Howie is a brand and behavior strategist. A consultant. He's got 100K+ followers on LinkedIn, a growing newsletter, and a podcast with high-credibility guests. He's been doing this content thing seriously for a while now.

His total sponsorship revenue for all of 2025? Under $10,000. All inbound. Zero outbound attempts.

When I asked him why he hadn't reached out to any brands himself, his answer was one I've heard from so many creators it almost sounds scripted.

"I just don't have the results. I feel like I can't even do outreach."

So I asked him a follow-up question. Has a brand ever actually told you that? Has anyone ever said, show me your results before we'll work with you?

He paused.

"I don't think a brand has ever asked me that."

There it is.

The Story You're Telling Yourself

Here's what's actually happening when you say "I don't have the results to pitch brands." You're not reporting a fact. You're making a projection, imagining how a brand will judge you and pre-emptively deciding it won't go well. Before you've sent a single email.

Howie has 100K on LinkedIn. A newsletter approaching 5,000 subscribers. A podcast with guests credible enough that companies are now pitching him to get their executives on the show. If I was still running my influencer agency and a client asked me to find someone for a B2B campaign, Howie would make the shortlist instantly.

He just couldn't see it from the inside.

This is the mindset thing. And it has to come before the tactics, because all the pitch templates in the world won't help if you've already decided you're not worth it.

So let me say this plainly: you are probably more ready than you think. The only way to know for sure is to start. And here's the uncomfortable truth, a brand rejecting your pitch is data. A brand never hearing from you is just opportunity lost.

Your Consultant Brain Is Your Superpower

Here's what I told Howie that I want you to internalize.

What does a consultant do on day one with a new client? They listen. They ask about challenges and barriers. They don't walk in with a solution already prepared. They diagnose first, then prescribe.

That is the exact same process for approaching a brand partnership.

Most creators walk into discovery calls already trying to convince the brand to hire them. They're pitching before they've listened. And it shows. It comes across as transactional, not strategic. The brand wonders: does this person actually understand our business?

If you have a consulting background, or any kind of professional expertise, you have a structural advantage here. You already know how to sit across from a decision-maker and ask smart questions before proposing anything. You already know how to frame a recommendation around their goals, not your capabilities.

Use that. Walk into every brand conversation as a consultant first.

The Survey Is Your Pitch Deck

Howie had a welcome survey for his newsletter. Good start. But when I dug into it, the questions were all niche-focused, positioning, messaging, authority. Makes sense for the kind of content he makes. But it was leaving valuable data on the table.

He told me he'd actually had health and wellbeing data come up in a previous survey, and then removed those questions because he doesn't make health content. Big mistake.

What those answers were actually telling him: a meaningful slice of his audience isn't able to show up fully in their work because they're dealing with stress, burnout, or physical drain. That's not irrelevant to his brand. That's a partnership opportunity with Calm, with Whoop, with a focus supplement company like Neurogum.

The principle: your audience's challenges don't have to match your content niche for a brand partnership to make sense. They just have to match the brand's customer.

Here's how to make this work:

Survey your audience with leading questions, not just about what they do, but what's keeping them up at night. Then look at the answers and ask: what brands have solutions to these problems that my audience probably hasn't considered? That's your prospect list.

I did this exact thing for Sponsor Games. I wanted camera and audio equipment brands as sponsors, so I added questions to the intake survey about gear challenges. When I went to pitch those brands, I wasn't saying "I think my audience might like your products." I was saying "33% of my respondents told me they struggle to look professional on camera and don't know what equipment to buy." That conversation is a completely different one.

The data doesn't just strengthen your pitch. It determines who you pitch.

Do the Episode First. Then Send the Pitch.

This was the moment where Howie's energy completely changed.

We pulled up Neurogum's website live, a company that makes functional focus supplements. Steve Aoki, Formula 1 drivers, athletes. They clearly invest in creator marketing. And their whole product philosophy is about getting into a peak mental state, the zone, flow.

Howie's podcast is about influence, behavior, trust, and psychology. His audience is trying to perform at a high level professionally. I asked him: what if you did a whole episode about mental state, about flow, about what it actually takes to get into a creative peak? The kind of episode you'd genuinely want to make because you're curious about it.

Then after you publish it, you go to Neurogum with the episode, audience reactions, and a pitch that says: this is the content I just made, here's how your brand fits into it, here's a segment of my audience that's never considered your product before.

You know what happened? Howie's face lit up.

"That gets me excited. Like, I want to do content for them."

Compare that to how he felt about the inbound AI tool pitches landing in his inbox, lukewarm at best, mild dread at worst. That's the difference between reacting to inbound and building a proactive strategy you're actually energized by. The enthusiasm isn't just nice to have. It comes through in the pitch. Brands feel it.

Inbound Guest Pitches Are a Signal, Not an Opportunity

Something Howie mentioned that I want to address directly: he'd been getting a flood of inbound requests from PR agencies wanting to put their clients on his podcast as guests. His question was how to convert those into paying sponsors.

Short answer: mostly, you can't. And trying will usually be a waste of time.

PR agencies are hired to generate earned media, free coverage. When they pitch you a guest, they're not authorized to spend marketing budget. That's a different department, a different budget, a different conversation entirely. You can try to redirect them, but it's uphill.

Here's the reframe: inbound guest requests are a confidence signal, not a revenue channel. Companies are choosing your show specifically. They think your audience is worth reaching. That's wind in your sails for doing outbound to the right decision-makers, the ones with actual marketing budgets.

Don't waste energy trying to convert PR outreach into sponsorships. Let it boost your confidence, then go pitch the right person at the right company through a different door.

The Easiest Win You're Ignoring

One question I asked Howie near the end of our conversation: have you ever asked your existing audience if any of them would like to sponsor you?

He'd done it once, sort of.

Do it every quarter. Add a PS to your newsletter every few weeks. Put it in your show notes. Run a dedicated blast once a quarter. Something simple: "Want to get in front of 100,000 curious professionals? Hit reply."

I guarantee there are decision-makers in Howie's audience, people at companies who have been listening to his podcast for years and never once thought about sponsoring it because it never occurred to them that was an option. You have to tell them it's possible.

And don't limit your thinking to Fortune 500 brands. Individual creators, indie software founders, coaches, consultants, people who have genuinely useful products for your audience and would be thrilled to reach them. A $1,500 deal from someone in your audience is still a deal. It's a case study. It's a testimonial. It's the first domino.

Your First Move When You Hang Up

Howie and I ended the call with an action item I want to give you too.

Pull up every brand you've worked with in the last 12 months, even the one-offs, even the ones that felt like nothing. Put together a quick post-campaign report. What went well. What the audience said. What you noticed. Then send it to them with a note: I've been thinking about how that campaign went. Here's what I saw. I'd love to run something again this year, when does your team start planning for Q3?

The easiest new revenue isn't from brands who've never heard of you. It's from brands who've already worked with you and just never heard back.

Don't assume they were disappointed. Assume they were busy. Come back to them with something on a silver platter, and watch how quickly "we loved working with you" turns into a renewal.

Howie said it well at the end: deals beget deals. You need one win. It's not as far away as it feels.

Ready to stop waiting for inbound and start building a sponsorship strategy you're actually excited about? Grab Sponsor Magnet for the full framework. And if you want coaching on your specific pitches and packages, Wizard's Guild is where we do that work together.

What's one brand you've been excited about but talked yourself out of pitching, and what story have you been telling yourself about why you're not ready?