Let me start with a story.

A few years back, my wife and I received an email that said: "Hey Justin, great news. We're approved to move forward with our Harmony of the Seas opportunity and have you on our launch sail from June 5th to the 7th."

The ship had 18 decks, 15 restaurants, a crew of 2,100 people. One person whose entire job was to sharpen ice skates for the onboard ice rink. And the Ultimate Abyss — a 10-story waterslide.

Royal Caribbean was offering to fly us to Spain to ride the maiden voyage of their new ship. And they paid us $20,000 for the privilege.

But to explain how that deal happened, we have to go back to 2009. Because the pitches I was sending back then sound embarrassingly familiar.

Where Most Pitches Start (And Why They Fail)

In 2009, influencer marketing wasn't really a thing. The iPhone 3G was the hottest phone. Avatar had just hit theaters. My wife April had grown her following to about 30,000 and I was convinced brands should pay her for it.

So I sent hundreds of emails to hotels in Asia — we wanted a honeymoon trip. The results? Mostly undeliverable messages. A few polite rejections. Absolute silence.

Then a hotel in Phuket, Thailand replied. They offered accommodations, a romantic dinner, a spa treatment, and a tropical island picnic — in exchange for one video.

We thought we were getting the deal of a lifetime. Then that video got 578,000 views and stayed in the top search results for "Phuket hotels" on YouTube for years.

That's when I realized the power we actually held. And that moment changed how I approached everything.

The Truth About Big Brands

Here's something most podcasters and creators don't understand: the big brands — the ones with real budgets — aren't reading your cold pitches directly. They've hired agencies. PR firms. Influencer marketing managers. Those people exist partly to protect the brand from the thousands of generic outreach messages that arrive every week.

But here's the flip side: if you properly introduce yourself with something specific and relevant, the next time an opportunity slides across their desk, they'll think of you first. You don't need to close on the first email. You need to make an impression worth remembering.

Why Your Audience Size Is the Wrong Thing to Lead With

Before we get into the pitch structure, I want to address the objection I know you're having: I'm not an influencer. My podcast is too niche. I don't have enough followers.

Let me tell you about Mike. When a major phone company reached out to him about a collaboration, he had fewer than 1,000 followers. Why did they want to work with him?

Because Mike didn't just talk about budgeting. He talked about budgeting for active duty military.

That specificity is exactly what made him valuable. The brand wasn't looking for scale — they were looking for access to a very particular audience. And Mike had it. They hired him and turned his video into paid ads to reach more people like his audience.

Your niche isn't a liability. It's your leverage.

The ROPE Pitch Method

After years of testing what works, I developed a four-part framework for pitching brands. I call it ROPE.

R — Relevant. Your pitch has to connect to something the brand is either currently doing or has done in the past. Brands don't reinvent their marketing strategies from scratch every year. They dust off last year's playbook and run it again. If they ran a summer campaign last July, there's a good chance they're planning something similar this July. That's your opening.

O — Organic. Link them to content you've already published that shows your audience has affinity for their brand, their product, or their category. Not that you love their product — that your audience does. That's the thing they actually care about.

P — Proof. Show how you've helped another brand get results. One concrete example is enough. It tells them you've done this before and you know how to deliver.

E — Easy to execute. This is the one most people skip. Don't say "I'd love to figure out a way to collaborate." They don't know you. They don't know what the best activation with you would look like. You have to give them something tangible to react to.

Here's a real example — let's say you're pitching Starkist Tuna:

"Hey Stacy — I noticed last spring you were promoting the benefits of the Mediterranean diet. I've also been publishing podcast episodes on this topic recently, and my audience is hungry for more (yes, pun intended). I'd love to create three podcast integrations showcasing Starkist recipes that fit this diet. I can produce and publish within 10 days, and I'll grant you paid media usage rights through the end of the year. Happy to share some insights from a recent campaign I did with California Olive Ranch that drove significant awareness. Are you free Thursday at 10am to chat?"

That pitch works because every component is there. The first line is about their campaign, not about you. The organic link shows your audience is already interested in this topic. The proof references past work. The deliverables are specific. And there's a clear, easy next step.

Compare that to "I love your brand. Let's collaborate." The second version gives them nothing to react to.

When They Say No (Which They Will, Repeatedly)

Here's what most creators don't know about the word "no."

When a brand says "sorry, we're not running paid campaigns with podcasters right now," they're almost never saying your podcast isn't good enough. They're usually saying: we just wrapped recruitment for this campaign, or this isn't in the budget this quarter, or we're in the middle of a reorg.

In a few weeks, that brand is going to have their next budget meeting. The executive team is going to ask the marketing team: "Tell me about our podcast strategy for Q3." And the marketing team is going to look at each other and realize they don't have one.

If you've been consistently following up — sending helpful articles, sharing examples of other partnerships you've completed, staying on their radar — you'll be top of mind when that conversation happens.

The point of a pitch isn't to close a deal. It's to start a conversation. And that conversation can have a lag time of weeks or months. Most creators give up after one or two tries. The ones who land the real deals are the ones who follow up four, five, six times with something useful — not desperation — and are ready when the brand is finally ready.

The Reframe You Need Before You Hit Send

In 2009, I had to send 100 generic pitches to get one or two responses. Today, with 15 to 20 minutes of research per pitch, I get responses more than 50% of the time. The difference is entirely in the research and the specificity.

If you're feeling impostor syndrome — if your finger is hovering over the send button and you're not sure you have the right to reach out — here's the reframe:

You are the bridge between brands and their ideal customers. You've built that bridge painstakingly, over years of producing and publishing and engaging. You are not just a podcaster. You're a consultant, a production company, a creative team, and a marketer — all in one. And you happen to have an organic distribution channel to go along with all of that.

Brands need you. Not in a charity sense. In a pure business sense. They have products to sell and customers to reach. You have access to those customers. Every time you send a specific, research-backed pitch, you're offering them something genuinely valuable.

The Royal Caribbean deal didn't happen because we were the biggest. It happened because we understood what they needed and we knew how to help them get it.

If you want the complete system for finding brands, structuring your pitch, navigating the negotiation, and building the kind of long-term partnerships that compound over time — it's all in Sponsor Magnet. And if you want coaching support while you work through your actual deals, Wizard's Guild is where we do that.

What brand have you been sitting on pitching — and what's the one specific thing about your audience that would make them say yes?