Jay Clouse looked at me from across the table and said something that should make every podcaster rethink everything.

"I can make more money selling a sponsorship for a single LinkedIn post than a month-long campaign on my podcast."

Wait. What?

This is Jay Clouse we're talking about. The guy who runs Creator Science. The same person who gave me this quote for my book: "There is one person on the planet I trust for sponsorship advice and it's Justin Moore. In fact, I did trust him for advice and it doubled my sponsorship revenue in the next six months."

And now he's turning sponsors down?

Here's what he learned—and why it might completely change how you think about monetizing your content.

The Peak That Felt Wrong

At one point, Jay was crushing it with sponsorships.

Newsletter sold out. YouTube sold out. Podcast sold out.

He was filling every available slot across all his platforms. The revenue was flowing. On paper, everything looked perfect.

"We were peaking in our sponsorship journey," he told me. "We were selling out inventory in all of our platforms."

But something felt off.

"I was writing newsletters on Tuesdays that sometimes I didn't really want to do," he admitted. "I didn't like feeling like I was creating something for the sake of creating a place to put a sponsorship integration."

Read that again.

He was creating content he didn't want to create just because he had sold the sponsorship slot.

The tail was wagging the dog.

The Pullback Nobody Talks About

So Jay did something counterintuitive.

He started saying no.

"Since that time I have reduced sponsorships," he explained. "YouTube is still sold out. Newsletter, we probably fill like 60 to 75% of our issues. And podcast, I eliminated sponsorships entirely."

Entirely.

No more podcast sponsors. Not because the money wasn't there. Not because brands didn't want to work with him.

Because the cognitive load wasn't worth it.

"My show isn't large enough for a CPM-based approach for the revenue I was generating to be worth the cognitive load I was experiencing, especially when combined with the listener experience."

Now he just promotes his own stuff in the podcast. One to two ads per episode. And it outperforms what he was doing with CPM-based sponsorships.

The Control Problem

Here's what Jay identified as the core issue with sponsorships:

"I feel less in control of my time and my content."

When you're constantly reacting to inbound sponsor requests, you're getting pulled along by what they need instead of creating what you want to create.

"We almost never do outbound because that would be another task, commitment of time," he said. "We were saying yes to the best fit sponsorships we had available. But there were weeks when I was writing newsletters that I didn't really want to do."

This is the trap so many creators fall into.

You build an audience. Brands start reaching out. You say yes because, hey, money. Before you know it, your content calendar is dictated by sponsor deadlines and campaign requirements instead of what would actually serve your audience best.

The Endorsement Filter

Jay's philosophy now is simple but powerful:

"I look at my sponsorships as endorsements."

Not "here's a message from our sponsor because they paid me to put it here."

But "here's a message from a sponsor that I have vetted and I believe in and I have invested with or I would put my neck on the line for this sponsor."

That filter alone drastically reduced who he'd work with.

And here's the thing most creators don't realize: when you've built credibility over years, every sponsorship is an implicit endorsement whether you like it or not.

"If the brand does something poorly, that person could look poorly on you because you were the person who recommended that tool to them," I reminded him.

You can try to subtly signal to your audience that "hey, I'm not actually endorsing this necessarily, this is just sponsored by Brand X."

But the cost of doing that? It reduces the effectiveness of the brands you do actually want to endorse.

The Podcast Pricing Problem

Here's where it gets really interesting.

Jay's experience reveals something broken about how brands value podcast advertising.

"I don't think sponsors properly evaluate the value of podcast ads right now," he said. "I can make more money selling a sponsorship for a single LinkedIn post than a month-long campaign on my podcast."

Think about that.

A LinkedIn post that gets 20,000 impressions—most from people who've never seen him before and may never see him again—pays better than 30,000 podcast downloads where people are hearing his message 15 minutes into the episode.

The people who stick around for 15 minutes? They're in. They trust him. They're far more likely to convert.

But the CPM model treats all impressions as equal. And it's killing the value of the most valuable inventory.

The Game That Sucks

Jay shared a story that perfectly illustrates the problem.

He has a friend who's predominantly a podcaster. This friend has enough data from his sponsors to prove his campaigns convert at twice the rate of other shows the brands advertise on.

Logical conclusion? Charge double the CPM, right?

Wrong.

"He goes to the ad brokers and they're like, 'Brand just doesn't get it. We're actually just going to lie and tell them that you're getting twice the reach so that you can get twice the budget because you're going to pay it off and they're not going to care anyway.'"

Jay's response? "That game sucks. I don't like that at all."

Neither do I.

When I ran my agency, I saw this firsthand. There was an audiobook company spending a million dollars a month. They didn't care at all about who the creator was. Didn't care about the content. Didn't care about the relationship.

As long as the demographics checked out and the CPM was in range, they'd just hire anyone. Money in, money out.

"I understand how that feels really gross to most creators," I told him. "And I just don't think it's worthwhile playing that game and going after those very very large brands."

The Niche Opportunity

The creators making really good money with podcast advertising? They're not chasing the big CPM advertisers.

"The people who are making really good money with podcast advertising are in super specific niches," I shared from coaching creators in Wizard's Guild. "They don't have very large listenership, but they're in a very specific niche where it's not the HelloFreshes of the world. It's a brand who's never really done this before, but they really see the value in this particular person."

That's where the alpha is.

Not in trying to scale to massive audience size so you can justify a decent CPM. But in going deep in a specific niche where you can charge on value instead of impressions.

The Three-Legged Stool

I keep coming back to this framework: PSA.

Products - The things you directly sell (courses, coaching, books, consulting, speaking)
Sponsors - Other people's tools and products and software
Alliances - Other experts who have programs and books you can promote

"Building throughout your creator journey is dialing up and down these three buckets constantly forever," I told Jay.

He agreed. "I don't think you're ever going to get to a steady state. I think it's seasonal for the priorities of the business, for your own energy, for what's working."

Right now, Jay's dialing down sponsors and dialing up products. Next quarter, maybe that changes. Next year, maybe it shifts again.

The point is having all three options available so you're never completely dependent on one revenue stream.

When the Economics Don't Make Sense

Jay's current philosophy on sponsorships is refreshingly honest:

"I look at sponsorships as found money in my business. A dial I can turn up if I need immediate revenue."

But here's the filter: "Sometimes the economics for what a brand wants to pay for a campaign don't make sense for how I value my time and what my involvement in that campaign would be."

He's not trying to make brands sign up for campaigns that don't economically make sense for them. But he's also not signing up for campaigns that don't economically make sense for his time.

"When they are in tension, I'm prioritizing my own time and energy now."

This is the maturity that comes from building a sustainable creator business. You stop chasing every dollar and start optimizing for the dollars that don't drain your soul.

The Reputation Multiplier

There's one more insight Jay dropped that I think is underappreciated:

"Because I am choosy, I can build a reputation for being choosy, which makes it more valuable in a sense to the sponsors."

When you say no to most brands, the brands you say yes to get a better deal.

Your audience notices. The brand notices. Everyone benefits from the selectivity.

Compare that to the creator who's promoting something different every week. Do any of those endorsements carry weight? Or do they all blur together into noise?

The Dream Sponsors

I asked Jay to call his shot. If he could work with any brands, who would it be?

"Only two brands really come to mind and I have relationships with both. Circle and Kit."

Notice he didn't rattle off ten brands. He named two. Both tools he genuinely uses and believes in. Both companies where he has actual relationships.

That's the model.

Not "which brands have the biggest budgets?" but "which brands would I genuinely love to go deeper with?"

The Lesson

Jay's journey is a masterclass in making intentional choices about your creator business.

He went from selling out every slot to being highly selective. From chasing CPM-based podcast deals to promoting his own stuff where the trust is highest. From creating content around sponsor needs to only partnering with brands that fit into the content he wants to create anyway.

Revenue stayed flat year-over-year. But his relationship with his work got exponentially better.

"Must be nice, Jay," some people might say. "I'd love to be able to turn down revenue."

But that's missing the point.

Jay's not turning down revenue because he's rich. He's making strategic choices about which revenue is worth pursuing and which revenue comes at too high a cost.

You can make those same choices at any level.

The question is: are you creating content to serve your sponsors, or are you finding sponsors that fit the content you want to create?

There's a difference. And it matters more than you think.

Want to build a sponsorship strategy that doesn't compromise your content? Join us in Wizard's Guild where we help you find the deals that actually make sense for your business—not just your bank account.