. Proof you've driven results for other brands. Easy to execute, meaning you spell out exactly what you'll do for them.

I know. Being on camera feels intimidating. Your first few will take a dozen takes and feel awkward.

Mine did too. Now, after hundreds of video pitches, I knock them out in one or two takes. I fire up Loom or my camera, screen share an old post that shows organic love for the brand, and I'm done.

Got a YouTube channel? Upload the pitch as unlisted. A YouTube link gets trusted in a way a Dropbox link never will. And what's the first thing a marketer does after watching? They click your channel. Oh wow, this person is legit.

Send it on LinkedIn, not email

But here's what most creators miss: don't send that video over email. The inbox is a war zone right now.

Send it on LinkedIn. That's where decision makers actually hang out, and almost no creators are using it.

Keep the DM short. Something like: "Hey, saw you ran that Black Friday campaign last year. If you're running it again, I had a quick idea for how I can help." Then drop the video link.

I've had client after client try this. It works.

I built my software tool, Sponsor Mole, around this exact workflow. It researches the brand, pulls the pitching angles, and writes your video script for you. Then it tells you how to send it on LinkedIn. You can even connect it to Claude or ChatGPT now.

Stop sending emails nobody reads. Hit record.

The Creators Still Thriving Changed Their Formats

But here's what I noticed about the creators still making a real living from content: almost all of them had pivoted.

One was a vlogger for years. Hit a wall. Couldn't break through no matter what.

So they switched to review content.

Things exploded. Not just on YouTube, but on podcasts and Amazon too. Same content, syndicated everywhere.

Another creator had about 80,000 followers on Instagram doing lifestyle content. Plenty of inbound brand deals. Then over a year or two, it all slowed to a trickle.

What would you do?

They started doing UGC, user generated content. That's content brands pay you to make for their channels or their ads, not yours. Rates range from around $50 a video to thousands for a package with multiple hooks.

This creator is now pulling in $8,000 to $12,000 a month from UGC alone.

Tough love time

I know what you might be thinking. Justin, I'm too tired for that. Too old to learn something new. That's just not me.

I get it. But let me tell you about my own income.

At one point, my wife's and my YouTube AdSense revenue alone was about $25,000 a month. Then our viewership dropped, and that number absolutely cratered.

We didn't sit around and mourn it. We shifted. We built on other platforms. We leaned way harder into sponsorships.

It's so easy to put one foot in front of the other, watch your views slide, and keep doing the exact same thing anyway. The creators I met who are still winning saw the writing on the wall. They changed niches. Changed formats. Learned new skills.

If you want to keep making a living from this, adaptability isn't optional. What worked for you two years ago might be dead today.

Screw what's normal. Strive to be abnormal.

Not Every Brand Wants Your Fancy Proposal

This one came from a former client with a global audience.

They told me the strategies in my book crush it with brands in the US, UK, Canada, and Australia. Put together smart packages, price strategically, negotiate on merit. Works like a charm.

But with brands in certain other countries? Totally different story.

Those brands don't want to be educated. They don't want a fully baked proposal with tiers and options. They want one price. For one thing. Don't change anything.

Let's be real here. You've probably run into this too.

Everything I teach is the best-practice playbook for negotiating sponsorships. You should start there. But I'm a realist. Sometimes the brand on the other end simply won't play that game.

So this client built a smarter process. First question on every deal: where is this brand located, and how likely are they to go for something more sophisticated? Then they adjust.

It's a bit choose-your-own-adventure. Know the playbook cold, then read the room.

Are you forcing a process on brands that just want a number?

There's a Fourth Door Nobody Told You About

This was the most common conversation I had all day.

I'd ask, "How are brand deals going for you?" And almost everyone outside our coaching program was stuck on the same question.

Do I do this myself? Hire someone? Or get a manager?

Door one: do it yourself. But you're on the content hamster wheel. Next video, next episode, next newsletter. You know you're leaving money on the table, but you want to stay in your zone of genius.

Door two: hire a VA or a biz dev person. But can you afford them? Will they bring in enough to justify the salary?

Door three: find a manager or agent who works on commission. No monthly fee, just 20 or 25% of whatever they land.

And some creators told me they already have a manager who isn't bringing in anything new. They just process the inbound.

You probably know how I feel about that.

Do the math

People love to say, "80% of something beats 100% of nothing."

That's such a short-sighted way to look at it.

Say your sponsorship goal is $100,000 over the next 12 months. Hand 25% to a manager and that's $25,000 gone. And that number only grows as your deals get bigger.

There it is. The fourth door: coaching.

In Wizard's Guild, we support you on pitching, pricing, packages, negotiations, proposals, and post-campaign reports. And we don't take a cut. It's a flat investment for the year. We have members doing seven figures in sponsorships who pay the same flat amount.

Here's why I'm so obsessed with this model. I need to be able to tell you, "That's a great deal, take it." And I need to be just as free to say, "That deal is atrocious. Walk away."

If a rep only gets paid when you sign, human nature takes over. They'll nudge you toward deals that aren't good for you or your audience.

Wild part? So many people I talked to had read my book and had no idea we even had a coaching program.

Honestly, I think 99% of creators shouldn't have a manager. Learn it yourself, or work with us. But don't assume there are only three doors.

People Are Starving for In-Person Connection

This was the one that surprised me most.

A ton of creators are investing in, or seriously thinking about, in-person experiences.

It makes sense. We spend all day on our devices. More and more of our problems get solved by chatting with AI. That leaves a hole. People are craving the chance to break bread and spend time with real humans.

That's exactly why I launched Sponsor Games. I saw the writing on the wall.

And it's not just creator-economy folks. I met someone who runs an in-person event for a super niche corner of aviation manufacturing. If that works, yours can too.

Start small

I know this sounds intimidating. You're picturing a giant conference with thousands of attendees.

Stop. Sponsor Games is closer to a mastermind, about 65 people. Yours doesn't even need to be that. A meetup with five or ten people counts.

Start there. Word spreads. The network effect kicks in.

I was in the VidSummit cafeteria chatting with a group of creators when I spotted Mike Schmidtz, who came to Sponsor Games 2026. I pulled him over and said, "Dude, tell them how amazing Sponsor Games was."

Mike actually won one of the brand deals at the event. He shared his story right there, completely unscripted.

That's how it happens.

Sponsor Games is my favorite thing I do all year. And something else happened that I didn't expect. Hosting it changed how people see me. I'm now the guy who's well connected. The guy who does hard things.

Was I nervous about pulling off an in-person event? Of course. So I hired an amazing event producer, Sarah, to help.

I genuinely think we're at an inflection point. People want to be in a room together again.

So here's your challenge. What would an in-person experience look like for your audience? Five people around a dinner table? A half-day workshop in your city?

Grab a notebook and sketch it out this week. And if you want more breakdowns like this in your inbox, join my free sponsorship newsletter.

Who's the first person you'd invite?